all that's past is prologue...

So the amount of handwringing I have seen, for weeks now, about "You can't cancel Halloween!" has been extreme. What I have seen this weekend (other than some minivans shuttling the kids between the few places on Summit that had their lights on tonight) has been extraordinary. Patrick, Beatrix, Ximena and me listening to Halloween music and drinking hot chocolate in a crazy long line for the "Haunted Car Wash," which was short yet enjoyable, but the real fun was the togetherness. Lining the hallway with spooky dolls late last night to surprise Beatrix this morning. Beatrix putting together bags of candy to deliver to her friends (on the way to the kind of anticlimactic but somehow fun sheriff's drive-through today.) Brutus in a bumblebee costume at Saint Paul Brewing this afternoon. Our traditional get-together at Mike and Jenn's, though smaller and more distanced this year. Multiple neighbors stopping by with Halloween treats for Beatrix. Carving pumpki...

So there's one BIG problem with being an entrepreneur who deals with a large number of clients, with regards to developing leadership or management skills. Every.Single.Time that I go to a training, or read a book, or do some kind of other professional development, I immediately and excitedly drill down into how the techniques could help XYZ client. And I get really excited and granular, and think of everything I am going to do with that client and how I will follow the steps to Make Everything Better. Then I pop my head up like a meerkat and realize I have approximately 999,999,999 OTHER clients to develop a similar plan for, in all that intense level of detail, and I give up. So I am really good at developing specific techniques (just ask me about PPP loan applications!), but far less so at lifting myself up as a whole and generally being *better*myself. Work Like A Boss is the first book I have read in a long time that circumvents that problem. It's not about any kind of pr...

 This one was a big one. Our garage has filled up over the years with stuff from my dad's, building materials (our neighbor pulled over the other day and said "It's like Scherer Lumber in here!"), general lawn and garden stuff, the rugs we took out of the house when we did the floors, some things that really should have been thrown out, a lot of tools (yes, there is a table saw AND a mitre saw in that picture, as well as 2 chainsaws — see earlier note on stuff from my dad's) and pieces of orphan furniture that I keep rescuing. Like, to the point that you could not get a car in, which is what a garage is ostensibly for. So, over 2 full weekend days, we focused on cleaning it out. We got like things into like piles — oh look, all the wood is in the woodrack, all the garden materials together, all the bikes hung, etc. We threw out a ton. We organized the tools. We cleaned the rugs. We gave away a ton of rugs and weatherstripping and various small things on the neighb...

 Decided to work a little harder to regain hope in politics this weekend. The Biden/Harris cut-outs on Summit are back! Signed up for a postcard-writing assignment. Picked up our Friends of the Saint Paul Library sign and added it to the yard line-up. Got a new t-shirt: And, best of all, went down to Macalester to hear Elizabeth Warren speak! (could not get past the barrier because contract tracing, but the nice guard let me sit on top of the hill, so this was the best pic I could get. I could hear her perfectly though!) ETA: And ended the night by watching "What the Constitution Means to Me" with the family, which has me in tears about both politics and missing shows/audiences.

To be honest, we spent most of the day cleaning the garage, but that's not ready for the big reveal yet. However, I did get to knock a small project off the list by cleaning up the plant table! Recently I have picked up some really nice pots, so I wanted to be sure that those could be seen. I trimmed off some dead leaves and such as well, and gave everything a good watering and leaf cleaning. I have the feeling that all my orchids are root bound, but I didn't go so far as to address that issue. I also picked up a quite large fiddle-leaf fig at Aldi yesterday for just $12.99, so have to suss where to put that. And we have 2 large hibiscus trees we are going to try to overwinter.

When my dad died, we donated his body to the University of Minnesota's Anatomy Bequest Program.  His ashes have been sitting around, actually, for awhile since they have sent them back; I really need to get organized and get a niche at the cemetery (that said, one of the things I cleaned out of my dad's was his grandmother's ashes, sitting on a shelf, so apparently it's a family trait....) But I was glad I still had them, because I recently found out that Vandalia Glassworks offers very cool memorial glass art that incorporates ashes. I really wish this had been around years ago, because I get my love of glass from my mom, and she would have loved the idea. (I even looked into trying to extract some of her ashes for that purpose, but it was basically a no-go from the cemetery). I finally took care of sending them in the ashes recently, and so today when Beatrix had  along-anticipated coffee date fall through and was upset, she and I went in (after first stopping at Bla...

