Maintenance Issues:

I was in Phoenix, AZ for a job interview from Thursday to Saturday of last week. It was…nice. The weather was great, all warm and able to play outside-like, but the air quality there stinks. Almost literally. The traffic isn’t very nice either. And it’s so BROWN. But the job part was cool. I think I interviewed well, which is a very important skill when one is trying to find a job.

On the way back, our plane had maintenance issues, we had a find another plane. I guess they kicked some other people off a plane to make one for us. Sucks to be them, and I felt kinda bad, but I just wanted to get home…and NOT on the maintenance issued plane. When I got back, I had another surprise. The “blue screen of death” had reared it’s ugly head again on my computer…(my old computer now)…and the problem was not recoverable. I got into Munchenstein long enough to recover important files, and then…I shut it off for the last time…possibly. Yes, Munchenstein is dead unless I ‘stein’ it even more. I may just, so that I have two working computers, but I’m not certain. I went to Circuit City on Sunday to purchase a new computer, and that has to be the fastest I’ve even bought anything electronic. In and out in less than 20 minutes. The new computer, who has not told me its name yet, isn’t so bad…it’s just not the same, you know?

So, I’ll post some pics of the Desert Botanical Gardens when I get the chance to load my camera software and upload my pics, and I’ll fill you in more on maintenance issues when I return from my adventure on our metro transit system.

Snowmass Skiing

Well, I'm making good on my promise of more pictures. These are just a few of the many I took, but they capture some of the key moments.

This is the four of us at my cousin Michelle's favorite picture taking location. You can see Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak in the background. I think this one turned out quite nice. This is on the way up to Snowmass.

So, you walked out the door our our condo and this is what you found. Ski in, ski out access. Nice green run here to start and end the day. Look at that nice sunny weather!

At the top of the blue section, you found this view. Those are the Maroon Bells in the background. Aren't they lovely? Again, lovely sunny day. It was about 45 degrees when I took this picture. So nice.

Last run of the day Michelle, Amanda and I decided to do a hike-to blue run called Long Shot. You got to it by hiking up higher from the top of the chairlift that provided the view in the picture above. The hike was labeled "short, but strenuous". No lie. So after hiking, and then sucking air for a bit, and then taking pictures, we started down. Itw as 3.4 miles of tree skiing, powder, or packed powder (no grooming back here folks), and bumps. Even moguls. Here I am, happy to have made it 1/2 way down. (It got harder from this sign on...the smile turned into an 'oh shit' look for a while).

So, I lied above. Long shot wasn't technically last run of the day, because we were way on the other side of the mountain and had to ski back. We couldn't make it back to our ski in/out access point in one run, so we had to go halfway up the Village Express lift and come down one last time. We decided to pretend that one of us was a child so we could go through the family and kids zone and along the way we found these reindeer hanging out. My guess was they are vastly amused by the two legged, funny looking human beings throwing themselves down the hill on sticks. They were very curious, and if you came up to their fence, they came to say hi. We snapped a photo and then finished the little run down the the condo to take off our skies one last time.

It was a great trip, I can't wait to get skiing out in the mountains again. After that, anything around the midwest is going to be disappointing in its brevity.

Garden of the Gods:
On New Years Day Amanda, Michelle, and I went to Garden of the Gods with my cousins Scott and Michelle and their little one, Griffin.

As you drive in and park and begin to walk you will see the 'kissing camels'.


We walked a little farther and I decided to climb some rocks. Griffin got some help up and wasn't sure he enjoyed being that high off the ground without a proper rope and harness situation.

It didn't take long for the climbing bug to bite him thought. He just found more 'Griffin sized' rocks to boulder on.


Myself, Michelle, and Amanda pose for the camera.

Atlas's smaller cousin holds up this balancing rock normally, but wished a small break. I kindly took over.

So there you have it, a pictoral history of some of Garden of the Gods. I'll try to load up the skiing pictures in the next day or so.

