Do not want

Two things I definitely do not want to for Christmas:

1. Jukusui-kun, the giant bear pillow that tickles your face at night if you snore.




2. Any craft book that involves my own pet's fur

I guess you could make the argument that a dog and a sheep are not really that different, but... ew.

Seen/heard of any crazy Christmas gifts this year? 

Woe to the Gators

An exchange on the Gators' message board that pretty much sums up our entire season:

What do you think about the Gators' execution?

I'm for it.  The coaches, too.


Yeesh, that game could not end fast enough.  The Gators played horribly, and that was BEFORE our quarterback threw three touchdowns and had to be Medivac-ed out with a fatal injury to his pride.

And what's up with Urban Meyer possibly/probably going to Ohio State next year???  Doesn't anybody have any loyalty anymore???  What happened to the "I need to spend time with my family.  I'm going to die if I don't get my blood pressure under 200/150" we heard last year?


The only thing good that came out of the game last night is that I learned that this exists.

ZOMG.  An electric jacket.  Be still, my heart.

One last day of freedom until we return to the work week.  Enjoy it!

In case you were looking for something to do with all those leftovers

You can make meat cupcakes.

Credit

I am thankful for

1. Saint Toasti, who kept my feet warm at the Berbee Derby this morning

Best.  Thing.  Ever.

and for Kerri, who gave me the hook up with the exclusive Team in Training indoor waiting area so I could     pee in warmth and comfort before the race started.

2. The ability to get out and run a 10k, even if it wasn't as fast as I would have liked.  At least the 6 miles I ran should balance out the entire box of toffee I'm currently nomming.

3. Vegetables served with brown sugar and cinnamon.  I'd eat way more vegetables if they all came with brown sugar and cinnamon.

4. The fact that Daniel took care of disassembling the chicken.  I don't like it when my meat looks too much like an actual animal.

  

5. The democratic process.

Signed the petition first thing this morning!

6. I don't have to go to work tomorrow!!!!!!  Let the epic laziness begin!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

WIWW

Now that the temperature has dropped another 10 degrees, it's time for a new installment of What I Wore Wednesday.

This is a 20 - 30 degree outfit that I wore to run about 6 miles a couple weekends ago.  From top to bottom, I'm wearing a fleece headband, a long sleeved tech shirt under a thicker long sleeved shirt, heavier gloves, fleece-lined tights, regular socks and shoes.  

If you are looking for tights (I transition to wearing tights sometime in the 20-30 degree range depending on the wind chill factor) I highly recommend the Sugoi SubZero tight.  Yes, they are pricey, but I bought this pair 3 years ago, and I've worn them MANY times each winter.  Fleece-lined tights are the way to go not only because they are warmer, they are thicker which makes them less revealing (I know some people don't like tights for that reason).  Despite the name, I would wear an additional pair of athletic pants over these if I were going to run when it's around 0 (about the lower limit of my comfort zone).

Happy pre-Thanksgiving.  Safe travels to all.  Wish me good luck getting stuff done at work so I can take Friday off!  

Got plans for Saturday night?

Our church has a service that meets downtown in an old theater (The Majestic) that during the other 85% of the week functions as a bar and concert venue.  It's always fun to look at the posters and see what they've got going on.  Usually it's reggae, jam bands, and 80s vs 90s DJ spin-offs, but occasionally they do something unique.  This month there are a few good ones.  

If you're free Friday, Dec 2, you can catch the Talking Heads Dance Party.

All images from the Majestic's website

 On the 10th there's the Brittany vs Gaga Dance Party.

And on the 17th there's the Mad Men Holiday Soiree (featuring real glass cups- you know it will be classy).

Actually, if I were cool AT ALL, I think it would be super fun to dress up all 60s-like with pearls and dance like white people were meant to.  

Speaking of the early 60s, I started reading The Help this weekend, and it is really good!  It's not a book I would have picked out myself, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Mash Up

Have you ever thought about two different songs being sung about the same thing but from both the male and female perspective?

Like Carole King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"
                                                           

vs. The Dave Matthew's Band's "Say Goodbye."



She wants some commitment - he's thinking "friends with benefits".

Or how about T-Pain's "I'm in Love with a Stripper"



vs. Brittany Spears (!!! I had no idea she was back!) "I'm in love with a criminal."



Two sides to every story.

Have any other examples?  I'm sure there are plenty of good ones out there.

