Etcetera

I am awash (mentally) in diagnosis codes. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but it's a slow process. I am learning to resist the temptation to keep running back to look in the textbook for every question I have - most of the answers are right in the code book in the first place; after all, that's what it's for.

Because I'm compelled for some reason to catalog the catalogs, we've gotten more in the past few days:
Franklin Covey (that one followed me from my old job)
Angela Moore (painted jewelry)
Blair (grandma clothes, from which I occasionally order some of the hopefully least grandma-ish clothing)
Acorn (heavy on the PBS DVDs - seems to me I used to get a catalog with very, very similar merchandise called "Signals," so I don't know if they changed their name with unfortunate timing, or what.)

Also, do y'all get those mailers every week with the grocery ads and such in them? I'm not sure if that's just a suburban thing or not - I don't think we got them regularly in Galveston. Well, anyway, this week's batch had a Party City catalog in it that I just loved - it had little pictures of all the Halloween costumes, divided up into, y'know, Boys, Girls, Men, Women, Infants, Toddlers, even plus sizes. Not that I'm intending to buy any, but, I dunno, cheesy Halloween costumes make me happy, for some reason. And that reminds me that I saw somewhere that more people are intending to make their own costumes this year. Which may not be the best thing for the economy, but it's sort of cool.

(Col and I had a conversation the other night along similar lines about Christmas - he was wondering if people are starting to decommercialize Christmas due to the economic conditions. Once again, I am torn - it's a good thing, but then again, not really good for the economy. At least not all at once. Also I suspect a bounce-back effect at some point if people get too drastic about it.)