1. What most recently gave you goose bumps?

So I don’t typically get those if I am “scared”, though that seems to be the popular context. I will get goose bumps if one of my kids gets hurt (though that was more when they were little) and maybe when something is emotionally jarring. Yesterday, I read aloud an essay from a student of mine way back in 2004. Honestly, I couldn’t believe it was still archived somewhere. Anyway, I read it out loud to my creative writing students as an example of a good personal essay and at the end of it I did get goosebumps. I remember the story so vividly; he wrote about how he got a concussion so badly that he actually lost his sight for a little while. But at the end he gets it back and is able to see the sunrise. He just gave me goosebumps in class.

2. What does Halloween look like in your home and/or neighborhood these days? Do you participate?

I have outdoor and indoor Halloween decorations up, as do many of my neighbors. I know that kids do go around my neighborhood trick-or-treating, just like my daughter and her friends will, but our house is pretty far off a main road so we don’t get many at all. Since we moved here, I have only handed out candy once and it was kind of a bust. I said this in another post earlier this week but we didn’t want to have Halloween plans – we actually vowed not to – but then our friend invited us to his neighborhood so we agreed. We also got invited to another friend’s Halloween party. It starts at 4:00 so I think we agreed that we will go for a little while and then go to our other friend’s who originally invited us.

3. Pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, poppy, chia…your favorite seed on the list? What’s something you like to make/eat that calls for one of these seeds in the recipe?

I like to put sunflower seeds in my salad but I don’t really use the others. I feel like I made some kind of Asian dish that needed toasted sesame seeds and I remember liking it, but I can’t recall what the recipe was exactly. I have roasted pumpkin seeds before, but they’re never really as good as I think they are going to be.

4. What’s the most (or one of the most) ‘fall photos’ you’ve ever taken? Share it here. Just one.

5. Somehow we’re rolling in to November next week. If your October were a chapter in a book, what would the title of this chapter be?

Dark Yet Cozy. I’m trying to be more upbeat about the time change but the older I get the more I dislike it. I do enjoy the cooler temps and love a good fire, but this time of year is always flip-floppy. We will get a very cool week then it’ll go back to cool mornings and nights but warm in the afternoon, making me bemoan the other times. I like the sun and much prefer the warmth.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

This week and some of last, I was getting to work around 7:20. We don’t need to be here until 7:30 and most people show up later than that. Well, today I wasn’t in a hurry to be here early, since we have a faculty meeting. A last minute one, mind you. The executive council meets all the time but they fail to tell us teachers what we need to know. So it’s always rush rush.

The week is moving right along and maybe that’s good. Last night worked out even though we had some wonky timing. My husband was asked to do the weekly recap video for one of his fantasy football leagues so we were trying to make ourselves scarce. He ended up doing it up in our bedroom but even still, I made the kids go with me to the neighborhood pumpkin patch for a scant ten minutes for pictures. The one I am sharing is their attempt at being friendly but funny. They refused to be serious and wanted to make awkward faces. Hey, these days I will take what I can get. When we got home, he was done and, we did a little bowling. It was fun! We hadn’t done that in a while; just too much going on.

Look how different they are from the picture above!!