Halloween 2010

So I've been anti-Halloween for the past couple years, it still brings back bad memories from losing my Papa 2 years ago and being forced to still celebrate the holiday. This year however I was pushed into dressing up for work again and I have to say I had quite a bit of fun going out, picking out the costume and all the accessories to it, and then being able to celebrate it with a fun group of people this year. I hope they don't mind me putting up pics ;)




Dorothy, me, and Raggedy Ann

  




Hippie dude

















This year was also the first year I picked out and carved my very first pumpkin (with the help of Larry, of course) I'm REALLY looking forward to our very first Halloween in our own place, but until that day I figure we can still do little things here to show our holiday spirit! I was very nervous with the pumpkin since I hadn't done one before and only had minimal trouble with it. I even picked a 2/4 challenging outline pattern!




Pre-carved, just bought


 

Pattern on paper





Scraping gunk off the top

 




Larry helping me carve the pattern

 



All lit up!



I'm very excited, not to mention surprised, it came out as good as it did! There was still a bunch of the pumpkin guts inside, but it was clean enough to be lighting a fire around it :)

So far it has been a great Halloween, I'm looking forward to passing out candy to the little trick-or-treaters tomorrow night and possibly Sunday too (I know I'd take advantage of both nights!)

We also got a new addition to our little family, Dash-the fish-was brought home today since there were too many threats against his poor fish life at work (ha ha), we'll see how long he lasts with our cats! 

Welcome to our home Dash!

Happy Halloween to everyone out there! Only a couple more months till Christmas (yippee!)

Our family...

Now I know it's crazy to refer to pets as family members, I'm always making fun of those that call them their kids (I once saw a lady grab dog treats say she needed to get them for her grand babies!) but we do include our cats in our family, they are our first pets together and just like other cats they are spoiled beyond belief! I figured since we introduced how we met I'd introduce the stories of Oscar and Abby:

We got Oscar when we first moved into the house with Larry's dad, his girlfriend came home with a random dog one day so we figured if they could have a pet, we could too. We immediately got online, found a free cat, called them, and picked him up. He was really young and very adventurous and I think he somewhat loved being an only cat for a little while. He is just the funniest cat in the world! It isn't unusual to find him in this position. He LOVES to play, especially when Larry rough houses with him. He's also a closeted cuddler, he'll only do it at night when we're half asleep. He also absolutely loves to play fetch, which we love because, well, who else has a cat that fetches? He likes to pretend to be our protector, he's always waiting outside our door and watching the stairs for whoever is next to come down, I say pretend because once someone does come down he just runs away. He loves to be chased around our basement, but that's probably due to the fact that when we lived with my mom he was stuck inside a tiny room by himself. He learns very quickly. Instead of being pet, he loves when we pat his butt. He loves attention so much that if Larry and I are both on our computers he just has to be in our way (mostly laying on our laps burying his face under our arms). We have the most entertaining house because of this cat!

(Like I said...spoiled!)

Now Abby is a different story, she absolutely hates rough housing, she is the typical house cat in that she enjoys being pampered and adored and loved. She is really fluffy, which is what most people love right away about her. She loves giving kisses! We got her a couple months after having Oscar, also free online, figuring he would like a buddy around for when we go to work or if we have date nights. She is the lover of the pair, while Oscar is the fighter. She really is this dainty little innocent cat, she likes to pretend she's so girly that she'd never do anything bad, but if you turn your back on her she'll find her way into trouble. She only recently started loving being a lap cat. My favorite thing is she'll cuddle with us at night now too, she just loves getting attention, but only on her schedule. She hates being locked up, and boy do you hear it, if we go anywhere near a door she starts meowing real loud and reaching for the handles, but she's pretty small still so she can't reach it. She also, for some reason, learned to scream when someone is doing something she doesn't like to her. She doesn't meow, she full on screams! We have to keep our house clean because of her, she'll hide pretty much anywhere!

Both of them have learned how to let us know when they want down from being held. They both love playing with each other or just cuddling with each other, their moods change from minute to minute. I love having them all to ourselves for us to pay for them to be taken care of: vet bills, food, toys, but we also get to enjoy their entertainment and we get to play with them and say they are ours! They really do help when we've had a bad day or just need something to come up and love us no matter what!

My AHA! moment

So lately I've really been trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life. For the absolute longest time I've been focused on what I want to be doing in the next 2 years, 5 years, etc.,which is nice, but I've never been motivated on the here and now aspects of my life. I've always had goals, but never immediate ones. It's always been about next month or next year or something along those lines. But this week I've been thinking "what about today? What can I do today to make those goals achievable?"
I should mention that a few years ago I decided to study Psychology, I find it to be an extremely fascinating topic and it's taught me a lot so far. The only problem with it is that to get anywhere in that field you need a much higher degree so that means a lot more schooling than I had originally anticipated. With that in mind, I have decided that to help me achieve my long term goal I need to start working on a plan to get me into a similar field.
I looked into the medical coding and billing requirements at my school and the classes look really easy and it shouldn't take very long, not as long as my degree will take, and it won't be as expensive. I've learned a little about what this entails and I'm very excited and eager to get started. I still have to save up some money and wait to get some generals done for my Psychology so that I don't have to redo them, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get this all done within a years time. So now that I've got a plan I just need some luck and a little patience :)