Hark How the Bells! (or "You Know It's Winter in Baker When...)

Geeze, it's not even December yet, and we are thoroughly enmeshed in the Christmas spirit. On Wednesday, Nathan and I got our Christmas tree from my parent's property. Of course, what should have been a simple and quick outing turned into a two-hour long exodus when our dog took off chasing some of the deer that frequent my parent's "back forty". But we finally tracked him down (20-30 min later), found our tree (after much hemming and hawing), and got it home. Bandit, being wet and covered in burrs, got to ride in the back of the truck with the tree on the way home...a lot of cute pictures will be added, I just haven't had a chance lately to upload any photos from my camera.

While Nathan was back at work, I succeeded in getting the tree into the tree stand and into our house. I ended up having to trim some of the top of the tree off because it was taller than our 8' ceilings. After I got out of rehearsal, Nathan and I turned on Home Alone 2 (a tradition of Nathan's), made some hot chocolate, and decorated our tree. Our house smells SO GOOD! I used all the limbs I had to trim off (otherwise the tree would have taken up our entire couch area) to decorate around our nativity scene and various other places around the house. I honestly wish I could decorate like this year-round, but then I guess it wouldn't be as special. It's a good thing we got a big tree this year, because between Nathan and I we have a TON of ornaments. This is only going to get worse as my family has a tradition of my mom buying my dad and I a new ornament each year, and I've carried that on. Here's Nathan's ornament for the year:



Ha ha ha, and it's so true! Thankfully he got a kick out of it!


There are now huge piles of snow down the middle of all of the streets in Baker. These will eventually become large berms which will remain until we have a major melt in the spring. For those of you who are familiar with Baker, those piles are a welcome sight because they mean that it's truly winter! I actually missed those piles of snow when I was on the other side of the state. This morning marked the first appearance of the piles of snow. And yes Carly, I'll take pictures of Main Street for you. ;) Everything here is now covered in a couple of inches of snow and we're suppose to get even more in the next couple of days. Right now the sky is that steel grey color, so it looks like the entire world is encompassed in various shades of white.

Other than all that, life has been pretty straight forward. My days off were filled with decorating, attempting to pick up after the effects of decorating (still have a ways to go on that), rehearsals, two loads of dishes and four (yes, FOUR) load of laundry. But all that laundry meant that we got to sleep in clean sheets last night. Which leads me to my next, and last, point...

I firmly believe that one of the best feelings in the world is climbing into a bed of clean sheets/pillow cases after having showered, shaved your legs, covered yourself in lotion, brushed your teeth, and dried your hair. You're clean, your bed is clean, all the sheets are straight and not crumpled. It's lovely. If I had the time/energy/money, I think I would wash our sheets every day!

List Makers, Unite!

I've talked a couple of times on here about how I am more than slightly obsessive about making to-do lists. Well, I'm not alone. Here's a blog centered completely around making to-do lists:

http://www.todolistblog.com/

I absolutely love the post "Eight Surprising To D0 List Facts". I fit in 7 of the 8 points that she talks about, I'll let you guess which one I don't do. Oddly enough, a lot of people equate list makers with being anti-procrastinators...thing is, I am a HUGE procrastinator. It's one of the things I like the least about myself.

(short break: It's currently snowing...under blue sky. How...?)

The other post I loved was a couple of posts below the Suprising Facts post, entitled "110 Things to Do Before He Dies (Written in 1998)". I wrote a list like this a couple of years ago, and I now have no idea where it is. Maybe I should start again. Some people would argue, "What's the point of making a To Do Before I Die list when you don't know when your deadline is?" I don't think it's so much about accomplishing ALL of those goals before you die, as much as it's about remembering your dreams and reminding yourself to live life to the fullest every day.

If you couldn't tell, the makers of this blog just recently published a book entitled (what else?) To-Do List. I may have to track down this book.

3 Cheers!

Just had to share that my husband is amazing...

He just brought me a peppermint hot chocolate on his break!

He's a keeper.

Love you honey!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Between Nathan and my conflicting schedule, we just recently realized that there isn't going to be a day where we can leisurely go look for a Christmas tree until Dec 21st. And that's just not acceptable. It's always dark by the time Nathan gets off work on my weekdays off, I'm working this entire weekend, and next weekend I'm going to be in Boise for Christmas shopping with my mom. That pretty much limits the daylight hours where we are both able to go tree hunting. So instead, Nathan is taking an hour and a half lunch on Wednesday, and we're going to go up to my parent's property on Pine Creek to get our tree.

