Happy Halloween!

It's halloween and I'm at work. Luckily they don't really do costumes here, so I didn't have to straddle the line of wanting to go along vs. wanting to retain some of my personal dignity. We are having a potluck though, and everyone put their dishes out on the table when they got to work, so it basically turned into a no-holds-barred all-day graze. I made vanilla cupcakes (from scratch, thankyouverymuch) and stuck little candy corns on top to make them festive. They turned out really well but I was beat out for most popular potluck dessert (unofficial) by a plate of peanut butter brownies that was gone by 10 am. They were some damn good brownies, but I can't help but feel sorry for my brave little cupcakes sitting out there. Perhaps this afternoon will bring on some increased dessert traffic. In the meantime, it's a good opportunity for me to try to appreciate the success of the effort I made without basing it on other people's evaluations of my work. Personal growth is fun!

Tonight is our first halloween in the new neighborhood so initially the plan was to use this day to win over the local children and become the cool fat ladies who give out the best candy instead of the grumpy fat ladies who get mad when a basketball hits the side of our house, but T and I decided instead to just boycott halloween altogether. We are going to shut the dogs in the back bedroom, turn of all the lights, and go see Harry Potter at the Kennedy School instead. I wonder if kids still throw eggs or soap windows like they supposedly did in the olden days...if so, we are so screwed.

Yay! I just checked back and there were only three cupcakes left, so now I am basking in my externally-affirmed baked good awesomeness. Screw personal growth! I know, I know...just kidding. :) I'll work on it...

We are moving T's stuff this weekend. It's going to be so strange to come home and not see her every day. My challenge is to try to enjoy the time by myself, really find things I enjoy doing, and get this damn house in shape. I guess that's multiple challenges. Anyway, the point is, I want to actually start DOING something with my life and not just duck and cover until it's all over.

More as it happens...

C

Check it out!

I finally listed a few of my necklaces on Etsy! Check them out in the 'Stuff I made' section on the right.

The latest

Work has stepped up a little bit. I am now taking calls from the childcare centers as well as the high school students, so my call volume has gone way up. It's fun to have a challenge again, but pretty stressful because there are a lot of things I don't know yet about the software the centers use. I'm learning, though. It's only Wednesday and I feel a lot more comfortable answering the center calls than I did on Monday. I have been stressing about this added responsibility for a couple of weeks now, so it is nice to just be in the thick of it and not worrying about it anymore. This is the first job where I've actually been able to use all of my experience from Turner, and it's nice to already have some of the answers because a lot of the applications and configurations that are used here are the same as Turner was. It should only be a few months before I have all the answers and can be a know-it-all again. I can't wait!

Running feels like a million years ago. I still get the Runner's World quote of the day email every day and I still plan to get out there and get started again, but it's just not a priority for me right now. I will probably get to biking before I get back to running again, though I have faith that my interest will come back around to those things eventually.

I've been knitting a little. My mom brought over some yarn that she wasn't going to use and I have been using that since Tater virtually destroyed my yarn stash last Spring. I'm thinking maybe I'll start an afghan for myself. I have a notoriously short attention span for knitting projects, but I figure if I can do it in knitted squares then each square can be whatever stitch or yarn I'm into at the time and it won't get boring. Also, since it's for me, I can take my sweet time in finishing it and only use the colors and yarns I love. Project!
That's all for now...just updates.

Here comes the rain again

Work has been slooooooooooow today. So slow that if I weren't the only person doing my job, I would be worried about being let go. Last week there were two of us doing this job, but the other girl came in late on Friday, couldn't log into her computer, thought it was a big conspiracy, that the powers that be were trying to tell her something, and just left. It turns out the powers that be weren't all that happy with her performance anyway, so they took the opportunity to fire her. It was an odd day. At least I think that's what happened. I've been sick and on medication for the past week, so maybe I just hallucinated all that. A lot of my coworkers have been sick lately as well, to the point that I remarked last week that it felt a little like the beginning of The Stand, when everyone starts to get the superflu and die. Thankfully, nobody has died here yet. I would hate for this to be the time that my overactive imagination is actually correct. I mean really, if everyone died, I'd have no one to say 'I told you so' to. So here's hoping it's just a tenacious bug.

The weather is starting to change here in Portland, and I think everyone is a little gloomy about it. We basically have two seasons here. One is warm and sunny, the other, cold and rainy. There is almost no transition between them either, in fact the weather guys on TV can usually pinpoint when the 'last nice weekend' is going to be before the rain sets in. I don't guess I really mind the rain, though it does get a little gloomy with the lack of sunshine and the constant sogginess. Now that I've lived here for over a year, I suppose it's time to really consider getting some actual raingear. I mean, I have an umbrella, but no raincoat and no boots. How have I lived in the PNW for over a year and not taken the opportunity to buy rain boots with cute little duckies or something on them? The mind boggles.

I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind this weekend. I liked it a lot and it really made me think that I have probably missed out on some really great movies, books, tv shows, etc because I am so resistant to things that have good buzz or that are reviewed well by the popular media (or, sadly, that people I know and love have said good things about). So I've decided to make catching up into a little project. I can already think of a few things I've never read or seen that have been critically acclaimed and universally beloved so I am starting a list over to the right. If you can think of any books, movies or tv shows that I have just GOT to experience, add a comment to this entry and if I haven't read or seen them already, I will add them to the list. Thanks y'all!