Eight Little Things

1. Halloween! The jack-o-lanterns we carved outnumbered the trick-or-treaters. (We had three jack-o-lanterns and zero trick-or-treaters.) That means that I've been eating fun-size, white chocolate Kit Kats all evening. Ugh, my stomach hurts!

2. Rain! Then it started to rain. It's raining as I write this.

3. 21! We reached day 21 of our 30 day decluttering challenge. Today we went into one of the kitchen cabinets and came up with handfuls of things to get rid of. We got rid of 4 large pieces of pottery, a bottle of terrible wine, unused water bottles, coffee cup lids, extra plastic measuring cups, and on and on.

I've also, in the last several days, ridded myself of two travel sewing kits. We had five--one I purchased, one I made, three picked up from hotels--but who needs five travel sewing kits? I realistically don't need more than one even. I think the last time I used a travel sewing kit was about nine years ago, when I lent it to someone whose cuff button had come off.

Anyway, forty-two more things gone today! That brings us to 462 things (231 each) gone.

Here are some impromtu rules that we're following in our decluttering challenge:

Actually, there are no rules really, but we made some up!

• We can't count anything that we'd be throwing out anyway. Like, I can't toss a tissue I just blew my nose in or a piece of junk mail that we just received and count it. 
• Multiples count as a single item. Like, I threw away a bunch of owner's manuals for appliances that we no longer own, but they counted as a single thing. Likewise, I donated a bunch of measuring spoons and they only counted as one thing.
• If it's something we own together, we each get to count it. Like, if we were to donate a piece of pottery that we bought together, we'd each count it. (This has been the least-used rule so far. Each of us has plenty of things to get rid of.)
• We each can "give" the other person something of our own to count in their total. It can be hard to find twenty things to get rid of, so if I have twenty-two things and Dave has eighteen things, I can "give" him two of my things to count. Win-win!
• Nothing over the day's total counts. Like, it's day 21, but if I find 23 things to throw away, I only count 21 of them.

We have yet to decide how we're going to reward ourselves for completing the challenge--if we do complete it. (I'm sure we will.)

4. BBQ!! Since I knew I was going to hit the candy pretty hard so I wanted to lay in a good base of fat and protein underneath all that sugar. We stopped at Rudy's BBQ and I got "moist" brisket and ribs and Dave picked up coleslaw, potato salad, and bean salad to have with his Quorn chick'n nuggets.

5. PT!! I had an appointment with my physical therapist today. She Kinesio taped up my hand and arm with hot pink tape. The science behind the Kinesio taping is sketchy, but last time she did it, it actually worked to make the swelling in my wrist go down. I ordered a roll of tape on Amazon so I can try taping myself when my wrist starts to act up.

6. Pumpkin carving!! We carved our pumpkins before dinner. I went old school, like this guy here:

Dave (in the header photo) went free-style and made the guy with the round nose. You can't really see the true jack-o-lantern-ness of the thing while it's still light out, but trust me, these guys are spooooky! (Ha! Not really. They're kind of cute and goofy.)

The smell of pumpkin guts getting toasted by candles is Halloween to me.

7. Netflix! I've been Netflixing some movies recently. A few nights ago I finally got around to watching Django Unchained and: Meh. (I've gone off Quentin Tarantino's bullshit blaxsploitation rip-offs--years ago, actually--though I would watch something else with Christoph Waltz in it. He's amazing.) I watched Broadcast News last night. I haven't seen it in decades and I really enjoyed it. (Whatever happened to Holly Hunter anyway?)  I'm watching an English film right now, Black Orchid set in the 50s. English dramas intrigue me.

8. Mark Twain! (Half twain! Quarter twain!) The Mark Twain autobiography arrived today just as I was leaving for PT. It is a brick of a book, and only volume one. I had time to open it up an read two paragraphs; I laughed half a dozen times. I am looking forward to this one.