S-A-F-E-W-A-Y spells....

It's been a tough few days. Poor Thomas has been sick and I realize how lucky we are that he has generally been so healthy over the last year. All of us have, actually. When I started at UCSF 2 years ago and Thomas started daycare, it seemed like we were sick ALL the time. But (knock on wood!) the worst of that seems to have passed. At least until last Thursday.

Last Thursday Thomas started showing signs of decreased appetite. It was mildly concerning, because he wouldn't eat his salad at dinner and he usually loves salad (if you can even imagine a three year old that loves salad?!?). I didn't think that much of it, but then Friday around noon Olga called me at home and said he was vomiting at daycare. So I went and picked him up and he seemed okay, maybe a tad sick, but didn't feel too hot and it didn't slow him down much either. haha

Saturday morning he and his Dad got up early and had breakfast. By the time I got up he had vomited up his breakfast and was laying lethargically on the couch. Poor kid. I had to work at 10am, so I headed off and Emmett decided to keep him home from tumbling class and swim class. We were hoping that by keeping him home and getting him some rest that we would still be able to go on our double date with Rob and Amy, Thomas's friend Dylan's parents. By midday it seemed that going out wasn't going to be a good idea, so we ended up cancelling. We were both pretty bummed about that because it's so rare for us to even be off for an evening together.

Let the Hunt begin!

Well, it's officially started...the holiday shopping season.
Of course, I'm not nearly on top of it enough to actually be starting my own shopping, but I'm shopping for things to sell on EBay during the holiday season to try to make some moolah before the holidays.

It frustrates me to no end that I own a retail business and yet I'm completely shut down during the biggest shopping season of the year. But the reality is that people do NOT buy children's clothing during the holiday season. Already my auctions are tanking like crazy. My stork auction Moms group are all getting fired up about selling toys. I was thinking of doing something else - maybe women's clothing - but they really got me inspired about the toys. I've ended up doing a fair amount of shopping and picking up a fair number of toys, carefully keeping the receipts so that I don't lost my a-- if these things don't sell. We'll see. A lot of people made a huge amount of money last year selling toys on EBay (almost everyone made more than $1000 *profit* and some made a whole lot more than that). So I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but with a whole lot of caution. I really think it's the age old "gold rush" deal where a few people are there at the right place at the right time and really hit it big and then everyone else comes running to join the craze, but most of them are a day late and a dollar short, as the expression goes. So I'm fairly concerned that there will be a HUGE amount of people *selling* toys this year without a proportionate jump in buyers, so whatever profits are there are going to be very small indeed. The thing is that I'm certainly no economist and it IS true that online shopping increases every year, so I'm going to cautiously invest some money into buying some toys to sell, give it a try, and if I'm not selling very much, then I will take the stuff back to the store, get my $$ back and buy some nice things for my boy.

We'll see. Emmett is very nervous about my "toy habit" haha. And I must admit that I really have to control the addition aspect of all of this. It's really easy to get caught up in the madness, in particular when I'm on this stork online forum where everyone is feeding everyone else's frenzy. I'm having a tough time rising above it so I'm having to step back a little bit from the stork madness and focus on getting my paperwork together for school and choosing a preschool for Thomas.

well, that's about all for now. I gotta get back to work. Fortunately, we're having a slow night in the ole emergency room. Since it's my second night on, I'm fairly well rested and not feeling groggy and irritable like I do my first night on. I'm working 4 nights in a row - egads! haha - but at least I'll get in the groove. We're so short over the next 6 weeks that I'm going to be working a LOT of hours, not so much looking forward to that. I'm getting lazier all that time and less and less interested in working a lot of hours. But I AM looking forward to school. Also a bit nervous because I have found that it is more difficult as I get older. My memory, she ain't what she used to be.

Love,
Melissa

Pics of the Pumpkin Patch

Two posts ago I talked about our experience at the Pumpkin Festival/Patch last month and what a good time we had with Thomas and his friend, Dylan, and Dylan's parents.

