Greetings from Anxiety-land! I have never been this nervous about an election. Yes, I know that the polls look good and one would hope that the nation would have come to its senses after the carnage of the past four years, but the fact that we were ever here in the first place makes me question all indicators that the right thing will happen.

I have a plan for election night–I’ll be turning my phone off at 5pm and watching Avengers: Endgame. This movie has sort of been my 2020 metaphor (even before Covid!) AND it it is over 3 hours long. So, when it is over, almost all the polls will be closed (except Hawaii and Alaska) and I can get a snapshot before heading to bed to spend some quality time with my Kindle Paperwhite.

So, this past weekend was Halloween and it was probably as good as can be expected, given the circumstances. The kids had apparently resigned themselves to reality some time ago as neither seemed especially disappointed that trick or treating was off the table. I did put a bowl of candy outside for those who did choose to trick or treat and I did end up having to refill it several times throughout the evening.

Wayne did come down, as he has for past Halloweens and the kids had a fun time carving pumpkins with him (and, thankfully, they could do it outside so I didn’t have to clean the kitchen floor when they were done!)

I did tell the kids that we will go all out for Halloween next year, if we are past the pandemic. There is a gentleman at our church who worked for FEMA (or works? I thought he was retired, but he still seems involved) who told us this will most likely go until next fall. Le sigh….

As for me in these quickly darkening days, I’ve been finding more time to read. This is partly because I have little to no interest to watch much TV in the evenings and, even when I do, our TV’s are usually claimed by someone else in the house. I read pretty widely, but lately I’ve been finding myself drawn to mysteries. Personally, I find the kindle especially suited for this genre as my ability to sneak a peak at the ending! Right now, I’m enjoying one called The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor. I’m about 65% done with it and I’m just now maybe getting a inkling of whodunnit. Also, it makes me want to go to Ireland…

I’m also going to do a Pinterest dive to find some Thanksgiving decorations that the kids can make. Since our holidays will probably be even lower key than usual (I’m hoping my two dear friends who have joined us in the past for Thanksgiving can join us again, but that’s a big maybe at this point), I’m going to try to “up them” as much as we can. We’ll see how this goes…I have accepted that I am not a crafty person so this may be a recipe for disaster.

Signing off now, I hope that my next post comes from an America that is in much better place.