Seven things Sunday

1. What would blogging be without internet memes?  I wouldn't even know what that word meant.

I started it all!  There's no going back.

2. Funny political news story of the weekend: Lululemon customers are outraged over the company's new "Who is John Galt?" shopping bags.  Evidently Lululemon's founder, Chip Wilson, was a huge fan of Ayn Rand.  However, many yoga devotees find the message of Atlas Shrugged- in some ways considered the Bible of the Tea Party- at odds with the tenets of yoga.  

3. Horrifying political news story of the weekend: Police peppery spray defenseless protesting UC Davis students who were just sitting on the ground.

4. Back to point #2- yoga is hard if you go to a real class and actually try.  After a 90-minute class doing most of the Ashtanga primary series, I was totally wiped out.  Between all the sun salutations and vinyasas, I have no idea how many push-ups I did.  My arms say "a lot".

5. After dreaming of a 4-day weekend for several weeks, I think I may actually have to go to work on Friday.  Oh the humanity!

6. I just discovered Goodreads again from Katie at Cookies and Crafts.  It's a cross between Netflix and Facebook where you can rate books you like and don't like (take that, Heart of Darkness!) and see what your friends are reading to get book suggestions.  Anyone else on it?  I don't want to spam the world, but I currently only have two "friends" on there.

7. I need to go or I'm not going to be able to dry my hair before we have to leave for church.  The temps are hovering around freezing, and I don't want to be like this guy:

Credit  If you actually want to take credit for that...

  

A little biostatistics humor

Although I think anyone who does academic research would find these videos funny... but sad... but true.

Statistical power and p-values from Statisticsblog



A biologist talks to a statistician

Change of plans

I started this month with the good intention of continuing to bike to work every day.  However, reality- in the form of it being super cold in the morning and dark by 5pm- has set in and I decided to hang up my bike helmet for the season after I got home on Monday.  It was warm enough to bike yesterday, but I would have had to ride on the bike path in the dark during a very busy time.  I always wear lights/reflective gear, but plenty of other people don't, and even though I hate riding the bus, it was a slightly less horrible prospect than playing "dodge the freshmen and high school boys cross country team" trying to ride home.

BUT I haven't given up on my anti-laziness campaign.  For one, even though I probably don't have time most days to walk to work, I can walk home until it gets really really really cold.  And I've taken on another challenge.  I'm not going to use the elevator at work through the rest of the month.  I work on the 4th floor, so it's not taxing to walk up to my office, but it's right at the point that makes the elevator look tempting.  Anyway, day 1 of no elevator was a success.

If you live in a cold place, do you try to find ways to increase your activity during the winter?  Or do you just embrace the natural rhythms of the earth and do your best to hibernate from Nov - ... May?

All I ever needed to know

about politics and fast food, I've learned from Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, the soundtrack to my weekly kitchen scrub.

Most people have at least heard that many fast food restaurants have secret menus you can order from if you know what to ask for.  Kind of defeating the purpose, In-N-Out Burger actually has its secret menu posted on its website.  In-N-Out will serve you a "4x4" - four patties with four slices of cheese between two buns- with or without onions.

In all its glory.

This post from CouponSherpa gives the 4-1-1 on fast food hacks from several regional and national chains.  They range from totally lame - you can get a cheese sandwich at Blimpie (if you can find a Blimpie, that is, all hail Jimmy John's) - to horrifying - ordering a "bleeding penguin" will get you 800 calories worth of regular and white chocolate mocha with raspberry syrup at Starbucks.

However, the king of all fast food secrets is the McDonald's Air Land and Sea burger.  That would be a beef patty, a chicken patty, and a fish patty stacked together in a bun.  

Credit

Wait Wait's Sandwich Monday blog contained a hard-hitting expose on this beast, declaring that "the three patties are separated for a reason" and that this item is on the secret menu "to protect customers".  Disgusting yes, but like a train wreck, I just can't look away. 

Would you eat a bite of the air land and sea burger on a dare?  Any of the other secret menu hacks sound good to you in a "deep fried Oreos at the fair" kind of way?

May I see your data?

There's a tiny area of overlap in the Venn Diagram of technology nerds, hard-core endurance athletes, Biggest-Loser style dieters, productivity masters, and Ben Franklin, and that is a subset of people who love to track things about themselves.  The latest issue of Discover Magazine has an interesting article called Our Data, Ourselves (doesn't appear to be online yet) that details the self-tracker movement and how the rise of smart phones has brought it to a whole new level.

