October Summary --

Geez, how did I manage to never have time to post in October ? Well, let's see. . . shaalllll weeeee ?

First week of October basically started out with the last day of September -- the Norwood Neighborhood Picnic. I had gotten the invitations designed, created, folded, and distributed earlier this month, so I guess it shouldn't be a shock to me that people actually showed up ! All in all, I consider it to be a success -- got to meet quite a few of our neighbors and, of course, they are lovely people.

Jumped right into work the rest of the week and got everything done and ready because Robert had a friend coming up from Southern California for a few days. Kevin came in with no issues at the airport, so we got him settled in to watch sports with Robert the whole weekend. Phew !

Kevin took off Tuesday to go meet another friend of his, so we got back into the swing of regular work & chores, but we also made time to go out with a few friends of ours on Friday. Kelley and her boyfriend, Joel, and Tracy and her husband, Cole, met up with us at Tides Tavern, which is a local watering hole here in Gig Harbor. We all had a great time and made promises to do it again, although our schedules so far have not coincided to the point where that's been possible.

Turns out it was a good thing that we had Friday night with our friends because Saturday was our day to. . . [drum roll, please] CLEAN THE GUTTERS !! UGH ! I will spare you the details in case you are reading this while eating, but suffice it to say, it's nasty. Oh ! But we found peanuts ! Really ! In the shell ! Apparently, we have found the squirrel's favorite hidey-hole, but I like to think that we have saved yet another backyard varmint from ptomaine. =P

Midway into the following workweek, I attended a work happy hour and I think that went reasonably well. Got to talk with quite a few co-workers and we kicked around a lot of different conversations and such - most non-work-related which, of course, made them WAY more fun than usual !

[Post story on Fairytale Brownies somewhere around here. It's so long that it really requires something all by itself.]

A couple of days later, I noticed that Jinx had not been acting like she was feeling well. She was having periods when it looked like she was having trouble catching her breath and I realized that she had basically stopped eating and drinking. That never bodes well, so I kinda co-opted her to stay in my office while I was working so that I could keep a better eye on her, just in case. She did fine while she was in my office, but I never could get her to drink much, nor eat. S'prise was no help, either, as he danced outside my closed office door, screaming in Kitty "Let me in ! I'll eat whatever she doesn't want ! HONEST !" Unfortunately, he got his wish the next day, as Jinx decided that she was done putting up with him and changed addresses from this world to the next. Robert took her in to the vet and did the hard work as I was still asleep. When he returned, he woke me up and let me know and that's when we kicked around the idea that S'prise did not need to be an only cat if we could help it. We headed down to the Humane Society location and looked at all their adoptable kitties and Kismet was chosen to come and grace our home. (She still hasn't made it there yet, but we're hoping to pick her up Monday afternoon. She got a little cold right after we visited her the first time, so the surgery to have her fixed has had to be postponed several times. C'est la vie.)

On Wednesday, I had a difficult day at work, so I chose to avail myself of some retail therapy that night. Christmas shopping seems to calm me down a little, so. . . that's what I did. =)

On Friday of the same week, we welcomed the Hongs. They are friends of ours from our time in Boise and Albert & Brian had been scheduled to attend a chess tournament in Tacoma, so we went ahead and put them up, along with Geck, their dad. Since I wasn't sure exactly how the chess rounds were scheduled, I scheduled myself to head up to Marysville to check out the outlet stores that I had heard about. Mall report: they are fabulous and I will go back up there, probably after Christmas, to take advantage of some of the sales that I anticipate them running. They have a bunch of shops that you've probably heard of and a few that were new to me. [Seattle Premium Outlets]

The Hongs took off for home Sunday afternoon, so we got ready for the next few days. I had another company function to attend Monday night -- the Annual Tour event, which was held at Hotel 1000 in downtown Seattle. It was a lovely event and I think a good time was had by all.

Momma came up on Wednesday, which was Halloween night and we gave out candy to all our trick-or-treaters dressed as witches this year. No, the bacon & egg suit still didn't work, but I have a much better idea of a couple things to do to fix the obvious issues that are present. Maybe next year. . . sigh. Or. . . maybe I will have time to execute the other idea that I have kicking around in my brain. . . [evil snicker]

And so ended October. . .

November post/s (I swear!) to come.

Thoughts ?