A Room of One's Own

The Great Pumpkin

Halloween just became a big contender for my favorite holiday. This time last year, I moved into a new neighborhood and have not met many people at all. Our street seems desolate on any given day. Except tonight.

I took my 2 year old, dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, around to half of my neighbors. Whoever had their light on. She rang the doorbell herself and and I watched her give out big smiles and blurt out the official Halloween greeting. She tried to give her candy to some people. She likes to share. At first, she didn't quite get that she was there to collect candy. It made me laugh. Almost about as hard as her bossing all the kids in the neighborhood around telling them which house to go to and what to do. Like they didn't know. They need her instructions, of course.

She cracked me up as she insisted, after her trick or treating was done, that she pass out the candy we had. She had to question each kid as to what they liked to make sure they got what they want. "You like this one? Oh, okay!" Plunk, into the bag. My Gawd, she's funny. She shouted across the street to our neighbor, who dressed as a dalmation, "Hey!! Hey Puppy!! It's ME!" then waved like a maniac. She has so much Jean Louise Finch in her it's almost too much to take.

But, the street was full of kids. People were in their driveways with hot chocolate, coffee or wine. Parents were having a blast, forget the kids! It felt good. It felt like a neighborhood should. I just can't get a grasp on why we don't have this all the time. Why we need a holiday. Maybe it's that the whole focus of the day is on kids and watching their absolute wonder, that it just feels happy. There's such a sentimentality to Halloween. Tonight, I think I may have waded way out into it and just stood there a while.

Did I jinx myself?

I usually look forward to the Sunday blog post. Not today. I'm too crabby. We are having yet another open house today. The fourth one. We've had a grand total of TWO visitors for all three combined. Why am I not optimistic today? Hmmmm. I wonder. It's also occurred to me, similarly to how I may not be able to decorate for the holidays, that if the house doesn't sell in the next two weeks, we'll end up smack in the middle of holiday season. Yeah, I'm sure everyone wants to go look at houses after Thanksgiving so they can spend their Christmas Holiday moving. So, not that our traffic could get any slower, things will come to a halt until after New Years. This means I'm stuck here until February. I DO NOT like these odds. I feel like my glass is totally half empty. This is NOT like me. I don't like it. I will have you know that the Magic 8 Ball said that the house will "most likely" sell today. Glad someone's got a moderately decent feeling about this.

See? I'm crabby. I would like to spend a nice Sunday at home baking something and watching movies while going through the large stack of magazines that I've accumulated. In front of the gas fireplace that I am too lame to figure out how to get to work. Instead, I have to go find some place to be with an also crabby on-the-verge-of-a-cold child.

Thank you feel tolerating my bitching and moaning. Really, there is only one thing you could possibly do for me that may make me feel better. Send liquor.

I could fall over

I am THAT tired. Our realtor held an open house today so I left the house at 8 am. I just got home. That is a long time when you consider I had a toddler with me the whole time.

We went to a pumpkin carving party, Nana and Papa's, the costume store and then to a Halloween carnival my work did. My daughter was Little Red Riding Hood. Man, does that girl love to twirl around. She's painfully cute and sometimes just plain painful. I am going to go crawl in her bed in a minute to remind myself that there are times when toddlers are really easy: when they have totally crashed. I'm certain I'll wake up there in a few hours because I, myself, totally crash.

If I could bottle her energy, people would line up around the corner, cash in hand, to buy the stuff. That is, if I decided to share.

Oh, and, or course, no bites on the house...

I cannot let this happen.

It's just occurred to me that if my house does not sell within the next two weeks, there may be no Christmas at my house. This would be a travesty. I love Christmas. I mean, I really love it.

The first week in December, I break out the egg nog, Christmas music and decorations and seriously go to town. I go all out. And, mind you, it's none of that crappy fake nativity scene or weird random Thomas Kinkade-esque diorama of some ice skating scene. I am in love with my decorations, they are that pretty. Yes, I am shamelessly bragging.

Just thinking about decorating my house for the holidays makes me really happy. I have no idea what I'm going to do if it just doesn't get to happen. I'll be sitting in my living room watching the special on the decorating of the White House (which, to someone like me, is a dangerous show) and crying into my egg nog.

Please, for the love of God, someone buy my house.

I need to feed the masses

It's just something I need to do. I am an Italian woman who cannot cook for less than a small army of people. It's just NOT possible. Unfortunately, it seems I'll not be doing this soon.