The compulsion to track things- miles run, calories eaten, games of Dungeons and Dragons won, adherence to 13-virtues (in the case of Ben Franklin)- has been around for a long time.  Part of it is a sincere desire to improve something about our lives; part of it is probably just selfish navel gazing.  But what was once limited to committed (obsessed?) individuals with a log book or Excel spreadsheet has vaulted into the digital age with the PACO (for Personal Analytics Companion) ap developed by Google engineer Bob Evans (ha!, that's really his name).

PACO allows individuals to conduct their own experiments of N=1 and can be set up to track anything.  The thing that sets it apart from the "old-fashioned" self-tracking methods is that you don't have to remember to keep records, PACO will remind you itself.  Want to know how you are using your time at work?  You could keep a log and write down what you did every 15 minutes, or you could let PACO text you at random times during the day and ask you what you are doing.  A migraine sufferer might not think to record what he/she ate at her last meal until something triggered another debilitating headache, but the ap could be set up to ask a few simple questions about potential trigger foods after every meal.

The idea has even more potential for population studies of personal behavior where recall is notoriously horrible.  It's not limited to little things like, "Did you eat 1/3 cup of yogurt or 1/2 cup?"  I sat in on an interview for one of the studies I do data analysis for where the participant could not recall in what decade she had cancer.  In the realm of patient care, I'm sure doctors (and maybe even some patients) would love a digital "Did you take your medicine?" reminder.

Of course when you submit your data to the interwebz there are all sorts of privacy concerns.  Google of course swears your data is 100% completely secure and they would never mine/sell it.  All the same, I think a lot of people would be hesitant to track more sensitive things for fear they'll have a PACO pop up and remind them to buy more Preparation H at an inopportune time.      

As a statistician and semi self tracking enthusiast, I think that thing sounds awesome.  It's almost enough to make me want a smartphone.  I would love something that would remind me to take my medicine or record minutia about my day.  However, I'm sure to some people it sounds like their own personal version of Hell.

Are you a self-tracker?  Would you use an ap like this?  Does that sound like way fun and cool or like a digital version of your mom nagging you to clean your room?    


       

There's not even a Some eCards for that

Evidently the Red Cross has pre-printed cards to let you know they're sorry they jabbed your arms with no net benefit to society.

Yesterday was a big day for the South Central Wisconsin Sacred Harp Singing Group (yep, all 10 of us).  We hosted our annual all day singing at the Plum Creek Church in Folklore Village near Dodgeville, WI.  For more info about our singing group, click here.

Our tiny group was responsible for preparing "lunch on the grounds" for the 100ish people who showed up for the singing.  What was supposed to be a 3-evening long cook-a-thon ended up being crammed into a Friday night rush to see what we had lying round the kitchen that could be mixed together in edible combinations.

We ended up with meatballs (Crockpot), brownies with melted PB cups on top (back pan), couscous with raisins and pistachios (middle Tupperware), and cheesy rice casserole (front glass pan).  Plus we cut up some celery and carrots and brought them along.

The singing was a success.  In the proud tradition of Wisconsin politics, we nominated and voted Daniel as chairman of the singing while 2/3 of the group was on break.  No, not really.  We didn't even give 1/3 a choice.

Here's Daniel leading Garden Hymn.  I also led, but since I'm the camera woman, there's no picture of me.

Fun was had by all.  No one has a voice today, and my stock in cough drops went up.  Alas, it's time to start preparing for the new work week to come.

What's the strangest greeting card you've ever seen?  

Meanwhile... in Canada

I totally meant for this Meanwhile... meme to be limited to crazy things that happen in Florida, but I heard a story on NPR last night that was way too cute not to pass on.

There's a guy in a town in Alberta, CA who has raised a pet buffalo he calls Bailey Jr.!  According to the news story, Jim Sautner lets his 3-year-old 1800 lb buffalo come in his house, ride in his specially outfitted car, and even hang out at the local bar.  Don't believe me?

Stony Plain Reporter/Spruce Grove Examiner

Why Bailey Jr.?  Because there was a Bailey Sr.  A few years ago, Sautner was grieving for Bailey Sr. after his death when a woman asked him if he would take on another orphan baby bison.

From the NPR story:

"I initially said no, because I was still having my pity party over Bailey Sr.," said Sautner. But then he went over to see him. He was 40 to 50 pounds and cinnamon in color, "the cutest little thing you've ever seen." And Sautner could no refuse him.

