On the verge of a mom Fail...

I am not too big a fan of Halloween.  Never have been.  Even before Nico was born, it always seemed like such beatdown.  I guess its mostly because I have difficulty striking that perfect balance between creative/original/yet culturally relevant.  Add to that my difficulty in buying store bought costumes and that basically means I find its too much work for basically one night of the year.  My past halloween costumes (as a grown up) have included Sarah Pallin, Monica Lewinsky, Cleopatra, Kenny (from Southpark), a blind person and Captain Elizabeth Lindy (one of the armed services personnel wrapped up in that whole Abu Gharib scandal).  Except for the year Dave and I went as the Blind Leading the Blind, I always eschewed "general" costumes.  Like "sexy witch" or "ghost" or whatever because it always felt wrong to be something that 10 other people were going to be.  I guess I felt like if I couldnt come up with a great halloween costume that no one else had, I didnt want to go at all.  I have no idea where this attitude comes from.  But alas, there it is.  Maybe from the fact that in high school my mom made formal dresses for Nicole and me.  

In any case, its been hard doing Halloween right for Nico.  Mostly because I don't have the time in my life to do it right.  I would love to be able to make Halloween costumes... but it seems I am too tired to be creative with it... that combines to a perfect storm of Nico wearing store-bought costumes and me not being really excited about them.  In any case, I got out in front of it this year and ordered a fireman costume on amazon.  It came with a stupid floppy hat, bib/overall pants and a jacket.  Luckily we are tossing the hat and going with the standard one that he has.  

That said, we dont have any boots.  I know that it probably doesnt really matter- because you probably arent going to be able to see them anyways.  But I looked at Target and ToysRus to no avail.  I will run into the Walmart down in the county on the way to practice. But its not looking promising.  Add that to the fact that we never got around to actually carving the pumpkins.  And he painted them.  With the baby sitter.  I had her send me a pic.  It kind of makes me sad for Nico. His parents are so busy they couldnt even carve a pumpkin with the poor kid.  Hopefully running around midtown tonight trick or treating with his little friend Ovid will make up for it.   

5 little pumpkins

I took this video on Friday night.  Seriously, how cute?




We had a really fun weekend.  We spent Saturday in Taylor County playing in a preseason tournament.  We tied our first game and won our second.  We ended up winning the tournament on goal differential.  We were up 2-0 at half time and we got word that if we won by 6-0 we would win the tournament.  So, four goals later and we were the tournament champs.  That is kind of nice to be able to do that.

Sunday morning Dave took Nico to the Highland Games out in Marianna.  We kinda forgot about a birthday party we were supposed to go to.  I guess that makes us bad people.  I felt horrible when Dave told me about it this morning.  Yesterday we played soccer.  It was kinda chilly.  Nico ran around with some of his friends at the soccer field, but by the last period, he was pretty ready to go home.

I put the breadmaker on to have a loaf of bread ready when we got home.  Combined with corn chowder and beer?  You can't shake a stick at that kind of combination.  We tried to get a fire going, but someone whose name rhymes with Save didnt open the flue all the way so the entire house filled up with smoke.  Oh well, at least its good to go now.

Looking forward to Halloween on Wednesday.  We have Nico's firefighter costume all ready.  He just needs a pair of boots and maybe a new hat.  Should be lots of fun.

Squish

Things have been CRAY.

The soccer season officially starts on Saturday when we go to Taylor County for the Preseason Tournament.  Until Daylight Savings Time, we are practicing at the high school from 530-800.  Which means really long days for Dave and me.  I am trying not to fall off the wagon like I usually do when the season starts (meaning not working out and not eating well).  I have been getting to the gym 3-5 times a week, playing soccer and such, so I want to keep that going forward.  But the days are long.  Last night I came home, drank half a beer and went to sleep.  Nico and I were asleep at 945 last night.

Which explains why he was up at 645 this morning.  A bonus from being gone from him so much is that he is extra snuggly when he wakes up.  Seriously, holding Nico for about 5-10 minutes this morning when he woke up was really nice.  Even cuter was this morning when I was about to leave.  Dave and Nico heard the knuckleboom coming down the street (today is yard waste day).  And Dave ran Nico outside in only his underpants to see the knuckle boom come by.  Pretty much awesome.

This weekend was pretty low key.  We had considered going down to the the Stone Crab festival, but with the next couple of weekends being really busy, we decided to hang out in town.  I went into the office and worked on getting some job applications out (yay University of Evansville!).

Okay, so I know in my heart of hearts that the job market is so completely crazy and arbitrary and out of control.  These are things I know.  I know that I would be really, really, seriously, stupidensously, ridiculously lucky to get any job.  While I don't really think I am competitive for the top jobs in the field (UT Austin, Michigan, Yale, Wisconsin, Harvard), I'm trying to mix up the applications.  I am, frankly, in love with the University of Delaware, so it would pretty much be a dream job.  Dave has no desire to live in Mississippi or Georgia, but both Southern Miss and Southern Georgia got job applications from me.  While I know intellectually, that I should be happy with any job I get, I have a hard time thinking about a world where I don't get interest from the shittiest schools who are getting applications from me.  I don't want to name names, but if places like Wichita State or Midwestern State aren't interested, then I probably really should just hang it up.  Seriously. These are the things I worry about.

