Mac-O-Lantern

After a particularly crappy day, Mac surprised me with pizza, a scary (but not really) movie, and pumpkins ripe for carvin'.  He even scraped the inside of the pumpkin out for me (in exchange for roasted pumpkin seeds). 

So, of course, I carved a Mac-O-Lantern in his honor.

You can't really see how he originally turned out,

because silly me didn't photograph him until days later when he started to sag (and mold and leak rotten pumpkin juice all over the counter). 

In my defense, I was waiting until we had matches...yet another thing you apparently don't think to buy when you're starting a life together.  For the record, I was especially proud of his nose (and the resemblence I think it bore to Mac's own nose).

I think Texas mold might be in a league of its own.  You know what they say...everything's bigger in Texas.  I was utterly amazed that it had ravaged poor Mac-O-Lantern in a mere 4 days (from birth to death).  And both Mac and I agreed we'd never seen such pitiful incontinence* in a pumpkin before.  Poor fella.

*Apparently this word has another meaning I didn't know about. Eeeep!

Donut Day Revival

I'll be the first one to tell you that I get really excited about little things.  It might be my favorite thing about myself, and about the like-minded folks I find along the way.  The most recent excitement in my life is the reinstitution of Donut Day. 

Donut Day was originally invented as a diet plan for myself.  I would eat healthy stuff (relatively...it is me we're talking about here) all week long, and then one day a week, I would allow myself the junkiest, tastiest thing I could imagine:  a mmmmaple bar.  I used to work the night shift during the week.  Friday mornings, my weekend would begin, and I would practice my weekly donut ritual.  This was back when I was a swingin' (hardly) singleton.  Now I've discovered a Donut Day built for two!

Sorry that I don't have a better photo of our excursions to prove it.  You will no doubt see more of those in the future.  So far, I'm partial to Randall's (the Safeway of Texas) maple bars...but you don't really get the full donut and cheap coffee experience there.  Shipley's is in first place so far for that.  I like the box they come in, too!  There's another place nearby I have to try though...it makes me think of home, for reasons I will explain in a future post (once we actually go there!)

So...the little thing I take joy in here is not just a weekly donut, but the fact that Heaven sent me a wonderful partner who seems to enjoy it, and other simple things, almost as much as I do.  I love him so.

(left:  Mac and Me on our honeymoon--6 months ago!)



Other little things that are currently delighting me more than anyone could possibly know...I have 3 blog fans now!!  I know other people have hundreds, but this is really exciting to me.  And the second morsel of joy...my best friend, after months--maybe years--of attempts to convince, and years of giving up all hope, has finally decided to blog.  I hope she doesn't stop!  Go and tell her not to right now!!

Last bit of news (I'm wordy today because I'm long overdue in writing!)...my church is hosting a donut-eating contest.  That's right.  Behold:  a 2-lb donut monster.  And because they don't want to encourage gluttony, of course, they're having people sign up in teams.  Oh my--can I really resist this?

Childhood Dreams

Yeah, so I know most little girls dream of things like becoming an actress, or an artist, or the president or whatever.  But when I was little, my dreams were different.  I guess this should come as no surprise, considering my childhood swoonhearts were Burl Ives and the judge on the old Perry Mason shows (one of which I loved because he had more hair up his nose than he had on his head).  I dreamt of being a school teacher...That's not so odd, you say.  I also dreamt of being a secretary.  The school teacher fantasy I blame on my insane hunger to learn, and on the fact that I was secretly a bit bossy ('A bit' by my measurements only.  Other people...sisters, for example, might choose terms like, 'quite bossy' or 'holy terror').  As for wanting to be a secretary, I think it's because one summer vacation after 2nd or 3rd grade, I discovered an antique typewriter inherited by my mom.  That typewriter and I lived at my one-armed, wooden school desk for the entire summer, plunking out reports from encyclopedia articles that I read for fun.  I remember handing over my complete volume of reports on all 50 states to my at-a-loss-for-words mom.  She probably asked me if it was for school, and I probably said No, it's for fun!, and it was probably after that summer that I was moved to a smaller school with a slightly smaller social pool in which to inevitably be devoured.  Another reason for my penchant for all things secretarial was perhaps the viewing of one too many black-and-white movies in which somebody's girl Friday wore smart-looking pencil skirts, cardigans and horn-rimmed glasses (to disguise how beautiful she was, of course...that is, until the last act when she removed her glasses and promptly eloped with her handsome boss).

These dreams drifted a little over time (although my fashion sense remains very much black-and-white film secretary), but there was one odd childhood dream which lasted me through adulthood.  For some peculiar reason, I always wanted to be the person on the other side of the glass in a retail store's window display...Setting the display up, or maybe just sitting there waiting to see if anyone would notice my presence.  I have multiple theories on the existence of this fantasy:  Rhoda Morgenstern, Mary Tyler Moore's window-dressing best friend...the scene with Bob Hope and the mannequin in Lemon Drop Kid...the time my oldest sister modeled a snowsuit (or was it a snowmobile?) at a department store in the mall and no one in my family recognized her...

Anyway, the point of this long-winded story is that last week, I finally achieved a childhood dream.  I had a temporary job setting up a brand new store downtown.  And guess what I got to do?  That's right!  I got to cozily wedge myself in between the display and the window and set-up/straighten/clean away.  I even smiled at a stranger passing by and had a conversation with my handsome husband through the glass. 

There are those childhood dreams, I am told, that once fulfilled are quickly dismissed as being not nearly as cool as you thought they would be.  This is not one of them...or else...I'm just a contented soul.  Judging from the look of glee on my face at 4 or 5 years old (see above), maybe I was just made to unwrap furniture.