Recovery

Mark and I were pretty happy with our Halloween party. Nobody called the cops, nobody puked in our house, and it seems that all our guests made it home safely.

All that preparing though - all those nights of rolling dough, moving toys and furniture, washing platters, and creating cobwebs left me absolutely exhausted and sick as a dog. I have a bad cold and cough and my doctor put me on some antibiotics. I must admit that I added the color green to my description of my mucus in order to get the prescription. I needed to be more convincing. This is the second time in 2 months that I've been sick. No sleep!!

The party was fun and preparing for it was fun too. But now that it's over, I am dying for our house to look like Halloween does not exist - even though Halloween is tomorrow! One thing's for sure though - I will make it a point to do more fun things with Ricky this week - the poor kid was ignored so much during our preparations and shipped off to Grandma's for the weekend. Now I realize why my friends with multiple kids don't have bashes like this.

Host With an Iron Fist!!

The last few days have been really busy. We are hosting a Halloween party this weekend and have been running around like crazy people trying to get things done - food ordered, house cleaned & decorated, sugar cookies baked, etc. etc... All the time, energy, and money is spent to have one evening to just have fun with our friends. Mark and I only get less than 6 hours sleep every night up until the event and then we will be awake for over 24 hours the day/night of the party. At least that's what happened last year at the Halloween party. I just hope and pray that my mother is willing to keep Ricky til Sunday afternoon so I can at least get a few hours sleep!!

Hosting an adult Halloween party is a pretty interesting endeavor given the whole costume factor. I guess I am a big dork who enjoys having to select and put together a costume for a party. Several of our guests actually tried to get away with *not* wearing a costume and tried to see if it would be okay with us and we had to be all punk-rock about it and say, "no admittance without a costume. sorry." The purpose being that if you are in a costume and everyone else is also, then all is well. If people show up in their ordinary clothes, then you feel like a big asshole wearing a costume...whatever it may be. Mark says that we are going through a lot of trouble and spending a lot of money to have a party and the very least our friends could do is dress up for goshsakes!! I must agree... we'll have to see..

On Pursuing Pumpkins

When I gave birth to Ricky, I vowed that I would do everything in my power (and as much as my wallet allowed) to give Ricky fun and enriching experiences. This includes vacations, trips to museums, parks, playdates, and an annual trip to a pumpkin patch.

My parents never took me and my sister to a pumpkin patch and for this I do not feel like I am any less of a person because of it. But I do think it is one of those fun, family activities that lets you take some time out to enjoy the fall colors, have some fun as a family, and stuff yourself at the local Crackerbarrel restaurant afterwards.

As we did last year, this year we went to Siegel's Cottonwood Farm. Not only does it have a pumpkin patch, but a toddler train, a train for adults and kids to ride (new), hayrack rides, pony rides, petting zoo, corn maze, bouncy thing, and a big scary giant. They do a great job over there.

The three of us had a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day. Unfortunately, my camera battery died when we first arrived, and I am so pissed off that I don't even have one picture to remember this day. But I guess I can just make up for it tonight, when I videotape Mark helping Ricky carve his big pumpkin.

The Halloween Party Stalker

Mark and I are hosting a Halloween party for some of our friends. Since we will be buying and moving to my mother's house next year, this party will be our last for a while. My mom's house isn't really conducive to parties - not like our current house that has a big open basement complete with an orange funky bar.

Our friends James and Katie just moved to Hawaii. While they were living here, they hosted barbeques, halloween parties, and new years eve parties. So over the last few years we've come to be acquainted with their friends. All of their friends are so nice and we have been happy to also invite them to our own parties. Except for one person.

Katie befriended Sandra in the fourth grade. Both of their parents were also from Germany, and they seemed to have things in common. Although Katie and Sandra have become so different from one another over the years, Katie has had to keep Sandra as a friend because of their history and because their parents are such good friends.

