Behold my little race car driver. Yes, the costume was completed on time. Although I do confess to a couple sewing newbie mistakes, all in all I'm quite proud of the work. Note the Nascar stickers. My boy's father was adament that his son would be a Formula 1 driver, none of this Nascar hooey. Well, we do not live in Monaco but rather in central Virginia where it is somewhat difficult to escape the Nascar hegemony so Nascar it had to be. In fact, the local auto place only had a handful of appropriate stickers in the first place, reducing our choices to #20 (Tony Stewart's number, I have been informed) or nothing. So #20 it was.


The important thing, though, was that the boy was utterly thrilled with his costume and over the moon that the grown ups on the trick-or-treating route knew what he was supposed to be (well, except for one woman who thought he was an astronaut, but I believe this is a forgivable error). As mom-moments go, this Halloween was exceptional. Plus, I got to feel like Martha Stewart without the indictment. Can't ask for much more than that.


I've recovered somewhat from my voting angst. Actually, I've managed to distract myself with various domestic/nesty activities. Specifically, I've turned our uncarved pumpkins into pumpkin mush for the freezer to be made into pancakes, waffles, bread, muffins and other goodies throughout the winter. I also roasted the seeds, which turned out to be the best I've ever done. What did I do, you ask? We had four or five cups of seeds so put them all in a bowl and poured about half a cup of melted salted butter on top, added 4 or 5 tablespoons of soy sauce and a couple sprinkles of garlic powder (in fact, roasted pumpkin seeds are the only reason I keep garlic powder around). Mix well and spread on a buttered or sprayed rimmed cookie sheet and place in a 350 degree oven. Stir every 15-20 minutes or so until the seeds are golden/brownish and dry. Let cool on the sheet and store in a sealed container.


I also managed to start wrapping Christmas presents so that I don't have to rush around at the last minute. Since most of our presents go out of town I am trying to have those for Philadelphia ready before Thanksgiving so they can be delivered in person and those for both Buffalo and Grand Rapids ready to ship in earliest December. Then I'll have only our household presents left, to be wrapped at my leisure. Other early holiday projects found me getting the paperwhite bulbs into forcing position in the hopes that they'll be ready for our mantel come Christmas. And this afternoon I'm off to buy cards. All of this early work should leave me with lots of time to bake cookies with the boy in December. He's also asked for a gingerbread house for us to make together - I can't imagine a better way to spend an afternoon.