7 quick takes ed. 1: end of fall, wacky schedules, and dog poop

Jen over at Conversion Diary hosts 7 quick takes Friday. You can click over there if you'd like. I'm not linking up over there, but wanted to give credit where it was due. 

1.

My dog is pooping in the house. And in the car. Aside from being disgusting, it's sad. He's 14. We may be facing the end here, folks. I'm sure when I'm the ripe old age of 98, I won't have very good control over my bowels, either. *sigh*

2.

The trees went from green to yellow to bare in the space of 2 weeks. Fall is nearing its end here in the far north. The snow is steadily creeping down the mountains surrounding us. It's a matter of weeks or days before we are locked in winter's grip. I'm hoping for weeks. The kids are rooting for days...

3.

My husband's new work schedule--3 weeks on, 1 week off-- gives our family a little mini-vacation every month. Which has its ups, don't get me wrong. But you know that readjustment period directly following a vacay? Those few days (or a full week) when everyone is a little grumpy and things are a little off? Yup, I think we have that to look forward to once a month, too.

4.

We joined a gym. I've actually been going faithfully. I have found a new love for spinning. Except the seats on those bikes are, in my opinion, unneccessarily hard. Do you think anyone would notice if I wore bubble wrap under my shorts?

5.

My wonderful husband has taken over all of the laundry. All of it. I've never been very good with laundry. Well, I've always been pretty good about putting dirty clothes in the washer. Not as good at getting those transferred over to the dryer. Let's just say I had to usually sometimes run the same load through a second wash to get rid of the stale washer odor they accumulated from sitting there a wee bit too long. I was even worse at retrieving clean, dry loads from the dryer and folding them. We often had to hunt down clean socks from the dryer. But now my dear husband does a load each night. And if it wasn't enough that he gets up at 5 am for work, he now gets up at 5 am, throws clothes in the dryer, and has them folded before he leaves before work and, I'll admit it, before I'm even awake for the day...Whata guy!

6.

Quite possibly, Bob the Builder may be the only reason I'm able to get more than just a little school work done with the older boys on most days.

7.

I think perhaps the fact that I now have all 4 of my children sleeping mostly through the night mostly in their own beds has spoiled my ability to function on little to no sleep. I've had a few sleepless nights over the past few weeks with the kids and husband keeping me awake with this terrible cough that just.keeps.hanging.on and I find my ability to function well and maintain a pleasant demeanor has been severely impaired!