necessity is the mother of invention

...or at least the excuse to ignore some product warnings.

sacrament meeting program cover

this weirds me out.

everything's a-okay

i recently finished reading Jim Henson: The Works, which is a fountain of information about anything Jim Henson did. it's one of those books that you can look at for hours till your neck gets tired... full of great images and lots of captions with anecdotes and trivia.

i'm a huge Jim Henson fan. of course i loved Sesame Street as a kid and never really stopped. i remember listing Sesame Street as my favorite TV show on those 'getting to know you' handouts for school right up into high school. in eighth grade i did my biography report on Jim Henson and dressed up with an eye-liner beard and all for the presentation. i've been Jim for Halloween (see two posts ago) and i've still got this Kermit in my possession.

and the tradition continues. Ash digs old school Sesame Street and episodes of The Muppet Show on a regular basis. she sings songs about capitol I, ladybug picnics, and disco d. she's a big fan of Harry Belafonte, Elton John, Julie Andrews, James Coburn and John Denver, not to mention a long list of Muppets. i love it.

today is Sesame Street's 40th anniversary and i'll admit i'm sentimental. i haven't seen the current episodes in years but i love, love the ones from my childhood. now that i'm a parent who has learned even more about Jim Henson, the other puppeteers and the Muppets i have an even greater appreciation for Sesame Street, and even more so Jim's creative genius. hat's off to you, Jim. i wish you were still around.

reason 121 to visit Reno

when i asked the baker at The Perfect Donut if the jalapeño donut was good he replied, 'oh, it's hell good!'

we had to try one.


it's hell good. so is the crumb cake, the mini fritter, the standard maple...
Banbury Cross has never had such a close second.

best Halloween in years

i have very fond memories of Halloween as a kid, back in the day when we ran up and down neighborhood streets with siblings and friends acquiring unholy amounts of candy in an old pillowcase or paper sack.

i'm the red clown in the middle (i'm pretty sure i'm wearing a winter coat underneath)

then there was those teenage years when i still really wanted to be involved but had the decency (or the pride... or the shame) to refrain from trick-or-treating. the older sibling tax came in handy those years and i enjoyed them too.

Halloween is still fun as we get older and we have the opportunity to see incredible costumes like the eight-foot Satan i saw one year at a party (actually, i'm convinced it was either Satan or thee best costume i shall ever see). but some of the magic inevitably gets lost and try as we might, some Halloweens are just barely not a drag.

my best friend and me as an old couple in '92 | English as Johnny Appleseed and me as Jim Henson in '05

not this year though. Halloween 2009 rekindled the spooky spirit like nothing before, thanks to a small close-to-three Grover, an 8-month-old Ear of Corn and the chance to do some good old-fashioned trick-or-treating.


i have to toot my own horn here and say that i made both of these costumes. Ash's is entirely from scratch using an old shirt of English's. it was quite then endeavor since i hadn't done any sewing in over seven years. needless to say i was so excited when it fit... and didn't fall apart! and Tom's well, he had a yellow shirt and some green pants and i love felt. he is the cutest ear of corn of all time.



because the costumes rocked, the pumpkins lacked some of the creative flare seen in years past but they lit up nice and smelled good as the candle flame singed the lids.



it was our first time participating in a trunk-or-treat and i wish we could have had a bit more daylight but the neighborhood trick-or-treating was great and Ash felt good about the stash (and so do i as i collect my Mom tax every once and a while).

i believe this is the rebirth of Halloween.