Happy Halloween!
Are you going trick-or-treating tonight?? I am. Okay, technically I’m not, but I’m going with Sullivan so to me that counts! Plus I’ll get to have all of the things he doesn’t like 
(bring on the Almond Joys and Mounds bars!!) and the sticky stuff that Vivian can’t have because of her braces. Good thing I recently bought a shaper from Hot Mama, good grief. The muffin top is going to be out of CONTROL.
So yesterday I’m at Macy’s and stopped by Estee Lauder to take a whiff of this perfume I read about in my favorite perfume blog, Now Smell This. I had tried the new David Yurman at Nordstrom and was reading about it on the blog, where author Robin mentioned that she thought Estee Lauder’s was similar. (and cheaper. of course I really liked the David Yurman scent and of course it was $120 a bottle. It even smells expensive–which is probably why I like it.) Before the woman leaves to get me a sample she hands me this tube of something-or-other and tells me to twist the cap. ?? I do, and it starts vibrating!!!! (and I put it in my pocket. just kidding….;-)) Just as I’m about to start looking for the massage oil she then explains it’s a vibrating mascara. Excuse me?! What will they think of next?! Supposedly this is to separate your lashes, making them more defined. All I know is that I won’t spend $30 on a mascara, especially not one that I’ll also be buying batteries for. Ridiculous!
Heroes
Last night we were playing a family game of Scattergories—one of my all-time favorites. If any of you haven’t played it before, you must! (I know Stephanie and Kim are cringing right now…they are not game players and I’m sure playing Which Witch with me on my 40th birthday was enough to last them for a while…)
For those of you who don’t know the game, allow me to explain. Basically you have a list of categories and after rolling a crazy 15-or-so sided die with different letters on it, you have to come up with a word fitting the category that starts with the letter. For instance if your first category is ‘fruit’ and you roll a ‘B’, you might pick banana. (heck, that’s probably the ONLY fruit you’d pick. ha! pick fruit! I just made a pun…) I think you have about 12 categories or so and you are timed to get the list done. When the timer goes off you all name what you wrote—and if two (or more!) of you have the same word, you cancel each other out and don’t get credit for it. It’s a pretty simple context and really quite fun!
Sullivan likes to play the game, even though at seven years old it is a bit of a challenge for him. He may not be able to fill in many of the blanks, but not surprisingly, the few words he does manage to come up with are pretty amazing. 
Last night we rolled the letter ‘O’, which of course is always a challenge for everyone. The first category word was ‘Heroes’. I honestly don’t think I could think of any hero that started with the letter O, but when it came to Sullivan he proudly stated “Barack Obama!” Oh, how I love my little democrat!!!! The rest of us cheered.
Sully is pretty opinionated in politics at the ripe age of seven. We were doing some Mad Libs and when it came to naming a celebrity, again—Barack Obama. When the time came in the same story to name yet another celebrity Sullivan put his finger up and said, “I refuse to say John McCain.” hilarious!!! Do ya think we’ve had some influence on the boy?? nah.
I have to share a touching story I read in the news yesterday—or watched on video, I should say. I was going through my beloved CNN site and saw how a woman who had been forced to foreclose on her house attended the auction of it to say goodbye. Needless to say she just sat in the hallway in tears, it was heartbreaking. Another woman at the auction saw her, bid on the house and won it–only to give it right back to the owner. Talk about a random act of kindness–and definitely someone who fits into my hero category. It totally made me cry, I LOVE stories like that—especially in times like these. Nice to know there are still people out there like that. I wonder if her name starts with the letter ‘O’?
The Breaking of the Bread
Is there anything better than sharing a good meal with friends? Not much my friends, not much. I’m very lucky to have friends in my life that are amazing cooks and are nice enough to share their talents with me! Steph invited us over to her house to ‘break the fast’ for Yom Kipper…not that we were fasting, mind you, or necessarily really celebrating Yom Kippur…but any holiday is a good excuse to get together!! As always it was amazing food and wonderful company. Not a bad way to spend an evening.
Then my gourmet dinner group got together last Saturday at Nancy and Tim’s. Nancy always comes up with some fun group idea whether it be playing a game, doing pottery that she later fires in her kiln (how cool is that?!) or having a bake-off. We arrived to be shown right to the kitchen and were told that it was girls against the guys, making a cake from scratch with no recipe to see who’s came out the best. Well, let’s face it—I immediately thought us women had it in the bag. Don’t get me wrong, our men are very capable in many 
ways—but they don’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen! At least us ladies have baked a cake or two in our lives and could probably fudge it along a bit. (no pun intended!) Grand Master Baker Rosemarie was not allowed to participate with us, and both groups were only allowed to ask her 2 questions. Both cakes came out looking quite different—ours being a bit bumpy on the top, the guys’ looking extremely smooth, more like a torte. (impressive!) We then proceeded to blindfold Greg and Dawn for a taste-test…Greg liked the women’s best and Dawn liked the 
men’s! We all agreed that both of them were a bit dry, especially ours. But ours had a little better flavor. Then Nancy took them both, layered them together, slathered them with frosting and we gobbled them up. Anything tastes good with frosting! I wouldn’t say either group would have won any baking contests, but it was fun and I think we all did very well considering!!!
No big dinners tonight, but I will have company—the peeps are coming over for a podcast!! Woo hoo, it has been WAY too long since our last show. A lot of the reason for the delay is schedule—trying to get us all free on any given night can be tricky–and honestly a big part of it was also the fact that the last podcast we did ended up being a big ol’ hijunx. 
For some reason we had technical difficulties and the whole show came out sounding garbled—you couldn’t understand a word. What was really bad about that is that Stu the Wine Genius was with us as our guest that night for a wine-tasting podcast, and it was probably the first podcast in our two-or-so year history that we actually did a show that was about something. There was definitely good information to be shared by Stu, and we had the most AMAZING wine–as you can imagine. Alas, all we have now is the memory… Hopefully tonight will go off without a hitch!
GoBama!
The final debate, tonight…are you gonna watch? We will, although for me it’s like watching a train wreck. I get so worried that ‘that other one’ will actually say something eloquent and give me more cause for fretting. I have a couple of friends who are convinced it’s a shoe-in for Obama–I wish I could be that positive. I just know it’s not over until it’s over. I really want our country to look like it can make an educated choice for a change! Even Sullivan agrees.
Hey, come hang out with me in this new place!
Check out the fluer de lis—-is that METAL or what?! Thanks to those of you who took the journey from Blogger over here to my new blog home at WordPress. As I am thankful to Blogger for the years of service, there were many a time where I found myself cursing the thing. Coreman suggested starting a new blog here, and what the heck? Like a new hair-do, I’m always up for a new look. I think this actually makes me a bit more techie, too…look out! I do like the way this is laid out and the many options it has…so there it is. I’ve arranged the furniture, painted the walls and have made it my own–and you’re invited! I have yet to figure out how to hang pictures here yet…but they will be up soon. Welcome! A Heavy Metal Salute to you, my friends!