I am not making Thanksgiving dinner. I am not making Christmas dinner. I would love to have friends over on the weekend so that I could feed them. Jambalaya came to mind today. Or some homemade ravioli with a good thick meat sauce. Maybe some soup. Whatever. Sadly, I won't be doing this either for I still live with a supremely crabby man known as ex-husband who is not much fun for company to be around.

But, rest assured, someday this house will sell. And there will be food. Lots and lots of food. Food like you have never seen.

Somedays it just doesn't get any better.

I know I have spent a significant amount of time blogging in praise of Sunday. It's clear that this is my favorite day. I just can't help but to keep reveling in it. It's almost as though if I don't I would be taking Sunday for granted and then that fickle bitch, Fate, would spite me and Sunday would start to suck. I couldn't live if Sunday sucked.

So far this morning I have already had the gospel blaring. My daughter is running around the house practically buck naked except for her footwear, pink pig slippers. Quite a hilarious sight. She is fully entertaining herself and happy to do that. So, it affords me a little time to do whatever I want. I'm taking a break from sitting on the couch drinking a homemade peppermint mocha and reading The Devil Wears Prada to write this.

Some time soon, I'll be finalizing the fantasy football line up. I have to kick Eric's ass today. There is serious pride and bragging rights on the line. It may take an act of God, but I have to do it. But, I'm confident. Something connected to a happy feeling you get from reading the words Manolo Blahnik before 9am.

So off I go now in search of more cappuccino, more contentment, and a new wide receiver.

Extreme sides of the coin

I was helping my friend Emily find what episode of  Sex in the City a certain quote was attributed to. The quote came from Carrie Bradshaw, of course: "You shouldn't have to sacrifice who you are just because somebody else has a problem with it."

First, love that. So true it's almost pitiful. Second, I was shocked at the amount of material there is on the Internet about how horrible this show is. And not in a television genre kind of way. I mean the Christian right wing kind of way. Okay, maybe I wasn't really shocked. Now, I am a late comer to to Sex in the City. At first, I just thought it was stupid. I was being closed minded. I didn't really want to like it. My sister liked it. That's a whole other story in and of itself.

After the couple of episodes I had first really watched, I realized that, though these women are caricatures, much like those on Wisteria Lane, they are real. We, as women, go through what these women go through. We are them. Why is it so horrible to be honest? Why can we not address and discuss adult issues without feeling like the back lash will make it? Of course, this is coming from a woman who stopped conversation in an whole restaurant in Georgia by saying "fellatio." I just do not understand why acknowledging things we talk about within our intimate circles is so awful.

My irony of the evening: I'm sitting here typing this and listening to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Today is a momentous day.

I had my appointment with my counselor today. I had my last appointment with my counselor today. We are both very proud of me. I came to her months ago after staring at my computer for hours reading about clinical depression because I was too depressed to do anything: work, read, watch TV, talk to friends. We started with me trying to think I could fix my marriage and went through me getting divorced and have ended with what me dating would look like. We covered a lot of ground and I shed a lot of tears.

Today, she said I was soaring. Me? I just call it happy.

I love visitors

This weekend a good friend of mine came to visit. I generally love having people at my house. Especially, good, fun, hilarious people. I'd like to share what I learned this weekend with you.

I made fried chicken and homemade macaroni and cheese. If you do this, do not allow your friends to write down the instruction for how to make what your making. It's ugly. Very ugly.

For the love of God, stock you house with chips.

No visit from out of town guests should be considered complete if you have not taken them to the "As See on TV" store at the local mall. They sell boobs there. I was surprised.

If you climb in a spa at 8pm and stay there until 4am and drink vodka the whole time, it seriously messes up the contents of your body.

When your hungover afterward, the only cure is very bad reality TV in heavy doses. The night is not over until Nick Carter cries.

Do not allow friends who have had a few cocktails to change the name of your ex-husband in your cell phone to "Unwanted Penis." If you do, please do not ever have it near said ex-husband if he's calling you from 3 feet away. Otherwise, things could get ugly. I'm just sayin'.

There's many more but it's occurring to me that this many be only funny to me. Still, good life lessons.

I am powerless to Marc Jacobs

I am. It's true. I can't help myself. I have been eying this pair of black patent leather peep toes for months now. I told myself that once the divorce was final, it was my present to myself. I jumped the gun today by a few days. I had to. They were on sale on Ebay. $100 off the zappos.com price. Seriously, the most amount of money I have ever spent on a pair of shoes but I do not care! I love them and they are now mine. Mine, mine, mine. Look at how pretty there are!

I really love them. They make me happy. I may never take them off. I may even need to sleep in them. Probably not the most comfortable idea but still.