This weekend, we put a new roof on the house. (Yes, the house we bought 4 months ago, but we knew this was necessary when we purchased it.) Let me tell you a little something about putting a roof on a house: it's not the most fun thing you'll ever do in your life. Yeah, there's the cost (painful chest pains happening right now - though we did save a lot by doing it ourselves), but the physical labor is what really gets ya.

It was a long, tiring weekend in our household, and I wasn't even doing the "manual" labor. My dad, my uncle and my BF did most of the work and because I'm a dainty little lady, I wasn't allowed on the roof. I know there's no room for 5 people on our little roof anyway, and there's especially not time to be teaching someone who doesn't know the first thing about laying shingles how to do it, but still ... part of me really wanted to be up there contributing to the project. Instead, I spent my days on my hands and knees searching for spent nails and old shingles and cleaning up the yard.

Also, I cooked - A LOT. In our family, we throw "roofing parties" and even those that aren't directly helping come over and lend support. (No, we're not Amish. And by support, I mostly mean that they partake in the beers and food that come along with a roofing party.) So even though it was a long weekend and we are still very sore today, it was fun. Only a family like mine could make fun out of the horrid task of replacing a roof.

Now that this awful job is complete, I'm looking at the last half of October and realizing this fall is flying! I am out of town this coming weekend, two Halloween parties next, a couple meetings next week, and then - poof - it's November. And we all know how November goes ... two blinks of the eye and we're ringing in the New Year.