Happy Halloween!

Well, it's the last day of October!
Happy Pumpkin Day!

Our Trick or Treat was last week, if you remember! Our scary pumpkin was tossed out tonight - totally dripping fluids and looking super gross. We kept our porch light off, just in case some stray ghouls thought it was okay to ask for candy here tonight.

It was a non-epic day today. The only funny thing was two of my coworkers dressing up like two other coworkers. One of them didn't think it was funny. But it was.

Here we go into the Holiday Season! And we all know that's already started. The grocery stores, the commercials, the movies coming up on television. I'm already thinking, so what does that say about me?

Hello, November! You'd better be a nice month!

Behave!

Weekend Wrap Up...

What a weekend!

We went "camping" for K3's birthday weekend. There was a huge threat of rain and my sister's camper is still broken. We were not a fan of putting the camper up for one night, plus it was late until we got up there, so the kids stayed at camp and the adults stayed at the house. Worked out well! Us old folks got to hang out without the young ones, and we stayed warm all night. K4 came up super early Saturday because she was freezing and then went back to sleep in the warm comfy chair.

K3 turned 21! So strange that my baby boy is a certified adult! He loved his presents - we got him tools and random stuff, (He's super easy to shop for since he's just starting out in his house) and K4 got him a fuzzy kitten blanket that was both funny and super warm. He loved it. On Saturday, he and his "twin" went on a hike and were gone most of the day. I was so happy that the two of them got to spend some quality time together. They are 11 days apart, and she was with me during the day everyday until she started first grade. To say the two of them are close is an understatement. They had their own language and everything. These days their schedules conflict and they hardly get to see each other, so this weekend was awesome.

It was amazing to get to spend an entire weekend with my boy. We also don't get to see him often because of schedules. We're trying to figure out a once a week or every two week schedule for a dinner night.

It started raining late yesterday. Luckily, the kids had all checked out the forecast and decided they were done camping for the weekend. They cleaned up their gear and sacked out in the house. We watched movies, ate pizza, and K3 sampled some wine that he didn't like.

It's still raining. We cleaned up and headed out so we could meet up with That Man's sister to figure out stuff for That Mom. Hit the grocery store (I refused to go in because I was still in my jammies - That Man packed the car before I had a chance to change), and came home to veg out. Took a nap. Snuggled with Mr. B. Wrote. Did laundry. Ordered postcards for Into the Fire. That Man cooked. Going to write some more...

Behave!

Trick or Treat

Okay, so trick or treat night is actually way better than the parade.
It's a chill two hours on the porch with a bucket of candy and lots of cute kids/tweens/teens coming for that candy. It's fun to talk to the parents, too. I'm still a little ouchy about the financial outlay, but it was fun.
And we totally and always will give candy to the teenagers, because, why not? If they put the effort into dressing up, then whatever. It's fun for all of us. K4 didn't go out, but she was the candy-giver on our porch, which was awesome.
Mr. B was Batman and he was so cute!
Friends and family came to hang and it was fun.
None of us, except Mr. B, ate anything but chocolate for dinner, which was also fine.
And tomorrow is Friday and K3's birthday...
Yay!
I have new shoes on my Jeep. They are epic and I'm so excited to drive it tomorrow!
I also wrote more than the predicted 50 words! Yay me!
That is all!
Behave!

Mid-Week Woe...

Not really. It just sounded good... Ha!

Monday - rough day at the day job. Super busy, but, hey! Why does that even surprise me? Came home and crashed after making dinner and doing some laundry.

Tuesday - see above. Tacos for dinner. No margaritas though. Online shopped for tires for the Jeep. Wrote & critiqued. Stayed up far later than we should have.