Here's our dilemma. We want to put our Christmas tree in the upstairs living room, where everyone can see it. But the way we have our living room arranged, the room is essentially cut in half, because it's very awkward to arrange it as one large space, seeing as the room is very long and narrow. One half has our two couches, the tv, and a book shelf. The other half has another dining table and chairs. Now if we put the tree in the half with the dining table, there's plenty of room, but it makes it very awkward for passing out presents on Christmas day. But if we put the tree in with the couches and tv, it will be fairly cramped, we won't be able to have a very big tree, yet it will be easily accessible for present dispersal. I guess we'll just have to see how things pan out once we actually get the tree.

Beyond tree dilemmas, we also have a dog dilemma. Bandit loves his doggy door, and I still fully appreciate the beauty of not having to freeze my butt off while he does his business. But yesterday Nathan put the baby gate up between the back landing and the back hallway, so Bandit could come inside without having access to the whole house, and then put one of his doggy beds in the landing for him to lay on...which Bandit then destroyed. We think he was getting back at us for delaying his dinner for an hour (Nathan brought me dinner at work). Not only were there bits of doggy bed in the landing, Bandit somehow managed to get a majority of the destroyed bed outside, through the doggy door. Maybe we should start calling the back landing The Bunker. Nathan took some great pictures, which I will add to this post in the next couple of days. You just have to laugh, because what else are you going to do? So now Bandit has to survive without the benefit of a blanket or bed in his Bunker. Oh, and did I mention he has started bringing his outside soccer ball in through the doggy door with him?

Countdown Ticker!

I just had to share my newest triumph...the Christmas Countdown Ticker!!! After using Arly's html as a starting point for the code for our blog, the layout is kind of messed up. Which translated into lots of struggle when trying to put the ticker onto our page! Every time I tried to place it at the top of the page, it somehow squished our posts into the sidebar on the left. When I tried to put it into the sidebar, it was too big and only showed half of the ticker. I seriously battled with it for about half an hour before I got it arrange juuuuuuust right. So now you have it. Our page, complete with Christmas Countdown! Only 29 days to go!

Boo HTML!

Now that I have a cramp in my mouse hand, I finally have our blog looking like I want it to look! YAY! As you can probably tell, I'm excited about this. I mean, I've only been working on it since about 10 am or so and I just now got it to where I want it. Did I ever mention that I hate html with a passion?! Ah well, now our blog is in the holiday spirit, and it's suppose to snow either tonight or tomorrow...don't worry Carly and Arly (hee hee, you two rhyme!), I'll post more pictures.

Big shout out of thanks to Arly for helping me figure out how to play with my blog html in order to have a more fun blog! And thanks to Carly for letting me steal her awesome background (not that she had much of a choice or knew I was doing it)!

PS...I've been listening to old Christmas music all day on live365.com...Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside! Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Wow, has it really only been 4 days since Thanksgiving? It feels so much longer than that.

As hectic as our Thanksgiving was, the following weekend was the complete opposite. When I got off work on Wednesday at 6 pm, we immediately jumped into the car and headed to Burns, where my parents are now living. We stopped off in Ontario to run a few errands...I forgot about the hour time change and ended up only have 15 minutes in JoAnn Fabrics, which is NOT enough time to pick out fabric. We didn't get to Mom and Dad's until about 10:30 pm, and geeze was that a boring drive! The only thing that kept it even mildly exciting was the threat of a deer (or herd of deer) jumping in front of our car at any moment. The closest we came to that was a 4 point buck on the edge of the road...yeesh.

After getting to Mom and Dad's, we had a glass of wine and socialized with my grandparents for about half an hour before all of us collapsed. The next morning, the boys got up and went goose hunting while I slept in and then helped Mom and Nanna get Thanksgiving dinner ready. My mom cooked an 18 lb turkey for 6 people, which translated into to a LOT of leftovers...the best part of Thanksgiving dinner, in my opinion. After dinner, Nathan and I immediately got back in the car and drove home, getting back at around 10:45 pm, because both Nathan and I had to work on Friday. I think both of us were bored to death on Friday...no one called into dispatch because they were all still recovering from their turkey comas, and the paper was dead because they had already gotten most of their work for the Friday paper done.

