Day 30 (thank goodness)

Well! This final day of November/NaBloPoMo has been rather eventful.

First, I decided El Guapo and I should hit the greenbelt this morning instead of our usual walking route though the 'hood. I don't know why, exactly. I just felt like seeing some cactus, I guess. This being Texas and it being November and whatnot, the greenbelt was positively lousy with white-tailed deer. All does, no bucks. Absolutely gorgeous.

Can ya see 'em?

Mr. Awful Adorable was on his best behavior, curious but not the least bit interested in any sort of up-close investigation. I snapped a few photos with my cell phone camera and we walked on. A couple of seconds later, we saw a doe tearing full-speed through the brush with two unleashed dogs in hot pursuit. The owners came looking for their dogs soon after, shrugging it off and saying that they just couldn't hold onto them with all those deer around. Um, maybe don't walk your dog through the greenbelt during deer season, then? Just a thought. (The "dumbass" is implied there, right? Good.)

The afternoon was spent in the company of an absolutely adorable young man (like seriously romcom-level adorable)(hush, I am old enough to be his youthful, hip auntie) from a local family-run flooring company who came to measure our square footage and talk to us about laminates vs. engineered wood and how to get our dog to stop eating our house. So that was fun.

While he was finishing up my folks called to say they were in the neighborhood and wanted to drop something by, and P and I realized we hadn't eaten lunch and were STARVING, so the guy finishing and the folks dropping by and the lunch eating all sort of happened simultaneously and with a quickness, because I had to leave to pick up daughter H about five minutes later.

Daughter H has athletics right at the end of the school day, and she was still in her uniform when she walked out to my car, which wasn't unusual. What WAS unusual were all the bandages and the giant ice pack on her wrist. She (gingerly) hopped into my car and asked if it would be at all possible for her to get an x-ray, like soon-ish, because she had fallen while doing sprints and the right side of her body was one long road rash from shoulder to ankle and she couldn't use her right hand or rotate her forearm. Yep.

This was excellent timing, unlike the time she broke her collarbone (every family has an emergency room kid; H is ours) while P was out of town several years ago. P was home today, and fortunately able to take her for her x-ray because I had to pick up son C from his after-school activity and take him to neurotherapy. Whee! Parenting is never boring, I'll tell you what.

While C was getting his brain re-wired, I tried to get hold of P to find out what the diagnosis was for H, but my cell phone decided to quit working. Swell! Turns out she does not have any detectable bone breaks but she might have broken her growth plate. That takes a few days to show up, apparently. For now she's in a splint (and like a million bandages) and seems to be okay, though she's in a bit of pain. Argh. Worst belated birthday present ever!

Despite the moderately sucky conclusion, overall November was not a terrible month. The weather was nice, the kids and I survived P's absence for two weeks, and I managed to complete NaBloPoMo despite all our crazy busy-ness. Sure it was all quantity and very little in the way of quality, but IT COUNTS. And I even won a prize doing it, so that is way swell.

I also really enjoyed taking daily photos for the habit flickr pool this month. And my photos were even featured on the habit blog five times, on the 4th, 11th, 20th, 21st and 25th! Very cool! You can see the entire set of photos I took/submitted this month here, if you're interested (clicking on the thumbnails brings up bigger photos + captions). And I encourage you to check out the habit flickr pool proper because there are some amazing, inspiring, heartbreaking, encouraging words and photos there. I will definitely try to participate the next time they open it up for submissions. And you should, too! It's not scary at all, I promise! Everyone is so nice. If I can do it, you can do it, believe me.

So that pretty much wraps up November. I leave you with one last gratuitous dog photo:

I am a very good boy if there are deer nearby, but I will totally eat your entire house.

Alrighty! Thanks so much for hanging in there with me this month! Now go forth and have an awesome December!

Happy happy

This darling baby is 14 years old today!

Happy birthday, daughter H. You are amazing.

