Did I mention I love fall?

I DO love fall. I love the colors. I love the cool temperatures and the relative lack of humidity. I LOVE PUMPKINS. I took the picture of the yellow leaves while taking Cooper for a walk the other day. It just makes me HAPPY.

Halloween is approaching. I am a big fan. I know, SURPRISE. I began working at my current job 8 years ago, and suggested the first Halloween I was here, which was just a few months into my tenure, that we have a Halloween party. I work in a house that is now an office building, and the registrar, student accounts, financial aid, VP for academic affairs and the community service center are in our building. Admissions is next door. I assumed that we would make it just a "house" party, but my boss thinks bigger than I do, which is why she is the BOSS, and said "invite the campus". So we did. And people came. IN COSTUME. I was soooo happy. That year I was an M&M. I had the costume and it was short notice. In other years I have been the ghost of Lillie Rose Potter, the alum for whom our building is named, a bumble bee (I was pregnant, it worked), an aging beauty queen, in a red wig and blue 1975 polyester dress in which I looked disturbingly like one of the faculty, Cher to my associate director's Sunny, and a giant car air freshner shaped like a pine tree. I do not know what I will be this year yet, but I better get jiggy with it.

Because my child is too young to choose his own costume he is at the mercy of my whims. However, I am not a cruel Halloween mistress, I will dress him in something I think he will enjoy, can wear to school and get use out of after Halloween is over without looking like that kid who insists on wearing his Halloween costume half the year. This year he will be Bob the Builder. He already loves wearing the hat and using tools. There is a Halloween parade in our neighborhood, and we may be getting together to do pumpkin painting with some of the other kids that evening before everyone goes trick or treating. Since Cooper doesn't eat candy yet, I think we will limit his haul, or I will undo all my good efforts at weight loss!