Today - Brain draining day job. Worse than Monday. Spent the day putting out fires and quality checking/editing things. Felt like I didn't get any "real" work done, but I did, so... The Jeep has an appointment for new shoes tomorrow. Yay! That's exciting. No, really it is! Finished the critique. Words yet to come. Laundry for That Mom. Ordered in for dinner. (yay). Laundry for us. Organized the adulting paperwork. Vacuumed the whole house and somehow managed to throw my hip out. (ouch)

Tomorrow is trick or treat night. The candy is in the house. (ouch!) Why do I have to spend money on candy to give other peoples children? And it's not a $5. thing! I spent over $20 on stupid candy! Ridiculous! I'll tell you, if it wasn't for Mr. B, I would turn my porch light off and let chaos reign while I sit quietly in my house with the lights dim. And don't get me wrong, I love Halloween, but this candy thing is a little crazy to me... Back when my kids were little, I considered it somewhat of a trade off. Not anymore...

Friday is K3's 21st birthday! Can you believe that? My baby boy! When I started this blog, he was 9! Seriously! We have plans to celebrate with him this weekend, and his birthday shopping has been done, it just needs wrapped.

That's all for now. The words are calling and so is my bed. Must get the words done now before the bed calls louder.

Behave!

Weekend Wrap-up...

Well, hello Halloween...
Trick or Treat is Thursday.
There is no candy in this house... yet.
There will be Wednesday night and it will be hidden until zero hour.
We will be having pb&j on Thursday night, because that's what little man wants.
This is the pumpkin he and his dad carved. It's ginormous. It'll be on the dining room table until trick or treat night because some rude kids would throw it into the street. Just like the super rude person who is letting their dog crap right in front of our house and not cleaning it up. (Oh that is a situation and we are not happy about that...)
There is another pumpkin B picked out. It's white and cool. K1 has plans for it.
K4 also has a few pumpkins to take care of, but she was busy doing homework all day.
Anyway...
So.. the weekend...
Slept in a little on Saturday. B, K4 and I went to do some shopping after vacuuming and writing and paying bills. That boy is a mess to shop with. He wants everything. He was good though. Before we left, he took out the bathroom trash and dragged the big kitchen bag (with the bathroom trash inside) the whole way down the the curb. So awesome.
Did a little laundry, but not nearly enough... Was supposed to do our sheets and all of the blankets for the living room, but that never happened.
Met K1's boss for the first time. He's a cool guy. Hung out with my adoptive sons. (Oy vey!) (Just kidding. Love them!) Was home super early and in bed super early.
Today was pretty much no sleeping in. That Man is sick, but we had stuff to do. Did the Mom thing, even though he stayed far, far away from her. Her laundry is done now though. Made pot roast and mashed potatoes with gravy for dinner. Mashed potatoes were swill, seriously. Something bad happened. But the gravy was rocking. Did most of the birthday shopping. K3 is turning 21 on Friday and since he's on his own now, he's super easy to shop for.
Tomorrow is Monday... Nooooo.....
Oh and I finished editing my short story... Yay... Again... Writing wins!
Behave!

Feel Good Friday

I love you, Friday! Thank you for being the end of a long and stupid week...

Here's the good...

1. Not cooking dinner (not that I've "really" cooked all week, but still...) or going to the store. (I did the store thing too many times this week)

2. A productive week in the writing life. Yay! And really, when you get right down to it, that's the only thing that matters!

3. Talking to both of my sisters this week.

4. Work people - though the week was long and bumpy, they stayed funny and supportive. Love the new girl, she fits right in with the rest of the crazies. I do miss my Stacey though.

5. My kid offering me her last cheese stick. She didn't want to and was super happy when I didn't take it...But she would have given it to me if I'd have wanted it. That's the kind of kid she is. :)

6. Sleeping in tomorrow. Oh, yes. Please and thank you.

7. Plans to finally get the fall decorations out. Mr. B will be here to help, which will be fun. He's been asking me for weeks.

8. Seeing Funeral Bob tonight. It was so good to see him. This guy was our rock after both dad and mom died. (He's the funeral director at the home that took care of my folks) He called me regularly to check in and make sure we were doing okay for a long time after. He made me laugh and supported me in my insanity. He still makes me laugh and I'm so glad I made the time to stop in and see him. I learned at least four new jokes.

9. The weather. It is perfect.

10. The fact that we have no solid plans for the weekend, besides sleeping in, laundry, writing, vacuuming, laundry, writing, grocery shopping, bill paying, organizing, working in K4's room... yeah, okay... whatever.