Day 28

Oh, you guys. I have totally half-assed this NaBloPoMo thing, I know, and I am really sorry about that. It seemed like such a good idea back in the idyllic days of October, knowing that both C's marching band practice/performances and H's theater rehearsals would be ending at the beginning of the month, and that I'd be able to sleep later than normal and go to bed at a decent hour which should TOTALLY get the creative juices flowing, right? As it turns out: not so much.

And then husband P unexpectedly got shipped halfway across the world on business. He was in India mostly, with a brief stop in the UK on his way home, and he was gone for two weeks, and get this -- he LOST HIS CELL PHONE like five minutes after he got to India. At the very beginning of his trip. I've never been a very good multi-tasker and it turns out I was completely unable to worry every second of the day about him dying in India, unable to reach me so I could hear his last words, AND blog at you at the same time. I know. My bad.

Anyway, he is home now, thank goodness. He brought loads and loads of presents back with him -- jewelry and pashminas and yards of silk and tiny sandalwood carvings and larger non-sandalwood carvings and single-malt scotch and Israeli pottery and silver goblets (and an upper-respiratory infection, but that seems to be on the mend). I have no idea how he fit all of this stuff into his luggage. Turns out when he's not watching podcasts and reading news articles and playing Angry Birds on his phone, he goes shopping! (He still hasn't gotten a new phone. Guess where he is right now? SHOPPING.)

December is going to be even busier than November was, as we are taking advantage of P's annual Month o' Personal Days off from work (his company has a use 'em or lose 'em policy on those, so he saves them up for the holidays) to do some major stuff around the house, switching my downstairs office with the upstairs guest/exercise room and painting all the walls and re-doing all the floors. To say I'm not looking forward to tackling a project like this right in the middle of kid exams and holiday decorating/shopping/cooking/travel would be an understatement, but when it's all over I'll be glad we did it. Right? OH GOD, I HOPE SO.

So, don't expect to hear from me much in December, is what I'm saying.

In the meantime, we still have two days of NaBloPoMo to get through. And I still have a bunch of pictures of my dog that I haven't even shown you yet!

This one actually is a photo of my dog

But it's a cute picture, so that totally makes it okay, right?

Right?

Hello?

Sigh.

My girl

I went into labor with daughter H fourteen years ago today.

But her birthday isn't until Tuesday.

Go ahead, do the math.

(She was worth every single one of those 80 hours.)

Home at last

For the past two weeks, husband P has been 10,000+ miles away.

And now he's home.

And I am glad.

And that's all I have to tell you today.

Thanksgiving with the folks

"What do you have left to do today?"

Nothing. Well, I still need to blog.

"What are you going to blog about?"

I don't know.

"I think you should blog that your 91-year-old grandpa peeled potatoes today."

Maybe.

"Or post a picture of your dad and call it Definitely Not a Picture of My Dog."

Or I could just call it What Up, Dawg?

"Or you could blog that I wore pilgrim shoes to Thanksgiving!"

Also not a photo of my dog

Oh you guys. It's been such a busy day. I woke up at around 4:00 for some unknown reason and then I just dozed until my alarm went off, or maybe didn't go off, because I overslept. Then it was all: cram a bowl of cereal down my maw, take a quick shower and run out the door with son C so we could make it to the driver's license office before it closed early today for the holiday. He needed a new learner's permit for driving, because he lost (as in misplaced) his old one about a month after he got it, which was more than three months ago because that's when school started and the driver's license office is pretty much only open during school hours, so I couldn't take him to get a replacement until he had a day off from school that was not also a state/federal holiday. I know, right?

Anyway, we had to wait forever but we got it. So then it was all: rush home, throw some crappy microwaved lunch down my maw, rush C to his neurotherapy appointment. That's what we're trying for the misophonia. Is it working? Well, I don't really know. He's not worse but he doesn't seem a whole lot better, either. His therapist just started some new techniques and we've gone to a more frequent therapy schedule, and whatever, I guess we'll see. At least I manage to get quite a bit of reading done out in the waiting room, which always seems to smell like mildew and pee.

