BOO!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It isn't much when Chris is gone though.

I had thought about running off to get married over the weekend. NIN is playing in Nashville tonight. How cool would it have been to end a short honeymoon with another concert? But it didn't happen, and that's ok.

Chris is trick-or-treating with his Dad this year. They should be back soon though. He is "Lord Voldemort" this year. We don't know exactly what he should look like, and the new Harry Potter movie doesn't come out for a few weeks, so we're improvising! (It looks a lot better when he is wearing pants).

Jack (Sparrow) O'Lantern

We had to carve our pumpkins before Chris left for the weekend. Chris is very good at doing this all by himself. He's very creative, and amazingly, he doesn't get too frustrated with the whole process. Of course he loves sticking his hand in pumpkin goo. Who doesn't?

Dennis made a very cool pirate for this year's jack o'lantern. *sigh* If it really was Jack Sparrow... *sigh*


Here's the whole family:


(Mine is the scaredy-cat on the left, and Chris's is the robot on the right.)

I've had the same job for...

Ninety days!

Frost on the Pumpkins

We went to Eckert's Farm in Grafton yesterday to pick our own pumpkins. It was still damn cold, and running around the pumpkin patch was slightly uncomfortable when the sun peeked behind a cloud.



We also bought apples so that I can bake a pie. Yum!

Cub Scout Camp

We spent Friday night freezing at Cub Scout Family Camp. It was held at Beaumont Scout Reservation. Chris had a good time, played with the kids, hiked, learned to identify several local trees, struck a match and helped start a fire (in a fire pit, with supervision!) and other scouty things.

He got to participate in the Flag Ceremony Saturday afternoon:


We stayed until after the campfire and skits Saturday night, then headed home to sleep in our very own warm beds! (Yeah, yeah, we're total pussies, but at least we didn't have to sleep in the rain.)

I have uploaded a Photobucket Album of the whole trip.

Reading

I read something!

I haven't taken anything from the reading list lately, but did pick up Jeff Shaara's Of God's and Generals and The Last Full Measure. I just finshed the latter. I do not think they were as good as his father's book, The Killer Angels, but I did enjoy them.

NIN

WOW!

I haven't been to a big concert in a while. Dennis and I went to see Nine Inch Nails last night. Strangely enough, it was almost 10 years to the day since the last time I saw them live. (October 11, 1995) It was so good. I had a really great time. Dennis is "not a concert person," but he seemed to enjoy himself.

I have a friend from work who was on the list, and decided not to go at the last minute. Of course I think my friend from work is officially mental. I get weak in the knees thinking of going backstage, and she is able to casually blow it off like it just isn't a big deal. She has the luxury of having been socially snubbed by Trent Reznor quite a few years ago, and she is irritated that the lineup of the Queens of the Stone Age has changed, and no longer includes a close personal friend of hers. It is probably a good thing that she did not go and did not invite me, because I would not have been able to play it cool in front of, like, real famous people. I'm sure I would have been Queen Retard.

The grapes are sour, I'm telling you. S-O-U-R.

Not that it ruined my concert experience. I felt 18 again, and that is not a bad thing.

Highland Games

We (Chris included) went to the St. Louis Highland Games today to watch my sister dance.

It was a good time! The weather could not have been any better. I did get a sunburn though :)

Fish are Friends, not Food

Well, that's backwards. People at work are not friends. Not even the friendly ones.

I have been feverish on and off all week. I was miserable at work yesterday, either freezing to death or sweating through my shirt. I was miserable last night. My glands are swollen out to my jawbone. In short, I'm sick. If I somehow manage to hold on to this God-forsaken job for that long, I will have full health insurance and a few hours worth of sick time in less than three weeks. I am doing my level best to deal with this on my own, and to keep my paycheck out of the red along the way. I muddled through yesterday, but I just couldn't make it today. I got dressed, took some extra medicine, and made my way in like a trooper, but I just couldn't do it today. I worked for an hour, and then I came home. This is all coming straight out of my pocket, mind you, and wiping out any overtime I may have had built up as well.

The bitches in my department wouldn't even acknowledge me as I made my apologies and made my way out the door today. I'm feeling like a bit of a loose cannon because of my fever, so I came straight home and sent this email:

******,

I was just wondering if you were not speaking to me because I came TO work sick this morning, or because I came home FROM work sick.

I certainly didn't plan this either way, and I am most definitely not enjoying it.

Shannon

Perhaps they feel that I planned to miss work today because they had a big drama-filled meeting scheduled for 10:00 A.M. and I lit out at 9:55. Yeah, because that is how I roll. In truth, I was looking forward to the ridiculousness of the entire situation, and I was hoping for some Blog-worthy bullshit from the whole thing. I'm sad to be missing it.