Getting ready for the trick-or-treaters tonight. DW bought some bags of candy - mostly stuff I don't really like, so it won't be much temptation. Hoping the burst of cold weather doesn't stop the youngest ones.

We survived the wet snow with no downed branches or loss of power. Feel pretty lucky given that some 3 million folks did lose power. Hope you all survived OK as well.

Hope everyone survived the snowstorm with minimal damage. No signs of it here whatsoever.

I have dipped into the Halloween candy twice in the past weeks. No urge to do so tonite - too tired. I think I will take down all the decor at around 8 p.m. (or when the kids stop coming), hand the rest of the candy over to DH, and go to bed.

I will probably not be around a lot this week - I have some major decisions to make about my life.

Have a great week all!

Dagmar

I think that storm was Noreaster and moved up along the coast, as we didn't get any snow here in Upstate NY. Our storms generally come from the Great Lakes. My old neighborhood was blanketed. (I need to call someone at the complex & ask how the old oak trees on the green and the Japanese maple in my former courtyard are doing.)

We've had ice in the mornings. It started last Wednesday and now I'm running the car in the morning before to melt it and using my scraper on the windshield. Soon we'll garage the cars. I'll need to learn to back out of the garage, as I don't want to lose a rearview mirror and it's kind of a tight fit, what with so many of my former salvaged possessions boxed up in storage there on pallets.

We won't have trick-or-treaters. My mother stopped participating the year my father was dying of stomach cancer and has never resumed the practice. Also it got too expensive. We were distributing candy to crowds. We're in an area that seems to serve as an incubator, maybe because it's a block away from the school campus, where there's an elementary, middle school and high school, and so very handy for kids to actually walk to school & after-school stuff. Also, as I've mentioned, the "farm kids" get brought into the village by their families, since they live too far from neighbors to walk door-to-door. So we used to easily get upwards of 200 kids on Halloween night. (And there would have been more if we didn't turn off the light & barricade the door after a certain hour.)

My personal brush with disaster at the end of the summer has given me a taste for horror movies. I've found myself riveted by them for the past week. Anything where something horrible has happened and people are displaced and in doubt that they're going to survive all the stuff thrown at them. Okay, it doesn't take a therapist to point out why I can relate to this.

We may or may not have trick or treaters. I'm prepared, although DH "discovered" the stash in the garage fridge yesterday. He left them alone.

That storm was a doozy. A taste of things to come? After last year, you'd think Mother Nature would give you a break. We have had two years of more than normal rainfall in the winter and would like a break to play more golf!

We did play golf on Saturday. It was beautiful, although we're all a bit rusty.

Dagmar~take care.

Saef~I hate tight fits in garages. We have a 3-car garage and DS's car fits in the single door (DH and I share a double door). The single door is so hard to navigate--and to make things worse, the driveway curves on that side!

Saef, glad you didn't get snowed in or anything (although you might later this winter...which would be an excellent time to try out Pop Pilates on YouTube!).

Allison, how is Chico doing? Any news from your vet?

Hi Dagmar and Bill!

We hosted our cooking club for our Halloween party Saturday night. Ate too much, as usual, but no damage on the scale this morning so it's all good. For me it's no big deal, but DH's blood sugar is much more sensitive than mine so I need to make sure he doesn't eat too much junk food or else he gets super grumpy. He doesn't know where I hid the Halloween candy so hopefully he won't get into it before tonight (he's working from home). I plan to measure out 10 pieces for each of us and then lock the rest away from him.

Speaking of DH, he took second in his age group at a 5k on Saturday! He won a free pair of nice socks. Of course then he decided to go for a long run on Sunday anyway, even though I told him he hurt himself last time he went for a long run the day after a race, but he insisted, then he ended up hurting himself, and now is grumpy. I'm sure he'll be fine by next week.

We are going to Washington DC this weekend (meeting my parents there). I'm excited! I hope my folks weren't too upset by bad weather -- we were expecting DC would still be warm-ish this time of year, not snowing! Oh well, I think we'll spend most of our time indoors in museums anyway. Hopefully Carter will be okay having a sleepover and my in-laws' house with his buddy Ms. Booboo.

In other news, my phone died again, the exact same way it had died before. I drove over the to the store to complain about it. They wanted to charge me another $20 for shipping to send me a replacement of the same phone. Now that I had the phone fail the same way twice I don't want it anymore! So I asked the guy, "What's the cheapest phone you have?" "$20." So I am now the proud owner of a brand new super cheap phone which hopefully will not break. I don't want to buy an expensive phone unless I'm getting a smart phone.