Then we came home and I made a pumpkin pie using my grandma's old Tupperware measuring cups. When we knew she was dying and her house and most of her stuff would have to go, my aunt asked everyone what they wanted. The only thing I could think of was her set of measuring cups. I have them hanging in the same spot where she kept them in her own kitchen, on the upper cabinet left of the sink, by the window. I know she would be happy I have them and I am REALLY happy I have them, but sometimes they just remind me that she's gone and today was one of those days. So: made a pie, had a little cry.

Fed the kids fast food for dinner because I didn't want to cook or dirty any dishes what with Thanksgiving being tomorrow and us hosting it and all, and the shake machine was broken. So no pumpkin pie shake. Which was the main thing I wanted. Oh well.

The dog keeps trying to eat my Thanksgiving decorations and also he has gas that will curl your eyelashes, and he keeps jumping all over H and she keeps yelling at him, and my laptop screen has a big patch of dead pixels that I don't know how to fix, and I'm thinking I'll have a nice whiskey and go to bed early tonight and let the parade tomorrow cheer me up. That always works.

Yep. Talk to you tomorrow.

Not a photo of my dog

Yeah. So that can happen. Enjoy your beach vacation!

Smells like Fritos

What, you thought I was kidding about the dog photos? Yeah. No.

Did you ever have one of those days where you go to the Hallmark store and seriously cannot find the birthday wrapping paper? Like, anywhere?

And then you're driving through the neighborhood behind your son's high school and you see some young, skinny meth-head-looking dude all black-hoodied up, aggressively slouching along like he's looking for trouble, and you think "uh oh" but then you notice he has something in his hand, and that something is the handle of a leash, and at the other end of the leash is a morbidly obese dachshund just waddling along, snuffling at the fallen leaves?

And then you buy a turkey but on your way home from the turkey store you have to stop for, like, the longest train in the history of trains, like a two-Jethro-Tull-songs train, and you're really super glad you brought an ice chest for the turkey so it doesn't go all ptomaine in the back of your Hyundai?

And then you have to stop real quick-like at the non-turkey grocery store somewhere between the train tracks and home only you get there right after the retirement center has dropped off a busload of old people, and this one parks-the-cart-diagonally-in-the-middle-of-the-aisle lady keeps magically appearing right in front of you in like EVERY SINGLE SECTION of the store, and you just need to get to the freaking oranges OH MY GOD DO NOT MAKE ME CUT A GEEZER RIGHT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF PRODUCE LADY MOVE YOUR FREAKING CART BEFORE I LOAD IT WITH C4 ARE YOU NOT AWARE THAT THE HOLIDAYS MAKE ME SORT OF PSYCHOTIC??!!!?

... No?

Well. Let's pretend this never happened.

Poodle in landscape

Yeah, so the rest of NaBloPoMo might just be pictures of my dog. You guys are okay with that, right?

Here's what we've been doing this weekend.

Son C: playing tuba etudes, composing electronic music and enjoying the new Minecraft update.

Daughter H: unbeknownst to me (because I was sleeping) dug out an old VHS tape of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, watched it, and is now obsessed with it.

Husband P: working working working and dealing with some nasty upper-respiratory crud.

Me: reading the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy, doing laundry, making plans for P and me to chuck everything once the kids are grown and move to a tiny house.

Yep. That's about it. The calm before the holiday storm. (With poodle.)

Saturday

It's been a lazy Saturday here at the saltycrunchy house.

And then Buffy staked Edward, The End

(Yes, I stole that. Because IT'S AWESOME.)

So hey, guess where I WON'T be tonight? Waiting in line at a theater with a bunch of overexcited adolescents and pervy middle-aged mom types to see the new Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part I or whatever they're calling it.

That's because my darling almost-14-year-old daughter H, who has read all the books (as have I)(they are awful) and seen all the movies (as have I)(see above) and even OWNS all the movies turned to me and said, AND I QUOTE: "Yeah, we can just wait for the DVD on this one, Mom. And we can RENT it."

Whether that's because she truly does not care about seeing this movie or she's tired of me MST3King the damn things when we watch them, I don't know, and I don't care, because either way VICTORY IS MINE.

