Halloween happenings

 It seemed like there were so many things going wrong this past week. And since I work two jobs and have other things going on, I like to keep my work hours tight, so it's frustrating when things set me back on my hours. (I thought about naming this week's post Murphy's (Hal)law(een), but that was a stretch.)

When I got back from California last week, our water heater was leaking, so my parents worked on getting it replaced. And our landline phone also quit working. I don't use that phone, so it didn't affect me, but it was still another thing going on.

And also my grandpa's eye ruptured (he couldn't see out of it anyway), so he had to have it removed. My mom spent her Halloween night at the hospital for his surgery.

Monday, when I went downtown to work at the Church History Library, it was closed because of a city water issue. So I went downtown for nothing. (The CHL also closed on Wednesday for water issues, but I had already been working there before they sent us home, so it didn't disrupt my schedule too much.)

I woke up early on Halloween, so I was going to go to work early and get ahead on my hours. But once or twice a year, I get a migraine, and Halloween was the day this year. So I took a nap before going to work, and then I also had to put my head on my desk at work for a while. And to top it all off, on my way to work, the stoplight wasn't working, so it was a four-way stop, and the backup started right after it was too late for me to take a different route.

Then Wednesday morning, I was supposed to have a call for insurance. And my phone decided not to receive phone calls that morning. Twenty minutes after the appointment was supposed to start, a voicemail finally came through, because apparently my phone went straight to voicemail. So I had to reschedule for the next day.

But not everything was bad this week.

I wore my Halloween sweater to both of my jobs on Tuesday and got lots of compliments. Since my mom was on surgery duty Halloween night, I was on candy duty. I had my Halloween playlist (now up to 553 songs) both inside and outside the house. I spent some time working in the living room, and then I watched some dumb old cartoons from a DVD I bought at Top Hat back in January. 

I did the second and third from the left.

Then November started, and I switched to Thanksgiving. One of the greatest things to come out of COVID-19 is the rediscovery of Vince Guaraldi's original recordings, so this year they released the soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to commemorate the special's fiftieth anniversary. Since I watched the show ad nauseam as a kid, I can tell that the recordings aren't the exact ones used in the special. But this has the best version of "Linus and Lucy" ever recorded.

Since I work from home for the state, I've decided that I'm going to spend more time running in the day, then working late, now that it's dark earlier. This is important, since my diet mostly consisted of sugar this week. 

Because of the conference last week, I got ahead of my hours, so I was off work on Friday. Except that I wasn't actually off, because Faith Matters asked me to edit a book for them. That's how I spent Friday and Saturday; I still have a little work to do on it this week. But unlike my work for Wayfare (also from Faith Matters), they're going to pay me for this one.

After the last month and a half have been full of conferences and other things, I'm hoping things will start to calm down.

***

Pumpkinundation roundup now transitions from Halloween to Thanksgiving. They're mostly the same, except that Thanksgiving includes pie and savory things, and I think of caramel apple as a Halloween flavor. 

We now have a Chip in North Salt Lake! The Chip Naughty Pumpkin Cookie is a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie with whipped cream, caramel, and toffee. It was good, but I might have liked it better if I hadn't already gorged myself on sugar. 7/10.

Kirkland Signature Pumpkin Pie has a nice squash flavor, but it's still definitely a pie. 8/10.

Kencko Pumpkin Spice Instant Smoothie is a hippie food. It has dried fruits and vegetables, and there's no plastic in the packaging (which I appreciate). They prefer people to use vegan milks (oat or almond), but I only had cow's milk. It's not great. It's gritty. It tastes and feels like sand, but at least it's autumnal sand. 4/10.

Someone left this candy corn taffy in the breakroom at the CHL, so I don't know the brand. It's fine. 6/10.

Apple Pie Toast Crunch is one of the greatest seasonal cereals ever made. It has the comfort of Cinnamon Toast Crunch but with an apple flavor. 9/10.

I don't love salad, but I had to try Dole Maple Pecan Pie Seasonal Kit. It has pie crust pieces, brown sugar pecans, dried cranberries, and maple vinaigrette. I don't like vinaigrettes that much, but I liked this one. It was sweet but still had a savory kick. As far as salads go, I liked this one. But I think it will always be impossible to actually make a salad taste like pie. 7/10.

Kellogg's Pumpkin Spice Special K has Special K flakes with pumpkin spice yogurt-coated clusters. It's not overly pumpkiny, but it's a great cereal. 8/10.

Great Value Caramel Apple Cereal is not great. It has a little bit of caramel flavor, but it mostly just tastes cheap. 4/10.

I'm really showing this Kellogg's It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Cereal to show a missed opportunity. This is vanilla flavor with marshmallows. It's as generic as you can get! They could have made the flavor, you know, pumpkin, or at least orange. I love the box, but this is so lazy. 5/10.

Big Hazy's Apple Cider Ice Cream doesn't taste that strongly of apple cider. It's just kind of bland. 6/10.

Lily's Pumpkin Spice Flavor Baking Chips have no sugar. I still have them after buying them a year or two ago because I don't know what to do with them. They taste better than other pumpkin spice baking chips I've had. 6/10.