TIME WARP TUESDAY

Time Warp Tuesday has been getting by me - but I am right on top of the upcoming holiday with this Halloween photo from 1990.  I made the costumes for Maggie and Zac and it looks like they were pretty happy!

Check in with Jenn to see who else has joined the Time Warp fun this week!

HALLOWEEN SCARES BABIES AWAY

On a warm evening 24 years ago, after all the trick or treaters had gone home for the night, Tom and I decided to walk downtown to see how the adults were spending Halloween.  We wound up in one of the local bars and amused ourselves people watching. 

As I was nine months pregnant,  I ended up with some tinny tasting grapefruit juice to drink.  Tom had a glass or two of wine.  Some people thought I was in costume as a pregnant woman - I was comically huge with our twins - Tom assured them it was all real and said he had forbidden me to have Halloween babies.

We walked back home and went to bed.  An hour later, shortly after midnight, my water broke.  I always thought it was pretty funny that I managed to wait until after Halloween to have my twins, but research at the Yale School of Public Health has shown that births dip a full 11.3% on October 31.  Not only do women avoid planned c-sections and induced births, but "spontaneous" births, go down, too, suggesting that there is something to a woman's preference for a birth date involved in triggering the necessary hormones.

So Happy Birthday Maggie and Zac and thanks for waiting until November to be born.  Your father would never have forgiven me.

7 QUICK TAKES FRIDAY

1. I am missing having little kids this Halloween. I think having time on my hands makes me itch to sew costumes and decorate like I used to. I even made fun Halloween foods like bloody fingers for dinner. I had fun until the sugar took over my kids.

2. Went shopping with Ally today. We had $200.00 and needed a coat, shoes and some warm tops. At the last minute we went to Kohls. We got a cute red "peacoat" with black buttons for half price, a pair of grey "suede" boots and 4 tops. I was amazed.

We even got along for the whole shopping excursion!

3. My printer/copy/scanner/fax machine has been breaking down utility by utility. first I couldn't scan anymore, then I couldn't fax, then the copier went and not I can't print. We had to order a new machine because I use it a lot for work. It isn't that old and now we have to figure out how to get rid of it. I now know to avoid those drop off places because they send the equipment overseas and it is causing big health and pollution problems. I'll check in with the garbage company, I guess.

4. Speaking of the garbage company, ours finally switched over to multiple cans for recycling, food/yard waste and garbage. It has been a big adjustment for Tom. He finally admitted that he could figure out what goes where but he is just choosing not to. Sigh.

5. My kids turn 22 this Sunday. This year has gone by so fast and 22 seems so much older than 21.

6. This time last year we were excited for the election! We are still feeling "hopey changey" at our house. We have been around long enough to know it takes a time for things to get done with a new administration. I prefer some thoughtful "dithering" to rushing into more war or ineffective legislation. What the election last year brought us here in California, was a shameful revision of the civil rights of same sex couples to marry. I hope that 2010 will bring those rights back.

7. Remember to turn those clocks back after the trick or treaters go to bed on Saturday!

HALLOWEEN DECOR?

I should leave this for the Friday Confessions at the Colony - but I will "fess up" here.

I opened the blinds in our little den for the first time in months to find MASSIVE cobwebs full of bugs covering the windows. Truly something straight out of a haunted mansion.

Haunted mansions, however, are usually vacant. This one is inhabited by a woman who actually considered just calling the mess decorative until after Halloween...