Happy Halloween!

You know how we all have strong personal beliefs and values? Yours may be your absolute faith in God. Or your diligence to buy organic produce. Or to change your sheets once a week. I realized this morning that one of mine is to dress up for Halloween.

I love Halloween. Throughout all of my adult life I have dressed up and celebrated the holiday with friends at parties, work, street fairs, etc. Well, life changes. And sometimes Halloween falls on a Monday. This year there were no invites to parties. No tight friendships for group costumes. Honestly, there was barely free time to get costume elements. I considered passing up the opportunity to dress up. I figured "I have plenty of other things to worry about. I need to clean the house, put away laundry, and research cloth diaper options." But I'd had an idea in my head for a while. This idea revolved around my pregnant belly. And while I plan to be pregnant again in the future, there's no guarantee that I will have a big belly in October. So last night at 9pm I sat down with some construction paper (yes, construction paper!) and a glue gun. Then I pestered Bryan for his opinion, and sweet talked him into designing an element of my costume.

This morning I woke, doubted myself briefly, and then thought "no, this is important to me." So at the age of nearly 35, I dressed as a gumball machine.

A GUMBALL MACHINE.



It's sort of conceptual in nature but I love it.

I went to work where one other person was dressed up. As a cheerleader, and she was a cheerleader. I was both mortified and delighted with myself. Most importantly, I stood by my own values and I dressed up for Halloween.

Oh my goodness, why am I still droning on about this? But here's the truth... I needed this silly costume. I needed this time to focus on myself, to not give a sh*t of what others thought. The last few week have been heavy and stressful. Pregnancy hormones certainly haven't helped either. I haven't found a magic solution to make it all better, to blissfully relax into life. But construction paper helped a little.

Now I'm chilling at home waiting for the trick-or-treaters to come. We carved three pumpkins (one for the baby) and they're lit to let folks know we're home and we have candy!



A few weeks ago we went to the pumpkin patch to pick these pumpkins OFF THE VINE. Did you know you can do that? That you can choose your pumpkin right from the dirt it has grown it all it's life, and simply twist it off the vine? I had no idea.



Even moreso, did you know your pumpkin patch might also have you-pick flowers? It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway. I love Portland.



Even still, I miss the Halloweens of San Francisco and Honolulu.

Happy Halloween to you!