In September, we painted the shed in our backyard with the help of Nat’s parents. We had bark dust blown in to our backyard and solar tubes installed in our kitchen ceiling. I got a promotion at work. My sister was in town for a weekend, climbing Mount St. Helens. I saw Interpol open for Morrissey, which was pretty incredible. Mostly, we spent every minute that we weren’t at work hanging out in our magical backyard with our two dogs and two cats. (We did a lot of cleanup, and those piles of junk got taken to the dump in many a trailer load.)