Operation Halloween Muffin

I haven't updated in a bit. That's new. It's a little bit late for this, but here's my Halloween-and-other-things post.

Usually, I'm a HUGE fan of Halloween. This year was the first year in four that I haven't worked at a local haunted house as an actress, and I gotta say I missed it. I did get an offer to work at one in the next town over, but as I don't have a car, arranging rides to get there and all that would have been an insane stressor that I didn't have the mental capacity to handle. So instead I went home.

Halloween fell on a Wednesday this year, which is the one night a week I have to spend at work. Granted I spend a lot of time at work just of my own volition, but Wednesday is PRODUCTION NIGHT YOU BETTER BE THERE OR FACULTY ADVISORS KICK YOUR BUTT TO JUPITER AND BACK. So yeah, going to Halloween parties, trick-or-treating, or any other real celebration was out of the question for us newsies. We brought snacks and drinks and threw a party in the office, but that was it. It was nice.

The weekend before, I went home to visit my mother in middle-class suburbia. Our neighborhood back home is very nice and safe, but the terrain is very up and down. Lots of hills, which makes trick-or-treating with a child on foot not much fun at all. They get tired, cranky, etc. and start whining very early. For several years, the neighborhood policy has been to get all the dads together and take the kids on a trick-or-treating hayride. That way they get to all the houses without losing stamina. They end the night with a bonfire at someone's house, and it's a lovely affair. This year they did the ceremony on the Saturday night before Halloween, while I happened to be home for the weekend. It was cool.

My mom and I had a great weekend. We filled up two boxes for Operation Christmas Child- for those who don't know, OCC is a charity drive funded by Samaritan's Purse every Christmas. They give out shoeboxes that people fill with small or necessary items for children in need at Christmas. You pick an age range (2-4, 5-9, or 10-14) and a gender, and fill the box with items for that child. This year, my mom selected a 10-14 year old girl, and I chose a 5-9 year old boy. We went to several different stores. My little boy got a plastic dragon, an inflatable dinosaur, a slinky, a coloring book with crayons, a gummy centipede toy, a washcloth and bar of soap, a toothbrush, and assorted candy. Hopefully he'll like it, wherever he is. I'd sure like that inflatable dinosaur.

Now I'm in full Christmas mode. Anyone who's ever met me knows that I am absolutely in love with Christmas. I have a Christmas playlist on my iPod that will never be deleted, and I listen to it all year round. Red, green, and silver are in my top five favorite colors. This year, my mom told me that I'll be in charge of all the Christmas holiday preparation. She's a school librarian and will be working down to the wire this year, and since I have almost the whole month of December off, I'll be able to do all of the decorating and a good bit of the cooking. Also my brother Drake and his fiancee are coming to spend Christmas with us, so I get to play hostess for that too. Should be exciting. I'm already researching interesting ways to decorate my Christmas tree. Last year I did a criss-crossed ribbon technique with red ribbon going one way and gold going the other. Not sure what I'm going to do this year. I do think I'm going to find a homemade-ornament idea and ask Drake and his fiancee (let's call her Muffin) help me make them. We used to do it all the time as kids, homemade ornaments are special. Plus I want to have some ornaments from Drake and Muffin together.

Now you want to know why I call her Muffin. It's actually pretty funny- Drake has never been one for pet names. He and I both tend to think they're pretty stupid. Muffin doesn't mind names, but she wanted something Drake would like too. Eventually she stumbled upon 'muffin', and discovered that it was a very versatile pet name. You can use it to be sweet, to be funny, or even to be a smart-ass (which is what Drake and Muffin do most of the time). They use it to laugh at each other, it's great. "What did you do with the cookies?" "You're on a diet, muffin." "You ate them, didn't you." "Yep."

I think that's everything of relevance right now....not particularly entertaining, nor wonderfully articulate, but you know what I'm doing these days. That's something, right?