Sept 24-Sept 30  Happy Fall!

Finally the Fall season has come, but you can't tell from our weather. We continue to have wet, humid and very warm days. Since I have been off work and searching for on call positions (or maybe even part time positions), I decided to take advantage of all this warm weather and get some grass seed on the lawn. Our lawn is just too big to seed the entire thing by hand. We would have to hire someone to plug and seed like the rest of our neighbors. Looks like September is the best time to do it, but usually Tom and I are just too busy to get to that project.  Lately Tom is just not around enough. We tried borrowing a rental machine from our friend Dan in the past to plug and seed the entire lawn, but it was very back breaking work with limited success. So I usually try to patch up one or two areas at a time each year.

This year I took on the very shady areas under our birch trees and cherry tree. With all the warmth and rain, the seed did very well. I just wish I could manage larger areas, but since I have to spread some dirt, seed and hay, it takes quite a bit of time, even for a small area. Plus raking up leaves, dead grass and twigs to prep the spot. I already have plenty of blisters on my hands! And since the ground was nice and wet, I took advantage of that to dig up 3 large bushes out front that up and died. I am hoping the replacement plants will do better-japanese fire plants with bright red leaves in the spring and bunches of white berries. At least they were not expensive!  The wet, warm weather also gave me time to plant some fall mums in the flower pots. Unfortunately, the warm weather also brought out lots of black snakes around our house. Cookie found a few sitting in the top of our bushes, sunning themselves on the deck. I also had to avoid a black snake while trimming the bushes since they seem to enjoy resting on the top of the branches in the sun. I also think it has been too wet for them too!  Sadly, someone ran over one in our driveway and lucky me had to clean that up. It's great to be home!  I have just been trying to get some of the big projects done before I start working again. Whenever that is. Also want to get the yard in shape before decorating for the holidays. I'm sure the neighbors will be putting out the Halloween decorations soon!

And speaking of Halloween, it sure felt like it at the Baltimore Comic Con!  Allison and I decided to go on Sunday. She has not been in years while she was away at school. Scott, Tom and I usually go each year. Tom had returned from a trip to Salt Lake City, but was on his way back out the door to Scotland.  In between he was busy writing papers for his recent class. He has only 2 more classes to go for his PhD and then he can start work on his Thesis!  So Tom could not join us, but Allison was very excited to visit. We usually just enjoy walking through the booths with items for sale, including comic books and tshirts, jewelry and posters of our favorite characters/super heroes. Allison was excited to find some Sonic earrings. I picked up a Pikachu costume(tail and ears) for when Allison and I attend the Zoo Boo at the National Zoo this Halloween(adults only event).   We also enjoyed looking through all the comic books-not the single books, but the collector books. Tom enjoys the super heroes collections. More expensive for the larger books, but you get more volume and half off the price at the convention. Plus we love looking at all the costumes that people wear to the event. Scott used to love dressing up and even participated in the costume contests in the past. Allison and I usually do not dress up but wear our favorite tshirts. I had on my Walking Dead tshirt and she wore something from something-I have no idea. She says it is from the Portal video game.

With all the video games, anime and Utube characters I am lost.  People bring amazing props too-like a remote control, life size R2D2. They also have guest speakers and panel discussions. We did not find any that greatly interested us, and we did not feel like standing in long lines to get an autograph or photo while paying extra. Will Wheaton from Star Trek and recently on The Big Bang Theory was there on Saturday. The only really big name headliner this year. Allison and I were satisfied with our shopping and sightseeing!

I did enjoy attending a japanese anime film with Allison this past week at the AMC theatre(with subtitles) called My Hero Academia. We tried to go on  $5 Tuesdays, but they were sold out. It was playing on a limited release-one week only and in just a few theaters. We got in on Weds night. The theater was packed-mostly with kids Allison's age.  Allison was excited to see some of the attendees at Comic Con dressed as the characters from this cartoon series. It was a lot of fun. Allison is also trying to get out and socialize with friends other than her mother! She attended a high school musical called the Fanatics with school friends. I had never heard of it, but I guess it is a very old musical that features the theme song, "A Time to Remember". Allison enjoyed it. She also caught up on the Mt Hebron Stamp project while visiting the school. Back in 2008, one of the art teachers started a project collecting used postage stamps in order to make murals supporting the message of Stamping Out Intolerance in remembrance of The Holocaust. The 9th grade English class always reads the book "Night"-a really intense book about the Holocaust, so in conjunction with the lesson, this art project  planned to collect 6 million stamps, the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust. Here in 2018, they have not yet met the goal, but the project continues yearly in the 9th grade art class.  Sadly, the Art teacher passed away from cancer in 2014, and the students prepared a Forever Stamp with her photo which they placed on each of the murals. So I happily continue to collect used postage stamps, especially from Christmas cards and drop them off at the school. I was happy Allison sent a photo of one of the completed murals hanging in the school hallway.

Allison also continues to play Ultimate Frisbee with the Northrop team, and has tried to attend some of the intern social mixers. She visited our newly opened Guinness Beer pub. The first Scottish pub and brewery opened in the US. The facility is beautiful, and the group enjoyed sitting outside on the patio in the evening, sipping Guinness. She is hoping to attend a few more mixers in the future. So far she is really enjoying her job, although Tom would like her to move to the larger Northrop facility near the airport where he is currently working-more people her age and bigger projects. She enjoys the work and the staff though at this smaller facility near my previous workplace. Good place to get her feet wet in the company.