On Friday night, we had a bunch of people over to our house for a mini-reunion. Seriously, the majority of the people there were people that I went to high school with, and who hadn't been at the same place at the same time for about a year, if not longer. Let's see, the guest list included: Nathan and myself (of course, it was our house), Anna and Matt, Corey and Emily (and their son Ian for about 5 minutes), Josh Bailey, Aaron Bailey and his wife Melissa, Chris and Lily, Carly and her baby Stella (thanks for stopping by Carly!), Brandie, Kenyon, Anders, Dom, Steve, Dana and Cale, Will H...if I forgot anyone, I am so sorry! So yeah, we had quite the crowd, and it was way too much fun to have at least part of the old BHS group there! Carly's baby, Stella, was way too adorable and so well behaved...when I took her down to the basement where there were about 15 people talking over music playing, she didn't wake up even once. Carly, next time you come to Baker, you should come by for an afternoon and we'll just relax without having so many people around!

At around 9:30 Friday night, I got a call from our lead dispatcher asking if I could come in the next day to cover for a dispatcher who was sick with the flu. This completely bummed me out because I was so looking forward to having a full 2 days to spend with Nathan, which never happens! I told her that if she couldn't find anyone else, I could come in from noon until 6 pm, but that I'd rather not. I don't envy her the job of asking people to come in on their days off! The next morning, we finally got it worked out so that I got to sleep in, and ended up not having to go into work. So instead, Nathan and I went out for brunch at the Oregon Trail restaurant (yum!), then went to Aaron and Melissa's wedding reception. After that, we rented two movies, crawled into bed, and were very very lazy. In fact, we even took a nap.

On Sunday, we slept in, were lazy again, had beer pancakes (SOOO good), I ran some errands, Nathan brewed some beer, had pizza from Paizanos and watched Die Hard 1, then went to bed. It was so nice to have such a lazy weekend at home with Nathan!

In other news, Nathan put a doggy door in our back door, so that Bandit can come and go as he pleases. Mostly we got it so that he can get into the back landing area (which we're going to close off with baby gates) and out of the below freezing weather we're consistantly having. But there are other perks to this doggy door. Before the doggy door, this was Bandit and my morning routine:

Lindy gets up sometime between 5:30 am and 6:00 am, gets in the shower, gets out of the shower, gets dressed, dries hair, curls hair, puts on make up, lets Bandit out of his crate, feeds Bandit, goes outside with Bandit and freezes her butt off while Bandit does his business, puts Bandit back in his crate, makes lunch, puts together snacks for the day, runs out of the door to work a little late because Bandit took his own sweet time eating and doing his business.

Post doggy door, this is now our routine:

Lindy gets up sometime between 5:30 am and 6:00 am, gets in the shower, gets out of the shower, gets dressed, dries hair, curls hair, puts on make up, lets Bandit out of his crate, feeds Bandit, tells Bandit to go outside, Bandit takes himself outside while Lindy stays inside the warm house and makes lunch, puts together snacks for the day, walks calmly out of the door to work while putting Bandit back in his crate, enroute to work on time.

Now we just need to teach him to go immediately into his crate after going outside and to close the crate door behind him. Ha ha ha! It's amazing the difference one little hole in the door can make!

And that, in a very large nut shell, was our Thanksgiving weekend.

Funny Photo

I was looking through one of my friends' photos online this morning and came across a photo that made me giggle. I immediately had to print it off and share it with anyone who happened to come into dispatch. They all laughed too. And now I'm going to share it with you. But before I show it to you, I have to tell you about a big event that recently happened in Baker that makes this photo even more halarious, not to mention appropriate.

A couple of weeks ago, a middle aged man decided that life held no futher allure for him and stood in front of a train that was traveling just outside of Baker. Here's the link to the story in the Baker City Herald:

http://www.bakercityherald.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=5464

Now remember how many times I've said you have to have kind of a twisted sense of humor in order to survive this job? Well here's where that twisted sense of humor comes in:


I still laugh when I look at it. Ah, good times.

• First Snow of the Season!

Hello everyone! This is Nathan posting. I shot some pictures of the snow this morning and put them on Picasa for y'all to view. Here is the link...
http://picasaweb.google.com/labunskin/FirstSnow2007

• I put a couple above also though to encourage you to click above to see the rest •

Fun in the Snow

Last night it snowed. I think it brought out the kids in us, because both Nathan and I were so excited that we simply couldn't fall asleep. At one point, we went out to the front of the house to watch the snow fall and ended up having the first snowball fight of the season...I think it was around midnight or so. Hey, you've got to embrace your inner child, right?

