For the past 4 years part of my Halloween tradition has been log on to Guild Wars and get my “hats” or masks or whatever enhancement they were offering for that holiday.

This year was no different!
I got up at 8:30 so I could hit the event online at 9AM sharp.

From Guild Wars/Halloween

This year the two special items were the Skull Face Paint and the Charr Mask.  The Pumpkin mask and the Witch hat were from the second year.  The first year you only got one mask (because there was only one release of the game) and silly me deleted the character that got that mask, so, i have no record of it.

Here are a few screen shots of the “event”:

From Guild Wars/Halloween

This is where the king appears to give out the prizes. You can barely see all the “people” but there are hundreds that participate, some of them are even pretty nice

From Guild Wars/Halloween

More decoration, normally this is just a ship, but for Halloween, a ghost pirate ship. Sorry, no Johnny Depp on this one.

From Guild Wars/Halloween

This is my favorite. The Haunted Moon AND a Toilet papered tree. That is the back of my characters head in the shot. OOPS.

This is the first year that the 14 yr old is not going out to get a bag of loot for the day. He is on his way to the University of Kentucky football game. The spouselet and I are trying to decide what great food we are going to eat in his absence!

I

I took this shot in the office of our relocation director today.  The molding around the window is really dark and looks like a picture frame.  We are going to print one of these big enough to cover that window, so when it is rainy or snowing ten feet, she can tape this image up and have a spectacular view.

follow up to this post.

Last night was the family celebration for my birthday AND my uncle AND my great aunt.  All three of us got a year older in the past 9 days.

My mom made taco in a bowl for me because I used to love that when I was a kid…so simple, no need for even a recipe-all the garbage you like in a taco, in a bowl and you eat it with chips.  YUM.

Since I didn’t claim my cake, she made her Jam Cake with butter sauce for the 14 yr old because that is his all time favorite and it really is VERY good.

But, this is the really important stuff…

I got the Canon (as mentioned previously, a lovely book, a rooster box that was  handmade by some lady that my great aunt knew that is married to a guy that looks like her son-it really is a very nice hand made box with some serious history.  I want the girls name, so I can look into her work! And a bracelet with the Lord’s Prayer I also got some birthday money, which can be the best gift ever and this year it bought me Vera Bradley Microfiber Crossbody Hipster Bag and the Symphony Bag that I am more likely to put office supplies in….

AND…

My sister gave me a glass Pandora charm and a house, but I already had the house so I traded it in for a monkey charm today, because my spouselet was Monkeyboy on a game we used to play online and all things monkey remind me of him….and my mom gave me the soccer ball with the green crystals…

So all this super cool stuff more than made up for the fact that I am now 41.

Yeah, it is my birthday and I am stretching this puppy out as long as possible.

When I was a kid my birthday always fell on a teacher in-service day or a weekend and it wasn’t until college that I had had class on my special day.  And even in college just because we were in session, didn’t mean I attended!

I have never worked on my birthday.
To me, it is a National Holiday and no one else should work either!

I am not celebrating with my family until tomorrow (which is why this is Part 1).

I really started celebrating LAST weekend when my spouselet, son and one of his friends went to Florida for the week.  It was fall break (I am sure there will be a post about that too)-so see, area school still celebrate the day of my birth, and it has expanded to a FULL week not just one measly day.

This morning, I slept in and when I did roll out of bed the spouselet took me to lunch @ PF Chang’s.  Coolest thing, my server was also celebrating his birthday today.  I first thought he must not know how special October 25th really is, but then I heard him tell EVERYONE he waited on that today was his birthday.

SMART MAN!
(wish I had thought of that when I was a server-I am sure he made enough to take the rest of his birth week off!)

After lunch the spouselet and I discussed various options for my birthday present.  I was torn between a new purse size camera (for non soccer picture taking) or the new Brighton charm bracelet.

And the winner is….

I am planning on testing it out this evening.

The spouselet has an indoor soccer game, perfect conditions for a new camera test.

Bad lighting, jerky movements and nets between me and the players!

Or maybe it should be Sportsgirlship…Sportswomanship…Sportspeopleship…

Whatever it is, it was absent at my neice’s soccer game this afternoon.

Before I get into the tale, I have to mention that I have a 14 yr old son.
With a temper.
And a definite sense of what is right in the world and on the field.
And he has gotten his fair share of yellow cards in his years of soccer and once or twice if I had been the referee, I would have ejected him.

Heck, he would tell you that if HE had been the referee, he would have ejected himself.

I have been the mom who would like to crawl under her chair or hide out in the car because you hear one of THOSE words come out of the mouth of your precious baby.  Luckily in the past year he has gotten some control over his emotions and I haven’t had to have a talk about “how he represents his team, family and community”  blah, blah blah.

