October 6, 2023 - Friday

Finally, a cool, fall day! It's taken long enough. 

We had a CACH field trip to Orchard & Co., which I had never even heard of before. I thought we'd be apple picking, but no! lol The kids were so confused. Anyway, we walked through the barn and met the animals (Clemi got bit by a horse 😅. She is a mess), we played on their playground and in their corn pit, played basketball, rode on their pedal carts, jumped on the big pillows, and then there was a little tractor-pulled train ride that all of the kids rode a couple of times. It was a lot of fun! Granted, I was ready to get out of there after an hour and a half, but it was still fun. I got to talk to Kara (a woman from Dwell) for a while and we talked about French and church, which was good. I was the photographer for the event, so I was on a mission to get as many kids photographed as possible. But my camera died 3/4 of the way through! So I ended up taking a bunch of pictures with my phone too, even the group picture at the end. 

We got home from the field trip around lunch time and the girls have been super excited about Halloween decorations, so I put those up after lunch. Of course, it was still warm enough for me to get all hot, sweaty, and frustrated, while putting up decorations. They're up though! And I guess that's the important thing. I can't find my Halloween doormat, so I want to go get another, but money is so tight right now so I'm not sure if I will. 

After decorating, I started prepping food for dinner at Rachel's, got Jonas ready to spend the night at Aveen's, played Zelda for a few, and then we went to dinner. 

Rachel invited her neighbors to our hangout and I really liked talking with them. The night was a lot of fun, but Ben was feeling yucky and, even though I offered to just go alone, we ended up having to leave early because Ben wanted to. *eye roll* I can't remember the last time we went to something that Ben didn't preface with 'I think we should try to head out early'. Like, I usually want to get home and have an early night too, but we were all having fun and then just had to leave for whatever arbitrary reason he had in his head. The more he deals with his nerve pain and all his other health bs he's had lately, the more controlling he gets of everything else. I get it, to an extent. It's hard to feel like your own body is outside of your control and I can understand grasping at what's around you to find some order in the chaos you're experiencing. While I can empathize, I don't want to be one of the things that he tries to control in order to feel more at peace with his life. That's not my role and it makes me feel really frustrated with him. I've been pulling away because I'm getting angry and don't want to get into an argument about it. I'm hoping this behavior just calms down, so I never have to confront him about it.