Shopping day

Dreadmuffin changed this morning! Woohoo!



The plumber is supposed to come today and hook up the gas stove. Hopefully we'll get that done before it starts to get really cold.

Meee-yuck.

Cats. Their little bald feet are always cold. Their smushed-in faces are creepy. They chew poop off their feet while sitting on the table, and they will claw up your leg without a second thought.
That being said, I appreciate their vermin-eliminating abilities. The ugliest, most effective kitten ever:








It's hard to pinpoint exactly why he's so much creepier than most cats. His legs are longer, and he has very pronounced cheekbones. He moves like a twitchy mongoose.
I dunno. But he helped Mamakitty kill a rat when he was about seven weeks old, so I think he's going to be pretty effective once he gets older.

Pre-SHTF Checklist:

1. Pay off Suburban, Home Depot card, & laptop.
Thanks to the theoretical stimulus packages coming our way, this is soooo within the realm of possibility! At least we'll be in the black before we get sent to the work camp.

2. Get my concealed carry permit.
Guess what Santa's bringing ME this year?

Improvements.

Ninja died. He dropped his legs one by one, and then he died. It was very sad.

His replacement, Stephen(that's how sad we were!), is currently buried in the sand directly beneath the heating lamp, presumably molting. I'll get pictures of him as soon as he digs himself out, as he's wearing an aqua turbo, which is very beautiful.
DreadMuffin's giant turbo is in the mail and should be here Monday or Tuesday. I really hope he switches, that blue shell is seriously laaaaaaame.

Guess what we did yesterday?
We went warm shopping!! Then we came home and installed the warm we bought. It's working wonderfully.

Recycled drywall and insulation. The firemarshall may not like it, but it's improved the draft in our bedroom.



More drywall, more improvement.



The best part! Mr. Legs is awesome. A door. A real one. With hinges and Kung-Fu Closing Action.



We bought one for the boy's old room as well, but we're going to have to rip up the carpet and tile in there to make it fit. We're also going to get one for our bedroom. I think this winter's going to be much better.

I must go prepare for church. Stay warm, people.

My little tribe!

This is Rocketship! He is post-molt, wearing a green turbo shell, and likes to huddle in the little flower pot.



This is Mermaid-Princess-Unicorn. Post-molt, she changed into a babylon shell, which are pretty when the light shines through them, but are very thin. I kind of prefer the turbos.



This is Blossom, also post-molt. She's wearing Unicorn's old shell, but I'm not sure what type it is. Fisherman's Nutmeg, maybe?



And this is Nutmeg, the smallest one. She found a smaller babylon to replace her old shell. Isn't she cuuuuuuuuuuuute?



My biggest, as yet unnamed boy. He's wearing a muffin snail shell. Maybe I'll name him Muffin. Or Moppet. Or Dreadnaught. Let me know if you have any ideas.



And there you have it, my substitute social life.
School's going well, we decided to learn about species classification. We learned that Hermit Crabs and pill bugs are both in the Phylum Arthropoda, that they are invertebrates and posess a chitinous exo-skeleton. Also, we learned that 'chitin' is pronounced 'Kie-tan'. I found a paper on latin pronunciation for the unenlightened, so hopefully I can memorize that over the weekend. Yeah, right.

Sugary goodness of apple butter.

I needs it. SRSLY.

Trick or Treat!

It's October again, time to drag the raggedy remnants of past years out of the closet, dust them off, and re-examine them. No, I'm not talking about costumes, but about guilt & convictions. Boy, are there alot of them.
I like the idea of Halloween as a night to get together with family, all lights lit to keep out the cold and darkness. Holding the ones you love tight for one evening because the world outside is a scary, messed up place and the only way we can be safe is to hang together, maybe eat some garlicky olives and a donut on a string. I actually had a good time last year, as The Aunt took the trouble to put together games like bobbing for apples, eating whipped cream pies using nothing but your face, etc.
Plus, I made Mr. Legs take the kids trick-or-treating, which I despise.

But every time I have to wrestle the kids past a talking mummy in Walmart, or a screaming corpse at Home Depot, (of all places!), I recall exactly why I was blessed as a child not to have to participate. I wouldn't take my kids to go see SAW IX.III & 1/2 at the theater, why would I want them exposed to that type of gore in the toy department? You can't get away from it.
While being inundated with witch costumes & images does kind of open up an avenue to talk about the dangers of the occult, it's kind of hard to educate when there's a rotting skull dripping eyeballs making snide remarks from the shelf behind you.
And speaking of costumes, what's the deal with paying thirty dollars for a crappy nylon 'gown' with Sleeping Beauty pasted on the front? Have we gone insane? Going to Goodwill to pick out costume parts is a blast, why would you pay for the priviledge of giving that up? I still remember my two Halloween costumes, a home made spider (with 3-d legs, extremely hardcore for a six year old!) and a fairy princess. Picking out that princess dress at the thrift store was so much fun, and then I had the anticipation of ACTUALLY wearing a grown-up dress...It was awesome.

So what do we do? I don't know. I want these memories for my kids, but I don't want to see them still trick or treating into their twenties (it happens!), or becoming insensible of the excess grossness that so many people indulge in. Desensitizing yourself to images of death isn't gaining maturity, it's a deliberate subversion of your basic survival instincts. I'm thinking maybe we won't go around the neighborhood this year. I mean, it's not like there's no candy at Grandma's house. Then, as they get older, we can kind of outgrow the costumes but still look forward to the family celebration (which I totally dig). I've tried my hand at dressing up the past couple of years, but I suck at it and it makes me feel retarded. So I quit. I'll leave that to the 'children-at-heart'.