Has it seriously been a month?!?

Okay, what is going on here?!? I can't believe that I haven't blogged in a month. Sorry folks, but I've had the craziest time since returning from Portland: back to back meetings, proposal writing, research, and report writing. And that's just the work part of it! Chuck's been laid up with an injured back, so a lot of the house scraping work has been up to me (yes, that project's still going strong) and Sylvain's activities have just been a barrage of stuff lately. And to top it off for him -- I've put him to work on scraping the house and getting the yard in order (leaf raking and cleaning out the flower beds). Thankfully, we've entered the lull of November (no trips, no presentations, and no football!), so I'll try to be a more faithful blogger.

As I look back at the photos taken for this blog, I realize just how pathetic things have been lately. Confession 1: I was too busy to carve my own pumpkin, so Sylvain did it for me! Sylvain started his own pumpkin carving from a pattern, but then decided to modify it to add "Happy Halloween" onto the sides. The only claim to fame for my pumpkin was that I picked the pattern (many happy pumpkin faces). He carved it for me after school on Halloween before heading off to trick or treat with friends. I think that he'll be pretty sad when he's too old to be trick or treating...But that's okay, we had plenty of left-over candy here at home since we only had three visitors that night. Chuck dressed up as a mad scientist and set out a flashing light next to one of our trees to give our yard a spooky look, but insisted that we keep the porch yard lights off. I hope that didn't make any kids shy away from stopping by, but we didn't get too many trick or treaters last year either. We know the three that stopped by this year, so maybe next year we'll do individualized treat bags.

I also now realize that I didn't take a photo of Chuck's pumpkin (a traditional scary pumpkin face) and should do that tonight before it turns to mush (if it hasn't already)...

Confession 2: I never finished that angora capelet that was talked about in my last blog. As I was packing for my trip to Portland, I realized that it didn't go well with the outfit that I had in mind, so I left the project unfinished and at home. This is important b/c while working on the project, I didn't feel quite well and was slightly itchy, but thought that it was poison ivy rearing its ugly head again. I recovered quite well while in Portland, and didn't think much about it. However, when I returned home, the itchiness returned. I'm quite allergic to cats, and think that I'm also allergic to angora too. Which is a real shame, since the capelet was looking very good. Thankfully, Erin is such a good friend, that I was able to dump the capelet and the remaining skein of angora in her lap and have her take it away. Hopefully, she'll make better use of the yarn than I did. So, after obsessively cleaning my house and all of my usual knitting spots to rid myself of the angora fly-aways, my allergies seemed to wane. But then, the weather turned nice and I focused on scraping the house and leading Sylvain in the yard work. With those chores, I was viciously attacked by leaf molds and who-knows-what-else. So, I've awaken each morning for the past week with red, puffy, itchy eyes and hives. I've also given in and am visiting the doctor's tomorrow in search of stronger drugs b/c my daily regimen of Clarinex, Nasonex, eye drops, Benedryl, and cortozone creme don't seem to be cutting the mustard.

And since I can never sit still during Sylvain's bass lessons, informal meetings, etc., I have gotten some knitting done. The Clapotis scarf/shawl for Debbie for Christmas is done and is waiting to go on the blocking board. I casted on my final Christmas shawl: Evening in Eden by Lynda Gemmell.
According to the number of pattern repeats, I'm about half-way thru the recommended length, but am thinking about adding in another repeat for good measure. The pattern is easy enough, and the project is going quickly enough that even with that change, I'll be able to finish this up before my self-set deadline of Thanksgiving. Need to finish early so that I can focus on other Christmas knitting...

And since it's Election Day, and I'm sure none of you are tired of election stuff, I'll share this last little story. I've never volunteered before for any sort campaign before and decided that this was the year to get involved. Like I said earlier, things have been hectic, and per usual, I found myself helping out on the absolute last opportunity to do so. A friend from my MSU Library days, Kriss, is very actively involved in various Democratic Party events and was looking for people to hang reminders to vote on house doors for the Obama Biden campaign. That sounded good to me, so I signed up for Monday (yesterday). When I showed up at the campaign headquarters, I was told that they finished ahead of schedule, but needed folks at a secondary location at a nearby UAW hall. After reporting there, I found that they needed folks to go specific houses and talk to the residents there, reminding them to vote today and give directions as to where their polling locations were. I didn't feel comfortable doing that alone, so was paired with another first-timer, Katie. We were assigned a Lansing neighborhood at the corner of MLK and Willow around Bassett Park. The canvassing went fine and everyone that we met seemed to be in favor of Obama. The only interesting person who came to the door was a guy who was very obviously stoned. We knocked on his door, and thought no one was home, so before leaving his porch, we were looking at our list to figure out where to go next. He answered the door with a large (but seemingly friendly) pit bull on a leash and was barely able to stand up. I felt quite nauseated from the smell wafting from his house, but trekked on in our spiel about voting. Katie seemed oblivious to the whole thing, so I'm not sure that she noticed at first. After walking away, I said, "I wonder what he was up to," and she just laughed along. But, hey, a vote's a vote, right?