Long Overdue Random Post

• I know. It's been a while. I've been studying.
• When Halloween drops, the holidays just seem to arrive faster and faster every year.
• What's going on with my eyebrows? I'm not even fully adjusted to all the hair growing where it shouldn't. Now, the hair that is supposed to be there is getting unruly.
• Victoria's Secret sells sweaters? Do they have a lot of holes in them? Strategic holes?
• Owen said to me one day that he wanted to be in the other morning Kindergarden/Early Fives class because there's a girl in that class that he likes. He doesn't know her name, but she has brown hair.
• On another day, he told me that he would be growing up soon, and then there would be two papas in our household. And when Gage gets older, there'll be three. I explained that he would likely get married and have children before we would consider him a "papa."
• "Well, who would I marry?," was his response. I explained he would likely 'like' a girl at some point. He said that he already likes a girl, but he also likes some boys but not in the same way. He then supposed he'd marry Kendal, a girl in his class.
• I think Toys 'R' Us should be the first store that allows you to checkout via a microchip in the back of your head. For a store filled with such fun things, their checkout lines always seem to dial up my aggravation level.
• We were in Genesee Valley Mall yesterday (the biggest, most popular mall in our immediate area). It wasn't very busy. There are a lot of empty stores there, and of the few that remain, fewer are very popular. Santa Claus was the biggest draw.
• I started thinking about twenty years ago. I was sixteen. Back then, it was a rare thing to visit the mall. We lived in Lapeer, and we might make it out to Genesee Valley once a year during the back-to-school season. Flint and Genesee County were pretty foreign to me, but my parents entrusted me with the car. I filled it with friends and a few cousins from out of town. I remember the mall being crazy. People were shoulder to shoulder in the hallways. The stores were full of things you couldn't find anywhere else.
• The mall used to be an event. Now, it's just sad.
• Trick or Treating on the 30th because it's a Saturday… lame.
• Chuck E. Cheese has really went down hill. I know they had an increase in violence a few years back when they decided to serve alcohol (by the way, WT?). They replaced/updated their animatronics with versions that look like they came from the sixties, which doesn't really make any sense. They're less cartoony than the old ones.
• Why don't fast food restaurants have recycling bins?
• I decided I wanted to be an artist in the first grade, Owen decided in Early Fives (with no input from me).
• "We're here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." Charles Bukowski
• Gage calls Santa Claus, "Ho-Ho-Ho."
• Sometimes it's just Gage's timing that amazes us when it comes to his ever increasing vocabulary. While taking a vision test last week, he seems to get bored and simply answers, "I don't know." We've never heard him say the phrase prior. "No way" has also come up.
• I heard an interesting perspective on the parcel bombs that someone in Yemen tried to send our way. If the bombs had detonated, they'd likely kill 8-10 people. The entire country would have been in an uproar (which I'm not saying is in any way wrong), but on the other hand, we seem to lack a certain amount of outrage at the estimated 1500 homicides that occur in our country every year.
• There may be photos of me with cheerleaders somewhere out there. It really wasn't my intention.