Here I am

I know, I suck. It’s been ages since I’ve updated. Where have I been? Well, for starters, I’ve been in Aspen. Aspen was great fun, even if I did catch a cold. We spent New Years Eve in Colorado Springs, listening to some cover band at an Irish Pub that was in love with Green Day and the like. Still, they were really fun to watch. We also played pool and went to Old Chicago for Nachos. Busy night. The next day Troy went skiing at Loveland (the ski area, not the town…he drove to the town first though, a bit out of his way. The town has good shopping though). The girls and I along with Michelle, Scott and Griffin went to Garden of the Gods. So gorgeous and the weather was perfect. A balmy 55, though the wind was a bit strong.

We had four days of skiing. The first run my brother takes me on is this black, powdery, bumpy monstrosity. I haven’t skied much but groomed black out west, and have little experience with powder (plus my skies are NOT powder skies), and I dislike bumps. Still, I made it down alive and then yelled at him. He’s just lucky I can’t keep up with him on skies (unless it’s groomed, and then I beat him in a fair race). He didn’t spend much time on groomed, so he was free from any pummeling I could have wished to inflict. Still, by the third day I was seeking the black runs, as long as they were shorter and within the realm of my abilities. No broken bones were created, and none were desired. Amanda, Michelle and I did a hike-to blue run as our last run out there. There are not many hike-to blues in my experience, but this one rocked. It was 3.5 miles of backcountry tree and bump and powder skiing at steepnesses that I was comfy with. Great bump practice too. Grant it; around here that same run would have been labeled double black. Hehe.

The drive out and back were mostly without hitches, Troy’s car was hit – bumped – in the bank parking lot before we left, but the damage was all cosmetic. It was right by the gas tank, so a near thing, but we could still drive it out there. We would have been in a tight spot if it was not drivable. There was a small hiccup when it was realized that a small ‘necessities’ bag was forgotten in my apartment, but shampoo is easier to replace than ski boots.

The week between that and this was spent getting ready for school, going to meetings and relaxing and getting over my cold. This week was the first week of classes. I have only had one, because I have the majority of my classes on Monday, and Monday was a holiday. Next week is going to be painful as far as classes go. Eep.

Later next week I will be going to Arizona to interview for a job with Intel. I have made it through the phone interview stage, and now move on to the ‘in your face’ stage. So Thursday and Friday of next week I’ll be in Phoenix, interviewing, seeing the town, and trying to decide if I like the southwest enough to relocate. The other option is the Northwest, Oregon, of which I am far more keen to go – simply because I have been there before and loved it. Even the rain (which it didn’t do much of while we where there.)

So I’ll try to post more often again, now that I’ve started, it should be easy. Right?

The Three Hundredth Post!!!

Can you believe it, I've been posting to this blog for three hundred posts. Whee.

I had great aspirations on what I was going to do with this post. Then today got long and drawn out and I had all sorts of other errands to run, and packing for the Aspen trip, and...

I'm super tired, but Troy and Amanda and Michelle are on there way tonight to try to beat the storm...it's already snowing out, so they didn't, but they will be here sometime between now and 4AM. I am going to get zero sleep tonight.

On top of that, I haven't finished packing. Par for the course, hey Rachel? I'm mostly done. I think I'm over packing, but I can't tell. Eh. Now, to figure out shoes, brush teeth, contacts out, and bed.

Good night all, and I'll blog about my super nice Christmas and such when I get back.

It's Over

My second to last semester in grad school is over. Whew. For a while, I wasn't sure how I was going to get everything done. Still...here I am, it's 1 am on Thursday, December 22nd, and I'm just about to go to bed. I finished up on Tuesday morning actually, but then my computer crashed again so I haven't had a chance to blog. Plus, I've been knitting.

I started packing for going home at midnight...typical Tricia Style. I can't pack before midnight, right Rachel? It would be completely going against tradition. I'm mostly packed, but I think I'll think about the rest of the stuff in the morning.