Sandra is oh so annoying. While she starts off as nice, after a few hours the nice thing wears off and she always ends up saying really mean things. I could probably write a short novella listing all the crap she has said but I must give you one example. At one of James & Katie's gatherings, I was telling an expectant mother, Nicole, that my breasts became so large when I was nursing Ricky that I was a Double D. Sandra was passing by and overheard me say this and looked right at my boobs, laughed, and said that I didn't even look like an A cup now. I'm a B cup you bitch.

Mark and I grew tired of her a year or so ago, but she always managed to squeeze out an invitation out of us one way or another and that always left me and Mark SO incredibly annoyed.

Well this year, even though she received a verbal invitation from me at our friends wedding, I conveniently forgot to mail her an invitation. If she came to the party, that would be fine since I verbally invited her. But Mark and I weren't going to encourage her strongly by mailing out an invitation.

While I was working at the library this past Thursday night, she came to the library to seek me out. I was sitting at the desk among our CD and DVD collection, and there she was approaching me and I nearly shit in my pants.

To make a long story short, she basically came to the library to check if we were having a party or not because she hadn't received any confirmation. She remembered my work schedule - and to this I really had to pity her - who the hell takes the time to remember MY work schedule besides those it affects like my husband or babysitters? I wanted to not invite her so badly, but she was OH SO NICE that I wanted to punch her - which I did not do - but I did end up mentioning the party and UGH...inviting her butt to the party.

So she is coming to the party - through the back door - much later than the set 7pm time as her usual arrival. When I ate dinner with Mark that night after work - talking about Sandra - we just decided that this is THE very last time she will be invited to any of our parties and if anything, I suppose it will give us a lot to talk about the next day...or several days...

Recommended Reading: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

I really couldn't put this book down!! This is the story of a couple from India who move to Boston in 1968 and create a life there and have children. The book focuses on their eldest son, Gogol and his life here in the States as a first generation American.

I, too, am first generation American and although my parents came here from the Philippines, I was able to identify with many of the same issues Gogol had. Up to now, I had never encountered a book that ever really addressed issues like this - the different language spoken at home, customs, friends, dating, etc.

I was really impressed with the author's style because the book is written in third person. I would usually regard third person to be very difficult in terms of maintaining reader's interest but I was proven wrong in this case. I think my college Writing professor would be very impressed by this book too. I won't really go into a lot of detail about this book because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. All I can say is that this should be on your list of books you want to read.

Library Adventures Part 2

Yesterday will be known forever in my mind as "Gross Day" because in the 4 hours that I worked at the library, I was continually encountering gross incidents. I understand this happens once in a while when you work, but one can only take so much in a 4 hour window. Really, there were only 2 major incidents but they were pretty bad.

1. When I came to the AV desk to sit down, I noticed someone had placed an un-opened (thank god) maxi-pad on my desk.

2. A mom approached me with a book saying that her 14 year old son couldn't read the book because about 7 pages were stuck together with BOOGERS. She even fanned the pages of the book so I could see the pages stuck together. Thank god I had already eaten my lunch!

I am wondering why and how the maxi-pad managed to make its way onto my desk. I wasn't about to put it in the Lost & Found - because who would go there - inquiring with hope - that her maxi-pad would be there?

The Book of Boogers is pretty self-explanatory. You take pre-teens and they are at that stage where anything with boogers is exponentially funny. Still pretty gross. I felt bad for the person in Technical Services with the job of cleaning that up. What's next - someone wiping their butt with a book? The disrespect for books these days...

Recommended Reading: The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns

It's been a very long time since I've had the pleasure of reading a book that I couldn't put down. This happened to me while I was reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I was moved by the book so much that I tackled the book he wrote after that one titled A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I picked up these books without really knowing much about them so I will do the same for those who come across my blog and decide they want to read the books. Khaled Hosseini is a wonderful story-teller and probably one of the best I have come across in the last few years of reading fiction.

I don't really get too much time at home to read, but I was addicted to these books so much that I was "stealing reads" of paragraphs in between washing dishes, folding laundry, and other household tasks. Little Ricky's nap-time has traditionally been my short window of opportunity to tackle chores - or a shower- and I was using his nap-time to get a few chapters read.

I'm thirsting for more books that I can't put down...