Sautner and his wife Linda bottle fed him and fell in love.

"Sometimes, he'd come into the bedroom; sometimes he'd jump in the bed and that didn't work out too well, generally," Sautner said. "As he got bigger, he kept taking too many blankets, so we had to ask him to move outside."

You have to check out this video of the buffalo riding in Sautner's Pontiac Parisienne.



Ever had a crazy pet?  Or a neighbor with a crazy pet?

11:11 on 11-11-11

That is all.

Friday Confessional

1. Haterz gonna hate, but it was totally worth the walk to the hospital in the snow to get this.

2. I've been doing a lot of yoga but I haven't done any strength training since 10/25.  After hitting the weights pretty hard this summer, I've kind of lost my mojo.  Maybe I'll bust out my 30-day Shred DVD as a prophylactic against sprouting bingo wings.

3. I'm excited that there's only one more full week of work before we have a long weekend.  I made the mistake of telling my neighbor, who is an ENT resident, that, and he was like, "Oh, that's nice... I'm off on Christmas this year." and that made me feel lame.  But I'm still looking forward to the long weekend.

Anything you want to get off your chest this Friday?

Christmas Creep

Not this guy

Credit

Although if the shoe fits...

I've been able to turn a blind eye to the inflatable reindeer that have been on display at the hardware store since August and ignore the gobs of  Christmas candy the Target elves magically brought out the day after Halloween.  But yesterday I heard my first Christmas-themed radio commercial, trying to convince me to buy a new or used Ford F-150 to the tune- literally- of Jingle Bell Rock.

Maybe the fact that we had our first snow/ sleet storm of the fall yesterday put me in a crummy mood, but it is TOO EARLY for Christmas ads.  I'm not a big Christmas person to begin with, but it makes me like it less, not more, when it's stretched out for 6 weeks.  If I had my way, I'd say no decorations, candy, etc. etc. until at least after Thanksgiving.  I'd actually prefer to keep it to the two weeks before the actual holiday, although you can get thrown in Guantanamo Bay for saying things like that.

So what do you think?  How early is too early to start "celebrating" Christmas?  After Halloween? Thanksgiving?  Dec 1?  Or is this not a big deal and I'm just being a Grinch?    

Snow

It's snowing...

Think of the children

Credit

American kids are falling behind other countries in subjects like math, science, and reading, and experts will give you lots of reasons why- poverty, budget cuts, teacher shortages- but I for one put the blame for our current educational crisis squarely on the shoulders of one institution: college football.

Conference realignments are big news.  Teams are swapping conferences in hopes of getting more TV revenue.  Conferences are adding teams in hopes of getting more TV revenue.  But all this leads to conference names that bear little resemblance to the teams that actually comprise them.

For example:

• The Big 10 now has 12 teams
• The Big 12 will either play with 9 or 10 teams in the fall of 2012
• Texas A&M is joining the Southeastern Conference (okay, maybe, but it's a stretch), and
• The even further west Missouri is joining the SEC Eastern division 

No wonder our kids are confused about math and geography!

WIWW -

I really need to clean up our couch!

No long sleeves or long pants here.  It's been cold and rainy (1in of snow predicted today!).  I thought for a half a second about being a hero and running outside anyway, and then I heard the siren song of the treadmill calling me to its loving arms.  

 On a final note,

Happy Birthday to my mom!

Meanwhile, in Florida

Did you ever notice that more often than not those "news of the weird" stories take place in Florida?  It's true.   Famous writers have built their careers on that fact.  There are plenty of crazy people running around, but there's something about Florida (state of my birth) that makes normal people wake up one day and decide to go totally bonkers.

Meanwhile, in Florida...

An 8-foot tall Lego man washed up on Siesta Key beach in Sarasota County, FL and was promptly taken into custody by police.

You didn't read me my rights!

And from Lake City, two Domino's pizza employees burn down a rival Papa Johns in an attempt to steal their competitors' customers.

Fudgems knows where you live, fool.

Stay tuned next week for another episode of Meanwhile, in Florida.

5 things Monday

1. It's not fair for it to be dark out at both 5am and 5pm.  Goodbye sun.  Hello heavy Vitamin D supplementation.

So... Spaghetti-Os are a good source of Vitamin D?