Happy Christmas and all the rest to all, and I'm sure I'll have an update for you when I return from GB. May it snow for you on Christmas/holiday of your choice morning, and may you travel safetly to any destination you choose to travel to...even if it's just from the kitchen to your own dining room.

Knit Knit

From now on, and especially when I'm procrastinating, you may here the distinctive click-click of knitting needles eminating from my abode. Why, you ask? Because Wednesday night Katie and I took a knitting class at Michaels. In two hours they taught us to cast on, knit, perl, and bind (or cast) off. Now I just have to remember each of the steps, and get good at them. For awhile I forgot how to perl and was gettting pretty frustrated (this was yesterday...day 1.5 of knitting experience) Last night I got Katie's extra needles...I have to go buy some...and retaught myself so I could do a good job on my current project. I have no idea what said project will turn out to be. If I get sick of it, it'll be a odd shaped pot holder. Otherwise, I'm voting for scarf. Tee hee. I'll do a couple of scarves and then I'll move on to something harder, like hats and mittens and maybe even sweaters.

In fact, I think I hear my needles calling me now...

SNOW!!!!

Whee! Yay!!! **Happy dance**

I love snow, I do! Even when it makes driving a nightmare and gives me a sore back from the shoveling I do, because shoveling = money off rent, and snow is wonderful! There are a plethora of exclaimation points in this post. Oh well. I just shovel anywhere between 3 and 5 inches of the white stuff, depending on what the total is and where it had drifted. Some drifts were over a foot high. Luckily for me, the snow is mostly fluffy currently, or that would have been much harder work.

It's still snowing, I'll have to shovel again tomorrow and probably friday **rubs hands with glee**

Happy Snowy morning all!

They're Back!

Remember our furry four-footed little friends from last winter? No? Perhaps this will help you to refresh a year-old memory...




Yeah, that's them. Maybe not an exact portrait. Still. It's winter, there's snow outside so the mice came inside. We have no idea how many there are...only that it's a relatively (as in the last day or two) problem. We intend to be very proactive about this situation. Traps will be placed tonight. We're going to start with snap-traps. I hate the sticky ones because I feel like the poor little rodents suffer too much with them, but I'll break them out if I have to. Absolutely no poison...all it does is draw more of the wee beasties into the house with the promise of accessable food. Oh, and then they go and die in unaccessable walls and stink.

Day one of the battle: Mice - 3 items of food. Humans - 0

The home stretch

It really must be getting close to end of semeseter time. I'm sitting here blogging after a long day of homework/tests/etc, eating ice cream (peanut butter cup) at my compute, and making lists.

For instance, today I:

1. Did laundry
2. Paid rent
3. Finished my last biostatistics homework set
4. Started and finished Environmental Chemistry HW #6
5. Started and almost finished EC HW#7
6. Started EC final exam (really a doozy, worked for 1.5 hrs and still not even done with #1 part a.
7. Went to the bank
8. Went to the grocery and bought food
9. Did some mentoring (and reviewed my geometry)
   
10. Worked on my part of the EC paper
11. Worked a bit on my Policy paper (mostly rereading the assignment and brainstorming, but that counts!!)
12. Reorganized the fridge, food cabinet, cupboard above the stove, and tea/cereal cupboard.
    
13. Ate (very important)
14. Did dishes

Pretty long list, huh? See, if I list out exactly what I did, then even though I'm nowhere near done I still get a mini sense of accomplishment. #12 is something that happens around finals time for me. I get into organization in a big way. Something about organizing helps me focus. Maybe it's that "I'm done and it looks good" feeling I get at the end. Or perhaps it's just a leftover from my procrastination past? Or maybe ANYTHING is better than the work required in the last week(s) of class? I don't know. I do know the kitchen looks lovely and I'm not going to be able to find anything in the morning.