A little bit later, I took Bandit out back to play in the snow. By this time, there was about 3 inches of show everywhere. Bandit had a blast, and it was absolutely halarious to watch him run around the back yard like a maniac. I ended up having to take him inside when he got so excited that he started barking...at 1 am. Oops. But while I was outside with him, I took some pictures of the pretty snow, since it is suppose to melt off in the next few days. So for those of you who are aching for Baker (cough cough Arly and Carly cough cough), here's a few pics of the first semi-big snow of the season!

The neighbor's tree...the picture doesn't do it justice.

Snow piled up on the back fence.

I liked how the snow stuck to the fence...don't mind the funky green color.

Bandit getting covered in snow.

The patio furnature covered in snow...we should probably put those away.

Bandit being a goober.

He kept eating the snow.

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for, the video of Bandit going completely insane in the back yard. Sorry, my camera doesn't have sound, but it's still pretty funny.

So there we have it. Our first night of snow. Obviously we had a blast with it!

Tomorrow night after I get off work at 6, we hop in the car and head down to Burns to have Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and grandparents. We'll get up early on Thursday morning, go goose hunting, come home, help with dinner, have an early turkey dinner, then immediately jump back in the car to come back home because both of us have to work on Friday. Friday night, we're having a get-together with a bunch of our friends. Quite a few of my friends from high school are going to be home for the break, some of them for the first time in forever! Then Saturday and Sunday are reserved for just Nathan and I. One of those days, we're hoping to go up to the Anthony Lakes area with Bandit and have a family snow day. So I'm really looking forward to the rest of this week. Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving!

Good Morning!

Just thought I would share with you all what I opened the shades to this morning. I posted this mainly for those of you still living in the valley. I mean don't get me wrong; non-stop rain, traffic and crime share that special place in my heart. Actually that was a lie. If you don't think that waking up to sunny skies and snowcapped mountains is better than the convenience of an overpriced mall then I imagine you are doing just fine. I miss you guys though... but not enough to leave this paradise. Anyway, I went hunting again last Sunday with my father in-law. He shot a duck and Bandit jumped in the water and brought it back. I know that is probably posted below but I thought I would say it again because I am amazed and proud of my now useful dog.

Laters,
Nathan

You know you have a major caffeine addiction when...

"911, what is your emergency?"

"I have kind of a stupid question for you. Do you have a Starbucks there in Baker?"

"Sir, is this an emergency?"

"Well I told you it was a stupid question!"

WOOT!

IT'S SNOWING!!!!! A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just had to share. :)

Our Dog Isn't Worthless, Part II

Bandit has once again proved that he isn't completely worthless, which has made his momma so proud!

My parents came up this weekend to see the play (which is now over, sigh of relief). On Saturday morning, Nathan and Dad got up at the butt crack of dawn to go duck hunting, taking Bandit and Lizzie (dad's dog) with them. After a few failed attempts to get a flight of ducks to head their way, they finally scared up some ducks over the 203 pond and dad shot one down...into the pond.

Up to this point, the extent of Bandit's training consisted of retrieving a floating toy out of high-mountain lakes. We had yet to have the opportunity to let him retrieve an actual bird, so we had no idea whether he would agree to put a bunch of feathers in his mouth, let alone swim in icy cold water to do so. But as soon as they let Bandit out of his crate and pointed out the bird, he dove into the water, swam right to the duck, grabbed it by the neck and brought it straight back to shore. Not wanting to miss a training opportunity, Dad threw the duck back into the water and Bandit retrieved it again!

So there you go, our dog not only scents down and flushes birds, he's also an accomplished water dog! And as a result, we had some delicious asian duck salad for dinner that night. Yum!

Here's a great photo Nathan took of Bandit yesterday as he was testing out his photo gear for a shoot he had yesterday.

Not sure how Nathan got him to sit still long enough to take this. I know, it's kind of sad how excited we get over him, but until we have an actual kid, this dog is our child. And for all of his bad habits (being clingy, digging up the back yard), he's definitely a keeper!

Phone Call to Heaven

My father in law sent this to me and I just had to share with all of my Oregonian friends and family out there!

Phone Call to Heaven

A man in Savannah, Georgia, decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to Boston, Massachusetts, and started working west from there.

Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and making notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall, and was intrigued with a sign that read, "$10,000 per minute."

Seeking out the pastor, he asked about the phone and the sign. The pastor answered that the golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to Heaven, and if he pays the price, he can talk directly to God. The man th anked the pastor and continued on his way.

As he continued to visit churches in New Jersey, Milwaukee, Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City and around the United States, he found more such phones, with the same sign, and the same explanation from each pastor.

Finally, the man arrived in the lovely state of Oregon. Upon entering a church, behold: He saw the usual golden telephone. But, this time, the sign read: "Calls: 25 cents"! Fascinated, the man asked to speak with the pastor.

"Pastor, I have been in cities all across the country and in each church I have found this golden telephone, and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven, and that I could use it to talk to God.... But in 20 other chu rches the cost was $10,000 per minute. Your sign says 25 cents per call. Why is that?"

The pastor, smiling benignly, replied: "Son, you're in the Pacific Northwest now, and it's a local call."

Tagged Again

So, Carly tagged me to give you six things you dont know about me...I've literally been thinking about this all day long and still haven't come up with six things, but hopefully they'll come to me as I go along.

1) I'm a closet OCD. It isn't very bad and I try to keep it under control as much as possible, but every once in a while it sneaks out. One of the big ways that it hits me is counting things. When I'm bored, when I'm nervous, when I can't get to sleep, I count the most random things. My most regular thing to count is the dashes that make up digital numbers on clocks, to see how many dashes make up the current time. For example, right now it's 15:21...that's 14 dashes. The time with the most dashes in it (12-hr time) is 10:08...it has 21 dashes. I do this one a lot when I can't get to sleep. I also count steps taken from one place to the next.

2) I kind of a list maniac. I make lists for EVERYTHING. Chores, errands, shopping, goals, gifts, etc. If I mess up on a list, I start all over again, because I like my lists to look nice...that kind of goes along with fact #1. I get so much joy from crossing things off of those lists as I get them done. And if I'm going to be leaving the list for a while to come back to it later, I usually rewrite the list to only include the thing I still need to do, so it will look nice and neat when I get back to it.

3) I want to adopt a child. I believe that there are a lot of children out there that don't have loving homes, and that Nathan and I have more than enough love to give. I'm also very VERY against abortion (yes, I went there), so if I was ever given to opportunity to provide an alternative to a friend or kid in that position, I would gladly do it. Ideally, we would have our first child naturally, and then adopt one of the opposite gender a couple years later, but we'll see what happens. I don't know why I feel so strongly about this, since no one in my family has ever adopted, but I have several friends who were adopted.

4) I am constantly singing. If it's not out loud when I'm home alone or in the car, then I'm singing in my head. Sometimes I even mentally sing the random thoughts that are running through my mind. I'm really not sure how much other people like my voice, so a lot of times when I'm in public (like at Young Life and not leading songs) I will sing like I have no musical talent what so ever. But I absolutely love to sing, and there's never a song very far from my lips. I blame you, Ike.

5) The sound of chewing bugs the heck out of me. I don't know why, but if someone is chewing around me and there are no other noises to drown them out, it makes my skin crawl. It's just NOT an appealing noise! And the worst of all of it is gum! Not only does it make that regular chewing noise, but it also snaps and pops. It's even worse if the person thinks that it's cool to chew and pop their gum with their mouths wide open! Gross!

6) I get into a lot of different hobbies and do them constantly for a short amount of time and then move on. This probably drives my family nuts, but I get super into a lot of different things and then get distracted, busy, or burnt out on it. And then the worst part is that I feel guilty about it. It has kind of made me nervous to start up new hobbies, especially ones that take some sort of investment. And yet I keep doing it. Oh well, it makes me well-rounded, right?

There we go, not too shabby, eh what?

It's WHAT time?!

So ya know that whole "Daylight Savings Time"? And ya know how that gives us an extra hour of daylight, not to mention an extra hour of sleep on the night it switches over? Well, I was really looking forward to that extra hour of sleep, especially with working my first weekend of day shift AND having 3 performances this weekend. Basically, I needed that extra hour of sleep. But here's the problem....

I forgot.