Morning all,

I stuck to eating OP through my crazy work schedule last week... Thursday I was done, and I folded to stress/tiredness/PMS and ate badly for 3 days. Yesterday I was more relaxed but didn't eat so badly. Apparently I've gained the 5 lbs I lost back in 4 days. Back on track. I'm not quite "feeling" the exercise half of things yet, but I made myself healthy salads for lunches for the week, back to tracking food, have plans to make a healthy turkey eggplant casserole tonight for a few nights' dinners, and in addition to long walks with Emma will be rejoining the world of the gym. I've got several social events coming up but will keep on track.

BF and I went to friend's Halloween-themed birthday bash Friday night, and Saturday went on the local graveyard tour to benefit the historical society. It was pretty neat. Locals actually dress up as people buried in the graveyard and tell their stories. A few are scary/sensational, as one woman murdered her husband and we have one gunslinger who ran with Jesse James buried here, but others are more "normal" and were people who helped shape the town and have things named after them today. I was a ceiling fan and BF dressed up as a dirt bike rider (I call this cheating - he does ride dirt bikes, so he just put his gear on). We don't have trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood so tonight will just be business as usual.

My parents are without power and tell me they got 14-16" of snow. Yikes! I hope the power comes back on soon for everybody.

Allison, I hope Chico is doing ok.

Have a good week all!

What did I say?

Jk... I'm sure everyone's really busy.

"Back on the wagon Monday" proved a bit harder than usual. I did really well getting in my exercise yesterday, but had some trouble with office snack muchies (Reese's and pretzels) yesterday afternoon even though I wasn't hungry. I tried hot tea but it didn't work. I'm planning on going to the gym at lunchtime today. Hopefully that will keep me in check.

I'm sad because my sister, her DH, and niece were supposed to visit me in two weeks. She told me yesterday that they can't come right now bc her DH's boss wouldn't give him the time off. Then I talked to my Mom last night. They are still without power. Now I'm having a "I miss my family and don't like living so far away" couple of moments. I will see everyone at Christmas, that's not too far away, right? And yikes, I need to get started on my holiday shopping! (No, this was not why I ate pretzels and Reese's - that was genuine boredom.) I think a Skype date this weekend is in order.

Jessica, it sounds like your dinner club has really become a fun social event for you and DH! Do you feel like you've made some friends through it (as I recall that was why you joined)? Enjoy your trip to DC. Sorry your phone died.

Saef, yikes, trick or treating in your neighborhood sounds brutal. I can see why you relate to horror films right now - maybe best to just try and avoid them? I'm not saying you should avoid the problem at the root of it (obviously you're not and you can't), but if it just brings up more negative feelings you don't need more of those right now.

Allison, how is Chico?

Dagmar and Bill, how was trick or treating at your houses?

Actually, what you said was very interesting to me, Megan, and I'm sorry I didn't speak up sooner to say so. I **loved** the idea of this -- it's like a living, dramatized version of the "Spoon River Anthology" --- and was rather envious of you for having this experience. I mean, I'm into antiques and history and I LOVE THIS STUFF. I wish one of our local historical cemeteries had thought of doing something similar using maybe students at the drama dept at the university or maybe local actors at Syracuse Stage.

The weird thing is, I find the apocalyptic horror movies somehow comforting. My mother's "comfort" TV is reruns of "Little House on the Prairie." (Which makes me gag inwardly, it is so very saccharine, usually centering on children being threatened. Talk about over-easy emotionality and drama.) My comfort TV this season is probably going to be "The Walking Dead."

I'm still waiting to hear from the vet on Chico. The good news is that he doesn't seem to be bothered by it and the liquid they pulled out of the outside lump did not return. The bad news is that the inside lump is still as big (so I'm thinking they ought to drain that one, too) and it's really warm, so I'm thinking it is infected. I called the vet yesterday and was on hold for a long time only to get the message that the results are not back from the lab yet. I told the vet to call me on my cell, but she always calls home. I had forgotten the code on my answering machine to be able to pick up messages away from home, but last night I finally got around to setting up my voice mail through the cable company. Now I'll get an email when I get a message at home and I can retrieve that anywhere, so not I'm set.

I was hoping to get my new dishwasher installed today, but no one called to schedule it, so I don't know when it will come. (sigh)

DH and I are meeting with our broker today. A few months ago, he broke ties with Merrill Lynch and moved to Hightower via Charles Schwab. We went with him, of course, and that meant moving our corporate account to Charles Schwab. But we weren't able to move the company's 401k due to some sort of problem. So we're meeting today to go over what needs to be done to move the 401k stuff over by year end. I hope it isn't too much work.

Meanwhile we're getting a little work done at the house. I've always hated the lights in the corner of my kitchen. They put two different kinds in--thre LED lights over the "bar" area and two fluorescent ones closer to the sink. The florescent ones aren't as bright and that's where I do most of my prep work, so we're having the electrician and cabinet maker come over and install the LED lights. While they're here, we'll see if they can install a plug on the other side of my island as well. At the time we didn't think we'd need one on that side and opted not to do it and as soon as we moved in, we realized how beneficial it would be to have one there.