Snow.*.*..**

It's been snowing for almost a week straight. If I heard someone say that, I would begin to picture the blizzards of yore, with their 30 inches of snow dropped, near white-out conditions, and traffic nightmares. Or perhaps of being trapped in the house for so long you are left with only ramen to eat, or your left shoe, and you are seriously considering how boiled left shoe would taste, perhaps with salt or lemon-pepper seasoning. The 30 inches of snow is not the case here. We've had snow off and on since Monday late-night, and have seen maybe 3 inches of the white stuff fall onto our porches, yards, or cars. All of said snow has been either the fluffy white flakes that resemble small cottonballs floating towards earth, or the really itty-bitty shiney crystals that make everything sparkle in the light of the street lampposts.

It has been a long time since we've had appreciable snow before Christmas, it seems. I seem to recall only one or two truely "White Christmas" situations in the last ten years or so. Should I blame global warming? Perhaps there is a global shift of jet streams? El Niño? La Niña? I have no idea. I do know I'm thrilled to look out my window and see the white stuff silently falling from the sky. The world outside my window is grey, it's about sunset now and we've almost entered that surreal time where light and almost light combine to create a bit of a dream world. I almost don't mind having to sit at my computer all night working on my homework.

I can only hope and pray that the current pattern of snow holds all winter. Maybe not snow every day, because I really like the cold sunny days of winter too, but nothing like last winter where we had a few ice storms, one major (6 inches) storm of snow, and a bunch of piddly little half inch falls in between intense, bitter cold. I want at least 4 to 10 big snowstorms this winter, including one where over 2 feet of snow falls in one stretch. I want fluffy snow, and small glitter-snows, and heavy, wet, snowball snows. I want to have to shovel a bunch (this has nothing to do with the fact that I'm paid to shovel :P ) I want a real midwest winter with lots of snow and stories that I can pass along to future generations. Sorry if I'm waxing maudlin on everyone, but I remember when I was 6 it snowed so much (and lots of blowing too) in 'ole GB that the snow drifted right up to our roof in the back of our house. My dad went outside and packed down the snow into a suitable sledding run off the roof and through the yard. My little brother and I played quite happily back there. We built a snow-dragon we could ride and had many an adventure on him. He was quite happy to carry us wherever our imaginations could take us. In the front yard, there was so much snow built up at the end of the driveway from both our shoveling and the street plows, and compacted in such a manor, that we had two snow forts. One by the mailbox, and one on the other side of the driveway. Sometimes they were castles and sometimes they were battlements, where our snow missles could be hurled with enthusiasm if not percision.

I'm not too old to play those games again! I want to build a snowman in the front yard even bigger than the last one Katie and I made in GB where we needed to devise a leverage system to place his torso and head upon his lower section. I want to put on boots and snowpants and go to como park and build snowforts with friends, complete with snowmissles. Maybe we could even coax the snow dragon to return amongst us. I want to put same snowpants and boots (and jacket and hat and mittens and scarf, of course) on and go sledding down a hill on a 2 dollar generic sled. I want to be able to USE my skis this year. I realize that all this wishing and hoping is going to cause royal traffic problems, so I hope that all people out there realize that snow means slow (see the resemblance of words there? I don't believe it's a coincidence.) That way everyone can enjoy the snow and we won't have to worry about accidents. Mostly, I'd like to go home for Winter holidays, and wake up to celebrate with my family to snow falling in an already white yard. Maybe this is the year.

Car Update:

My car had a bad battery cables and corrosion of the battery. The nice Saturn doctors...er...mechanics have made her better and she's staying with my parents for a few weeks. I have Mom's car, which is nice because it has magical door-opening buttons. Still, no offence to the Century, but it's a boat (that has a better turning radius than the Super Saturn).

Thanksgiving was great. I went home Wednesday morning and then up to DC wed. evening. We (mom, dad and I) spent Wed/Thursday at the condo w/ my Aunt and did turkey dinner there. We played in the pool and hot tub, went down the water slide, and even all played volleyball in the water. Mom and Dad played too, and dad stubbed his toe and probably broke it :(

Friday Mom and I braved the malls to get a few deals, and then made cookies all afternoon. That will probably become tradition (the cookies, not the shopping -eep!)