That's enough...

Behave!

Thursday...

It was a beautiful day! Chilly this morning, but absolutely gorgeous this afternoon. Gotta love that!

Still brain draining at the day job. There's nothing for it. It is what it is.

Came home to find a storm window broken in the hall. Granted, it had been leaning there - waiting for installation near the cat box. But the danged thing was shattered and there was cat litter everywhere. Also, a few drops of blood on the sharp shards still stuck in the frame. Neither animal has any injuries, so no idea on that. What I think is that the dog attempted to move it to get to her cat "tootsie rolls" that she has an affinity for, and knocked it down, crashing it either on her own head, or on the edge of the box. Like I said, she's not injured, so I don't know if that's feasible. Anyway. Cleaned that up. Did some laundry. Dishes. Edited 13 pages (less than 10 to go, but I need to add a few things, so...)

Now it's bedtime. And man, I am tired.

Tomorrow is Friday though! Always a very good thing!

That is all!

Behave!

Only Wednesday?

This week... Oy, this week...

Suck is a good word. Not quite strong enough, but effective nonetheless.

Day job = total suck and brain draining. That's all I'm going to say about that.

That Man & K4 = sick. He's snotty, stuffy, headachey, and all over achey. And he's allergic to all cold/flu medicine. Great. K4 has other issues of the opposite kind. All I know is that I'm running away so I don't catch either.

Fleas = rude and relentless. Yes, we're dealing with a flea outbreak. Elsa is protected and unaffected, but the cats are not as well protected. One of our cats is bored or hates us or something. She keeps running outside and then when she runs back in...well, hello fleas. So now the other cat is affected. We've treated both of them, but it's not working. We vacuum every single surface every single day. You wouldn't know what we're dealing with to walk in here, but yeah, there's a flea circus lurking. A call to the vet happens tomorrow though. It's been long enough since the last completely ineffective cat treatment that we can finally, hopefully, treat them with the stuff that will end this.

The dog = Being bad. She has gotten into the trash everyday this week. Punishment for us leaving her? Probably. Annoying? Definitely. She goes into total shame mode as soon as she realizes we know what she did. (But she's so cute!)

The good things...

I talked to my aunt and uncle tonight. Always good to hear their voices and support. They have great advice and are great listeners for the issues of life. And, as always, are supportive, though they would not hesitate to tell me if they think I am wrong about something. 

Listening and engaging with my very very good friends excitement over her upcoming book release and all that she has done to prepare. So excited for her!

Getting through ten pages of editing! Amazing!

Bedtime very soon.

That is all.

Behave!

Tuesday Again...

Sorry for the radio silence.

That Man and I were on an adventure! We took off after work Wednesday and did some driving. We had a glorious mini-vacation just the two of us. Good food, good conversation, a lot of laughing and relaxing. It was fantastic and just what we needed.

I'm tired though. Got back to the day job on Monday and was so overloaded with work that I think my brain imploded. Today was the same.

I've been keeping up with my writing chapter's 50/50 challenge, which is good. Making the bare minimum word count right now, but I'm still doing it. Tonight was better than last night, though, so that's something. Hopefully every day will get better as the week progresses. I'm doing two things at a time - writing a new story and editing.

That's all.

Behave!

Parade Tuesday!

Tonight was our towns annual parade! We weren't looking forward to it for various reasons. Mainly because this week is insane with early work mornings and many things going on. But I made the chili and did the parade preparations anyway.

Friends of all kinds came and it really was good. It was fun to watch Mr. B's face and see his excitement. It was fun to hang out with the kids, even the adopted ones. Ha! And the old neighbors. And the sister. And the family that's not really family, but is.

The chili was a hit. It's "garbage" chili - which just means I use all leftovers (appropriate ones) and it's different every time. I made the chili on Sunday. I made the vegan chili on Monday. I sent the vegan chili home with the vegans. They were happy. Sent leftovers home with whoever wanted.

