Just finished an late lunch/early dinner and relaxing before the trick or treaters start coming by. I have around 88 pieces of candy. After that, I'm out of luck.

Are you going someplace special tonight or do you pass out candy?

Outside earlier I crunched my way through the fallen leaves. I stooped down to uncover 3 good layers. The top layer is the shocking lemon yellow maples; freshly fallen the past week. The middle layer is the 'edges curling, dried-out layer' of brown and red leaves. And the bottom layer smelled musty with damp, cold leaves sticking to the mud among the faded grass.

Next month someone will come to remove the layers of leaves and clean out the leafy gutter. But today it's such a beatiful show of nature's autumn season.

"Is all of this for me?" I ask, looking skyward.

Boys, A-Z (A Primer), by Dan Waber (the brains behind the x365 project among other literary endeavors!)--

The abecedarius is a poem with 26 words. The first word starts with "a", the second with "b", the third with "c", and so on.

A cycle of abecedarius re-envisions the alphabet as a loop, instead of a line. The first poem goes from a-z, the second from b-a (through z), the third from c-b (through z then a), and so on.

The book is a cycle of abecedarius poems which aims to instruct young girls about the various types of boys to be avoided (in short, all of them).

Includes illustrations by the author.

The first four poems:

Adam builds computers,
digital engineerings finagle gates,
his insistent keystrokes lay most networks open,
plunder quarantined remote systems.
This uninhibited vandal will X10 your zippers.

Billy can dance,
every Friday goes hip-hopping,
it's just kicks, limbo, mambo,
no orchestra plays quick rhythm steps,
the upstairs vanishes when XM-enabled yahoos zootsuit around.

Charlie doesn't eat fish,
grains, hamburger, instant juice,
kiwi, lemons, mangoes, nectarines or pork.
Queer religious sects take unhealthy vows.
Why X-rate your zaftigness? Appetites belong.

David's experimental fashions grow hilarious.
Imagine Jello knickers. Lavender maribou nightshirts.
Off-center pinstriped quilted red shoulderpads.
Tight underwear. Various weird x-shaped yarmulkes.
Zany aluminum boots. Cowbells.

How fun! And a new word to learn today, too. abecedarius. I'll have to try this sometime. Mayabe some of your word buffs will have a go at it. I couldn't find it on Amazon though.

[via]

testing - screwy blogger, )(*#&%^%

well, this one works, but EBC isn't publishing... arghhh

I've spent a good 8-hour day (well, off and on) trying to get my EBC site to work. I cannot get anything to publish since Friday night! Talk about frustrating. I swear I'm going to go to Wordpress or somewhere else. I have had it with blogger. They are great for a blogspot blog, but not for one hosted someplace else. My brand loyalty ends here today. Now I need to find another system. I've tried to do Wordpress 2 different times but I couldn't understand it. A-D-D problems. I can figure out how to "do A and then do B, and then C". Anymore than that and I am so lost. Anything with more than a few steps and I wig out.

So does anybody love me enough to move me over to Wordpress? Maybe they have something where I can pay them. Or does anyone know of another place to go?

I'm so frustrated. You can't even imagine. I've wasted one whole day and part of the weekend fussing with Blogger.

Blessings to you all...!

* I do believe it is one of the most glorious days I've seen in a l-o-n-g time. The back yard is aglow in about 5 80+ year old maples that are in full golden regalia. They're the first ones out of the pack in the fall leaf backyard parade. They're somewhat citrus-y in lemon and lime shades and still mostly hydrated, although there is a crunchy blanket of them underfoot. I remember when Robin and I used to build tunnels out of the leaves and cried when they got raked up.

* Mother and I are gearing up for the UT-Alabama football game at 3:30. She and Daddy always had season tickets and she was telling me how before home games the football players walk from the school to the stadium in dress clothes and everyone cheers them along the way. They had the best time and truly made an event out of Fall Saturdays together.

* Later, lovelies!

THEME IN YELLOW

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o�-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.


~Carl Sandburg

I need some helpful advice from you healthy bloggers out there. Or health minded people work, too!

A routine checkup says I need to get my blood pressure down. This means eating heart healthy and exercising more (and quit smoking, the big elephant in the room).

Anybody got the magic answer?

Just cruising through the grocery didn't yield any good ideas. So what's good for lunch or dinner and light snacking? One of my friends snacks on animal crackers because they're low fat. I used to eat so many rice cakes that I don't think I'll ever be able to eat another one, but I really enjoyed the crunching part. Maybe I need to look into some sort of diet. If I could drop 20 pounds I'd be thrilled.

*UPDATE: Wanted to leave a food link, Slashfood, that usually has interesting stuff. Surfing around and watching the UT game and Georgia is ahead 10-7 in the first quarter. 8:27 pm

Example Note 1

Second Place | General Reporting

This not only speaks to the military point of view, but it especially touched me as a beautiful testament of love to your mate or spouse and what it would mean to have just one more night.

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Decorating For Autumn

My dogs look very October-ish wearing their autumn kerchiefs. The black cocker spaniel has one on that has cartoony pics of witches and jack-o-lanterns and the caramel colored retriever/chow's kerchief has leaves and pumpkins on it. Someone gave us a ton of kerchiefs after their dog passed on, so we're ready for all occasions here.

I have a big ceramic jack-o-lantern with a light inside sitting among the plants, pointing towards the road. I placed a large autumn wreath that Robin made on the front door and a scarecrow on the porch. I brought the ferns inside the other day but quickly saw 2 bugs so I snatched them up and promptly took them back outside. What to do... hmmm. And there's a wooden plaque of Robin's that says, "The witch is in and she's casting spells". =)

Hello beautiful people! Happy October to you. My favorite month. In October, me, my Dad and my Mother all celebrated birthdays so I always felt it was extra special.

Man, 54. I'm going to be 54 soon. That looks SO old and ancient. Something I always think is kinda strange is that no matter my age, I always feel 25 on the inside. The way I think and act, react. Does that make any sense at all?