Ah, Halloween. I bought 18 Reese's regular sized candy to hand out. We have six kids in the neighborhood and we never really know if they'll trick or treat or not. I was home, all prepared and DH got home and saw two of them out with one of their dads and DH asked him if he was coming to our house and the guy was all wishy-washy and wouldn't commit. What? How weird. Anyway, we got zero trick or treaters. So around 9 PM I gave a candy bar to DS and DH and took one for myself. I should have split it with DH instead. But EEEEWWWWW gross! The first one was fine but while eating the second one I realized how sickly sweet they were. I think I learned my lesson. No more candy for me!

Hi everyone!

Megan-- how did you dress up as a ceiling fan??

We saw some very interesting costumes at the party we went to Saturday night. I always dress what I consider risque (I was a kitty this time), but my costume is always one of the tamest there. You see the most interesting costumes!!

We dressed Jozi and Dewey up as matching hot dogs. Jozi was too excited (they both were but it is hard to handle 125 pounds!), so she had to go back in the house. Dewey, dd and I stayed outside to meet trick-or-treaters. Dewey barked and growled at the first few, but by the end of the night he was enjoying it. We had quite a few kids but we still have way too much candy left. We also gave out play-doh and most of the kids seemed very excited about that.

My weight is up-- hopefully temporarily-- but I want to get it down before we go to Disneyland on Friday. Dh and I are chaperoning dd's choir trip for the last time (she is a Senior). Saturday night we are booked at Goofy's Kitchen which has a buffet with all sorts of BAD stuff including incredible desserts (from what I hear). Hopefully my walking there will somewhat offset any bad eating I do. We're due to come back Sunday afternoon and dh will have to leave from LA for a business trip, so I can always make the gym Sunday evening.

Hi to everyone else!!

Good morning! Already a busy week here - I've got some catching up to do.

We had about 25 trick or treaters once everything was said and done. Some came pretty late, about 9:00 pm, on the way home from other events. DSS dressed as Darth Vader - that was a lot of fun.

Megan - it is hard being so far away from your family, I know. I lived in North Carolina for a while and moved back to Georgia for mainly that reason. Now I'm close enough to drive down for visits but far enough away not to just pop in. I like that.

to everyone!

Michele, I was a ceiling fan in the sense that I was a fan of ceilings. I made a sparkly poster that said "GO CEILINGS!" and pinned it to my shirt, held pom-poms, and kept talking about how great ceilings were. Very few people got that I was actually a "ceiling fan", they just thought I was a ceiling cheerleader. Jozi and Dewey sound very cute! Did you take any picture? I would have liked to come up with a costume for Emma, but knew there was no way she would tolerate it. Your choir trip w DD sounds fun. Enjoy the time w DD and DH!

Allison, have you talked to the vet yet? It's such a pain when you've got to play phone tag. In the future can you forward calls to your home phone to your cell phone? Hoping a simple drain will fix this and it's minor.

Saef, lol, whatever floats your boat and makes you feel good! If horror shows make you feel good, watch them like crazy! I've never liked gore but have gotten into Dexter and True Blood - I guess I can ignore the blood and focus on the plot. I know the gore isn't real, but I've just never liked it. Lately I've been watching the cheesy "McLeod's Daughters" from Netflix, an Australian show that I think I really like bc I spent a semester in Australia in college and fell in love with the country. It's not as cheesy as Little House, though, at least I don't think so.

This week is definitely a battle for me. I start every morning off and make it through lunch eating OP, but afternoon and evening I veer off a bit. It's not bc I'm hungry or not eating enough, etc. it's boredom & temptation BLTs. I've been making my planned workouts & walks w Emma. Little extra stuff to do on top of the usual (oh right I have choral rehearsal, my friend asked me to make brownies for 80 for his catering, posting posters for my theatre group) are cutting into my sleep time and that is really not acceptable. Tonight should be better and I will go to bed at a reasonable time. And I will keep battling.

I finally got the call from the vet at 8 PM last night. The fluid is not joint fluid and it is not due to an infection. She says it's from inflammation so they're prescribing an anti-inflammatory for him. I'm a little worried, though. The one lump, which they drained, is starting to fill up again. I told her this and she thinks the anti-inflammatory will stop this and eventually his elbow should return to normal size. She doesn't want to drain either lump any more because there is the risk of introducing an infection that way. So, I'll go get the prescription today and get him started on that and keep an eye on him. She says if it gets worse to call her.

I'm starting to fall into that fall food rut. It's cooler which means I don't WANT salad. I want warm, creamy, oozy food. You know. Cheese. Not lettuce. I think I need to do better meal planning and get those lower cal/fat recipes out again.

Allison, I know about fall food. Soup or stew and something cinnamony baking in the oven.

I love fall food.... I need to find some nice soup ad stew recipes for my crock pot.