On Saturday morning I ran 10.7 miles, which was four loops around a local nature trail. I’m training for a half marathon, and theoretically if I can run that much without falling apart, I should be OK. It was sunny but not too hot — almost perfect running weather.

On Saturday afternoon, my husband, and 9-year-old and I went to a party for his class. One of his classmates’ parents hosted this “getting to know you” party at their house and the kids had a great time in the rented bouncy house.

I went shopping with my daughter at Marshalls and Target (complete with a Starbucks stop). I took my/my 17-year-old’s 13-year-old car to get serviced and it had no additional issues beyond normal maintenance.

On Sunday, I went to church and sang Olivier Messiaen’s O Sacrum Convivium — quite the lovely chromatic piece. Four out of five kids made it to church. The other child was at soccer with my husband and scored 3 goals!

Then four out of five kids (different set) went apple picking at Linvilla — we got lots of honeycrips and then went to the arts and crafts fair there.

There was a pool trip after, plus apple pie making.

So this weekend all sounds good, and the photo roll looks glowy but…everyone was just. so. whiny. And fighting a lot. Linvilla was a zoo and a lot of the apple trees were picked over. We had gone there vs. somewhere more pastoral because one child was excited about the arts and crafts fair, but then it turned out this child thought we would be making crafts (as opposed to local vendors selling their wares…). The long run did not feel good until it was over. I was constantly haranguing people to get places and I am just so over it.

Needless to say, I am grumpy about this.

But! It is before 8 a.m. on Monday and I am at my desk. I also had a very pleasant solo float in the pool Saturday late afternoon, looking up at the early fall leaves, so I’ll try to keep that as my image of this weekend (of course those leaves all land in the pool and have to be cleaned out but…).