Saturday we had my mom's family over for dinner - ham and cheesy potatoes because we were all tired of turkey. Saturday evening I went over to visit Jenni and Chad and tried my hand at that guitar game they like to play. I wasn't overly bad for one try and I see how it could be addicting and tiring.

Sunday I went to church and had dinner with my parents and then drove back in the rain and fog in a different car. By the time I was back to MN the Century and I had figured eachother out.

Hm, now my tummy is crying for leftovers, I had better answer it's call.

VROOOOM....putt putter....click hiss...cough arrrggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

Just when I thought my problems had ceased, it being Thanksgiving Holiday and all, I get a nasty wake up. My lovely Super Saturn is at it again. She loves a good practical joke, but this one is going to cost me. Last year about the middle of winter, she started playing the ‘lets turn off all the gages and then turn them back on while Tricia is driving’ game.** Not so amusing, but as she only did it occasionally I learned to live with it. At the beginning of this winter she decided to begin the game again, but like a two year old with a new toy (or the box from said toy) she will not give it up. It’s exasperating I tell you! Yesterday she played the game 10 times in the time it took me to get from my house to the highway (roughly 5 minutes) and then a few times on the highway just for good measure. During one of the highway times, she actually shut off the radio along with the gages. It only shut off for a moment, coming back on with the rest of the stuff, and the time was short enough that I didn’t lose my programming. Still, we are getting progressively more extensive in the game.

**Explanation of game: Super Saturn takes the gas gage, the odometer, speedometer, and tachometer and turns them off, they all go to zero as though the car was not on (we are usually driving while she does this, but she will do it in the parking lot while warming up just to practice). Then the brake like comes on and a second or so later (after they have slowly floated from wherever they are to zero) they will go back to normal. The car clicks and all is normal until the next instance of the game. Occasionally if she is feeling really fiesty, she will turn off the cruise control when you turn on your blinker. She's only tried that version of the game twice though, and we hope it doesn't catch on. It would be damned pesky trying to change lanes if you constantly had to adjust the cruise...

I called Saturn today to find out just what the game might be called. After all, I have to drive to Green Bay tomorrow for the Holiday and don’t want the game to progress to “sitting on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck”. The nice mechanic told me it’s probably not a fuse or short (like I thought) but rather loose or corroded battery wires. Hmm, now this I can probably deal with, yes? I didn’t get a chance tonight to go look at the cables, and it’s dark now. I will take the car into the Saturn Mechanic in GB to have them fix it permanently, but tomorrow before I leave on my journey I will check the oil and the cables. I just hope if they are lose they don’t require a metric socket to fix. I have English ones, but the Super Saturn is eclectic and cannot decide if she prefers the English or metric system of measure. Consequently, as I recall there are both types of bolts under her hood.

Oh, and before you yell at me for looking under her hood, I had her permission, and she had her Serpentine Belt on!

A girl sits at a desk, sneezes, and looks around. “Where has the last hour gone? Have I really been checking email, writing email and going though various paperwork for that long?” she asks herself? The clock doesn’t lie, and neither does her empty tea cup. Sighing, she gets up to go start more water in the cheap coffee maker that serves as her quickie version of a tea kettle. It’s fast and easy, but it doesn’t whistle when it’s done. Disappointing, that. So is drinking tea out of a cup that isn’t the normal ‘tea mug’. That’s what happens when one leaves one’s mug in an inaccessible location. Resourcefulness, that’s the ticket. Back at the computer, the girl looks over those things in front of her. A stack of CD’s recently ripped to her computer for her listening pleasure sits in one corner while a pile of scrap paper for taking notes on, including one full of notes from this afternoon’s environmental chemistry exam, has exploded over the writing surfaces. “It was good of me to leave them on the desk this morning, where they’d really help me study.” She thinks sarcastically at herself. “Not that they would have done any good. They were wrong material all together. Good thing most people in the class thought the same thing. Not that the professor curves or anything, but maybe she’ll realize it wasn’t the best of tests and take that into consideration while assigning final grades.”