Mwahahahaha!

So tired

Oh, you guys. Husband P works from home 99% of the time, only he has not been doing that for the past week, and I am so tired. I never realized how much I rely on having another adult here 24/7 with another vehicle to pick up Kid B from Activity D while I am picking up Kid A from Activity C. Oh, and taking Dog E to Activity F. And picking him up. Oof. I think I put 100 miles on my car today, never driving more than 10 miles at a time. (Yes, that hole in the ozone layer/fossil fuel crisis/crappy cell phone reception is all my fault! I'm sorry! I live in the suburbs!)

Things are looking up, however.

1. It's almost Friday. It may already be Friday when you read this! Yay, Friday!
2. I froze some pumpkin puree (okay, it was organic canned pumpkin! I'm sorry! I live in the suburbs!) today for smoothies tomorrow and I really have not been this excited about breakfast in a LONG time.
3. P is halfway through this crazy work thing he's doing, so thank God for THAT.
4. My kids only have two days of school next week because of Thanksgiving!
5. Thanksgiving! I love!

Eyes on the prize, people. EYES. ON. THE. PRIZE.

Toot toot

 Hey, you guys! So you know how I am participating in the habit flickr pool this month, even though I am frankly no great shakes as a photographer? Well, that is working out surprisingly well! My photos have been included in the habit blog twice so far this month -- on November 4th and November 11th, and one of my other photos was requested for the flickr group In Love with the Light! (That is their exclamation mark, not mine.)(Although: pretty exciting!)

I suspect the habit thing is more due to my words than my photos, because I am WAY better with words than photos, which should tell you how bad I am with photos, in case you've landed on this page without ever having read me before, but still! That is pretty dang cool!

Maybe I am getting the eye after all? Gosh, I hope so. It's been a long time coming.

Dogs are the worst

Well, we had a bit of excitement today courtesy of El Guapo here. He had a grooming appointment this morning (we have a mobile groomer who comes to the house and grooms him in a snazzy dog-spa trailer hooked to her pickup and WE LOVE HER) and apparently one of his toenails was clipped a little close and the rain (it rained! a bunch! finally!) and his general hyperness (do not EVEN get me started) combined to melt/dislodge the styptic powder she put in there and suddenly when she brought him back inside there was BLOOD EVERYWHERE. All over my house! Well, not the whole house, but the entire FRONT of the house looked a bit like we'd slaughtered a goat.

The groomer was horrified (totally not her fault; he has solid black toenails and a loooong quick) and ran back out to her grooming trailer for more styptic powder, which stopped it tout de suite. She offered to help me clean up all the blood but I was like, "Um, there is not enough tip money IN THE WORLD to compensate you for that," so I shooed her out the door. And then I had to wrestle the dog into his crate so I could clean up the floor, all while shrieking at him, "OMG, STOP LICKING THE STYPTIC POWDER OUT OF YOUR TOENAIL, you jerk! It already looks like Dexter's kill room up in here! STOP IT."

But anyhoo, the dog is fine. And I cleaned up all the blood. This story has a very anti-climactic ending, sorry. In happier news, we are halfway through NaBloPoMo so you only have 15 more days of inane crap like this! Yay!

Busy Monday

Oh holy crap, you guys, I almost forgot to blog today. Or didn't have time to blog, more like. Um, yeah. I've got nothing for you. Here, have a picture of some cookbook spines!

I'm still trying to figure out the macro setting on my camera, in case you couldn't tell.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be rainy/stormy all day. I totally can't wait. Those weatherpersons better not have lied to me.

Dutch Dutch Baby

I was on my own for breakfast this morning, which is rare.

So I made a Dutch Baby (using Amy Karol's recipe).

And drizzled it with honey.

And ate it with my fingers.

It was delicious.

Rewards

Somewhere in this crazy blur, daughter H is getting an award for the acting competition in which she and her school theater group participated this morning. She got one even though her big monologue, which provides the resolution to the central conflict for the entire freaking play, was cut at literally the last second.

