Happy Halloween, too.

I've decided to "live-blog" Halloween, in homage to or just plain copying Ann Althouse.

6:30:  The house is quiet...the kids and the neighbors have all left, under the watchful eye of two dads and a bottle of merlot.  I've finished up another Monteagle bag, and will probably start working on a paper due on Monday. (after I get this post going)

6:42:  A bunch of very familiar-looking spooks, angels, fairies and Supergirl just became my first trick-or-treaters.  So far I've had two Milky Ways and three Pixie sticks.  Just writing that sounds gross!

6:53:  I added the picture up there.  This Mac still isn't intuitive, at least for me. 

6:58:  Four Fourth-grade witches.  And I figured out how to one-click this editing.

7:17:  "Halftime!" called by Supergirl (aka DD5).  Only one other little cheerleader at my door.  The paper is progressing.

7:35:  Halftime consisted of water, a candy break, and blankets for the golf cart--I mean, for the cold kids on the golf cart.  DD7 (the sick one) is hanging in there but may quit in a little while. A witch, a pirate and a ghoul have come to the door. 

7:52:  Finally! A traffic jam of golf carts and about ten kids, all boys, all ghouls and soldiers.   Ghouls seem to be really big this year.

8:03:  Good grief...I've sent two emails in the last hour or so and BOTH of them got answered.  I don't know ANYONE who has a life on a Friday...I must really be old.

8:23:  Two belly dancers, with bare bellies.  They looked really cold. (It feels like it's around 55 outside.) And just now a couple of hippies and another pirate.  No real theme is emerging in the costumes.

9:24:  We had a run of kids around 9 p.m.  Mine are still out, but trick-or-treating at the grandparents', so I've decided to turn out the lights at 9:30.  I'm ready for dinner.  I didn't have any more candy after that first post!

9:34:  Everyone's home, lights are out on the porch.  Now it's time for sorting and trading, the REAL point of Halloween.  Good night!

Happy Reformation Day!

Check out this RAP (I know, a rap of Luther?) of Luther's 95 Theses:

I love being Lutheran.

If you're Lutheran, too, or just know one, check out this link, too.

Happy Reformation Day!  Thanks be to God!

This poor lady

Okay, she says, "I won't have to work to pay my mortgage, I won't have to work to put gas in my car."  Does she really, REALLY believe that?  

Really? Wow.

A couple of videos

Just because I have the platform, here are a couple of items:

Fashionably late doesn't apply in the Senate.

And then there's this:

I like that Manolo party idea.  Happy Friday!

And they have a problem with Palin?

The more I see him, the more I wonder about Biden.  There's just something evasive and creepy about him...these pictures tell a little of the tale.  Look how very alone he is in that airplane picture.  And the Botox-ification gives him a bizarre eyebrow thing.  It seems shallow to look at the pictures, but don't they make you wonder?  Why is Sarah Palin attacked so viciously while Biden gets a total pass?  Is it because he's so familiar, that to take a hard look at him now would just point out how the press has given him a pass in the past? 

Just wondering.

Eavesdropping

DD5 was playing Barbies with her six-year-old cousin:

"I'm Sarah Palin's daughter."

"No...you're JUNIOR Sarah Palin.  I'm Sarah Palin.  Come on, let's go pound those bad guys."

I love my kids.

Join the team!

I joined Team Sarah yesterday, a group that supports my (current) favorite in politics, Sarah Palin.  There is a lot going on over there, especially if you're in a battleground state.  My state isn't, in theory, although the polls indicate that we are right on the edge.

Get your Flu Shot!

Not to be a nag, but the season has begun.  My two-year-old nephew has the flu (confirmed and everything), even though we can't figure out where in the world he caught it.  We are going this afternoon.  The flu isn't something to mess around with...at a minimum it's four days of miserable.  We all had it five years ago, when the youngest was a newborn.  TEN DAYS at the beginning of December with three sick children (ages five, four and two), two sick parents and a newborn. Don't go there.

Just get the shot.

UPDATE:  I have one sick in bed, and it's the day before the second most important day of the year (ask any kid).  AND I have to attend class today because we have an in-class video today. Pray for us!

UPDATE 2:  No flu, no strep. She just has a virus!  So it's rest and cartoons and lots of liquids so she'll recover in time for the "funnest night of the year!"

I am NOT making light of this, but...

Chick or dude?  Yeesh.

Read this

Important reading...I'm actually a day late on this article by the esteemed Arthur Laffer.  (Ever heard of the Laffer curve?  THAT Laffer.) So many quotable lines in there about the economy, and it gives a great historical perspective. In my opinion McCain's tax plans aren't great, but Obama's are terrible. Laffer does an effective job of explaining how neither plan is looked on favorably by the markets, and why that is.

Sorry to be depressing...hopefully I'll come across another entertaining video to share.

Lighten Up!

Just because...

