We had a family where the mom was Elphaba, the adolescent son was Waldo (of Where's Waldo fame [guess I found him]), and the 9-ish daughter was a princess in a pink dress with a tiara and a wand. After I gave the kids candy, the daughter dropped her magic wand and I said "Oh! You dropped your magic wand—you can't be a princess without your magic wand!" She spun around with the skirt of her big pink dress swirling around her and pronounced, "I am NOT a princess; I am Ga-LIN-da!!!" Considering her mom was Elphaba, I felt silly for not putting two and two together immediately, because, duh. Of course she was Galinda!

I was hoping for some K-Pop Demon Hunters, but no Huntrix and no Saja Boys, alas.

We had about five rings and maybe twenty kids total. All of them actually said, "Trick or treat!" except for the teeny ones, which was cool. I had noticed that falling by the wayside in recent years.

Looks like a gorgeous day here. I need to motivate. It was kind of a discombobulated week last week. I did make it over to vote, though, so its an overall win.

We didn't have trick or treaters but we really don't. Just not an area for it

My day off is less relaxing than I'd like. I've slept horribly since we've gotten back. Partly is the terrible bad, partly my mind going non stop and partly because M's cousin and her tween daughter have been staying here. They live with M's aunt and she's out of town and the cousin works overnights and the tween is ...well a tween. So she can't stay by herself at night so they have been over here and M's mom has been getting the tween to school and back . They go home today and I can't wait. Because there is also an added dog. And the tween likes to sleep with lights on. So she's had a lamp on in the living room and that light shines in my eyes. I have an eye mask but even then I know it's there and it just . Bothers me

I miss the dark and quiet of the beach .

Mom came and got her car. She took us to breakfast. Then in a little while we are going to some family reunion dinner that M doesn't really want to go to but we are. And then when we get home we will tackle take out bed frame apart and getting it out of here so we can get the new one out together

For dinner last night, I had chili that had been in the freezer since February. Sadly, it came with a side order of food poisoning. I thawed it out on the countertop, not in the fridge, so that might have been the culprit. Or it could have been dodgy when I put it in the freezer. Either way, I am here to tell you that the grocery store is not the best place to realize you have food poisoning. Currently drinking fizzy water and nibbling some crackers. I can't believe the chili betrayed me.

For Tim, drinking weird-tasting stuff: Drinking a full liter of glucose solution while suffering day-long morning sickness taught me to take a large-bore straw with you. Just suck up the liquid, put the straw toward the back of your throat and swallow it down before you actually taste it. It worked for me, I hope it works for him.

...a large-bore straw with you. Just suck up the liquid, put the straw toward the back of your throat and swallow it down before you actually taste it.

That is what worked for me during my last cycle of chemo, when everything (including plain water) tasted of bitter ash. I survived on chicken soup and Gatorade for about three weeks, until my taste buds started to recover.

I got invited to a party tonight but it’s a murder mystery costume thing…where you’re supposed to be sea-creature related? I’m not into the murder mystery bit and can’t think of any sea creature type costume pieces. But I feel like I want to go because I barely know the person who invited me amd was surprised to be invited? But I may just finish catching up on bake-off.

Morning all. Hope some of you got to enjoy that mythical extra hour of sleep, personally I went with the tried and true "woke up at 5:30am with a headache, couldn't get back to sleep if you put a gun to my head" method of celebrating the end of DST. Do not recommend.

E-mail and text message notifications prompt a double-buzz vibration on my mobile phone. They don't often wake me up, but last night one came in at just the wrong stage in my sleep cycle and I heard it. It was 4:00 a.m. CST, and the text was from the local electrical utility company, to the effect of "Sorry we don't have your power back on yet."

I couldn't get back to sleep. ::grump::

Power came back on at 5:30 a.m., so yay for that.

Still, I did get six hours of sleep. I can make do.

But I'm still grumpy.

I had three very young trick-or-treaters, which makes me feel grateful I went to the effort of buying Halloween candy and that I bought the good stuff (M&Ms and Reese's peanut butter cups) since I'll end up eating most of it.

Now I just have to finish packing for my vacation to the Ozarks and go pick up a new flood barrier to try and cut down on water seeping into my laundry room.