Typepad just ate my longest post EVER, I think. So. Here’s the skinny, no details.

Friday: Mom arrives, we clean, and eat pizza.

Saturday: My period starts, I cry, Dave confesses that he was “really excited this time” and is sad too, more cleaning, Mom buys us beadboard to finish off the Sewing Room, I have an internal anxiety attack in Home Depot, my coworkers throw us a fabulous housewarming/anniversary party, my fingernail fallos off, I spend the evening with old friends and new ones in a gay bar cheering on my oldest friend in a costume contest, I have a vodka collins and a beer, which is unusual because I never drink, but fuck it, I’m not pregnant!

Sunday: Happy Anniversary, breakfast with Amy and Andy, off to the school halloween party, hurry hurry, off to home, into my spidery old woman costume, Dave is a zombie, we get mad props from trick or treaters, terrify a few people, I call in to work because I have NOT STOPPED since Friday morning, and go to bed.

Today: Tea and FatKitty keeping me warm, ordering more OPKs and HPTs, finding out the Redskins lost to the Packers which is a good sign that the end is nigh for the Bush Administration.

On Halloween, though, I’ll elaborate on that.

Dave got cardboard and cut out random triangles and tacked them into the windows on the front of the house. He set up strobes behind them, blinking at different speeds. We had some tombstones and bone lights in the front yard, a spider on the front of the house, a haunted tree face on the maple, and “CAUTION: FRESH GRAVES” tape from the fence, around the basketball hoop, and to the post on the porch. I stood on the porch with a candle lantern while Dave crouched near the hedge. As kids approached, I stared them down, which freaked them out enough that they didn’t even look at Dave. As they would leave, Dave would scurry across the lawn to the tree, and it was enough with the crunchy leaves to get their attention. When they looked and didn’t see anything, then Dave would pop out and they would scream. It was AWESOME.

We didn’t get TONS of trick or treaters — maybe 35-40? — but more than we’ve ever had. We did get tons of compliments, though. The cardboard/strobe light combo made it look like we had really boarded up our windows, and people said as much. More than one said “I’ve never seen anyone ACTUALLY board up their windows.” WHo am I to give away trade secrets? People were taking pictures and filming the place, and our next door neighbor came out to see what the commotion was. “You ARE the owner, right?” she said, and I laughed and explained I was, and the zombie at the hedge was Dave. She thought it was neat, and I said “well, it’s our favorite holiday, and it’s our first anniversary!” (Got that little factoid out into the neighborhood, now.)

For next year, we have some updates, but we’ll probably keep the same theme. We need a dimmer light onthe porch so that the Unversal Symbol of Candy is still there, but it’s creepier. We also need to spotlight the haunted tree face a little more. It was creepy, but I don’t think anyone saw it. We need more tombstones, and a rocking chair for me to sit on. That would be some spooky shit.

And, it would be cool to get together with other cool houses and have some sort of scavenger hunt or something… we heard there was a cool one on the next street over, and people who do “cool houses” are wanting people to come, so if we got together and could send kids who wanted to be spooked to other houses, that would rock, you know? Increase the foot traffic!

Dave asked if I was okay with our anniversary celebration, and I totally was. Maybe next year we can go for an anniversary eve dinner or something (we had the party this year, so we had some celebrating) but that definitely, a haunted house was a cool thing to do on Halloween.

What a nutty weekend. So nutty, I called in today to just have some time alone while we still have a student teacher available.

So, Friday, my mom came up to help me with the housewarming. My coteacher and another teacher organized the whole thing, I just had to host it at my house. Very cool. My mom came to help me get everything in order.

Friday night we cleaned and organized (somewhat) the back bedroom that is being used for storage just now. In order to finish the room, we need beadboard for the west wall, so right now it’s just a jumble of boxes. Or was. We stacked the boxes, and actually tossed out two or three boxes of just “why did we move THIS?” crap.

Early the next morning, I wake up and know: I’ve started. I roll over and tell Dave, and get up and deal with the situation. I go back to bed and get a little weepy. We talk about it, and I say “You know, it seemed like this was the month that you were more excited than nervous about it.” And he said, “Yeah. I was excited.” That was the saddest part! He’s SUCH a nervous person when it comes to finances, basically, because of how he grew up. (Poor, in city housing, without even a car to go grocery shopping. Seriously, poor.) Having a baby, at any time, makes him nervous, and I keep reminding him “You have already provided more for your future children than you EVER had, it’s okay!” But still. It’s Dave. He’s a nervous guy about some things.

