Happy All Saint's Day, Let the Writing Begin, & What an October!!

November is here. Happy All Saint's Day!!

Today is the start of the NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. I participated last year, but did not finish. Then the editor inside of me killed the novel & decided I would start over on it, at a later date though.

This year I have decided to write about the Mayan Ruins, in Tulum, Quinta Roo, Mexico. I visited the Ruins in February, and was amazed by the place. Such fascinating history. It was gorgeous and amazing. It is the most visited ruins, yet the least is written about it.

October was a busy month! It started out with my birthday. The following week Kevin was sick with a nasty cold. He missed a whole week of school. He's been busy catching up at school, and even goes to an after school study hall on Tuesdays. He is enjoying Robotics. November will be busy with practices for him and his team prepare for their Robotics tournament.

October also brought us a new little kitten. She is the cutest thing! So yes, I think this officially deems me as the crazy cat lady. We have as many cats as we do people. Kenny says "it's a good thing she's so cute". Hahaha....The kids named her Cali which is short for Calico. They fell in love with her right away. She is quite the little fearless frisky kitten. She chases the other cats around and pounces on them. She definitely keeps the other cats on their toes. The first few days they didn't know what to think of her and they all ran away and hid from her, but now they have learned to just swat her back. She is relentless though, and keeps trying to suck them into playing with her. It's pretty funny to watch.

My friend Kathy & her 18 month old came to visit us for a week. They made the drive from Montana. It was so good to have them around. I took a couple days off from work so we could have some fun. We sure did. We went out for dinner a couple of nights, we went shopping like crazy (definitely stimulated the economy), went to the Como Zoo, and just hung around at the house visiting.

A day or two after they left Kenny came down with a head cold & I had picked up a cough. Ken had his cold for a little over a week and he felt miserable. My cough was more annoying than anything. Kenny got over his cold and my cough got worse. I ended up with a viral bronchitis. I stayed home for a week feeling miserable. I went to the doctor's office and when I walked from the waiting room to the patient room, I must have walked to fast and got really winded. It was difficult to breathe, and I felt as though, I had run a marathon. The nurse said "let me go get the doctor". She came back to the room with three doctors, they had the blood pressure cuff, the finger oxygen reader, and were checking my pulse right away. They were asking me a million questions at once and I was just trying to catch my breath. They did a chest X-ray and an EKG. They said "we'll have to see what this shows before we decide what to do with you, sometimes virus' like this can attack the heart and require hospitalization." Yikes! I don't have time to be sick in the hospital! I'm the mom! Well, the chest X-ray and the EKG both came back clear and normal. So they concluded that I had an influenza related viral bronchitis and I was to go home, get plenty of rest, and drink lots of fluids, and ride it out. They gave me an antibiotic just in case there was some bacteria, but they really doubted it. I guess they were covering their bases and didn't want to see me back? They also gave me an inhaler to help me breathe better. That worked but only temporarily, but it still came in handy. I'm feeling much better now, and am ready to get back to the real world and back to mom-normality.

I had the Kickball Awards Parties in Oct. I wasn't feeling very good, but I pulled it off anyway. I don't think people realized I was feeling as miserable as I was. Which is good, but I came home exhausted.

Halloween was great for the kids. Sam's school had their Halloween party a week early. I missed the memo on that one. Sam came home & told me he wanted to be Godzilla 2000 and the party was tomorrow. TOMORROW! Who has Halloween a week before Halloween? So off to the fabric store we went. Wal-Mart has removed their entire fabric department, so we ended up in St. Paul. Sam found the material he wanted and we found what we would make the spikes with. I ended up staying up until 3:30 am putting together the Godzilla costume. I ended up burning my index finger on the glue gun about 5 times. You think I would have learned not to touch hot glue after the first time, but no. I guess it was too early in the morning for such lessons. The costume got finished in time for school party. The costume was a hit with Sam and his friends thought it was a good costume too. So the numb feeling in my index finger and the sleepless night was worth it. I definitely earned my mom badge.

Halloween I took the kids to St. Paul and the kids went trick-or-treating down Summit Ave. Summit Ave is known for it's candy and highly decorated houses. The Governor's mansion is also on Summit Ave. and they usually give out pretty good candy. One house had the smoke going in their yard and porch. They had people dressed up as scary characters from movies. They stood still and then would move as you got close to them. I have to admit it was pretty creepy. They left the little kids alone, but scared the older kids, and even me too. I'll admit I jumped and let out a scream when the smoke on the porch came screaming out of the machine. The kids just laughed...hahaha...mom got scared.

And now here we are in November. Kenny is heavily wrapped up in the Vikings Football team and the Wild Hockey team. Both teams are doing good, and he loves that Brett Favre is helping MN win. He also likes that it makes the MN-WI football rivalry more intense. He is really excited for Vikings-Green Bay game today. We are hoping that Wisconsin's Golden Boy will have a Vikings win on Green Bay territory.