Snuggled up here at home with Maggie and the cats, while Marty is out serving the decorating whims of the local priest (dubbed "The Pope" by his parishioners). Marty has been painting, wallpapering, buffing, etc. at the rectory for months on end now. The man cannot make up his mind about anything and keeps adding on to the job. I learned last night that last week Marty actually painted his claw foot tub gold. Who needs a golden tub, I ask...unless you are the pope...or a whore...or the pope's whore...?(I'm referring to the Popes of old now.) The man is so lazy he actually asked Marty to send him up a fork on his chair lift. And I heard that he heats up spaghetti on his George Foreman grill. Poor Marty.
Maggie's birthday was great. But she's been kind of a bee-yotch ever since... She was pitching a fit about some dumb thing the other day and I said "You poor little girl---it must be hard being eight." And she shrieked out "It was hard being seven too!!!!!!!!" LOL. I'm so looking forward to the PMS years---not.
The weather can't make up it's mind today---sunny, then overcast with snow showers. But damn cold and going down into the teens tonight and tomorrow night. I try to get out and feed the birds first thing every morning---I figure they need all of the resources they can get to withstand the cold. One of our favorite things to do is to look out the bedroom window and see 5 or 6 bright red cardinals sitting all plumped up in the quince bush. It's hard to stay glum with that view.
Nothing else comes to mind, so I'll sign off now. Stay warm!
Almost forgot...you know when you start getting old and weird things just start happening like strange hairs popping up and your body falling apart?...Well, we're playing Uno last night and I'm trying to shuffle the whole deck at once when suddenly I sustain a shuffle-ending middle finger knuckle sprain. I literally could not shuffle and had to pass the deck over to Marty. How pathetic is that?

Taking a break from cleaning. I'm trying to get everything scrubbed up good before Pie's big birthday bash in ten days. A thankless task given the amount of sawdust and drywall dust constantly accumulating everywhere. I've lived in a reno so long now I don't think I remember what it's like to live in a normal house. Whatever normal is.
Right now the focus is on Pie's giant room. Marty finished a set of built-in bookshelves in one of her little alcoves, so we had the pleasure of actually moving some of her belongings upstairs the other day. We did a rough count and found we moved just over 200 books. We figure that's about half of her collection, so my baby is a bookworm for sure :) She's been enjoying herself climbing up the stairs to her very own space and playing library with her dolls. She's got eclectic taste in literary fare---everything from A Series of Unfortunate Events to Dora lift-the-flap books....
I listen to a lot of music during my chores-ing...found a station that plays music from the 80's, 90's and now. You all know I'm an 80's girl at heart, so I'm in my glory on Saturday nights when they play all 80's :) Over the summer, I got an unexpected call from my friend Sandy's (she died in September 2006) husband. He has a new girlfriend and was cleaning out the rest of Sandy's stuff and wanted to know if I wanted her tapes. I've known about the girlfriend for quite some time---they hooked up within a few months after Sandy died. More on that later. But of course I gratefully said yes. They brought them a few weeks later, and I listened to them non-stop for days...so many memories of sleepovers and playing music into the wee hours of the morning...Duran Duran, Nik Kershaw, Big Country... I felt sad that no one else was interested in this part of her life---music was a HUGE part of Sandy---but selfishly glad at the same time that I had the opportunity to inherit all of these things. He gave me several Big Country DVDs as well. I figure no one else ever watched them, so I handle them carefully, because if you look at them in the light you can still see her fingerprints. I know that probably sounds really weird, but I miss her so much that I cling on to every little thing.
Meeting the girlfriend was hard. Especially since she looks very much like Sandy. It's just hard for me because to me, Sandy is irreplaceable and I take the fact that she is being replaced personally. I know that is probably wrong, but so be it. I know he went through a lot during her illness and deserves to be happy. It's just hard.