Now that we know where I am coming from on this…to say, I am not the parent of a saint.

So, at the field today, the weather was lovely.  The girls were running around kicking the ball and having a blast.  It is the county recreational league…all in good fun-where everyone is supposed to get equal playing time and the parents chit-chat with the opposing team.

Yeah, in a perfect world.

Sometimes the rec league frightens me more than competitive play.  Sometimes the parents need to realize that their little precious isn’t the next Davida (Beckham) or Landonina (Donovan) that she is just a kid with a pair of cleats and a potty mouth that would make Jimmy Connors blush.

Anger Management Courses might be in order for your precious 9 year old if while on the field you hear her scream “Crap” because she whiffed a ball and then in the next breath G-D because her team isn’t winning.

Yup, third graders.

Even more shocking.  No one.  Not the coach, not the referee and not even her parents said ONE word to her.  She was not pulled from the game, her actions were not acknowledged from her own team in any way.  But woo-doggie did the parents on our side of the field flip out.

“did she just say what I think she said?”
Oh, I think she did.

And it continued through out the rest of the game.  The unfortunate part is that this kid IS all of 9 years old and her parents have put so much pressure on her to WIN and MOVE and STOP THAT BALL, she cracked.  And when she cracked no one was there to put her back together.

Her parents were screaming at her and she was screaming right back.
“Stop that ball…DO NOT let her pass…MOVE UP!”
“Shut UP…Leave me alone…I KNOW!” (and a few more Craps peppered in between)

I have never seen that behavior allowed by parents or players in a game before.  I have had referees speak to coaches and told them that if the parents didn’t lighten up, they would be asked to leave the game.  Situations like this are why soccer games have cards.

They might not have any real ramifications in a U9 game but it would certainly send a message to the parents and the kids, you can NOT behave that way on the field.

It ruins the game for you and everyone around you.

Several years ago my son wanted a new desk.  At the time money was really tight so we came up with this:

We made it when he was probably 11 when we put this together. We cut pictures out of magazines of his favorite sports stars, glued them down and sealed it with more glue. I probably should have used a real furniture sealer, but…I knew it was a short term solution.

He doesn’t use that desk anymore because he is now a high schooler and they don’t sit up right for anything. Somehow he gets homework done laying upside down on the sofa in the basement, in the dark!

But, he would not let me get rid of it. He has held on to this desk and moved it from our old house to this one and from his room to the basement, to the garage, to the basement and now, finally, I have been given permission to donate it to Goodwill.

I am glad that my kid cherrished something that i made for him that much, but, poor thing, I just don’t think anyone else will see much in this ole thing.

‘Shrooms everywhere.

these are cute little itty bitty wouldn’t see unless you were looking mushrooms. My son noticed them in the flower bed when we were clearing out for fall last weekend. They were growing near the stump of a crab apple we had cut down (to close to the house).

This set, he said was a smurf house. When did the smurfs evict the fae from their homes? I much prefer the thought of a little pretty with wings living in my front yard than a rotund blue one. feh.

Then there were these…bit ole flat yellow things that since last weekend have expanded to about a 3 x 3 ft section of my front yard. I thought the other two varieties were cute, these not so much.

Not Right.
Not Left.
Not even in the middle.

I think I am sick, but I am not sure.

Something is wrong, but not wrong enough to do SOMETHING about.

If I went to the doctor he would think I was just in need of some attention.

I am tired, but not so tired that I can’t do basic house stuff.

I am kinda achy, but not like I am hearing all my friends who have suffered through piggy flu.

I have a slight cough, but it is more like my body trying to get over the last of my seasonal allergy funk.

I don’t have a fever by most peoples standards, but I do for me.  My normal body temp is 96.8 so if I am at 98.4 (and I am) then I almost have a FULL TWO Degree fever!

Impressive!

This morning it is a little worse and I did walk up every hour so I didn’t get the fullest sleep.   I also had a “you might be getting a kidney infection” feeling, but that has also gone away.

So, my dear bloggy friends, this is my attempt to explain where my sorry, not sick/sick rear end has been all week.

I don’t think my situation was helped by sitting in the rain during 20 minutes of soccer last night (before it was called due to lightening)…

Back to bed I go!

(seriously, a year)

but, it is done.

We ripped out walls and pulled up glued down vinyl flooring.

replaced drywall, patched holes in the ceiling, had the whole she-bang rewired (we paid someone to do that)
and now, we are done.
(yes, that is a garbage can in the fireplace)

This awesome paper cutter, wrapping station thing (it was my grandparents) is probably going to end up mounted on the fireplace mantle.

Was in my popaw’s office when I was a kid and my sister and I loved to play with this thing. It still works, but I do prefer my solar “adding machine” these days.

Other posts talking about this remodel:

It Figures
And the Walls.
When September Ends