Boo! It's Halloween

Hi Mom,

It's late in the evening on Halloween. M was a vampire this year (not a Twilight sparkly one, but an honest to goodness scary one with pale face and cape). She went to a party last night and then to a friends for movies and trick-or-treating tonight.

It was kind of an odd weekend--S had to work yesterday, so M and I lazed about and then got her ready for the party. Today just went by too quickly, but I have to admit, I'm losing my love of the day. I remember back when I wanted to be married on Halloween. I still like dressing up, and this year I was my desk at work, which is a huge mass of papers and post-it notes and my coffee cup and calendars and all sorts of other stuff.

The one part of Halloween that I do still love is the pumpkins. We had two this year that were at least 2 inches thick--carving them was a real job! Marion and I gutted them and carved them on our tiny front porch--it rained last night, but today was a picture-perfect fall day, and it hasn't started raining yet!. I have a big bowl of seeds to toast, and we got tons of compliments on the jack-o-lanterns. The best compliment was finding the top of the teeny squash I carved several feet away from the bottom of the squash--and the top had been nibbled and chewed on! I'm wondering what will be left of them in the morning!

It's cold--in the 50s mostly, but dropping lower at night. It's supposed to be a very wet, nasty winter this year. I'm still feeling such mixed emotions about being here--it was a move we really couldn't pass up, but had I known what it would be like, I might have made the decision to hold out in AZ instead. It really is incredible different to live in a place than it is to visit. Like S said, "I thought this place was gonna be cool." Me, too. Parts of it are, but it overwhelmingly isn't. M's starting to feel more at home here, and she's made some good friends, but they all live in another part of town so it's hard to even arrange for her to hang out with them. I like my job, but the commute takes a lot of time every day. It's so blinking expensive here, too! I miss our house.

I'm going to sign off for now. I miss you. I know we really didn't see eye-to-eye on lots of things, but I never doubted that you loved me. I hope you know that I love you, too; always have and always will.