morrowlife

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve once again grinning for the camera, in better focus this time. Isn’t she just the cutest little thing? Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Five.

Happy Halloween! Extremely short shrift once again today. We spent Halloween evening at Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Four’s family’s house. We just got back and it’s already time for bed. No Wednesday meetings tonight – it was the fifth Wednesday of the month and everybody wanted to be home tonight to hand out candy anyway.

As mentioned previously, I had to pick up donuts this morning, so I drove the Miata. Worried about the traditionally wretched Halloween afternoon traffic, I left the office at about 3:15 and got home at about 5:15, so I stayed right on par. Pulled into the garage just as the family was getting ready to get in the car for our visit. Yet another perfect afternoon for open-air motoring.

It’s official – I’m taking the Honda back. Hopefully, it will work out. If not, we’ll just switch again. I’ll probably start tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.

And now it’s time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two in the forest at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Greetings from the train! I checked my ticket and it’s been two months since I last rode. My boss still isn’t crazy about the fact I need to leave on a schedule, but I just respond with a completely logical, unimpeachable “so what?” Now who can argue with that?

The entire rail portion of the trip this morning was in the dark. The sun was just coming up as we got off the train and onto the bus. And it’s already down this afternoon. Winter. Sigh. At least it will be better next week when Daylight Savings Time is finally over.

Speaking of which, several people were an hour late to church last Sunday. They all had alarm clocks that automatically go into and out of DST. Since they changed the spring forward/fall back days this year, millions of alarm clocks are goofed up for three weeks a year. Strangely, my Atomic Clock didn’t change. Why? Who knows?

I’m listening to a Fibber McGee and Molly radio show on the iPod. Pretty good, but not as good as I expected based on past experience. I’ll give it a few episodes before I decide for sure. Coming up soon: The Shadow.

I don’t think I ever mentioned the last part of the trip to Michigan. It was the Loyal Mother’s seventy-fifth birthday, and my sister had invited me to surprise her. She was surprised. As discussed previously, I attended my nephew’s fiancee’s bridal shower (my first one!) on Saturday morning, Loyal Reader Number Sixteen’s Halloween party on Saturday night (I won the costume contest!), and the Loyal Mother’s birthday party (another surprise!) on Sunday evening. All were enjoyable. Monday morning, LRN16, my other non-Loyal-Reader sister, the Loyal Mother, and I went to Greenfield Village for a few hours. The weather was perfect – sunny and in the low 70’s – and we had a great time. I’ll have a picture or two to post soon.

The flight out was uneventful – made the connection in Chicago just fine. On the way home, though, we were seriously delayed leaving Detroit and I missed the connection to Sacramento. There were no more flights that night, but I was able to slip onto a San Francisco-bound plane. Got home at about 1:00 AM Tuesday morning. And my luggage made it at about 6:00 that afternoon.

Update from home: Just as I was getting ready to post this, an earthquake hit. It wasn’t the biggest one in the world, but it really shook us hard for a few seconds. Things were really swaying there. Fortunately, nothing seems to have fallen (all those shelves in the garage that I’ve been meaning to anchor to the wall are still up and not on top of the cars, for example) and the water’s still in the pool. Very unexpected event.

That’s about it for today. See you on Halloween.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Twelve feeling pretty happy. Fuzzy but very cute photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number Five.

Short Shrift yet again tonight. We had a nice long Home Evening and it’s past time for bed. Good lesson (Moses), good activity (Perudo), and good treat (freshly-baked banana cake). Also good music (Book of Mormon Stories and something else I chose but can’t remember).

Work is back to normal. I’m hideously behind on my emails, so I’ve decided I absolutely MUST ride the train and start catching back up. Starting tomorrow. I have to bring donuts to work on Wednesday, so I can’t really ride the train that day, but I can on Thursday.

I’m still trying to decide whether to start driving the Honda again or not. I’ll probably end up doing it for a little while. Loyal Reader Number Four is enjoying it, but it’s hard to fit Loyal Readers Numbers One and Two in there with her. Also, the allowed mileage is not quite large enough for her. I can leave it at the station all day, but can’t drive it to work more than one or two days a week. However, with the availability of the train and the Miata, I could handle that now.

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two on our hike through the grove of big trees at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Wonders of Blogger, as you can probably guess, since the above picture was taken at the campout on Friday. We had a great time – the park was beautiful (respectable fall colors and spectacular Sequoias), the weather was great (warm and sunny during the day and chilly at night), the company was nice (we went with our friends the Crocketts), the trailer worked fine (the battery was a little weak that last morning, but that’s because the nearly empty propane bottle became the completely empty bottle sometime during the night and the fan ran non-stop for an undisclosed period of time), and the food was excellent (including a really great dutch oven dinner, taken from a crock pot recipe for French Dip). We may make that park a fall camping tradition. We may also make Big Sur a spring camping tradition. No summer camping traditions yet. We need to check out some new campgrounds too.

We have yet another new Loyal Reader! Let’s all give a hearty Morrowlife welcome to Erica, Loyal Reader Number Thirteen’s Loyal Spouse. She signed up during last week’s trip to Michigan (trip details coming Real Soon Now). Send us a picture, Loyal Reader Number Twenty-Five, and you’ll have your own Very Special Morrowlife Day. In the meantime, you can bask in the warm glow of seeing your name right over there on the right, on the actual internet!

Life is back to normal. See you on Monday.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Five and a friend. LRN5’s the one on the right there. Photo courtesy of … umm … I have no idea who. I found it on Loyal Reader Number Four’s computer, though, so maybe it’s courtesy of her. So thanks a lot, whoever you are.

Has morrowlife disappeared?

Nope. I’ve just been out of town and then had my Wednesday evening meetings last night. Right now, we’re on our way out the door to Calaveras Big Trees State Park for a weekend campout.

So there have been no posts. We’ll be home on Saturday afternoon, so I’ll plan to use the Wonders of Blogger to catch up.

See you then.