Life: It Goes On - November 1

Well, I certainly didn't mean to going blogging AWOL for the past week! Life's been busy, to say the least. After getting nothing done last weekend because of our trip, I've been playing catch up all week. Toss in birthday and anniversary evenings, Halloween, a visit to my faux granddaughter and you can imagine that the catching up's been tough.

One of Mini-me's best friends had a baby girl last week. He's one of the guys I call Mama Shepp's boys so naturally his daughter is now one of my faux grandchildren. Miss H and I enjoyed getting to love on her the other night and picking out the most girly baby clothes we could find, including a headband with a tiny pink crown on it. Not gonna lie, I can't wait to have me some real grand babies to spoil!

This Week I'm:

Listening To: A lot of different podcasts: Happier with Gretchen Rubin, All The Books! from the Book Riot crew, Freakonomics Radio, and Stuff You Should Know. For some reason I just haven't been feeling like starting a new audiobook lately. I imagine the coming week will be another week of podcasts.

Watching: The World Series (Miss H is a rabid Kansas City Royals fan and she's kind of upped our fanship as well), some Halloweenish movies, and several episodes of the 1960's television show Dark Shadows. It's so bad, it's good and I imagine I'll keep watching into this week.

Reading: I'm pretty disappointed to say that it took me a week to finish Geraldine Brooks' latest, The Secret Chord. I had expected to rip through it last weekend during our trip. I did end the week on a high note with a reread of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. Seriously, one of the all-time great short stories and one every woman should read.

Making: One last batch of BLT's with fresh-picked tomatoes, two different pasta casseroles, two different kinds of Rice Krispie treats (to say that Miss H brought home a lot of marshmallows would be a major understatement), and smoked gouda and bacon mac 'n' cheese.

Planning: Christmas card pictures today followed by a family effort on getting my basement cleaned up and organized after Mini-him and Miss H brought all of their stuff home. It's been making me crazy and trying to find the time to work on it's been tough so I told the kids what I wanted for my birthday was a couple of hours of labor from each of them. Can't wait to see what we can accomplish!

Columbia fun!

Grateful for: All of the birthday and anniversary wishes this week and for the hospitality my brother, sister-in-law, niece and her boyfriend showed us last weekend. I love to go visit them every fall and it was so much fun to be with my nephew and soon-to-be nephew, both Royals fans, when the Royals earned their trip to the World Series.

Dio de Los Muertos

Enjoying: A Day of the Dead celebration at Mini-me's new place of employment, the Intercultural Senior Center. It's always fun to explore other cultures but even more fun was talking to him about the things he is learning about working with refugees from Bhutan, Nepal and the Sudan.

Feeling: Excited! That nephew-to-be I talked about earlier? He wasn't officially a nephew-to-be until last Sunday when he popped the question. Very happy for both my niece and her fiancé!

Looking forward to: A quieter week this coming week and time to catch up with all of the blogs I haven't had a chance to read in the past couple of weeks. I'm missing my blog friends!