Snapshots: Halloween and Beyond

Poppy's costume this year was the cutest. She dressed as her American Girl doll, with dress, shoes, and pants she already had. I bought a length of white ribbon and a lace collar for around her neck and . . .

Two American girls.

The Halloween decorations on the table lasted through Halloween morning and most of the dinner we had with friends before going trick-or-treating.

Morning breakfast table.

But then the jack-o'-lantern candles burned down too low and dribbled all the wax out the sides, and the actual jack-o'-lantern caved in, and that was it for Halloween.

Down to just plain old calendula and candles.

One of the little girls at school on Wednesday came down sick in the middle of the day. Her dad came to pick her up, and it was clear when he arrived that he had left work to come get her.

Except here, "left work" means he put his horse in his trailer and drove the whole rig to the school.

I am still alien enough to this Western world to be terribly amused by such things.

Speaking of school, I came in to work on Monday to find this in my desk chair.

This is obviously not my desk chair, but the bear is what was in my chair.

I was very confused by this, because not many people even go into my room. But I detected the wacky sense of humor our maintenance director is known for. When I asked him about it, he said they found it in a closet they were cleaning out in my building and left it for me.

That was also pretty amusing.

And last, we have a mechanic's pit at our house, built by one of the previous owners. It had this horrible sheet-metal cover on it that was rusting and full of sharp edges. We got rid of the cover, and decided that the actual pit--which is just outside our front door--would be much more appealing if it were full of flowers.

So we threw a bunch of branches on the bottom to start filling it in, then filled it with dirt (A. did this--very handy with the shovel, you know), placed a whole bunch of bulbs in there, then covered those with dirt, and then a layer of horse manure.

Bulbs before covering.

I put in Asiatic lilies, alliums, tulips, daffodils, and crocuses. I'm very excited to see everything come up next year. I just have to remember to water it, which should be pretty easy because it's only about twenty feet from the outside faucet.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.