Happy Halloween!!

Thank goodness the trick-or-treaters finally showed up! I have been sitting with a big bowl of candy in front of me since 3pm waiting for them to start coming by and subsequently eating chocolate and sugar by the handfuls. They finally started arriving about 6:30 and fortunately there was still candy left.

Is that because Halloween is on Friday night this year?

In years past they always started much earlier.

They really aren't the friendliest bunch either...only a handful of "Trick or Treats" and "Happy Halloweens"... even fewer "Thank yous." Whatever, I'm having fun.

I have had a couple funny visitors...one girl started chatting like we've known each other for years...'oh you have a dog? we have a dog. a chocolate lab. she is really bad. she poops in the house.' Right about that time her dad cut in and said it was time to go. Too bad, I could tell she was just getting started.

Another boy came in an awesome werewolf costume. I said 'wow, you're costume is scary!' he said 'thanks, check out www.werewolf.com for real-skin werewolf costumes.'

Really? Do you think he received the costume free with the stipulation that he deliver that key message at each house?

Stella hates Halloween. So does my hubby. She wants to bark and growl at the kids for no reason other than they dared to walk up the stairs. Hubby just likes to be grouchy. I'm having a great time. They better keep coming. I have six more bags of chocolate I must give away or face the chance that I could polish it all off before Monday.

As an aside, I found a flaw in my favorite new site Flickr - all the cool Halloween pictures I wanted to lift for my POD were copyright reserved. And now that I've been to my online ethics class, I can't violate the rule. Bummer. This one is pretty good though.

Tomorrow I buy a new camera, carve my own pumpkin and perhaps have a late entry to showcase. We'll see.

I also try a new prenatal yoga class tomorrow morning. Can't wait!

Gratitude list: Baby kicks. Dog park friends. Voting.

Pa-few! I blew out of training 10 minutes late and jumped in the car in order to crawl all the way to Bucktown, at a near-comedic snail's pace, towards the early voting location in our neighborhood. Tomorrow is the last day, I can't go, and I'm in Miami all next week. AH!

I parked illegally, threw on the hazzards and flew into the building, up the stairs and prayed I wasn't too late.

I made it!! I even had time to go to the bathroom before getting in to line :)

Early voting rocks. I waited about 30 minutes but it went by very quickly. It is refreshing to see so many people already out making a point to voice their opinion.

Please do the same. Get out there and cast your vote. It is too important not to.

Carrot-time

Gratitude list: Running belt. Halloween candy. Cold sleeping weather.




Baby S is a carrot this week. And growing eye brows! Babycentered showed, actually you just have to see, hopefully this doesn't freak out any unsuspecting readers but look at this image...

There is a PERSON in there! In my belly. Isn't that amazing? I realize I continue to come to the table shocked and flabergasted about this but you can't deny this process is a miracle. And part science project. Anyway, I digress.

I still don't know the sex but I can tell you there is no way he is facing the direction shown here. He is tap, tap, tapping me all the time so his little feet have to be pointed out rather than towards my back as shown here.

I've also been thinking a lot about the ultrasound machine and how awesome it would be to own one. We talked about it during the appointment. And someone reminded me later that Tom Cruise bought one when Katie was pregant, and everyone said he was crazy.

I promise you if money were no object (I have no idea how much one of these would cost but it has to be a lot), I would absolutely buy one. In a heartbeat.

My three best friends are pregnant. Imagine the fun we'd have with one of these in the living room! Everyone could come over, take turns dialing in. I bet we could even figure out how to introduce the kids prebirth.

Anyway, how is that for a randy rant? I don't suppose anyone has an ultrasound machine they want to loan me for the next couple months?

Nite, nite from the carrot.

My grateful list: Baby kicks (it's awesome everytime). Black cherry citrus Fresca. Airplane-free week.

I mentioned I'm in training all week - it's a class on online ethics, how to engage in conversations, an overview of what is happening out there, communities that are rising in influence, interesting evolutions (or "mashups") of sites. We cover blogs, Facebook, Twitter, podcasting, and so very much more.

I've been trying to get in for about 16 months.

Clients are interested in getting into various areas of this space and while I can speak to it, at times I have to do the old "I'll have to check and get back to you," which I'm hoping to do less of after this.

I'm also hoping to make some cool upgrades to this site so keep an eye out! Actually, the whole reason I started cityretreat in the first place was to get a better understanding of blogging. Same with Facebook and Twitter. I have to learn by example.

One thing I learned today was the awesome content available on Flickr. See how much nicer the carrot photo is over there (I attributed the source, per the lesson today)? Nothing like that popping up on Google Images!

And DW said she'll help me figure out how to organize my RSS feeds which has been making me feel kind of slow and out of touch. I'll be back with more updates this week as I get smarter. Stay tuned!

And just like that the weekend is over...Friday night event was a big success and clients were thrilled so that made working on Friday night managable. Hubby came home from JAX, late but home all the same.

I was so excited to show Winona to two strong perspective candidates - neither showed. I don't know how to get appearance rate up. Any suggestions? Rental canddiates. I spoke with "Cheryl" four times over the course of last week about her dog, her son, monthly rent. She sounded legitimate. And another guy called Friday afternoon, we booked an appointment for the next morning.

We spent two hours there yesterday for nothing - neither showed. Maybe this is what property management is all about? How hard is it to call and cancel an appointment if you're not going to show? It's rude.

In-laws were in an out in an instant, though we had a lovely visit. And I worked most of today, trying to catch up from the last two crazy weeks and prep for being out of commision this week (in training).

Hubby is in Phoenix much of this week; I'm in MIA all of next. I think, I hope, there is a light at the end of the tunnel coming soon...

Hum, ok I still can't figure out how to get the baby pics up. They are saved as PDFs, DW resaved as jpegs but I still can't figure out how to get them on. They aren't showing up as jpegs when I try to attach. AGH! Hubby will resave tomorrow so you can see the cuteness soon.

This week was a big pile of garbage which means I still haven't written about how awesome the ultrasound was. Coming this weekend, promise.

Instead of bitching about all the things that were SO annoying about this week, I'm going to share a few great things that did make their way in - more than three things I'm grateful for:

- Ultrasound was truly best 30 minutes of TV I've ever seen. More on this but can't be said enough.
- Baby S is wiggling and dancing all the time now and every time I feel him, I smile (for some reason I feel like I have a secret no one knows about - though at this point the belly is no secret).
- I found $80 on the sidewalk Thurs while walking the dog - how sweet is that?!?!
- I love other moms. I have a whole post on this coming soon but moms rock and I can't get enough of their tips and advice. Keep 'em coming!!
- We had a great event tonight for BK, thanks to my kickass team who pulled it all together with very little help from me.
- We have two renters lined up to look at Winona tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
- I'm diving into Twitter ("cityretreat" there too but I'm going to have to watch for a bit before I dive in, not totally sure how it works just yet).
- Bellydance maternity store is having a sale tomorrow, I'm buying.
- My airplane did not snap in half and fall from the sky as I was positive would happen on Thursday night.
- Hubby agreed to Bugaboo suddenly after initial resistance.
- Went to great muscle pump class this am and my instructor is preggo too so she is going to take a few prenatal classes and bring back the moves for us.

I'm off to bed. Making the list of positives has nearly washed away the week. Hopefully tomorrow I'll wake up liking everyone around me :)

Happy weekend!