I'm not the only member of the Bauhaushold to have a birthday this month.
Our fuzzy son turned three today. That might be drinking age in dog years, but that didn't stop him from acting like an excited human three year old when we gave him his present, that blue rope dog you see in the picture. I've never seen a dog who loves to get new toys as much as Pete does. I wish I took video of him getting his toy, but if you really want to see how he reacted, you can just look at this Christmas video from '09 (and get to see me topping 200 pounds after my first MC. Bonus!). That's pretty much his reaction to every new toy: dance and beg and dance and beg and then grab it and run back and forth through the house with it several times until he collapses in exhaustion and starts chewing it to death. I bet he could power a small town with the wind energy created by all that tail wagging.
Here he is in the "chewing it to death" new toy phase:
Today was a fairly gloomy and chilly day, enough so to make our sun-worshipping chihuahua, Pete, who hates inside days, spend hours pouting and whining to himself as he stared forlornly out the patio door. It made me glad that I kept my promise to myself to stay off of the computer on Saturday and spend time outdoors enjoying the glorious weather. I'm sure we don't have too many more just-right sunny days left in the year, so we got out and made the most of it, starting with a visit to the nearest pumpkin patch.
The pumpkin patch was fun, but it was the sort of place that's only really fun if you either have kids or are a kid. So of course it was filled to the brim with small children, and watching them examine pumpkins and feed animals at the petting zoo was pretty bittersweet, albeit really cute. We found ourselves a couple of just-right pumpkins and managed to restrain ourselves from buying up every decorative gourd in sight, although we did grab a few. My favorite were "fairytale" pumpkins that looked like they were drawn by Disney artists. I would have loved to decorate my front porch with a couple of them, but this place overcharged for everything as it was, and these specialty pumpkins were way out of our budget.
After we hauled everything home, I took a break and had myself a picnic in the back yard, with Matilda and Pete keeping me company. It turns out that I don't have any problems eating a sandwich and keeping a close eye on Matilda at the same time.
Actual Size
While I waited for Matt to put the grill together, I pulled out my Halloween decorations and added them to the knitted pumpkins I made earlier this month. Since then I've been growing my knitted Halloween collection to include ghosts, a bat and a pair of spiders (ghost pattern here and the spider pattern here. I can't find the bat pattern. Sorry.).
Once the house was thoroughly Halloweenified, we put on the movie Halloween while we ate our fill of grilled pork chops and au gratin potatoes. Full and satisfied, we all crawled into bed to cap off the night with some Netflix, where a sleepy Pete finally held still enough to have his picture taken.
As Saturdays go, this was definitely one of the better ones.
We had already decided to stay home for Christmas. The original plan was to go to my mom's house, but I realized that it's hard enough for us to be around babies and small children right now without having to force Christmas cheer on top of it. I know I have to get over that some time, not the least of which because I love and miss my wee nieces and nephews; but neither of us had any desire to spend Christmas day pretending to be happy when the constant reminder of what we lost meant we were both dying a little inside. And so, we didn't have to suffer disappointment when we ended up being snowed in on Christmas day, anyway.
It was a lovely, peaceful day. I woke up before Matt and spent the morning in quiet reflection as I read the accounts in Matthew and Luke of Christ's birth and the events leading up to it. It was nice to be able to take the time out and remember what the day was really about, instead of rushing to get out the door. Then, after a prayer of gratitude, I fired up A Christmas Story and settled in to wait for Matt to get up.
Once he did, it was present time. First we gave the pets their stocking goodies, and much cuteness abounded:
Then it was the hoomans' turn. Even though we had pretty much stuck to each others' Amazon wish lists this year, I still managed to surprise Matt with some Clark bars (he'd been craving them recently and we haven't been able to find any around here), and he surprised me with a cook book I'd wish listed over a year ago and then forgot about. He also got me a couple of books I've been dying to read, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which, YAY!
After that, it was decision time: we'd bought advanced tickets to a late afternoon showing of Sherlock Holmes, but that was before our yard turned into Planet Hoth:
So between the dangers of getting eaten by a Hoth Wampa and getting stranded (or worse) on the icy roads, we decided to cut our losses and stay home. To me, it was worth the ticket price not to have to dig the car out from under a snow drift, anyway.