It's always something, you know? Either your sousaphone bell falls off in the middle of the biggest marching competition of the year, or your monologue gets cut and as a result your entire play makes no sense. I'm beginning to learn that if something freaky happens but things work out anyway, there is a good chance one (or more) of my kids was involved somehow. Heh. Story of our lives.

I will tell you something, though: seeing my girl on stage and my boy out on the field fills me with a pride that I never anticipated when they were teeny-tiny. Those parenting books with all their talk of milestones can never prepare you for the feeling of watching your child excel at something they love. There are no words.

11-11-11

Hey, everybody! Welcome to November 11, 2011. Also known as Veteran's Day in the U.S., Remembrance Day or Armistice Day in various countries outside the U.S., Binary Day pretty much everyplace that has nerds, Nigel Tufnel Day for the Spinal Tap fans, and/or Corduroy Appreciation Day wherever people are just plain weird.

On this historic day in our house:

• Husband P is embarking on a new adventure (I am both nervous and excited for him).
• Son C suffered a rather heartbreaking disappointment (he is not at all upset but I am, because I know the full implications of it while he does not).
• Daughter H is basking in the afterglow of having been TOTALLY AMAZING in her school play last night (seriously, I know how talented she is and she blew ME away).
• And, um ... I am washing dishes (because somebody has to).

Alrighty! Have a great Friday!

Book review: Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers

So this book can pretty much be summed up like this: a freaky global disaster happens, and people try to deal with it. The End.

The disaster in question is the sudden disappearance of literally millions of people worldwide -- men, women, children, Christians, Buddhists, atheists -- basically all sorts of people from all walks of life with no real rhyme or reason. They disappear instantly, all at the same time, vanishing in some cases before the very eyes of eyewitnesses. No one knows why or how, or where they've gone. And they don't come back. The book picks up on the three-year anniversary of the Sudden Departure, as it comes to be called, and follows a year in the lives of some of the folks left behind.

I don't know, you guys. It's not that I didn't like this book -- it was very well-written and all of the characters were interesting and I enjoyed spending time with them -- but there's not much PLOT. We just kind of see people trying to get through the day. For a year. Some of them try to ascribe meaning to the event, some of them suspend their lives completely in anticipation of what might happen next, and some just shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives.

Having just recently read a book that was all plot with very little character development, you'd think I would be up for the ol' switcheroo, but I guess I wasn't. I mean, I LIKED it. But it was one of those books that took me forever to read, you know? Not because it was at all difficult to read, but because it was way too easy to just read a page or two at a time and then go about my day.

If you like Perrotta, you will like it. I do, and I did. But don't expect a page-turner, I guess is what I'm saying. Oh, and don't expect any real answers, because it just sort of ends. Practically in the middle of a sentence.

Greens

I can't get enough of green salads lately. I am seriously eating them every day. This started as a BLT salad but then I added bleu cheese and homemade honey-mustard dressing. OMG. So good. (My other favorite: baby spinach with walnuts and dried cranberries.)

I am going to figure out how to make a pumpkin spice vinaigrette very soon now. Oh yes. Just watch me. This salad thing is about to get CRAZY up in here.

NaBloPoMo Day 8

It rained today for about five minutes.

So ... we've got that going for us.

Children of the night

For the past three months or so my alarm clock has gone off at 4:50 a.m. every weekday. Yes, that is the middle of the night. I would haul myself out of bed in the pitch dark, throw on some sweats, drag C out of bed, push him into the shower, drag H out of bed (she showers at night), take C to early-morning band practice still in the pitch dark, take H to school in the dim pre-dawn, then come home, snap the dog's harness and leash on him, and drag him out the door as the sun was just barely beginning to peek above the horizon.

The end of C's early-morning band practice (which only happens during football/marching season) just happened to coincide with the end of Daylight Saving Time this year. So this morning, my alarm went off at 6:20. I hauled myself out of bed as the sun was just barely beginning to peek above the horizon, threw on some sweats, dragged H out of bed, dragged C out of bed, pushed him into the shower, took H to school in the morning light, took C to school in full daylight, then came home, snapped the dog's harness and leash on him, and dragged him out the door while the sun was high in the mid-morning sky.

