Sandra Tayler

The Chaos of Candy which is called Halloween officially began today. Because of the teachers’ convention which begins tomorrow, today was the last day of school in October and therefore costume & party day. I helped out for the party in Kiki’s classroom. Gleek and Patches came along too because in a room full of sugar-high fourthgraders the amount of chaos they added was negligible. This should tell you something about the experience.

All of the kids were in costume. Lots of cute. Some cute trying to be scary. Some grubby trying to be cute. But the most frightening costumes of all were the young girls dressed up as Paris Hilton. Creepy.

Tonight was also our church Halloween Carnival. The teens put on Carnival games for the younger kids. Prizes and candy are handed out like . . . well . . candy. My kids love this annual event. Even Patches loved it. He kept coming to me yelling “Canny!” with his fist around some treasure and then demanding “Op-en!”

We brought them home wired & tired with buckets full of candy. We then sorted through it. They each got to keep 10 pieces of candy and I bought the rest from them. This way I don’t have to make extra trips to the store. The kids get enough candy to be happy and money with which they can buy something else. And no one gets sick. (we hope) This ritual has become an accepted part of the holiday and will be repeated after trick-or-treating.

For tonight they’re all abed. Tomorrow I don’t have to make them get up early. I don’t have to make them get ready for school. I don’t have to make lunches. I think I like days off as much as the kids do. By Tuesday I’ll be ready to have them go back, but a few days break will be nice.

I’ve been pondering lately whether the quality of my Live Journal has suffered lately. Quantity has measurably fallen off, that is obvious, but has the shift in my lifestyle affected my ability to write?

To answer my own question, no I don’t believe the ability is affected at all, but my motivations are different and that has to come through in my writing or lack thereof. On the other hand the principles around which I base my life haven’t changed at all and so any changes in me are surface changes therefore not affecting my writing.

Gah. I can’t be my own observer. Sometimes I wish I could. Mostly I think what a bad idea it would be if I could observe myself objectively. I’d spend all my time observing and studying. I’d never get anything actually done.

Those are just idle, tired thoughts anyway.

The Day of Vomit failed to materialize. Apparently it was upset tummy rather than stomach flu. This qualifies as really good news. I already have more stomach flu stories than anyone could want to hear.

Much of today was frittered away at popcap.com where they have addictive little games to get hooked on. Insaniaquarium caught me in it’s clutches and now when I close my eyes I see fish and coins and stars. I need to go to bed. Tomorrow is the Day of the Halloween Parties because the kids have the rest of the week off and the church party is scheduled for the same day. Sugar highs and crankies incoming. Possibly more vomit too. Whee?

Gleek and Patches share a room. This means that in order to avoid them playing and keeping each other awake I frequently put Gleek to sleep in my bed and move her after both kids are sleeping.

Tonight as I picked up Gleek to move her, she made a funny grunting noise. I got her into her bed, tucked her in, and then heard that sickening “Hoooork” which means I now have vomit to clean up. Hot Chocolate & noodles. Whee.

I’ve changed sheets and sponged mattress, pillow, & carpet. I’ve re-made the bed and tucked Gleek back into it with a pot handy. Now I’ve got to put Patches back to bed since the noise woke him up. And I’m contemplating the fact that earlier this evening Patches told me that his tummy is Owie.

Loads of laundry incoming.

This afternoon was filled with the joyful glee of harvest time. It began with an innocent mention of the fact of many ripe tomatos on the vines. Kiki snatched this bit of information and went a-harvesting. Patches, Gleek, Link, and a neighbor boy all went with her.

I was downstairs deep in concentration on a sewing project when I became aware of the sound of children very close to my window well. They had discovered that tomatos shoved through the window well grate made a satisfying splat sound upon landing. At first it was only rotten tomatos, but by the time I ran upstairs to call the game to a halt every tomato their hands touched was being declared “rotten”. Even the green ones.

I chased the swarm of children away from the nigh barren tomato plants, but true to the nature of most swarms, it didn’t disband, just settled in a new location. This time the focus was the Walnut tree.

For those who may not know, Walnuts form slowly over the course of the summer as green balls on the tree. These green balls are half again as large as you’d expect because there is a thick green outershell to protect the walnut shell which in turn protects the nut itself. Apparently nature herself has learned the art of over packaging. This green outershell has the ability to stain fingers and clothing black. If boiled it would probably make an excellent dye because it doesn’t wash off. Late in the summer some of these green shells turn black, soft, and squishy because small maggots have moved in to eat the outershell. Gleek calls them “cute little worms!” everyone else in the whole world calls them “EEEEEEW!”

Fortunately our walnuts are past the wormy stage. The outershells have dried and curled back and the walnuts have begun falling from the tree. Kiki discovered that shaking the tree would bring down a rain of walnuts. (Don’t get hit. They hurt!) Then the swarm would gather the walnuts and hand them to Kiki through our back window. I don’t know why the window. The door was right there. In fact they developed an assmebly line. Neighbor Boy would peel off any remaining outershell, Patches would deliver the nut to Kiki, Kiki would sit inside and place the nut into a bucket. Link and Gleek had wandered off to play something else.

I like this kind of game. Now I have a bucket full of walnuts that need to be shelled and dried so that we can use them.

I used to have largish blocks of contemplative time. Time in which I was taking care of children, but my brain could wander whithersoever it wished. I haven’t had that lately. Instead my hands and my brain are much busied with projects. Some of this is the result of the influx of yard work which was imposed by the arrival of flower bulbs in the mail. (They’re all planted now. Yay!) Some of it is the natural consequence of needing to trade some of my time in order to save money. I’m doing lots more dishes these days because I’m actually using dishes to cook stuff instead of buying convenience food. Some of it has disappeared into organization projects. I need to be organized so I know what my resources are. We have lots of useful stuff in storage, but if I don’t know where it is when we need it, we’ll have to spend money to solve problems.

Hopefully I’ll soon be through the glut of business and I’ll have more contemplative time.

Gleek has informed me that there is a bad guy named Arnon. He is the one who sneaks into our yard at night and plants mushrooms. He is also the one who puts the “ooogies” in her nose.

Just thought I’d share.

Howard came home at 11:30 pm yesterday. He and I were up until 1:30 am talking about stuff and doing some unpacking. It was fun, but I paid for it today.

I did accomplish the necessary bookkeeping, balanced all the accounts, created reports for Howard’s perusal, did budget and debt analysis, and paid bills. I’m supposed to do this every Monday so that nothing has the chance to spiral out of control. The weekly bookeeping is even more critical now that the budget has less wiggle room.

It got done and I’m beginning to see how “tight budget” is going to work for the long term.

The afternoon and evening disappeared somewhere. If anyone finds it wandering around let me know.

Early to bed tonight.