It's Monday morning and I'm hustling to recover from a weekend away with Shelby in Pennsylvania. We were only away for three days, and Kaitlyn did a great job of taking care of the kids and keeping up on house chores. So, a little bit of laundry to catch up on and some other odds and ends, including a trip to the grocery, is all I need to get back in gear. The weekend was awesome, once we got past the suck traffic jam on I-70, which added three hours to our trip because everyone was detoured off of the highway (eastbound and westbound) around some sort of an accident. The source of our trip was a work event of Shelby's with Duquesne Light. We were able to help with a bulb giveaway at Home Depot on Saturday, which was a lot of fun and happened to coincide with some beautiful weather. Besides the event, we were able to visit  with the Duqquesne and surrounding Pa. ECOS teams for pizza, a cookout, and drinks - everyone was awesome :) We also were able to  have a little "s...

Now, where was I? Oh, right - I was on a rant about my neighbors...snapped a little... Since then, the guy next door (same apartment of said rant) drop kicked a kitten into the yard after fighting with his girlfriend. My boys happened to see the kitten hit the ground, or it may have been just after it hit the ground, twitching and dying. He did it in an angry moment, and he apologized to me and my wife, who upsettingly let him now how horrible his action was. The kids were upset, and so was Shelby. The police were called, but of course the neighbor fled before they got here and the sister's baby daddy refused to help - he is now (legally) banned from the apartment. The guy next door eventually came home, and he is in jail. Lesson: killing is killing, and death is death, animal or human, angry or not. The abandoned apartment next to theirs is squatter free, for the most part, except I know that people have been in there, to sleep or hang or whatever. Animal control will be in to gat...

Unbelievable how some "parents" can behave and treat their kids. The neighbors next door have taken over the bottom floor, using an abandoned apartment across the hall from theirs as a boarding house/party room. There are any number of people staying there or hanging out with them, their sister, their sister's kid and baby daddy, the brother, random drunken strangers. This morning I got to hear them teach a two-year-old to say f@ck you...and it's not the first time that has happened. Feel free to join my 1901 Hazel fb page for more interesting info about the ghetto! Can't wait to get out of here! In the meantime, any ideas or contacts that might be able to resolve this situation will be greatly appreciated!

Dusk is approaching on our farm. Cool weather settles in on the clear evening, revealing a bright full moon and, already, the sparkle of many stars. I carry our coffee out onto the deck, where Shelby thanks me with a smile over her laptop. She finishes up her work as I tend to the fire in the pit, and settle into my chair. Blue runs around the yard, dodging chickens, and keeps Drake busy with the ball. Occasionally Drake stops to pick up something off the ground - his discoveries have not lessened since we moved here last year. Cora is tending to her garden and gives Rusty the attention he craves by petting his fat, feline belly. Gage sits under the apple tree, drawing the landscape of the land from his perspective, and Kaitlyn studies for her test by reading to Henrietta, one of our goats. Henrietta listens intently to Kait, making eye contact and occasionally bleating her comments. It's a strange relationship that has developed on the farm. Shelby closes her laptop, places it und...

I believe we'll have this weekend to relax and chill. The weather calls for rain later today, hopefully, because the plants need it desperately. Shelby is still feeling bad after a week of this bronchial infection, even with the meds that we got from urgent care last Sunday. Besides the cough, sore throat, exhaustion, and occasional fever, her back ache and sciatic nerve issues have gotten worse. We have a doctor's appointment set up for Tuesday, so hopefully we can get things squared away. Work-wise, it looks like gears may be turning at Ecos, which will hopefully bring about some changes for us. I feel like a broken record with the "hope something happens soon", and "waiting, waiting, waiting"...but our next steps are so hinged on making home in that new place, away from this apartment and hopefully Dayton. I have ideas in my head about ideal locations for home, but it's really all about the hand of fate. And, as far as locations go, I only know what...

Well, I am sitting in the lobby of the dentist office waiting for Shelby to get her teeth filled/refilled by our amazing friends at the Dayton Dental Collaborative . This will wrap up visits from me, Gage, Drake, Cora, Kait, and now Shelby...yay! This office is awesome and has made every experience very pleasant – SO glad we found them :) Anyway, I figure it is a good time to catch up after a brief time away from my blog. School has started for the kids. Today they are ending their second week and I've got to say that they've been doing very well getting up and going in the mornings, and doing their homework at night. So far, so great. Kait starts back to Wright State after Labor Day, and the fall routine will fully kick in at our household. Looking backward, we had an incredible week-long working vacation a few weeks ago in Philadelphia. The kids and I tagged along with Shelby to do many, many store visits, and we somehow managed to fit in visits to Hershey World, Historic Phi...