New and Improved Halloween photos. Well, only a couple of them. But I did promise!

On Halloween when Rob came home, I was already there, having had a half day off to pick up Mittens at the vet's and go to the doctor. He comes in and he starts chuckling. "What's so funny?" I glowered, frowning...and as I frowned I could feel that watch cap on my brow and realized I was still in costume and he hadn't seen it yet that day. :)

I'm feeling conflicted. I guess that's a new agey term for the blues :) I want to have my boys stay with me the week of Christmas, but I have no vacation days left. I emailed Dave and Laura and asked. Laura wrote back that she didn't think it was a good idea for them to be left unsupervised...basically telling me no.

Part of me is really pissed off...after all, Chris is 15 and Phil is going on 12...they're plenty old enough now to leave alone (unlike when Dave and Laura would leave the boys unattended when they were much younger...but oh! did I say that??) with some basic instructions. It's not like I'm going away for the week; I have to go to work and will be out of the house till 5:30PM. As far as I know, the boys will be unsupervised over at their own house for those days anyhow. The other teeny part of me agrees that I'd rather they not be left alone...but I know they would be whether at my home or theirs.

It's times like this that I really wish I hadn't decided that boys belong with their father. My boys really belong with their mother... I don't know how involved their dad is in their lives; their stepmom sure is, though ;)

Yesterday, I wanted to shop. At lunch, in the pouring rain, I scrambled down the street to the Bon for their weekly "one day only" sale. It's sort of a joke around here, because they have one of these sales every week but they are all promoted as one day only.

All the clearance rack stuff was an additional 40 percent off. That's like mostly half-off an already half-off item!

Yet I couldn't find anything that I liked in a price (even on clearance) that I thought was good OR I found the item but couldn't tell if it would ft. Yes, gentle readers, it is the return of the Size Issue, that I thought I had gotten over or at least gotten used to. It depressed me, so I stopped flipping through the racks and wandered aimlessly through the store, ending up buying nothing more than lunch (a low fat salad, like that's going to help now).

When I went to bed last night, both Mittens and Maggie followed me up the stairs. Mittens got under the covers and after experimenting in different spots, decided to curl up against my neck and shoulder. Maggie sprawled out somewhere on top of the covers. When Rob came upstairs, Mittens left voluntarily, knowing he was ready to be kicked out anyhow. Maggie, however, thinks it is Her Royal Right to sleep in my bed. Even through my dreamy/drowsy/asleep haze, I could hear her protesting and arguing with Rob as he assisted her out the door. Some nights, when Rob is in bed before me, he makes me toss her out. "She doesn't yell at you," he says. I think it's more because, like me, he's found that she's good at heating up the bed to just the right cozy, comfy temperature and he doesn't want to get back out once he's curled up with her beside him.