Seasoning

October is almost over. I'm torn between whether to feel more guilty about not blogging or not eating enough pumpkin...I think I technically still have the whole Thanksgiving season and maybe even the full holiday season to eat pumpkin, so I suppose I should feel guilty about the blog. Sorry, blog.

I'm about to enter week 4 at my new job. I'm happy to report that it's going well. I'm still adjusting to the commute and the extra hour that it adds to my work days, but the job itself is great.

I'm holding off on getting into the Christmas spirit until Halloween has passed, but 'tis the season for vacation planning! Yes, it's always vacation planning season in my mind, but right now is when I begin obsessively researching beach vacations, as I see the approaching winter. Every year I declare that we must take a beach vacation every February, as that is the cold, hard center of our brutal winters.

But most years we don't really do that. Sometimes I get over-excited and we take a trip in December or January (too early) and other years, we wait until March or April (torture). And sometimes we don't go anywhere. Or rather, we take the boys to the waterpark and pretend it's a vacation (which works for them, but not so much for me).

We decided against the Top Chef cruise, so this year my sights are set on Florida - not for Disney, but because I want to take the kids to Kennedy Space Center and also, Owen got really excited when he learned you could take canoe tours through the Everglades (add that to the list of things I would only do for my kids). Also, sitting on a beach in Miami while it's below zero here sounds pretty nice...and it's way cheaper than Hawaii.

But I also want to go to LA, where we have several friends I'd like to visit. It's just not very hot there in February. More importantly, we were just there last summer.

The bigger question is really whether we should actually be taking a winter vacation at all. It certainly would not hurt our bank account to stay home all winter. (but it will hurt my brain!) The deciding factor is really whether we decide to do the big Ireland trip this summer. If we commit to that, then there's probably a waterpark in my future. A waterpark and me telling myself that planning my dream trip to Ireland makes up for being stuck in the frozen tundra for the duration.

Picture me on an inner tube with a laptop, reading reviews of Irish castles,  surrounded by one thousand screaming children. (Gee, when I put it that way it does seem like the obvious choice.)

Like the Christmas spirit, I think I'll just put this decision off a bit longer. This week is all about Halloween. Well, half the week anyway.

The boys are being Death and Luigi. Maybe will be the title of Owen's memoir.

I've already done my celebrating by running a 5K (WITHOUT dying!) and giving up sweets. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong?

I am the clown with the tear-away face

It's Halloweekend and I'm having trouble mustering much holiday spirit. Maybe I'm feeling guilty about letting my kids buy their costumes off the rack rather than making them myself (they're going as a vampire and a zombie, so it's not like they would have been super complicated costumes to make...then again, I don't sew, nor do I possess a single crafty gene). Or maybe I'm mentally exhausted from thinking about those Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins, which I cannot, under any circumstances, buy, for fear that I will consume the entire package on the way home. Or maybe I'm just not that into Halloween...

What I am into are the free things that having kids in costume will get you. So far our itinerary includes free lunch at the restaurant down the street, free slices of pie at Baker's Square, and possibly free hot chocolate at Caribou. The free dinner offers are kind of a trick because in order to get there and eat dinner at a child-friendly hour, you have to cut the trick-or-treating short...trust me, I know.

I'm also into seeing how excited my kids get when they put their costumes on. However, experience has taught me that the excitement dissolves rather quickly into discomfort of some variety (either costume- or weather-related, possibly both), which then makes them even more easily aggravated. This manifests itself in the form of dozens of mini-races between houses, with one screaming about being first and the other crying about not being first, with the 500% increase in sugar consumption only making the whole thing more fraught with irrationality. Good times.

I'm not actually as pessimistic about it as that all sounds. I mean, there's a decent chance that someone on our street is handing out peanut butter pumpkins, and we all know that candy you steal from your children contains zero calories. Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Quest '09

Have you ever tried to buy a pumpkin on Halloween? I don't recommend it. I imagine it's a lot like trying to buy a turkey on Thanksgiving, only since most frozen turkeys are edible, that actually might be easier.

You see, I planned ahead. We had our compulsory family outing to the pumpkin patch two weeks ago, where we each chose the most perfect pumpkins ever to be seen (seriously, mine was awesome) and carted them in from the field ourselves.

As always, we kept them outside for maximum freshness. But when I went out to our front steps on Halloween morning to fetch them, I found that three out of four of them had turned to mush. Mush! Was it the surprise snowstorm we had in mid-October? Did they freeze and crack and then start rotting? I have no idea - I've never had this happen before, but there I was.

At first I entertained the notion that maybe the boys didn't even really want to carve pumpkins (honestly, I find the whole process messy and unfulfilling, but I used to like it back when I was little and didn't have to scrape out the gooey insides), but that was quickly shot down when the chorus of "When are we carving pumpkins?!" began.

And so, I began my quest for pumpkins on Halloween.