And that's when I discovered that I really, really miss the dark mornings. Huh. Go figure.

Might have to switch the dog's walk to evenings instead.

At least it was cloudy.

I'ma go crawl back into my coffin now.

Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket

I have two pieces of news for you on this Sunday:

1. Son C's band came in 7th place at their weekend marching contest (out of 14 finalists and 59 bands total)! This despite the fact that C's sousaphone bell FELL OFF during their performance and four people tripped over it! I know! It was a little bit more exciting than any of us had intended! Thank goodness everyone who tripped is okay; it was amazing to watch them all recover instantly and finish out the show like the rock stars they are. There were a CRAZY number of injuries at this contest. And ... that's why marching band counts as a P.E. credit, I guess.

2. I won a NaBloPoMo prize! And I totally never win anything! And it's A BOOK, which is tied with chocolate for the Very Best Thing To Win Ever! As soon as husband P fixes our fax machine so I can return the signed prize agreement whatsit thingie, a copy of Melissa Ford's Life From Scratch will be winging its way to me. I AM SO EXCITED. (And can I just say that I am in love with the cover of this book? I would like a wallpaper border of that made for my kitchen,  please.)

Alrighty! Talk to you tomorrow! And the next day, and the next day, and the ... we have 24 more days of this, people. (I will try to become less boring. But don't hold your breath.)

Busy Saturday

Hey! Lots to do today and no time to blog, except to tell you:

1. Um yeah, we got TROUNCED by my alma mater last night. Gah.
2. I made the habit blog! Holy cow!
3. I am in love with this song right now, Chuck Ragan's "Rotterdam":



Alrighty! Talk at you tomorrow, a.k.a. NaBloPoMo Day Six. Oy.

Rivalry

Tonight son C's high school football team is playing my alma mater. It's the last game of the regular season.

Back when these were the only two high schools in the district this was a HUGE game with much vandalism effectuated on both sides in the name of competition. I believe things are a bit less misdemeanor-y these days, maybe because there are a bunch more high schools in the district, or maybe because kids today spend all their time on the internet instead of out perpetrating mayhem the way God intended. Kids! They don't know what's fun!

This rivalry was SO big back in the day that when I found out our neighborhood had been re-zoned such that my kids would be attending my old rival school, I had a bit of a problem with it. Not because I didn't think it was a good school and didn't want my kids to go there for academic reasons, but because I wasn't sure I could bring myself to cheer for the football team and wear their colors at games. As a devout Pigskinopalian (what? don't tell anyone in MY family that football isn't a religion), it just felt wrong.

I'm happy to say it only took one game (well, really one halftime show since my kid is in the band) to turn things around and now I hate my old alma mater with a burning passion! Yay! That is totally mentally healthy and not at all something I would need to bring up in therapy, right? Right!

So yeah, talk to you later. I've got to go buy some cowbells and paint my face or my car or whatever.

Some random for your Thursday

A cold front came through here overnight and now it is chilly and SUPER WINDY and I'm thinking about my poor boy C and his sousaphone, which becomes a 50-pound brass sail in the wind. He and his high school marching band preformed their very last marching show rehearsal of the season in their home stadium early this morning; tomorrow they ride a bus down to San Antonio for a very big competition, then ride the bus back here for the last football game of the regular season (an away game), then back to San Antonio on Saturday to see if they made (and to perform in, if they did) the finals of the very big competition. And then marching season is over for another year. Whew!

I have been reading Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers. I like it very much; the characters are all interesting, but there isn't much in the way of plot. I sort of want to just finish it and move on to something else, but I don't know what. I have so many books on my Kindle now, it's ridiculous.

I bought Zee Avi's new album Ghostbird but I'm not sure I love it, and I decided not to buy Feist's new album Metals but now I'm wondering if I should.