So, I toss and turn and get up when I hear my mom get up. We make coffee, and then work more on the house. My mom goes off to get her oil changed and her nails done, and Dave works on the basement, breaking down cardboard, cleaning up his room, etc. My monm calls and wants me to meet her across town, and Dave has to shoot with Tom, so he gives me a ride. By now, I feel like I’m running way behind, and I’m getting into my anxious panic state. I hate it, it makes my head hurt, but what can I do. It happens.

Dave drops me off at KMart, because he wants more tombstones for our yard. We had seen them there, and I had said every weekend since “We should go pick up those tombstones” but no, he waited until October 30 to act. ARGH. I find my mom inside, but no tombstones. I get the bone lights instead.

We leave KMart to go to Home Depot, as my folks want to buy us the beadboard to finish the sewing room as our anniversary gift, Yay! But, it’s early afternoon at Home Depot on Saturday. UGH. Total anxiety attack, can’t even think because of all the people, can’t find a cart unti lI reach the parking lot, blah blah blah. We finally find it, and get in line. Behind a guy buying 215 different tiny things. That don’t scan well. I move to the other line, behind a guy with a light fixture and bulbs. The tape runs out, and the cashier fumbles with it. When he finally gets the new tape in, a new cahsier shows up, and they have to do the switch. I am DYING INSIDE by this point, we still have to go to the grocery store and I have a little more than an hour before the party starts.

We get groceries, but there are no mulling spices at Shaw’s, bu my mother knows she saw them before at….. the MALL. OH MY GOD, NO. We go, she goes in alone and I wait in the car. Hell no am I going in THERE on Saturday afternoon, especially when I’ve already hit code red on the panic scale. She comes out, we go home, and it is fine.

My party is wonderful, a bunch of people show up, mostly teachers and then my mom and Amy. We party, laugh, I get a fondue set and some picture frames and candlesticks, and a gift certificate to World Over Imports, and people start to leave. Angie, a teacher I work with, stays with Amy and I (Dave had left earlier to go to his own GeekBowl party) and we laugh and talk wfor quite a while. Andy shows up with a Chia Homer, and we decide we will go out, and end up at the Spectrum to see the costume contest.

Amy, Angie and I go first to Classics, and then decide to go to the Spectrum. Andy isn’t there yet, but we get drinks and enjoy the costumes. Andy shows up in full cop regalia, including, and made perfect by, mirrored aviator sunglasses. When the contest happens, I lean over to Amy and say, “was this part of the plan in grade school, to one day end up cheering on your friend in the “big white sex cop” costume athe gay bar’s costume contest?” It was one of those weird life moments. Andy made it to t-short level, but the winner was a beautiful Dorothy, who would be convincing on the street as a woman.

Angie met up with a friend who had come down specifically to introduce her to a guy named John, who was dressed as a doctor. She left with them after giving me my keys, and the next morning her car was gone from my house, but I still haven’t heard from her to hear how things went. We got home just before 2, talked a bit, and then crashed out. The next morning, Amy and I met Andy for breakfast before she headed back home. I had to go to the school Halloween party to organize the haunted house with my NJHS kids, and I got to be the hand in the bowl of candy. That was accomplished by being the cramped, contorted body under the two student desks, but hey, everyone loved it. After we cleaned up, I raced home to find our house in full Halloween mode. Dave had taken cardboard and cut it to look like the windows were boarded up by cutting triangular holes in it, and then inserting it into the windows. He had strobes set up in each room, all on different speeds, and the bone lights and crime scence “FRESH GRAVES” tape was stretched from the fence to the porch. We had two headstones and Dave was in his zombie suit. I went up and changed into my spider ghost thingie costume and we started greeting kids. I stood on the porch with a candle lantern, pacing. Dave hid at the hedge. When kids came by, I stared them down and made them say “trick or treat” and if they looked old enough, Dave would run from the hedge to tree, just enough to make them look, and then he would peek around the tree and come at them.

It was AWESOME. People were taking pictures, or videoing it. “I’ve never seen anyone board up their windows before!” was said more than once; the strobes made the cardboard look more 3D, like real wood. It was very cool. We even summoned my cool niece to come over, and we got her and her friend good. Hee!

I ended up calling into work today; I was exhausted. The party, friends, the other party, Halloween, our first anniversary(!), getting my period, etc, just has worn me out. So, I called in. I plan on doing my math grades today (report cards go home Friday) and just general being home-ness.

Election day tomorrow! YAY!