UPDATE:  I fixed the link so the video is working again.

African Feminism

It's good to realize there's more going on in the world than this presidential election and the economic tumult.  Here is an interesting article about what's going on in the African country of Rwanda--remember them?  It seemed like, for many years, we would hear reports of atrocities (that somehow never rose to a level important enough for us to really notice) with these groups of Hutus and Tutsis.  Even the tribal names seemed to minimize the violence to my American ears.  More than 800,000 people (mostly Tutsis) were systematically eliminated, mostly men.  The women, they were raped.  (The great but harrowing Hotel Rwanda depicts this terrible time.)

That was back in 1994.  Today, Rwanda finds itself with more women than men in the adult population, and the women are stepping up to lead.  The male president, Paul Kagame, has made that an important part of his government is changing the way this very paternalistic, even misogynistic, and very tribal society includes women.  

I'm of two minds about this.  One of my favorite things about Sarah Palin is that she's a mother of five.  In my experience, mothers don't have time to be idealogues.  Pragmatism is the name of the game, even though Palin clearly has some ideas that she measures her decisions against.  I believe that these Rwandan women love their children as much as I do, and they want a good future for their children (boys and girls) just like I do.

On the other hand, marginalizing the men, especially the young men and teenage boys, is tempting.  Societies in which the young men see little to no path, to a family or a future, have traditionally become bellicose.  I pray that President Tagame and the leadership there are inclusive, keeping opportunity wide open for anyone willing to work.  It would be so easy to let that pendulum swing from the highly male-dominated (and female-oppressive) culture they are surrounded by (see what's happening in neighboring Congo) to a female-dominated (and male-oppressive) one.  Wisdom and discretion will be necessary on all sides within this tiny country.  I hope they have it.

Frankly, I'm more surprised to see they believe in God. (via Drudge)

Lovely for Friday

Random thoughts for Friday

A rainy Friday, again.  But we need the rain so much, and it makes it kind of cozy in my kitchen with a second cup of coffee and DD5 (birthday last week) playing with her Barbies over there on the floor.  An ideal time to tie up some loose ends...

When the financial crisis started in earnest, back in September, I wrote a post about McCain suspending his campaign and heading back to Washington.  I was glad he did it, but have been pretty quiet since then.  Truth is, I'm disappointed.  He went back and didn't really DO anything.  It was ineffectual.  I will continue to say that any solution that includes the guilty parties (Dodd, Franks, and let's extend that to Pelosi, Waters and Reid) is no solution to me. And the bailouts seem to continue.  Disturbing.

Closer to home, we can problem-solve in my skills class! Me--the advice-giver--I'm having a hard time with this.  For the last two months we could only reflect and ask open-ended questions.  The shift to problem-solving (admittedly, not the same as advice-giving) is tough.  I find myself tongue-tied part of the time in my interviews.  Practice again this weekend, with another twenty-minute tape.

And finally, the redecorating (here) which started so long ago is coming to an end.  The drapes are being delivered and installed today.  I mentioned that I like to sew, but NOT for my house! So those are arriving and things will be complete. Sort of.  I could use a couple of new lamps, something for the hearth...it never ends, does it?

We are headed to the lake for a beautiful fall weekend.  The rain should be over by this evening and then we'll sit outside and grill some steaks. And then back home on Sunday for all of our obligations. What a blessing to have a haven to escape to once in a while. Best wishes for your October weekend!

Format Change!

I got tired of the pink.  What do you think?  Too  masculine?  Comments always welcome.

Field Trip

As part of my ethics class we went to visit a practitioner in our area of choice. For me, that meant joining a bunch of classmates to visit a marriage and family therapist.  She was so generous with her time and absolutely gracious in sharing as much information as she could with us.  Students can ask some pretty nosy questions, but she was open with her answers of how she came to be a counselor and her educational path.

The most important thing I heard her say was regarding play therapy.  She hadn't been too excited to work with kids--she was more interested in working with the family unit and the parents.  And then she started playing with her first pint-sized client.  "What an honor, an absolute privilege, to be invited into her world." 

I sat there and thought of my little guys at home. I'm not the best about getting down on the floor and playing Barbies and I am terrible at Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii.  But she was right--it IS an honor to be invited into their world. I've resolved to accept their invitations a little more often and to prize the time we spend together on their level.  Another change, another something to be aware of...

Are you Joe the Plumber?

I am.

Shoes!

Gotta love all of these...I think my faves are the alligator pumps she wore with the black suit at the debate.

(via the Corner)

As the Corner points out, it is SO MUCH harder being on the Palin-pump beat than, oh, the ACORN connections or the umpteenth bailout.  Those reporters really sacrifice for us.

I wonder what this means:

"Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking," Biden said.

"Remember I said it standing here. if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's gonna have to make some really tough -- I don't know what the decision's gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen," Biden continued.

He "guarantee"s it.  What have Obama and Biden been doing lately?