More Leaves and Musical Instruments

Hola, Familia!

FALLING LEAVES. I'm looking outside at the front yard, and we are now to the "raining leaves" stage of autumn. Sometimes you catch it where a breeze takes off a cloud of leaves and they just keep on fluttering, fluttering to the ground! The maple tree by the kitchen window is mostly orange and a little green. But those leaves just keep on coming!

All these falling leaves are happening AFTER Frank already spent 8 hours on the front and back yards during the week, raking up the WET leaves, after a rainy weekend. I gave my token piddly 1 hour, to help drag leaves back to the woods behind the house. That was Round One...

FOOD DRIVE. This morning Frank is out with the scouts, collecting canned goods for their annual food drive. It's cold, but not raining! Outside activities are SO much more fun when it's not freezing rain...?!?!?

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. I am finishing up the "instrument collection" we started a few months ago. Any used instruments, to be gathered for Fitchburg School District that is about an hour away from us. They don't have a huge music program. It's been neat to see people's generosity.

This happens to be MY saxophone, that I played
in middle school. Kara also played it in 6th grade!

Mostly I have gathered used instruments from people whose kids are out of the house, and they still have the instruments those children played in high school or middle school. One couple who donated a bunch of instruments have 4 kids, all in college or older, and this couple was getting ready to downsize and move. They brought over a drum set. Very cool!

Then she calls me again 2 weeks later. "We are to the attic stage of the house and we found another drumset I had forgotten about!" It was kind of funny. "My sister gave us her son's set to get my son started. Then when he decided to start his own band in high school, we bought him the set I already gave you."

So they donated 2 full drum sets! Those, plus 15 other donated instruments, have been sitting in our garage for a few months now. We plan to deliver them this week or next.

SOCCER. Kara has a few more soccer games to ref, I think today may be the last of her games.

OK, she's playing here,
not reffing, ha :)

THE EMPLOYMENT HUNT. The job search goes on...ups and downs, of course! Frank has had quite a few interviews (maybe 15?), that have gone nowhere. LAME. This week he'll talk to a few people (yes, interviews, yay) on Monday and Tuesday.

Then he'll go to Williamsburg and northern Virginia for almost a week. He gets to see family! David and Diane will be in Williamsburg, so he'll start there. Then he can help drive the 3 of them up to Dana's. Pam will visit too! It's so nice to get the siblings together occasionally.

Blog time is up! Have a great weekend and week.
Love, Kari