Cold Spaghetti

Strange things are afoot in our household. Sure, everyone has been trading viruses for a month (there’s the 8-hour vomit one, the lingering fever one, the sore throat one, and the head cold one), but still, things seem… unseasonably calm. The last two weeks have been difficult with Paul working around the clock (literally) to get the outbuilding weather-proof before it rained, added into the whole Will’s-party thing, a week’s visit from Paul’s Mom, ongoing illness, school stuff, and job deadlines… but still, it’s been okay. I’ve even been getting work done and met a deadline today with relative ease and no late nights. Then I realized.

I said “no” to teaching this fall.

I must remember how good it feels to say no to things every once in awhile.

Except caffeine. I’ve lived life without and ooooh my, it feels good to be back on the wagon.

Tonight I started to inventory all the things I’ve collected this year and am very close to being completely done with the holidays. (Except for Paul, who is most likely getting a yet undetermined bacon-related something for spoiling the Wii surprise.) Last year, we sent out Mardi Gras cards because we were that behind. Today, our holiday cards arrived (I’m not happy with the color Shutterfly added to them, but hey, the price was right). I feel like I’m mellowing into a ‘this is what the season is suppose to be about’ place and it feels all starched and ironed, way too Norman Rockwell to fit my one-step-away-from-nervous-breakdown mode of operation. The question is, then, what in the world am I forgetting?

Don’t be surprised if our house burns down tomorrow.

Here is a holiday that we sort of missed, though. Halloween. That was when I kicked off our family’s month of illness by ruining Halloween. No carved pumpkins this year! But a few weeks before, I tried to be crafty… and even have proof.

Aren’t they cute? My favorite part is Franken-pumpkin’s bolts sticking out of his head. Please ignore the trash behind him that I obviously didn’t see when I took the picture. And the fact that the flowers are… ahem… not blooming. When I finally got around to taking this picture, they’d been out a month. (That’s why the bat’s eyes are falling off.)

Actually, they were suppose to be even cuter. Will and I spent an entire Saturday peeling oranges and limes, which we cut into nose and eye shapes and dried in the oven for 3 hours. Will took some pictures of me cutting. (Will did the peeling.)

I think this one has a cool artsy quality. One that comes from expertly putting the camera on the counter top and randomly pressing the shutter because “the camera is too heavy” to hold.

Here are the eyes and noses. I help him aim a bit before he pressed the shutter for this photograph.

Will painted pumpkins to make the bat. Initially, we were going to make three and hang them on the porch.

I don’t think he cared a bit that we only managed to get wings and eyes on one.