Rob, Dylans, Dad sent me the pics from that outing and it reminded me how fun it was!

When I EVER get a chance to upload all the backlog of photos to the web site, I'll let y'all know, but for the time being I thought I'd share a couple here.

Halloween 2005 - BEST EVER!!

WOW!!! What a wonderful time we had for Halloween this year!!!!
Emmett and I couldn't believe that we actually had SO much more fun with Halloween as parents than we did doing the adult Halloween parties. We just had so much fun it was amazing.

Thomas was uncharacteristically easy to deal with which was a huge bonus. He didn't whine too much about getting his make up on, his costume or the hat or anything else and he didn't clamor constantly to be carried - I think he was just in awe of the whole thing.

First off, I'd have to say that in a city where only 19% of households have children, we must have picked the best neighborhood in the city because it was FULL of kids last night. It was like a genuine Halloween, the kind I remember from my childhood. No mall BS - I hate that! But a real old-fashioned neighborhood Halloween with the houses all decorated and no cars and kids running around everywhere and people outside passing out candy - all of it. Everything that you think about when you think about traditional Halloween. AND - as an extra bonus, I must say I was surprised (and a little bit delighted) that Thomas got ALL traditional Halloween candy - no organic stuff, no high end boutique candy (people trying to one-up the neighbors or something), no fruit - he got nothing weird or healthy haha. 100% Hersey bars, Snickers, Reece's, and all that. He did get one Quaker granola bar, but even it was covered in chocolate.

Emmett actually wore his "Great Big Jack O Latern" costume - it was absolutely hilarious. These two women were commenting on how it "takes a real man to wear that costume" - which cracked me up - so true! :-) Emmett said it takes a "real father" maybe and I'll give him that it was a true labor of love that he wore that costume because Thomas said he wanted him to be a "Great Big Jack 'O Latern". Of course, I found a costume that made it even more embarassing than it needed to be, but he wore it. I was very impressed.

I got off easy because Thomas asked me to be a plain 'ole witch. Cool. I scored a cool witch dress for $3.50 at the Savers Thrift store and a way cool fancy witch hat with feathers at Walgreens for $7.99 and - voila! - witch. I did add some funky orange and black striped thigh highs and some green make - up, but still got by for less than $20 and absolutely NO effort. Thomas's costume didn't cost much (how lucky am I that he chose to be scarecrow?!) - but I did put in some effort to make it. I made patches for some old overalls that he had and then got some raffia (sp?) for the straw and attached it to the sleeves and legs of his clothes. I took this straw hat that Thomas picked out at Savers and added some leaves and birds. It was fun and he got lots of compliments on his costume which was fun. I think it's a good thing that Emmett goads me into making homemade costumes for Thomas. Every year I get tempted to just find something online, buy it and be done and every year I end up making the costume at home. I AM improving at it, though. Hopefully by next year I'll have acquired some sewing skills and can sew something for him. It was funny that Saturday night I was making his costume and Emmett was sitting watching TV, Thomas was in bed. I commented on how it was good that he talked me into making it (I had seen a couple on EBay and been oh so tempted!) and he had the good taste to be self-deprecating about the fact that he insists on the homemade costume and then sits lounging in front of the TV while I do all the work. I laughed, it was nice that he acknowledged that, but I actually REALLY enjoy having a creative project. There is so rarely time these days to utilize my creativity. I also have to be honest and admit that I like the props I get for his costume when we're out. I was preening like a peacock when we were out trick or treating. LOL :-)

Anyway, it was just so much fun and we got to meet so many neighbors. A truly awesome Halloween - the best I've had since childhood.

I added some photos to this posting because for one thing I am getting SO bad about added photos to the web site - ugh! I have SO many pictures to add. I still keep making noise about doing more photography for art, but that's along with about 100 other projects I'm working on right now. So much to do, so little time!

Well, gotta run. Hope everyone out there had a safe and happy Halloween.

Love,

Melissa