Thankfully, it was the "fall back" time instead of the "spring forward", or I would have been really hosed. As it was, I got to work this morning, put my lunch in the fridge, and look up to see my partner grinning at me and saying, "You forgot, didn't you." Forgot what?....aw *&$%! You mean I could have slept another hour?! Of course, everyone was nice enough to offer to let me go home for an hour, but I knew there was no point since I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep anyway. Plus Scott, the dispatcher I was relieving, was going to have to work a 13 hr shift because of the time change. So I decided to be nice and relieve him an hour early, since I'm getting off at 2 hrs early anyway. I just hope he'll be that nice to me some day!

But oh man, that extra hour of sleep would have felt soooooooo good.

In other news, our second performance of Anne Frank went amazingly well last night. Friday night's performance left a LOT to be desired, but last night kinda rocked. Things flowed so much more smoothly. The couple of actors who were forgetting their lines on a regular basis had worked hard yesterday to get their lines down and did a great job. And there were none of those awkward pauses where someone forgot their next line, filled with us standing up on the stage trying to look like we were suppose sitting on our thumbs staring blankly at each other. All in all, it was the most rewarding run through we've had so far, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we keep it up.

Speaking of the play, Carly mentioned to me that she saw my picture in the front page of the Baker City Herald the other day, along with some of my fellow actors. The reason I mention this is to tell you about a lovely little tradition our departments have. If you are a member of dispatch, the police department, the sheriff's office, or any of the many fire departments, and your picture is on the front page of the newspaper, you have to buy everyone ice cream. I think it's so you don't get too cocky. So, as my partner delighted in reminding me, I now have to buy ice cream for anyone who comes into dispatch...I see those little dixie cup ice creams in everyones future.

And last but not least...big news...we do not have a worthless dog! Which is highly exciting, because we were starting to wonder! Yesterday Nathan went out bird hunting with our friend Will and took Bandit along as a flusher. Until now, the only time we've taken Bandit out into the field has been with my dad's dog, Lizzie. The only problem is that having another dog along was a little distracting for Bandit, because all he wanted to do was either run or play with Lizzie...or both at the same time. But yesterday, being the only dog in the field, Bandit became a bird dog. Evidently he scented down a pheasant, pointed it out, flushed it, sniffed it out when Will shot it, and then flushed it again. Unfortunately, the shot size the boys were using was too small and didn't get the job done on the pheasant. But the important part is that Bandit is a great bird dog! Now it's just a question of whether he will retrieve when we actually down a bird. I wish I could have been there to see him work yesterday, it's so much fun to watch a dog's best instincts kick in like that.

The latest pic of Bandito with his favorite toy...what a ham!

That's all for now, stay tuned!

Looking Back

I know, I know...Halloween has already passed. But everyone is still talking about what they did for Halloween (me: slept, went to rehearsal, came home, slept) and the Halloween candy is still definitely in abundance. The more I hear my co-workers talk about what their kids did for Halloween, the more I realize...kids today have it so freakin' easy!

Around town, there were several events going on that allowed kids to safely (read: easily) get their candy. Starting early, the businesses on Main Street all have candy available, one of the retirement homes has a "party" where kids can get candy, and a couple of churches have a "Trunk or Treat". This means that kids can now hit up the equivalent of about 20 houses without leaving an area the size of approximately 2 Baker City blocks (which are smaller than normal city blocks).

Which brings me to my point...what happened to the old-fashioned tradition of schlepping yourself through multiple neighborhoods in town in order to EARN your candy?! Back when I was young enough to go trick or treating, we always went out, after dark, to several houses in various neighborhoods, just to half-way fill my little pumpkin bucket. We braved dark corners, possibly freakish people, and questionable decorations, possibly doing so in rain or even snow (not exaggerating)! We never had things like the Main Street businesses or "Trunk or Treats", where all the candy converged in a small square area.

Speaking of "Trunk or Treat"....anyone else find this even mildly disturbing? Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% positive that it's all on the up and up, and that it's a wonderful idea, but think about it. "Here little children, come to my vehicle trunk and get some candy!" (push, slam, evil cackle) For those of you who have ever seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, this brings to mind the Child Snatcher...you know, the stringy, long-nosed man dressed in all black that enticed the children with candy then trapped them in his jail cell on wheels. Yeah, kinda dark, but it makes me giggle.

Anyway, those are my last thoughts on Halloween 2007, I promise. I simply can't wrap my mind around the fact that it is already November, and that we have less than 2 months left in 2007...crazy! And can you believe I saw my first Christmas commercial of the season last night...it's not even past Thanksgiving yet!!!.......but that's a whole 'nother rant. ;)