HALLOWHIRLWIND
We don't get any kids here. We didn't last year so I didn't plan for it this year.  I didn't even buy anything to give out. The weather was yucky and we didn't leave the light on. Still - The Dad insisted that all the house lights stayed off.  Like I was going to answer the door anyway if the doorbell rang!  I literally ate my pork chops and applesauce by lantern light!

It's been a crazy couple days with Halloween parties and activities at work... the kids/grandkids of the staff came the other night and Lily did too - she did room visits in costume and we had our big party today.  Cindy and I did a pumpkin carving demonstration and put the pumpkins out by the entrance...

Still miss the good old days - at the house... with my mason jar lights and the kids coming to the door while we were eating my birthday dinner and RoseBud showing off her costume...

The residents just love the Lily Bud... If you didn't know it by now my puppy dog rocks. Take a look at my beautiful cowPUG here.

Happy Halloween to all and here's to the little paranoid boy that used to come to the door at Dixon House and frantically ask if there were nuts in any of our treats.  I'll forever think of you on Halloween. ;-)

A DATE TO REMEMBER
This last week of October is always active date wise... I have my parent's anniversary (25) and my mother's birthday (28) which was also a date to remember for me and DCD... You know how I like my numbers.  Then there's Halloween (31) which was usually my Birthday party/dinner while the kids were trick-or-treating...

I had to unexpectedly go into work 'till noon on Tuesday -  we had planned to get some work done at storage so we just started in the afternoon.

I brought a change of clothes with me and got naked in the car and changed into my after school clothes. We always assess the situation which involves some serious pre-planning of how we are going to move all the boxes and bins.  I'm am so not good at that so I just do what I'm told and provide the heavy lifting.  I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize that a bin makes a lovely ottoman during our breaks.

I don't have the luxury of time anymore to go through everything so some of my treasures are just being pushed to the back of the unit until I can go through them. When will that be?  I don't know.  I feel like I'm spinning when I'm there and when I think about being there. It makes me sad to just know that my things are going to be unaccessible.  I think I would be more sad if I just threw everything away. What do you do with a lifetime of stuff?  I don't have the answer.  All I can say is, even though we have way too much fun and laugh and carry on when we are at storage,  it is very unsettling and chaotic and makes me horribly depressed.  Even more than finding bins like this - labeled in my own little special way...

Getting back to my numbers, though... we found a bunch of charms in a box - some were from my mother's old charm bracelet.  A record charm with a date. I don't know what the date means... I'm thinking it was when they got engaged.  Chrissy thought it was something else - wink wink. We laughed about that and told some stories and then got back to work.

THESE ARE DAYS
We were just talking about the Graffiti Rock Challenges for some reason and, this is weird, but I often wake up in the middle of the night from a dream of me downstairs in that club in state college - it's a dream like vision of a real occurrence .. I remember a time when Bill opened for Rusted Root - was it with TGF or Shiloh - I can't even remember? I do remember everyone bouncing up and down to Send Me On My Way. I can still see it.  Those days at Nick's Fat City too.  A friend of mine gets mad and says I like the 90s channel on my radio a little too much. Those were days.  I don't think there's any shame in liking the Gin Blossoms then or now - just saying.  ;-)

Anyway,  I was driving down Fifth Avenue today and looked over and saw the City Paper box...

I was instantly transported to so many moments in time - like that show when DCD and I got serenaded when we got engaged with Bill's rendition of Sweet Thing and to that Fourth of July night with the perfectly timed spectacular fireworks to the perfectly sung chorus of Lost in America... Magical.

City Paper Article here.

CD release show info here.

Rock on, boys.

PUMPKIN DECORATING CONTEST
Each department was asked to decorate a pumpkin...

The gumball machine was ours!

THE PUGFATHER

WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?
Can't even remember what movie this was - Outbreak maybe...

and I went to the post office and saw this...

I had to make 150 copies of something and the machine stopped on me - guess how many copies were made... 126.  I swear I am not making this up. I mean, that's super weird - isn't it?

I went to that Japanese place in the mall and got take out and my order number was 126...

...and a few weeks later I got two orders for me and The Dad and the amount was 12..60.

This ambulance I was behind... look at the number on the door. 612. Come on. ;-)

Today would have been my parents 45th wedding anniversary.  They only made it to 24. She died 2 months before their 25th.

I swear I have PTSD every time I see that number - 24. One of the last texts I got from a certain someone said thanks for wasting the last 24 years of my life.  Another string of words I don't think I'll ever get over.

Over half our lives of good times and bad to come down to that one sentence.

They say sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you.

I'm not so sure about that. ;-(

OOPS!... WE DID IT AGAIN
Another day of SAP.

Storage Avoidance Procedure.

I know - again... My one day off this week and what did we do?  We went to Penn State!

This time - Behrend - to get Michael.

We went up a little early to go shopping while he was in class... it was my first time up there so I wanted to look around.  In true Jeannine fashion - yes - we stopped at the grocery store! I had to check it out and get muffins. I LOVE YOU WEGMANS!

I asked several people if they could give us some recommendations for lunch that weren't chains... weirdly no one could come up with anything. They all just raved about the big restaurants we were already familiar with. There's everything up there.  We ended up at a place in the mall. I had a really delicious club sandwich on jalapeno corn bread with roasted red pepper mayo. The restaurant was Firebirds which I've never been to one so we thought we could make an exception on our go to where the locals go/mom and pop roadtrip eating rule! The BLT salad was delicious too.

The sink was fabulous in the restaurant bathroom... as well as the tile and one little lit candle above the toilet stalls.  Seriously - check out this sink!

We finally got to Michaels - a little late because of a stop off at Marshall's to look for more unneeded Christmas houses...

I didn't get any BTW!

I love college dorm rooms.  His was pretty sparse - only one little decoration on the windowsill.

I would love to have a replica of my dorm room in a spare bedroom. I actually still have the sheets and comforter in storage so I have a good start!

I don't remember our dorm study lounges being this good looking!

Still feel a little guilty for not taking advantage of this day and cleaning out storage. Our goal was to get it down to one unit by November 1st.  That's not happening.  It was a really good road trip, though, so it was worth it!