Abbie's Real Life Blog

For the past few years on Halloween, I’ve posted that picture of my dog in a pumpkin costume, but this year I’ll post a picture of myself in costume.  I haven’t dressed up in years, but I decided to do it this year, just for the fun of it.  I was all set to dress up just to hand out treats, but then I was invited by some new friends to an actual Halloween party, so I had a place to go and an outfit to wear.  Exciting.

(I was a Bawlmer Hon.)

It was a social weekend for me.  I hung out with family on Friday night for awhile and then watched the last episodes of Battlestar Galactica (verdict: pretty decent post-apocalyptic West Wing set in space… much better than it should be for a sci-fi show on the Sci-Fi network).  On Saturday, after a dog park run, I spent the afternoon being domestic: baking Halloween cookies, carving pumpkins, cleaning the house, hanging up Halloween decorations, and so on.  My family came over in the early evening to help hand out candy, and we ate tacos and watched The Corpse Bride together.  Later I went to the party and I had a pretty good time!  It was a great Halloween.

On Sunday, I was set to go hiking with a group of people up at the Pinnacles (an area north of town).  I took Martha the dog, and we went, but the water in the creek was higher than usual and I opted not to cross it with everyone else.  It’s not like I’ve never been to the Pinnacles, so I didn’t feel I was missing out too much.  Martha and I tramped along the hills above the creek on a beautiful day, and then both got nicked by some rusty barbed wire.  It was a lot of fun for both of us.

The time change really kicked my ass this year.  I always think of fall as being the better of the two time changes, because you get the extra hour to sleep in.  But it makes the days drag out so long, and this year I messed up twice.  My atomic clock, which is supposed to be set by radio, changed from Daylight Saving Time last weekend, and I just left it, but then on Saturday I forgot that it was the wrong time, kept referring to it anyway, and I ended up being a hour late for my own party!  Then this morning when I got to work, I changed the clock in the lobby of my office but neglected to change the clock in my cubicle (I have a retro-looking analog clock on my wall), so I went to lunch at 10:45am instead of 11:45am.  No wonder the restaurant was so empty!  I really felt stupid after that one, especially since I made such an effort to change all the clocks at home.

It’s supposed to be a beautiful week here, but now it will be dark right after work every day.  I need to make an effort to go out and take walks around the block at lunch or I might not get my needed allotment of sunshine.  Maybe I should get up earlier.