It does not look like fall at all here yet. In fact, some of the Bradford pear trees in my neighborhood are apparently very confused because they are BLOOMING, which they only do in the spring. So weird. The weather here in the U.S. has been crazy this year. I guess that's just how it's going to be for a while.

This is the time of year when I feel like I'm just kind of holding my breath, waiting. Waiting for marching season to end, waiting for husband P to go on and then return from a business trip, waiting for Thanksgiving and daughter H's birthday and Christmas, waiting for our annual reunion with P's family, waiting for the days to get shorter and darker and then longer and brighter again. Waiting to flip the calendar to 2012.

Yep. That's pretty much all that's going on around here.

A thousand words

I took a photography class in college. Not because I was particularly interested in photography, but because it was required for my journalism major. It was taught by my friend and fellow co-ed dorm resident, Paul (he of the ambiguous sexual orientation)(misplaced crushes were a hallmark of my college years) and it was a fun class.

My favorite part by far was the darkroom. This was back before digital photography, and the cameras we used for the class were ancient boxy things that required large-format rolls of film. I loved the dim red lights, the smell of the chemicals, the miracle of developing film, the meditative action of making prints. I am a lab rat by nature and probably could have been some sort of scientist if not for all the math.

My least favorite part, by WAY far, was taking the actual photos. I just didn't have the eye. In theory I understood the rule of thirds and the way a photo was SUPPOSED to be composed, but my eyes just didn't see that way. I had no awareness of light and shadow, no appreciation for texture, no concept of contrast, no patience for framing a shot. I just didn't get it.

I still don't. Heh.

This is probably why I find myself slightly obsessed with photo blogs. Those who can't do, teach? Um, no. Those who can't do stand in awe of those who can, at least in my case. My favorite photo blog of the moment is habit -- it absolutely takes my breath away on a daily basis the way words and images can combine to create mystery, tension, comfort and jubilation. I was thrilled to learn that the folks at habit have opened up the blog for the month of November -- anyone and everyone is invited to post photos and words in the habit flickr pool this month. Some of those words and photos will be published on the habit blog, but even the ones that don't get chosen are just amazing and inspiring and well worth a look.

So, in addition to doing NaBloPoMo, my meager photography skillz and I have jumped in with both feet and are participating in the habit flickr pool this month! I doubt any of my photos will be chosen to appear on the blog, but I'm hoping it will goose my creativity just a bit. The more amazing images I see from other people's lives, the more inspired I am to REALLY see and to capture images from my own. I'm trying to get "the eye". I haven't given up!

See you over there?

Afterween

It's hard to believe it was ten years ago that I had an almost-four-year-old "spider witch princess" and a five-year-old skeleton in my house who were SUPER excited to go trick-or-treating.

Sigh.

Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year, which it always seems to do even though it's the SAME FREAKING DAY EVERY YEAR. I have no idea how this happens, but I always find myself scrambling the weekend before the holiday, hastily throwing mangled years-old decorations up on the doors and windows and buying ridiculous amounts of candy and paying way too much money for last-minute pumpkins at the church up the road. Ah, well. What are the holidays without a desperate need for Xanax little stress?

Almost-fourTEEN-year-old daughter H came home from school yesterday, shoved her costume and makeup into a bag, then dashed right back out the door; she and several friends were meeting at another friend's house to suit up there and go trick-or-treating in "the rich neighborhood" (her words, not mine). By the time she got home she'd removed the fangs and scrubbed off the fake blood so I didn't even get any photos of her in full vampire regalia. Argh!

Fifteen-year-old son C decided to stay home last night sans-costume and hand out candy. Apparently you're too old to trick-or-treat if you're able to grow a full beard in less than a week. I know, right?

I'd insert a "where did my babies go?!" whine here, but H out with friends and C handing out candy and P on dog-wrangling duty meant that I was able to spend last night sitting on my butt in the recliner, watching this week's episode of Dexter and drinking a very dirty vodka martini.

Sometimes, change ain't all bad.

Photo taken THIS MORNING. For the love of God, get over here and eat this candy.

Hope your Halloween was happy! And now it's November. Holy crap.