NaBloPoMo

Okay, I'm doing it.
I am resurrecting my blog for NaBloPoMo.
Avtually, I have been blogging away on myspace, which really frustrates the hell out of me because it's crap; I don't even remember why I went back to blogging on myspace. Oh well. This month, I will be blogging here, and I will post the same exact blog on my myspace. I don't think anyone who reads my myspace really knows this blog ever existed.

Today is All Saints Day. The last time I attended mass was on All Saints Day in, maybe, 1993. Yes, I'm pretty certain it was 1993 because I was engaged to be married, and I thought I wanted to be married in the Catholic church. I only went that one time, and then I decided to get married at a winery.

Anyway.

It's not as though I haven't set foot in a Catholic church since then-- I've attended funeral masses and nuptial masses and baptisms, but never a tried and true weekday or weekend mass. I planned on attending mass this morning. Really, I did. There is a Catholic church right across the street from my development, pretty much. I drive past it daily, and last week, for some reason, I actually read the sign. I never read the sign at that church. They have mass masses, and I thought, I am going to attend a mass during the week-- you know, when only the elderly devout Catholics attend. I can sit quietly in the back, not receive communion and be unnoticed.
For some reason, horrible anxiety overtakes me whan I enter a Catholic church. It doesn't happen when I go to Protestant churches. I assume it is deeply seeded Catholic guilt. On one hand, I love the Catholic church. I love the ritual that is involved in mass, and I love the symbols that are used: statues, rosary beads, incense, saints. On the other hand, I don't buy the story. Of course, being a modern woman, I feel Catholicism is far too patriarchal, sexist, and kind of cult-like. The first time Wayne attended a Catholic mass, we went to a friend's son's baptism, and he was really weirded out. He was raised Baptist deep in the bible belt. The Catholic mass is completely foreign to him. He thinks all the "idols" at the altar area are bizarre and the ceremony and ritual during mass is weird.

All that said, I didn't attend mass today. Oh, well. Maybe some other time.

Last night was Halloween!!!
Halloween is a favorite holiday for our family. Every year we go to my grandparents' house for dinner, then we leave to trick-or-treat with whomever has brought their children (this year it was just my niece who came with us). This was a very quiet Halloween. It's amazing how much easier Halloween is when you have only one kid who is dressing up and trick-or-treating. We were out for about an hour and a half. It was fun; the weather was fab. It's been cold here the past two days (it was 21 degress at 7am today!), so it was chilly last night-- which I definitely prefer over rain.

We ran out of candy, there were so many kids out last night. Tons of teenagers, which is a bummer. Paige had onions and old shriveled apples to hand out to kids she deemed too old for trick-or-treating. Wayne told her that if anything bad happened to our property, she would be in trouble.

Okay...blogger is having issues with uploading pics, so I will do that later.