Despite our several incidences of "Corona Cleaning" deep cleaning, we have had a hard time keeping up with everyday cleaning. Part of it was living in 2 places all summer, but most of it is the weird issues of everyday life during a pandemic — all 3 of us trying to keep up with work and school that is sometimes from home and sometimes elsewhere. Add in pets and scarcity of things (why on earth has Target been out of Comet cleaner for the last 6 weeks?) and sanitizing protocol and such, and it's been a lot. Today Patrick spent some time running around to various home improvement stores looking for things he needs for Hague (see earlier comment about shortages), while I got a start on some catch-up cleaning here. When he got home, we were able to do some things together that we had put off, like glueing loose chair joints, laying down rugs and rug pads for the fall, and generally cleaning up. It's not perfect, but it's nicer; the main rooms are at least moderately c...

 Oh look, it's fall and we're still doing pandemic projects! (sign courtesy of my friend Ann) We started the day helping out at Lookout Park, doing the fall clean-up with neighborhood friends. The geraniums we were taking out were still blooming, so I decided to take home some to cheer up our back yard. I also revealed, at that point, that I had collected some plants people were splitting. Some of them were ground cover, which inspired Patrick to get on a project he had long wanted to do, cleaning up the borders of our front walk. (the one on the left is the finished project, on the right is yet to be done). I planted the water iris and serviceberry I had gotten, but needed Patrick to got holes big enough for the weigela. This is just a temporary place; there are 2 actually, and they will go over to Summit next year. But it inspired me to clean up our back weed area off of the alley. Next year I would like to put a raised bed in here. We did take a little break to walk down wit...

While Patrick was being a good citizen tonight and attending a town hall meeting about a neighborhood issue, I grabbed Beatrix after rehearsal and we headed to the river. Every 12-20 years or so they apparently close up the lock near the Stone Arch bridge so that they can inspect the footings. I say "apparently" because I've never noticed this happening before, but this time I really wanted to see it. So, apparently, did the rest of the Twin Cities. We found a spot, jumped over the "Danger - Do Not Enter" chain at the top of a rickety staircase, and joined the throngs of people (and dogs) headed down. And it was apparent, pretty much as we got to the base of the steps, that it was worth it. There were throngs of people down there, climbing around, crossing the water on rock paths, playing music, digging up rocks and artifacts, just sitting and watching the river. Someone (and I'm sorry, I forgot who) said on Twitter yesterday (paraphrased)  - "What if t...

We had not been to City House since it had been Red River Kitchen, which we felt bad about. It's close by, and fun to watch the water. But I have a soft spot in my heart for Mattie O'Reilly's places, so when he was not running it anymore it kind of fell off our radar. But on Saturday, they were having an end of season special, where everything was $3, and I can't resist a bargain, so we headed down! We should have arrived hungry, because their food was all just $3 too. Instead, we just sat on the patio and had drinks, a perfectly serviceable Bauhaus Wonderstuff and a kind of overtly sweet Hurricane that was really a lot more like the Tequila Sunrise that was also on the menu. But again, $3, so who's to complain? The view across the water was pretty, even if the day was kind of cold and gray and not patio-condusive. As usual, Brutus made lots of friends. There were no cookies provided, but we brought our own, and he was ok with that.  We'd give it a solid 6 or 7...

You know what I have missed most during this pandemic? Seeing art, and travel. Yes, I know some galleries are open right now, but we have not made it there yet. And travel is obviously out of the picture; Beatrix's school's code of conduct states we can't even leave the state without quarantining for 2 weeks on the way back. So today, we decided to make a day trip to Franconia Sculpture Park and Taylors Falls. Yes, despite sending people to Franconia multiple times ("You'll love it! It's really cool!"), I had never been. And it was the perfect adventure for my heart today. I've had a cold all weekend — pretty sure it's not anything more, but in an "abundance of caution" have not really seen anyone outside my family. So spending the day outside with them was perfect! We were at Franconia Sculpture Park for a couple of hours, and only were able to experience a small portion of what was there! (though to be fair, we spent a little of that t...

I cleaned through a bunch of stored clothes today. Usually, switching between seasons is fun for me — ooh, look, I get to wear sweaters now! — but somehow not as much this year. Right now, I kind of dislike all of my clothes. Usually, I rely on clothing swaps to add fun new pieces, but those have been another corona casualty; I've gone to a couple outdoor ones, and had a clothing swap rack up in front of my place for the month of September, but it's just not the same. I kind of feel like going all "What not to wear" and getting rid of everything and starting anew, but that's not monetarily or logistically possible right now (I would not even know where to shop without feeling too exposed). So I think my best bet is to do some changes to what I have. Luckily for me, I have found this gretat new shop, called Rethink Tailoring . It's a great, woman-owned place that opened March 14 (great timing, huh?), and so thus has been re-inventing her company image pretty mu...