2. I highly recommend cooking with Cognac.  One sip for the cook...  one sip for the beef.  Two sips for the cook... one sip for the beef.

3. I made good progress on my November Resolutions last week, although I admit regretting #1 Friday morning.  Riding your bike when it's 20-something degrees is very cold on your face.  That nice, rosy glow?  It's windburn.  Inside-related resolutions were more successful.  I got in 2h45min of piano practice time, went to yoga twice (planning three times this week thanks to a Groupon, woot!), and finished row two of my afghan + two more stars.

4. Two more weeks until a short week/long weekend for Thanksgiving!  I shouldn't be so excited because I have a huge ton of work to do- we send out abstracts for a major conference at the beginning of December- but I'm really looking forward to some high quality butt-sitting, Netflix watching time.

5. Not that I have a huge readership or anything, but I did want to put the word out for a friend - Mike Mitchell (who is the husband of my college freshman year roommate)- who is a finalist in a design contest for backyard playhouses for kids.  From an e-mail he sent:  

With excitement and enthusiasm, I’m writing to share that I’m a finalist in a national design competition. The modern architecture magazine Dwell recently hosted a competition to design backyard playhouses for children. The contest was sponsored by James Hardie, a fiber cement board supplier – a green alternative to vinyl siding. Dwell and James Hardie challenged readers to design a mdoern backyard play house for kids in using the fiber cement board panels as the main exterior design material.

My design’s movable panels, bright colors, and rooftop garden impressed the judges and they selected it as one of the top 5 entries from hundreds of entries. I hope you like it as well.  As a finalist, in a way, I’ve already won – according to contest rules all 5 finalist's projects will be built this December and auctioned for charity.

Now, I need your support to be selected as the grand prize winner – this status will be chosen by popular public vote.  To vote for my design, please visit to http://www.facebook.com/JamesHardieBP?sk=app_128547910585048 and click on my project which is the third project  in the top row. I have included an image of my project in this e-mail.

I appreciate your help in this and am just excited to be a finalist. Please share the link with those who appreciate modern and children’s design.

All the designs look super fun, but do me a favor and go vote.  His TransFORM house is currently in third place.

What toy/item do kids have these days that you wish was around when you were young?  Why toy did you enjoy playing with that doesn't seem to exist anymore?

I don't know what toy I wish I could transport back to the late 1980s, but I'm sure kids these days are missing out by not having a PogoBall.

   

Are you read for some football?

The Badgers were.  Hopefully the 62-17 victory over Purdue will be a salve over the gaping wounds that were the late game losses to Michigan State and Ohio State.  Mercifully, after coming off 4 straight losses, Florida finally won a game (against Vanderbilt), although my parents assured me they didn't deserve to.  I missed both as I was occupied at the time.     

We did, however, go over to a friend's house to watch the Alabama - LSU game.  Her family is from Alabama, and last night witnessed the one and only time I will EVER root for the Crimson Tide (whatever that is).  She lured me there with pizza and ice cream sundaes, I swear it!  It was an exciting game, and the two teams were evenly matched except that the Alabama kicker was terrible and basically lost the game for them in overtime.  Fortuna is fickle when it comes to college football.

Now we've received the mixed blessing that is the end of daylight savings time.  This is the first morning it's been light out when I woke up in a very long time.  Unfortunately it also means we'll be plunged into darkness at 5pm.  This afternoon I have a date with the vacuum and yesterday's episode of Wait Wait, Don't tell Me.  Oh yeah, and I'm planning to make beef stew with this:

 
Enjoy your Sunday!

Srry U Cannot Haz Plateletz

Although I've given blood many times, today was going to be my first time donating platelets.  I'd seen people having the procedure done before.  They were the ones sitting all the way in the back, watching House Hunters while fluids flowed out of one arm, though a machine, and back into the other ala Catch 22.  Donating platelets is not exactly the same as that sketchy plasma donation you did in college for extra pizza money, but the way they get the platelets out of you is similar, and it takes between 60 to 90 minutes.  Sitting around with a needle in one arm for the requisite 15 minutes to do a whole blood donation was enough for me, thankyouverymuch.

But then I got the card in the mail notifying me that my blood was in fact filled with an abundance of platelets and- if I wasn't using them all right now- the Red Cross would be happy to take a few off my hands.  Expect a call to set up an appointment.  And darn, those Red Cross volunteers are persuasive.  Babies!  Sick little babies need platelets!  (They never mention the fact that your donation is probably going to some drunk who got in a car wreck the night before).  I'm a total sucker for the sick little baby line.

