The word for the weekend: sick. The damn cold went into my chest and knocked me out. Most things got cancelled. I passed out during Liam’s naps both days, and messed up my night sleep patterns as a result. Or maybe I napped hard because my night sleep patterns were already messed up by not being able to breathe. I had to sneak into the boy’s room Saturday night to borrow his Ventolin. (Why do I not currently have one of my own? Because I only use it once every couple of years and it keeps expiring before I’ve used it.) It was not a pleasant weekend. At least today I can walk from one room to another without having to sit down and catch my breath.

I made chili and applesauce and apple crisp last night. Despite the unseasonably warm temperatures (which I have been enjoying, along with a sense of guilt because it’s just all wrong) I appear to be gearing down into comfort food mode in anticipation of Real Fall.

As Hallowe’en approaches, the requests to borrow my costumes begin landing in my inbox. Especially the Van Helsing set, just like last year. So just as an advance announcement: really, I can’t lend anything out to anyone, whether I know you or not. I am a firm supporter of hot glue and safety pins for a costume that will last one single night, and nothing is in any kind of state to be lent out. Also, everything’s in storage. And my costumes are so ridiculously small that I doubt they’d fit the average person.

Speaking of costumes, this weekend HRH and I realised that it’s just not going to be practical to introduce the boy to Hallowe’en this year. Between getting him home from daycare, making and eating dinner, HRH getting home from work and me leaving for orchestra… it’s just not going to happen. I don’t think we’ll even be handing out candy, for the same reasons. Wednesdays are just too tightly scheduled and there’s no room to move. I’ll put all the fabric and trim and patterns aside and make him his swashbuckling coat next year instead, when his bedtime won’t interfere with the fun.

HRH has been having a wonderful time at work, thank you for asking. The irony of the nice new job is that the way paydays have worked out, things are going to be uncomfortably tight for the next week and a half, especially because we have several direct payments going out in the next five days. And we had to buy a new vacuum yesterday because the one we’ve been using and patching for the past eight years self-destructed in an impressive cloud of white smoke and the smell of burning. Fortunately, we got a great bagless one on sale, and it’s light enough that I can use this one. Still, it would have been nice if it had waited two weeks to die its final death.

More editing today, with Mousme to keep me honest and supplied with tea while I have a cat on my lap. Maggie has been alternately very clingy and kittenish over the past few days, and today appears to be a clingy day.