It's been a comfortably lazy day. Sunday is usually reserved for laundry and other errands, such as grocery shopping. But I woke up just before noon, and I was in no mood to do anything. So I didn't. Besides, it's rainy and cold outside. Perfect "stay at home and have a cup of Swiss Mocha coffee" weather.

Instead, I carved my first pumpkin. I have a set of patterns from Pumpkin Masters, and I carved the "howling wolf" jack-o-lantern. It turned out Ok, for my first attempt at using a pattern. Usually, I just go at it with a knife and see what happens. This year I wanted something different.

It's a little rough around the edges, but I think I understood what I did wrong. The next one will be better. In fact...

Every year the company I work for has a little informal Halloween party the Friday before the actual holiday. Everyone can dress up (so long as the costume doesn't interfere with their driving), and there's treats and such. I was planing on making Halloween cutout cookies. I have these cool bat and moon and star cookie cutters. (Black frosting might be hard to find, though.)

Carving this pumpkin gave me a great idea. I have a clip art picture of a bus that looks a lot like our LTVs. While I was carving away, it suddenly dawned on me that I might be able to make a pattern out of that picture! Woohoo! A bus jack-o-lantern for the party! grin

After I finished carving (my poor pumpkin is sitting out in the rain), I roasted the pumpkin seeds. I have a horrible weakness for those things. During the summer I'll even pay money for roasted pumpkin seeds, but they're best warm and very salty. Someone gave me a recipe (do you actually need a recipe for these things?) using soy sauce instead of plain salt. Maybe I'll try that on the next batch.

Mmm. Pumpkin seeds and chocolate. Perfect rainy day stuff. Other than that, and calling Sammy, I didn't do a damn thing.

I told Sammy about my discussion with Dave about the "M" word. (At first she thought that our marriage was imminent, and she almost dropped a load.) She thinks we've chosen a good approach to this: waiting until we've known each other a year.

Of course, it doesn't seem like it's been a year. It seems more like five years since Anthrocon, and even longer since I've been talking with Dave every night online. Like we've known each other forever.

Hmm. Too bad I ate all those seeds already. I want more!