Hallows

Trick-or-treating was Saturday night, an adjustment to reality that actually works very well for our family yet nonetheless irritates me for its irrationality. We always try to do trick-or-treating up right with the kids picking costumes, sometimes bought sometimes made sometimes inbetween, and finding a place to go to. Out here we know and love our neighbors but getting in and out of the car to trick-or-treat with car seats and no place to get off the road . . . well, it just doesn't work. For years we went to my aunt's neighborhood, and when my dad moved near there we added his street. Then he died and she got frail and there was just my cousin left and frankly, I've never thought she liked me much anyway. So this year was our first to go to the Mall. There is something sad about that whole idea of Mall trick-or-treating but at the same time, it started early enough that we could get home to milk and it was safe and it was a lot of fun to get to see everyone else's costumes so it was also great and we'll likely do that again.


Costumes were fun. We're in a "don't spend money" mode with the job stopping in a few weeks now, so the kids got to pick out accessories and we got the rest of the costumes together. 1st daughter actually made both her dress and her sister's, and turned out to be quite a neat stitcher and enjoyed it too. Maybe she's found a passion? It's a good skill. It is important to have passions and real skills. So we had eldest being a shrunken headed monster, then a vampire, a witch, and littlest was Spiderman. We had a Spiderman costume from many years ago, and a ton of other costumes too. I finally found the stored costume box and they've had so much fun going through it. They've been princesses and kitty cats and Buzz Lightyear and Woody and a black knight and had feather boas and fancy shoes. And we have eaten tons of candy! After all, what is Halloween for?

Sunday we got the normal chores done plus one section of the fence fixed and this time tensioned which seems like it is going to work really well. In that process we lost a hammer but found the diagonal cutters. We sent the aquarium fish that died this year off on their journey to the otherworld (they've been in the freezer) and poured a libation. We've had plenty of eggs so I did a totally eggy bread for a late treat -- it was incredibly rich with a cracker-like crust and rich yellow color even through the whole wheat. The weather has been incredibly warm, with me in a tank top Sunday although some cold is supposed to be coming. Muzzleloader season starts this coming weekend for a week.