We had said goodbye and then realized that some jerk pulled right behind our exit from the yard. Many visitors were parked in the yard and could not get out. We were ticked off in a way I can't describe. Talked to neighbors walking by who got ticked off for us. Just as I was ready to put a nasty note on their windshield a police officer cruised by. We told him the deal and he promptly wrote the guy a hefty ticket. I didn't get to see what happened when he saw the ticket, but he did leave about 15 minutes ago. Which is good because I was stressing over getting out of the yard in the morning. (It was hard enough to get into the yard after work...)

Now I'm waiting for laundry to be done so I can go to bed.

That is all...

Behave!

Thursday - Goal Met

So I just met my writing group goal for the month. That feels super good.

Writing meeting coming up on Saturday. Really looking forward to that! I haven't been at a meeting since May, I think. Maybe June. I miss my writing peeps a lot. They always energize me and makes me feel not so alone.

Total author validation - someone who read my book told me they read it twice and still felt the same way they did the first time they read it. This has to be the first time someone has even said they read my book twice. And said that! Sweet. And Awesome!

In other news - today was my pals last day at the day job. She left in tears. I think I did too. I'm going to miss her. She talked. A lot. But she did a wonderful job at the job and she was someone I could always count on - for personal stuff and work stuff. I'm going to miss her a whole lot. I wish her well though. She had to do what she had to do for her family. But damn...

Tomorrow is Friday. Thank God. It's going to be a weird day. No doubt about it. I just need to get through it. And then the weekend. Writing meeting. Dinner with friends.

That is all. There is a sickness going around the day job and I'm fighting it. Going to bed to sleep off any potential germs I may have gathered today. I swear it's all around me...

Behave!

Wednesday Again...

Mid-way through the week...

K4 had her third oral surgery yesterday. Hopefully this is the last one. We'll see, though, because her teeth are coming in flipped around. The surgeon moved things around in the hopes of making things move a bit faster since it's taking far longer than it should. She's in a lot of pain, but has until next Tuesday to recover. Out for a few days with the surgery and then a super long weekend off of school.
Poor kid. She's pretty rough still.

The day job week has been super long and exhausting. I'm sporting a pretty good headache and some shoulder muscle-thing. I'm not going to be up for long.

Have to wait for the laundry though. And write some words.

Behave.

Weekend Wrap Up

Ugh! I hate to see a good weekend end!

Let's see the last time I posted was Wednesday. Thursday was pretty much the same as Wednesday. Friday was okay because it was Friday. K4 went to a football game in another town, which was great and she had a blast, but we worried because it was a pretty good drive and there usually end up being a lot of fights at this particular school. And there was. But she was not involved. She watched the game, took her friend home, and came home well before driving curfew.

That Man and I ran to the store Friday night, but didn't do any real shopping. We should have gone out to dinner, but I felt like crap - headache, ear pain, and something wonky going on with my voice. I laid on the couch pretty much all evening with a warm compress on my ear. It still hurts a little, but it's a lot better.

Slept in a little Saturday and then got up and took care of a bunch of stuff. We prepped the furnace for winter, cleared out the garden, cleaned two cars, cleaned the house, blah, blah, blah. Then took off to my sister's to help them with their fishing stuff. They're leaving for the beach next weekend and we're so very sad we can't go, too! But we were nice people and helped get everything ready, even though we were crying. Ha! My sister made awesome chili and we hung out and relaxed.

Today was K4 and I's usual weird television watching and commentary, running around with Mr. B, seeing That Man's mom and sister, grocery shopping for real (with a four-year old who had his own little cart - always interesting and expensive), and then home to do laundry and make dinner. That Man and I managed to get a walk in, which is always looked forward to, unless he makes me walk up hills (which he did). He made an awesome dinner that included homemade sauce from our garden tomatoes.

I'm less than 2,500 words away from my writing goal this month. That that will happen. Next month I need to edit my Second Sentence story and get it out for critique. That should be hitting Amazon as soon as we're all done with the editing process.

And now tomorrow it's back to the grind... K4 has yet another mouth surgery on Tuesday. That Man is taking care of this one since he has more time off available than I do right now. I wish I could be there, but it is what it is.

That is all.

Behave!