Historical times in America. The last two presidential elections were hard on me, so I was afraid to let hope burn too brightly in this one. Politics and wily Republican ways aside, I quite honestly wasn't sure if America was ready to elect an African-American president. If you think about it in the historical sense, the sixties were not that long ago. When we moved down here (originally) in the mid-70's, there was still a "colored" church and one street was remembered as "colored row". I've found out recently that a sparsely populated section of the cemetery across the road was the "colored section". There was a "colored" school as well, though that was gone by then. We have generations of people voting for whom that was the norm. That worried me. I guess we'll never know to what extent race played a part here in WV or in the other Southern states, but I'm cynical enough to have strong suspicions. I'm just glad it didn't matter in the long run and I'm proud to be living in these times and sharing them with my little girl.
I thought Obama's acceptance speech was one of the most moving and inspirational I have seen. And we determined that Democrats are better huggers---LOL.
P.S. McCain won WV, but Obama won my county so I am consoled by that:)

To quote "The Golden Girls" (which I hope to never do again), I'm as nervous as a virgin at a prison rodeo today. Haven't been to vote yet---will go as soon as Marty gets home from work---but I'm chomping at the bit. It's going to be a looooong day.
The Steelers won last night, which means the Redskins lost, which supposedly means that Obama is going to win today. Who knew?
But on to more important topics...We were watching Nickelodeon last night and heard Dora the Explorer referred to as "The Greatest Explorer the World Has Ever Known!" Huh? Dora can't even find her way from her house to the library without a magical map and the assistance of a monkey and a legion of preschoolers...
Which makes me think of Dubya again...saw some of the scariest political commercials yet during the football game. One depicted a person driving a car when whose mug should mystically appear in the mirrors---Dubya. I would just pull over and seek a priest to exorcise the car at that point. It was like a bad Sci-Fi channel movie (and they have some really bad movies, don't they?) I'm surprised I didn't have nightmares. Seriously, you all know I haven't been a big fan of the Bush presidency, but I kind of feel sorry for the guy at this point. Even his own party doesn't want him around anymore.I'm sure it's not the legacy he intended for himself.
Oh well, enough babble. Happy Voting!

So Halloween has come and gone... The trick-or-treating was a huge success, and Maggie's cauldrons, pumpkins and tote bags overfloweth with candy. She was a sugar freak all weekend and only got crabby a few times when she started to come down from her sugar high. Her candies of preference are Reese's Cups, Hershey Bars and Kit Kits. She scorns anything with caramel or nuts, so that's where Mommy comes into the picture, getting all of those pesky Snickers and peanut M & M's out of her way.
We trick-or-treated here on Friday evening. They only give you an hour to get to every one's door, which might seem like a lot in a town this size---but not if you're related to half the inhabitants and have to take time to shoot the breeze. I can see why my dad said he had to leave the state to put branches on the family tree---LOL. On Saturday the businesses in the nearest big little town gave out treats, so we trucked her out for that as well. Not as fun---the candy-dolers were rather stingy and seemed as if they'd rather be anywhere else but where they were, and the grown-ups were more frightening than the kids, even sans costumes. They must have drifted in from all the surrounding hollows much like they do at fair time. I swear I heard banjo music faintly on the breeze...
Our biggest laugh came from the fact that the local smoke store was passing out, what else, candy cigarettes! I'm not proud to say that I'm a smoker, but even I have to wonder how these things have made it under the radar of political correctness all of these years. Then I started to think about the bubblegum cigars and the bubble gum tobacco of my youth and wondering if they still make those as well? Marty and I had a good time reminiscing about our favorite childhood candies after Maggie went to bed (or passed out, I should say). I was a big fan of those little wax bottles with the juice inside. Bottle Caps and wax lips were also among my favorites. Neccos were good value for the money because if you rationed them out you could satisfy your sugar jones for a long stretch. I also remember eating a lot of Charleston Chew candy bars which were about a foot long at the time. Marty spoke highly of something called a Flying Saucer which he described as having the consistency of the Host on the outside and tasty candy beads on the inside. What was your candy of choice as a rug rat? I loved to trick-or-treat because that was the only time of the year you ever got that volume of candy. I can remember eating mine almost immediately, after which my more prudent little sister would sell me some of hers at highly inflated prices. LOL.
Steeler football tonight, election day tomorrow... I'm nervous about both. The Steelers are 5-2; how's your favorite team faring? I'm cautiously hopeful about the election, but whatever the results, at least we can finally send Dubya off to Texas to draw his memoirs...