October 29-November 4

Finally here's the update on the week of Halloween!

the week of Halloween!  The holiday fell on a Weds night. Right in the middle of the school week. Fortunately the weather was beautiful. Scott had been a great help putting up Halloween decorations when he visited over his Fall break. However, I still had a few more decorations to add to the outside and inside. Allison was a great help running up and down the attic steps to bring down decorations. I had to buy some more spider webs, orange lights and candles, but we have lots of great blow up characters, a huge spider web and spiders and scary characters to put out around the front yard . Allison also had a great time carving a pumpkin. She could not wait for Halloween. She really missed it all those years at college. She also really wanted a bonfire, so we made one in the driveway in our fire pit and roasted hot dogs. It was a beautiful evening to sit out with a beer, poke the fire and cook and eat hot dogs and fries while passing out candy. I was well prepared with several large Costco sized bags of small candy bars, a few boxes of large candy bars(on sale) and one bag of skittles and star burst. Apparently skittles were voted the #1 Halloween candy. Allison did not agree-she votes for Kit Kat. I think Skittles does well since it is a non peanut allergy food item.

Allison and I had a wonderful, fun time eating our dinner by the fire and passing out candy to all the very cute kids while listening to scary music. We did not seem to have as many kids as we have had in the past, but I think it was because of the timing in the middle of the week. Kids had to get up early the next day for school, and I think there were a lot of Halloween activities going on over the weekend. So they may have been all candied out! But there were lots of mobile, large groups of parents and kids between 6 and 9pm. We even had kids knocking on the door after we'd gone in for the night!  This was the first time that we were able to sit out in the driveway with our bonfire. We had to keep redirecting the kids away from our front door to the driveway to get the candy!  We did get a lot of compliments on our decorations. A few of the little ones were a bit terrified to come up to the house!  And everyone agreed that we had the best decorations in the neighborhood! What fun! Plus Allison, Cookie and I were all dressed up for the event. Looking forward to next year!

I decided to leave most of the decorations up since we were expecting guests over the weekend. My brother Dan and wife Sheila finally had time to drive down from Pittsburgh to visit for the weekend. This was their first trip to Baltimore to visit our house and to see Mom B. in her new apartment. The week before I was busy getting the house organized for their visit. I even pulled out 12 tall kitchen trash bags of boys and girl's clothes to donate to a family in our neighborhood. There was a request on our local webpage for clothing for a few orphan children being fostered by a local family visiting from Latvia. I still had lots of Allison's teen age years clothing since most consignments stores are not interested in bigger girl clothes. Apparently girls are more picky than the boys when it comes to used clothing. Imagine that. So I had lots of extra pants, shirts, coats and dresses to donate as well as a few bags of boy's coats and sweatshirts, all in the right sizes!  And it turns out the family is very involved in Scouts, so I gave their daughter a few of Allison's outgrown GS sweatshirts. A win win for all of us!

Now I have a little more storage space in the guest room, but still not set up for anyone to sleep in the extra room!  We no longer have a bed for that room(left it at Salisbury when Allison moved out). Fortunately, Dan and Sheila stayed at the local Marriott with their dog Zoey.