She sighs again. The stapler, stack of post-it notes, random pens, and various receipts taking up the back of the desk don’t respond. The phone to her right remains silent as well. “There’s nothing for it, I guess. I’ll have to do my biostats homework. Though what’s the world coming to when you have nothing left to procrastinate with and have to do your homework?” The biostatistics texts, wisely, remain silent as well. The rest of the room beckons. A stack of papers in the corner practically screams for organization and the state of the dresser surface doesn’t even bear mentioning. A random pile of clothes on the bed needs to be sorted into the ‘laundry’, ‘clean’ and ‘wearable around the house’ categories, and then sent on to their appropriate destinations. The floor could use vacuuming and the surfaces dusting. All this she sees and dismisses with a quick glance around the room. She gets up again to see if the coffee maker has finished producing hot water for her third? cup of tea. Is it really three when it was one cup, half drank, reheated, sipped, forgotten, reheated with more water and another teabag for reconstitution, forgotten again, and reheated a last time before consumption? Who knows? All that is a travesty to the marvel that is hot tea with honey. Ah. The faithful little coffee maker has done its job and a green tea has been selected and left seeping in the kitchen. The biostats books are looking faintly miffed about their continued state of neglect. How can one student be so cruel? They were created for that single purpose, to educate and inform, and they sit dejected on the corner of the desk. They hold down the stack of scrap paper (should it be in the mind to wander), and gather dust.

Hoping to procrastinate just a little more before tackling her homework, the girl goes onto the internet to check the weather. Her favorite weather site states that tomorrow will be warmer than today was. Enough that the miniscule amount of snow that fell on Tuesday night will turn to slush, melt, puddle, churn with mud, and eventually just become a sloppy quagmire of filth. No surprise there. Fall has not yet given over completely to winter. The warm breezes vie with the icy wind and one is as likely to be hit in the nose with a snowflake as a raindrop. One dresses in layers, Alaska for the morning and Florida for the afternoon. Ok, maybe not Florida, but at least a balmy mid-to-lower Illinois. “Sheesh” The girl is now exasperated. She has plenty of good books to read, just on the shelf behind her. But her conscience states that she just finished a book and if she wants to start another, she must first at least review her biostats lesson online. She tells her conscience to get stuffed and leaves the computer yet again to go get her green tea, add honey, stir until ‘just right’ and then return to the computer.

Nothing seems right to her. She’s been doing various levels of procrastination – all useful things – for the last hour and a half, but she’s just too restless to sit down and begin work. That she is already sitting down, at the very same computer she will need to use for her homework, is irrelavant. No, it’s not so much the sitting on her back pockets that is important as the state of mental being required to begin such a dry topic as this set of biostatistics homework problems. If she didn’t want to do that, she reasons with herself, there is always the economics paper, the other biostats homework (rather un-doable until the first is completed, but it's really the thought that counts), or even more research for her Master’s project. There are many avenues open to her; she has but to choose one, set her feet upon the path, and begin. If it were that easy, noone would procrastinate, there would be no world hunger, war, or disease, and the question needed that results in an answer of 42 to the life, the world, and everything would have been determined. Another gargantuan sigh is the result of this current line of thinking, and the tea begins to be consumed; it’s a bit heavy on the honey side, but still good.

Finally, she makes up her mind. Biostats just isn’t worth doing at this juncture. The tea is hot, her mind is fairly aware and alert – though not in the mood for scholarly thought, and the bookshelf beckons. She gets up, walks over to the bookshelf to find a suitable title for her mood, and goes back to the futon, overstuffed pillows, and blanket that were her companions earlier in the evening. Sometimes, one just needs a night off.

Goin Skiing!

