A clean pantry

Richard is gone for the week, so its just me and the kids. He had to travel to Everett Washington to visit the IT department at Fluke. They will be merging IT people soon and he is up there learning their systems so they can best decide how to make the merger work best for all involved. He rode his motorcycle up since the weather is supposed to be beautiful all week long. We miss him already, but unlike camp we can talk to him on the phone. So that is nice. He called this evening and Annalina and Joseph both enjoyed chatting with him for a while.

When Richard is gone, I feel an urgency to nest, maybe its more about staying busy to pass the time. Not that I am not always busy, but for some reason big projects come to mind when I am home for an extended time without him. Today I organized the pantry. It has become a disaster and I found things in there I had no idea I had ever purchased. I threw out the outdated stuff(good thing tomorrow is garbage day) and I must say its looking pretty good in there right now. I want to get some of those canned food dispensers, but for now I am happy with the pantry. Tomorrow I think I will try to do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen, from top to bottom. For some reason I feel so much better about life in general when the kitchen is sparkling clean!

This weekend we watched The Black Stallion with Annalina and Joseph. It has been so many years since I last saw this. I told Richard that it is probably the girls equivalent of Star Wars. It was much anticipated and viewed many times by my friends and I when I was young. And since Annalina is so into horses these days, I thought she would enjoy it as well. She did!!

Saturday Richard and I drove an hour and a half to Monmouth to watch Jake in his second Cross Country meet. We got stuck behind a tractor and made it with just minutes to spare before his run. It was fun to watch him warm up with the other Varsity boys. He ran well. He did the 5K(3.1 miles) in 20 minutes and 29 seconds which was a minute and ten seconds faster than his last meet. The terrain was fairly flat, but it was pretty warm out. I was so proud of him. He continues to amaze me with his intensity towards anything he tries. After we stopped by Uncle Rich and Aunt Renetta's house, but they weren't home! What a beautiful house, I am looking forward to a visit sometime in the near future!

I am the lone parental figure right now, and my teens have been hanging out in my room with me since they got home from their dad's tonight. It makes me feel so good to have such close relationships with them both. They are wonderful kids and I am so very blessed to be able to know them, and to both teach them and learn from them!

OK, so it may not look that great to some, however if I had a before pic to show you, you would be VERY impressed! :-)