So Matt put our Christmas turkey in the oven (after doing his gourmet magic to it) and we hung out and read our Christmas presents and watched our current Netflix pic (Terminator: Salvation, which I liked better than I expected to after seeing how much it was panned) until the bird was done, and then we had ourselves a cozy (and delish!) little Christmas dinner. Then we had pie. And then we read some more until bed time.
It was about as close to a perfect day as it gets.
It's my second-favorite day of the year! In celebration I gathered old Halloween photos from mine and Matt's childhoods and uploaded them into a Super '70s Halloween Flickr set. Enjoy the mom-made costumes and the retrotastic '70s home decor.
It's a perfect fall day, which should lead to some perfect trick-or-treat weather. I'm spending the rest of daylight puttering around and getting things ready for the lil' beggars who'll be ringing our doorbell after dark. Then Matt and I will carve our pumpkins (and toast the pumpkin seeds, natch!) and maybe have time to squeeze in a scary movie before it's time for me to head off to my local NaNoWriMo kick-off party! The month-long madness starts at midnight, and I'm beyond psyched.
What are your Halloween plans? If you're doing NaNo, are you as psyched as I am? Are you digging in at midnight, or are you going to wait until a more reasonable hour tomorrow to get started? Do tell!
I want to be a writer more than anything else in the world. All day, every day, all I want is to be a writer. Until I actually sit down to write, and then I'd rather be plenty of other things, but mostly, I'd rather be napping.
This is a fairly recent development, and I believe it was brought on by the new meds my doctor has me on--one for allergies, one to improve my sleep, both of which make me sleepy and leave me feeling groggy for hours after I wake up. So in the morning, when I'm usually at my sharpest, writing--or for that matter, any activity that involves sitting still and thinking--just leads to nodding off and fantasizing wistfully about my bed. It's gotten bad enough that I've seriously considered pulling a Costanza and creating a nap cubby hole under my desk. I actually could do this. As long as I only crawled under there during my lunch hour, I wouldn't be breaking any rules. The only thing keeping me from it is the fear of strange looks I might get from passersby if they catch me crawling out from under my desk when nap time is over. Fear of strange looks has kept me from doing all kinds of things in my life, sadly.
So there's that. But I push on, knowing that sometime around 1:00, the brain fog will finally clear and I'll be able to focus without the threat of narcolepsy. The only problem with that is that lately, by the afternoon my eyes feel like tiny Martin Shorts are driving hot pokers into the backs of them, and I can't look at the screen anymore without developing the beginnings of a migraine. I was pretty worried about what this might all mean until I realized that if I'm old enough to reference that Martin Short movie, I'm old enough to need stronger glasses.
All of which is to say that I went out and got a new pair of reading glasses today. See?
I like them as a fashion accessory, but I like them even better for the fact that I've been wearing them for the past three hours and I don't feel like I need to either look away from the screen or go blind. And that's making it a lot easier to make up for my useless, zombie-trance morning. Maybe this means I still get to be a writer. If not, at least now I look more the part.
May 9, 2008
In case you're wondering, we'll get back to regular blogging on Monday.
Ever since his retirement, our Neighbor Across the Street has taken to decorating his yard for holidays with, shall we say, an extreme degree of enthusiasm. This time of year in particular, it can get a little disconcerting. I can't take Fizzgigg for a walk without the paranoid feeling that I'm being watched. Last year was the worst--there was a little sea of cute, happy scarecrows who looked ready to march on our house at the slightest neighborly indiscretion. This year's Pumpkin Head Army isn't quite as unintentionally frightening, but still... well, see for yourselves.
The pictures are blurry, but you get the idea. That is one heck of a lot of plastic pumpkins, yo. The kids seem to love it, though, and I guess that's the main thing.
I recently finished listening to the audiobook version of Grave Peril, and I'm feeling a heaping helping of Harry Dresden love right now, hence this Dresden-themed edition of TV Boyfriend (not) Tuesday.
And it's totally not just an excuse to post more Marsters.
, and he's feeling ready to get his grill on. Which makes me ready to get my eat on, natch. 