They arrived on Friday night. We had big plans to travel to Annapolis for a crab pot dinner. Unfortunately, it was raining very hard, and very dark and a bit late when they arrived. Instead, we decided to go out for chinese food at one of our local, favorite restaurants, Paper Lantern. Tom opted out of the visit. He had been in California all week and returned home with a terrible cold. He did not want to share. So he hid in the basement. Allison and I on the other hand had a great dinner with Dan and Sheila and a great visit with them and Zoey before they headed back to their hotel. We had a busy day scheduled Saturday. Turns out MSU football team was in town playing U of Maryland. Allison's friend and ex roomy Jen from Salisbury is currently a librarian grad student at Maryland and the girls were planning on attending the game. I had also wanted to go with them, and Jen was able to get me a ticket, along with two more for Dan and Sheila. We were worried that it was supposed to rain all day Saturday, but it was done on Friday. However, it was a bit chilly so we wrapped up in our MSU finery! Except for Jen who was rooting for her Maryland Terrapins. Naturally, Dan and Sheila opted out of wearing the green and white, but they restrained themselves from putting on blue and gold!  Jen bought a parking pass, so we drove right onto campus and parked next to the stadium. We did not bring tailgate goodies, so we headed into the stadium where it was a bit warmer and to scope out the seating. We had general seating in the lower level. Turns out, Uof Maryland was in an uproar over a recent decision to continue employing the football head coach after an athlete died last spring during practice from heat stroke. The school board changed their minds overnight and fired the coach but students still planned a protest. We arrived early in case there was any difficulty getting on the campus or into the stadium, but everything was pretty quiet. Actually, very quiet. Turns out some students decided to protest by not attending the game. Which really did not seem fair to the players, but it made for a very enjoyable game for us!  It was not too crowded, we had lots of great, available seating and we had some great food and even beer which they sell at the stadium now!  Turns out MSU won! Sorry Jen. And Jen and Allison got to enjoy their first Uof Md football game, as well as Dan and Sheila!  We headed home late in the afternoon and I dropped Dan and Sheila off to take Zoey out at their hotel and freshen up before dropping off Jen.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tom graciously threw a wonderful filet mignon roast in the oven for dinner. He wanted to put it on the grill, but it was just too windy and it kept blowing out. So I picked up some groceries for side dishes, got dinner on the table and had Dan and Sheila come over to our house. I was going to pick up mom after the game and bring her over, but I did not want her catching Tom's bad cold. He did manage to enjoy the meal with us and we sat and watched a few more college football games including Uof M game while chatting. And they brought Zoey over too. She is 13 and not as energetic as Cookie, but then again, Cookie is not that energetic either. So they got along quite well-two old girls cozying up for snuggles.

On Sunday morning, Dan and Sheila wanted to head out before noon back to Pittsburgh. We stopped in to visit briefly with mom and for them to see her new apartment. Afterwards I took Mom out to Subway for lunch. Still staying away from our house to avoid her catching Tom's cold. And I still had some projects to get done before the weekend was over. We had daylight savings time take effect Saturday night by setting the clocks back one hour and now it is dark by 5pm. I still had to cut the grass and rake up some leaves, as well as put away Halloween decorations. I had some help in that area from Allison as well as putting up a few more Fall decorations(soon to be Christmas decorations!).  I was also glad that Tom had some time to finish patching and painting our kitchen walls and ceiling before Dan and Sheila's visit. It has been many years since we last painted the walls and ceiling, so he had to try his best to match our paint colors for the patch work. So far looks pretty good. We really did not have the time to repaint the entire kitchen and family room!

We also managed to get our early voting done, and yet there were still lines. Guessing it was better than on the official voting day coming up. And Allison also got her flu shot as well as a yearly physical. Her iron levels remain within normal levels, but her MD wants to check for stomach ulcers just in case. However, she told Allison to stop taking the iron pills. Allison still has some complaints of stomach pain at times, so the MD just wants to rule everything out. Also may have been caused by the iron pills. We'll see. Stomach problems do run in the Bozyk family.

And speaking of doctors, I had mom B out all day on Thursday. She had a dentist appointment  for a cleaning in the morning, then we had lunch back at our house before going to the orthopedic MD. I am looking at getting mom a new injection recommended by the ortho MD that provides a bit of a coating between joints for her knee since her cartilage is all gone. She had a left knee replacement many years ago, but opted out of the surgery for her right knee. Now it is a bit too late. This may help with ongoing pain/discomfort in her knee besides a new pain shot/cortisone injection that is extended release so less injections required. I was hoping to start the treatment but we need to wait for insurance approval from her BCBS. Wonderful. So instead we visited the hair salon and then had dinner at our house before I dropped her back to her apartment. A very busy day!

And on top of all this, I managed to start working with patients at my new facility. I was called in for 2 days, but missed a 3rd on Thursday since I was with mom all day. That is how it goes with on call work. In the meantime, I have started all the online training that is required(very time consuming) but I do get some paid time for it all. So that is a plus!