Big day

This Thursday Vincent went out to work - helping a family move - with his father, for the first time since his own Ohio move. He said it was hard work, much harder than unloading Halloween costumes into the Halloween Express store. I got word that - thanks to Obama/Democratic Congress reforms to student loan programs - my lender has approved me for income-based loan repayment, which means Stephanie and I should just barely be able to afford to start making payments not just on her loans but also on mine. And at work and church, everything finally got turned in on the World Mission strategic planning project I worked on a lot in September and October and Wednesday PM I finally led a church Outreach Council meeting that I was pretty happy with. Mom and I continued to talk about both her future and ours. And I completed another stage of helping to prepare for a gathering of the non-Anglo folks who work at the Presbyterian Center, the Presbyterian Distribution Center, and the Presbyterian Foundation. And - last but not least - although plenty of fall leaves will continue to come down into our yards - we had tried harder this year (not waiting for Vincent) to rake front-yard leaves onto the "curb," where the City of St. Matthews picks them up - but, awfully early, for our trees - and today - after I've been raking for 5-10 minutes every morning after walking the dog - and after I got in a last 5 minutes of raking - city staff picked up our front yard leaves (pictured above). We'll still have plenty - esp. in the back - to rake into big brown paper yard bags - but not as many as most years, since we got so many in the pile for the city.

-- Perry