Mountain of Leaves

More like a mountain range of leaves- geeesh! (and this is after already getting rid of 20+ bags)

I've spent most of my day today raking- and I am exhausted.  I do love fall- but the end of fall- right now- is tough, especially in our yard where there seems to be 5,000 trees and 500,000,000 leaves that fall out of those trees.

The positive side of raking for hours--- I got a productive workout today (my favorite type of workout to get). For me, doing exercise for the sake of exercise is tough.  But if I am exercising with the purpose of say- walking into town, bringing Zella to school, walking the dog, painting a house, shoveling snow, raking leaves- them I'm all for it!  I think is has to do with my need to multitask.  I am slightly dreading the bagging part- but hoping we can get it done this weekend!  Mom and Dad are graciously taking the kiddos tomorrow for a day in the country so that we can finally organize our lovely garage.

That brings me to a very sad subject.....

This morning we said goodbye to a very dear friend.  A faithful companion to many for over 20 years.  He was a trusty (albeit rusty) little guy, but hearty and reliable.

The Little Red Truck.

He was my Pepe's truck.

I learned to drive on this little guy (my Mom literally sent me out with the keys, and said "here you go Hannah, figure it out") I'm not gonna lie- It was a rough ride- manual transmition, no power steering.  I was stuck at a stop sign on small hill for quite some time, I think there may have been tears, and I know that there were 20 min. or so that I thought I would never make it past first gear- but I did. 

Emily and I fought over shared this truck all throughout our college years.

When we bought our first house, D bought the truck from my parents- and he was a great for Home Depot/IKEA runs.

He has not run for the past few years now- and we were both shocked that he started right up for the tow truck guy this morning! 

 It makes me feel good that he's going to benefit a  good cause- WNPR.

R.I.P old friend- we will miss you dearly.