My bro called the other day to ask if I want to go skiing w/ him and his girlfriend and his girlfriend's sister this winter. Sure. Why not? Send me the info. Aparently my bro got the hookup for a trip through LifeStylez who hosts winter and spring break college trips. So, for a total of 348 (including all applicable taxes and fees, but not including food or transportation) I will be headed to Aspen to spend 6 nights/ 5 days at the Aspen Hotel and skiing for 4 days at Aspen/Ajax, Snowmass, Highlands, and Buttermilk. Dude, usually 4 days skiing at Aspen would be close to that. Sounds like fun to me. With driving our own car, and splitting gas 4 ways, that shouldn't be more than 50-60 bucks a person for gas, plus food for 6 days and I can pack lots of snacks and PBJ. Sweetness. Loads of fun and some QT w/ the bro and such.

Now, I just have to lose 20 to 30 pounds, get into better shape, go skiing a few times before then so I remember what to do with said long sticks attached to my legs, and find the money to pay for said trip. No worries, right?!?

I would have extended the deal out to my other skier buddies, but as it is, I have to mail this by Friday to make mine count. Next year, we'll do it again, and get all the peeps involved.

Note to self: Learn how to ski moguls.

Emotions...

I just recalled that I used to have an imood indicator on this page. It's back. Woot

Oh, and Happy Day-of-going-door-to-door-to-hunt-for-sweets.

Rustle, Rustle? Boo!

I am sitting here listing to the sound of my computer humming, the coffee maker puttering out my tea-water, and silence. The sound of silence really is deafening. Noone else in the house is home right now…

I had just started typing this entry, had a whole bunch of things to say, and was contemplating the emptiness of house and discombobulation of my thoughts when my phone rang. I just changed my ring-tone too. My phone now plays the Super Mario Brothers theme song. Bu bu bu, bu-bu BUH bu….do do do, du do do do…Well, you get the idea. Off goes the phone and I sat here and sort of imaginary-bopped my way though the beginning of board one until I decided I really should answer my phone instead of letting the board play through to Voicemail. Not only am I a geek, but I’m now in a totally different mindset that when I started this post. It was Katie on the phone, and we were discussing this evening’s entertainment. I believe it will involve some tea or hot cocoa (it’s a hard call, but if we’re baking cookies and/or eating cake, it may have to be tea to cut the sweatness). There will also be the watching of that wonderful Halloween tale - Hocus Pocus. I just love that movie. One of these days Katie, me, and one other female will have to be those three sisters for Halloween. I want to be the one who bounces around sing/saying ‘amuck amuck amuck…” Good fun.

That will have to be some other Halloween though. This year we were characters from InuYasha. I was Kagome, and Katie was Kikyo. I will add a nice picture of the two of us in all our splendid glory. We had two Halloween parties. Friday night was to go to, and Saturday night was here. Both successful I think. Katie and I took live bows as part of our costumes, and many people were impressed. I think, though, that the bows helped to confuse people as to who I was. Katie looked her part in her Hakama and Kimono, and so not many people confused her even if they didn’t know what she was supposed to be. I, however, was called Xena, Legolas, Robin Hood, and Zelda before the night was over. Only a few people recognized me as Kagome, or as someone from an Anime. I was also called Sailor Moon once, so at least that person had the right genre. Still, everyone applauded our costumes. Saturday night at our house we were joined by Miroku (aka Lance). All we needed was an InuYasha, a Sango, and a Shippo and we would have been set. I think we did just fine on our own though.

I’ll have to write more about our Halloween party here and such later. I just realized that I’m quite hungry. I am going to go get a bowl of cereal before Katie and Chris get back and then change my laundry.

Kikyo and Kagome get ready to shoot demons. In the house? Working together? Something is obviously not right here...

Here's Miroku making a play for Kikyo (don't let InuYasha see you trying that!) Kagome is holding onto Kirara for Sango, who's off finding a very big rock to hit Miroku over the head with. She's a bit jealous, you know. 

I went outside just now and it was snowing. SNOW!

I'm going to bed.