mellicious | Holidays and shopping

You gotta watch out for those Canadians. (via

iainpj )

(This was written yesterday - I'm telling you that so I don't have to fix all the references to what day it is!)

We just got back from a field trip to Target and Office Depot. Amazingly, I spent more at OD than I did at Target. (Usually I walk in the door at Target and $60 or so is gone. Boom.) That was mostly because I bought printer ink, though. I am still printing out those pdf's for class so I'm still going through black ink like crazy. All we got at Target was a few things we actually needed, like PowerBars and trash bags, and some Halloween paper goods - paper towels and napkins - because I am a sucker for such things and Target always has them this time of year to enable me with. (With Skelanimals on them, this year! I may die from the cute.) (Also, I'm really embarrassed to admit that I like anything you can buy at Hot Topic, as is apparently the case with Skelanimals, but there it is. It's really not the first time that's happened, either, to tell you the truth.)

Speaking of Halloween, the skull necklace is finished, I'm pretty sure for real this time:

(I thought that map paper might be a good photo background but upon actually trying it out, it seems awfully busy.) I took off at least one bead and added others, and I am not perfectly satisfied with the result because it's almost too symmetrical - there's more skulls lined up exactly opposite each other than I really wanted - but I don't think it's a fatal flaw, really, so I'm going to live with it.

I'm eating leftover pesto pasta from yesterday - we took Art out to dinner for his birthday (which was last week, but he has children who actually expect to see him on his birthday and everything) and he always wants to go to the same Italian place so he can have his baked ziti. Since it's also my favorite Italian place and maybe Rob's 2nd favorite or something - he thinks their marinara sauce is a bit too sweet - we had no objection whatsoever to that. (I did not, however, order the World's Best Calzone, because I've actually lost a tiny bit of weight and I'd like to continue that. The pesto pasta is not exactly terribly low-cal but I figured it was better than the calzone there.) (I didn't think of this at the time I ordered it, but that pesto pasta was also my mother's favorite entree - I took it to her in the rehab hospital a couple of times, even - and yesterday, as it happens, was also my mother's birthday.) I didn't ask Art how old he is, and I have trouble keeping track, but I think he's 87.