SuperTarget had none. Our fancy grocery store right up the street didn't have anything bigger than an acorn squash. At last, I tried the behemoth Festival Foods. They had two sad crates sitting outside the front entrance, one-quarter of the way full of pumpkins...sad, half-rotten, mostly green pumpkins. The fact that they were selling these things rather than giving them away was ethically questionable, but since I had little boys at home waiting for pumpkins, I knew it wasn't the time for argument.

And so, I sorted. I was nearly vertical, leaning over the side of the crate to comb the dredges of the pumpkin crop. Rotten, rotten, green, green, rotten. Finally I found one decent-sized pumpkin with just one half-rotten dent in its side, a dent which I knew we could hide by carving the opposite side. Knowing this was the best it was going to get, I resigned myself to having to arrive back home with only one pumpkin (my husband would have to give up his perfect pumpkin, which somehow was the only one to survive the mysterious rot).

I headed inside to pay. (I thought about just walking away with it, but figured the whole thing would rot while I was busy getting arrested for shoplifting.) Next to the registers was a table of Halloween candy and then I spotted it: under the table sat a picture-perfect pumpkin complete with a curly stem. Just sitting there on the floor! Under a table! As if someone had put it there. Hid it there while the rest of us searched through rotten pumpkin carcasses.

With one quick glance around, I snatched it up and scurried to the register to pay. Whoever hid that pumpkin there was probably sad when they found it missing, but I couldn't be bothered with hurt feelings - these were desperate times. Plus, if you're going to hide a pumpkin, maybe try somewhere less obvious, like the pet food aisle.

And so, we had pumpkins. And all was well. But it's a good thing Christmas presents don't rot.

When You Wish Upon a Star...

You might think by looking that we don't really like Halloween. We are that house on the block that turns all its lights out so you will not approach. Except rather than hiding inside and cursing all the loud children begging for candy, we're actually out with our kids trick-or-treating, so I think we have a valid excuse. 

Anyway, since I can only remember one year that we've ever been home long enough to hand out any candy, I stopped buying it, which means all I have to gorge myself on is the boys' loot. Except they counted it, which means I have to gain approval before taking any fun-size Snickers bars. Sneaking would throw their counts off, no doubt setting off a downward spiral that they will be telling their therapists about for years to come. 

I guess this is all to say that I haven't really been eating any candy, which is just as well since I've started my mental quest to lose 10 pounds. I feel confident that the physical quest will begin any day now...as soon as I overcome my disdain for exercise and my love for carbs...and butter...and sugar. Yep, any day now.

In other news, we're going to Disney World!!!!!!!!!!! We've actually known for a little while now, but we just told the boys, so we can finally go public. My beloved and crazy aunt Linda (we all have a crazy aunt, right?) has an obsession with Disney World and therefore visits The Happiest Place on Earth on an annual basis. (For the record, this means I can officially call my Las Vegas obsession genetic.) This year, she wants the boys to experience the magic. Score.

And so, the 12-week countdown has begun. Aidan and I made a list of all the Disney movies we need to watch in preparation for this trip. The boys are already well-versed in all the Pixar flicks, as well as The Little Mermaid and Dumbo (trauma!), but they've never seen Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin or even The Lion King, so we've got some studying to do. You know, because I want them to have a deeper appreciation for the variously-themed mechanisms with which Disney will fly them through the air. 

Fun and planning. Fun and planning. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Trick or Treat?

My kids want to be ghosts for Halloween. We talked through all sorts of fun ideas (like being a frog and a prince)...we went to the megacostumestore and dismissed all of the crappy pirate and superhero costumes...but nothing stuck. 

Then a couple of days ago Aidan came to me and announced, very seriously, that he had decided to be a ghost for Halloween. My first (silent) reaction was disappointment, as if he should have come up with something more creative (seriously, I don't know why I care), but within a split-second I realized what a fabulous development this was, as he had magically chosen the one costume that uncrafty me can make myself rather than shelling out $50 at Pottery Barn. Woohoo!

Owen was an easy sell. He responded with an "Okay!" that suggested he was glad somebody else had figured it out for him. 

So I went online for some ghospiration -- even though I'm pretty sure all I need is a white sheet and a pair of scissors -- and was horrified to find that apparently some people actually buy ghost costumes for their children:

Crappy, creepy ghost costumes that bare far too close of a resemblance to something a Klan member would wear for my comfort. 

Or, you could choose to go the "friendly" ghost route:

I guess the smattering of patchwork makes that worth $20 plus shipping...you know how those friendly ghosts are always patching themselves up, right?

I feel like buying your child a ghost costume is sort of like admitting that you let your kids eat Velveeta cheese slices for breakfast...like you just couldn't be bothered to find something better. 

I mean, if you're going to buy a costume, get some bang for your buck. Buy something that would have been nearly impossible to make yourself (read: anything other than a ghost). If nothing else, it will make you feel less guilty for not being crafty.