In any case, job market update tangent aside, while I was in the office working on Saturday, Dave took Nico to a pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin.

Isn't he squishable?

Pumpkin Festival

So, this weekend was pretty awesome.  We started with playing at the park till dark on Friday night.  His BFF Ovid was there.  And since Dave and I have been doing tryouts all week- we wanted to let him get some play time in.  

We took Nico up to the pumpkin festival in Havana on Saturday. 

 

Ovid was there- although for some reason Nico insists on calling him Ovi.  I don't know why.  Here he is listening to Ovid's Dad, Tim read curious George.  

By far, one of Nico's favorite things ever, is to ride on these little train things they have at festivals.

This festival had two- one that had little cars mounted to a trailer, which are all linked up (like a train) and pulled by a ATV.  Note to self: if this tenure track faculty thing doesnt work out, I need to get one of these things.  They cost three tickets (=three dollars) per ride.  And Nico would have ridden it all day if we had more tickets.  Basically, the guy on the ATV pulls the train down the closed off street, turns around and goes back and turns around.  And all kinds of kids were queing up to ride.  Pretty awesome.

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the house.  Sunday Nico and I went to get groceries while Dave went to the gym.  Then I went to the gym and when Nico woke up, we went to play soccer.  I was given an early birthday gift when the referee opted to not give me a red card for a hard tackle against an opposing player. To make matters worse, the guy is super fast and relatively smallish... so he flew.  We both laughed about it getting up.  I fully expected to be booked for it, simply because it was a clumsy tackle.  But not ejected.  To this I have only three comments:

1.  That guy had it coming.  He'd been roughing up my defenders pretty much all day.
2.  While he did have it coming, I wasn't actually trying to get him.  I was trying to get the ball.  And contrary to popular belief, I don't always look for the hard tackle.  Sometimes I try not to get the player (like when I am playing against the girls).  Sunday night I really was trying not to get the guy. And just so we are clear, I usually fess up when I get someone on purpose.
3.  I doubt I would have been called in the Prem.  Dave says its not uncommon for that to get called in the Prem.  Of course, I think its bullshit when it's called in the Prem.  The tackle in and of itself isn't a red cardable offense (probably).  It's just that he was in a goal-scoring position and I was the last man back.  To which I argue that giving a goalkeeper a red card for a tackle that had it been committed forty yards down field would not have been a foul is unjust.  And I didnt come from behind.  But, apparently that is neither here nor there, because the other captain wanted the game to go forward playing against a goalkeeper and consulted the referee to not eject me, so I was allowed to stay on. So I guess, yay?

Squish

Not much going on around here.  I am under a pretty crazy deadline for our presentation for the APHA meeting later this month.  What else is new? Also, we started tryouts this week.  It's tough because I am feeling kind of a let down from last year.  They had so much excitement last year.  Maybe because there were 11 seniors, so much of their excitement was about being seniors.  And being awesome at soccer.

We havent had many girls out for soccer.  Not enough for two teams, which is crazy.  Just crazy.  We have decided to put off naming teams until next week.  We're trying to get enough kids so we can have a JV team... and not have to have 16843546 kids on varsity or worse, cut kids out of the program.


While I was on lockdown last weekend, Dave and Nico had lots of funs.  They went to Airport Fest, which was out at the airport.  Nico got to sit in a plane and a firetruck (I am not sure what the firetruck had to do with anything, but oh well).

Seriously?  Look at that face!  Doesn't he look so happy?

A stomach bug has been going around Nico's big school, so I kept him home from school today.  Can't you just squish him?

8 of 10

Not much new going on around here.  I am gang busters on the job market.  I had a really good connection on the job market, a friend sent me a post at DePaul (in Chicago), which is almost perfect.  But its not faculty and appears to be a position wherein I hold faculty's hands walking them through methodology and statistics, which is great if they want to listen to me.  But if they don't want to listen to me, then I will have to put the muscle on them.  Also, they need someone immediately... I am not really sure how that would work- especially given the soccer season not ending until Late January (God Willing). It has about 8 of the 10 criteria that we are looking for in a job.  The two that it doesnt meet is "DOES NOT HAVE UNGODLY COLD WINTERS" and "CLOSE TO GRANDPARENTS, NICODY, OR SACHLEBENS".  Oh well.

I have sent off about 40 applications with about another 12 needing to get out by November 1.  On top of work and soccer.  :(

Nico launched himself off the bed and landed on his face this weekend.  Has a real dark mark on his face.  But he is getting pretty good at goalkeeping:


Dave is taking Nico to a festival at the airport this weekend- which combines our two favorite things: airports and festivals.  It will be awesome.

All for now.