And that's how I found myself sitting in the apheresis chair this afternoon, watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail with one arm "plugged in" and one arm being repeatedly jabbed by three! nurses who couldn't get a good stick.  After an eternity of "find the vein", I'd started to clot, but they'd taken out too much blood to start the procedure over again.  I was committed to going through with the donation if I possibly could, but they sent me packing with some of my red cells, three bandaids, and a pack of fruit snacks for my effort.

T-minus three days until I get another call to schedule a donation appointment...

Do you give blood regularly?  How about platelets?  Ever do a sketchy plasma donation to buy that cute dress for the party Saturday night?
      

Frosty

We had our first real frost of the season this morning, which would have been all fun and pretty and fall-ish etc. etc. except I was running way late to yoga, and I had to drive half way there with the side windows down because I didn't have time to scrape the ice before I left.  Thank goodness for our defrosting windshield wiper fluid! 

Anyone who knows me knows I HATE to be cold.  And if you don't know, I give you Exhibit A- A sticker a helpful coworker put up by my office door.

WIW...T

Oops.  I forgot this yesterday.

Early morning temperatures are still hanging out in the 30s.  Still wearing capris, one short sleeved shirt, one long sleeved shirt, headband, and gloves (not pictured- I don't have skin-colored gloves).

The only reason I bothered posting this picture is to prove to the Greater Internet that I have more than one long sleeved shirt.

Do you own a lot of running/workout clothes?  Do you ever re-wear things?  

At this point, I've accumulated a lot of running garb, so I don't re-wear bottoms or undershirts, but I will re-wear a long sleeved shirt or jacket sometimes.

2011, where have you gone?

I just can't wait for New Years.  Here's 5 things I want to do this November.

1. Continue riding my bike to work through the end of the month.  The average temperature at the end of November is lows in the 20s, highs in the mid-30s, so not too bad.  Of course I get a free pass if we have a legit snowstorm.  Despite how many people around here do it, biking in snow and ice does not work that well.  Any kind of idiot can ride their bike the summer, but it takes a special kind of idiot to ride in the winter.

Credit

2. Finish another row on my snowflake afghan.

October's goal was to finish the second row, which is *almost*done.  Daniel being busy with school/work + Mad Men on Netflix = No problem.

3. Practice the piano (well, it's really a keyboard) for more than 11 hours, which would be a monthly practicing PR.

4. Do yoga at least twice a week and figure out what my winter training plan is going to be like.  This time of year, it's tempting to think that I'll be able to stick it out through the winter.  It never happens.  Rather than having to fight New Year's Resolutioners Ninja style for a treadmill at the gym every morning* (although that would be a good workout), I think I want to do some short run/weights combos at the gym a few mornings a week and do yoga on the other days.

5. Write my Christmas letter and get my cards ready (Thanksgiving weekend, I'm looking at you!)

 

How do you get to work?  Any other bike commuters out there?  I only live 1.5 mi from work so biking is not that impressive (although I do bike to and from my piano lessons which are a bit farther).  Have any end year's resolutions you want to share?

*Because our downstairs neighbors sleep in the living room (we think) running on our treadmill is a no-go.  Maybe they'll move after this year... le sigh.

Halloween Revelry

We rushed home yesterday after work to catch the trick-or-treaters who come around our apartment from about 5 to 6:30.  Most of the kids who live in our apartments are either early elementary school or younger so they tend to come around early.  The prize for the best costume went to a tiny Princess Leia.

At that point, we put the candy out on the porch (Which wasn't all gone when we got back.  Very strange...), and headed out to a small soiree at our friends M and J's where the activity of the evening was playing the Michael Jackson dance game on the Wii.  I wasn't expecting much because if there's two things I'm terrible at it's video games and coordination, but actually it was a lot of fun.

Daniel and J tearing up Thriller:

So what were our costumes???

From right to left we have: a cowboy, Minnie Mouse, The Brawny Man, and a deviled egg.  K and I, also attending, declined to make fools of themselves by dressing up.  My costume is actually a pillowcase that I cut head and neck holes in.  The yolk is felt glued on, and the horns and trident are from Claire's, which came through for us for a second year in a row.

Also, Happy Birthday to Daniel's beard:

  

Do you get many trick-or-treaters where you live?  See any cute costumes?