Sometimes you have to Boo Yourself

In the Holy State of Utah, generally in mid October, people bake delicious delights, package them with a paper ghost, and abandon them on your doorstep. It is known as "BOO-ing" someone.

Dan advised me against starting the tradition in a non-Utah non-Mormon area. He explained that doorbell ditching anything on someone's doorstop in Los Angeles would be sufficient provocation for a gun fight, EVEN if one was doorbell ditching GINGERSNAPS. 

Still I held out hope that Monterey would emerge from being the most awful place on planet earth, and someone would "Boo" us. Today I gave up and decided to "Boo" myself. What started out as an innocent baking session escalated into chaos when our Landlord asked me if I could please not leave the house all day while workers of Hispanic origin re-painted the stairs to our apartment (how convient). I was trapped in a  candy filled apartment. And what resulted was not healthy.

I made 3 varieties of cookies. Gingersnaps, Chocolate Chip, and Peanut Butter Cup to be exact. Don't worry, I packaged a few up and shared the boo-ing bounty with others.

 But not before I ate myself into a cookie coma. 

Also significant this month: "Spend Free October" went well... Kind of. I learned a few things, like that a family of 2 has no business with a Costco membership. Especially when only one of those persons likes the food bought there. I just threw away a giant thing of pesto, mango salsa, and baby spinach - all of which seemed like awesome ideas at the time. "I can totally eat a quart sized jar of pesto. In a month. By myself!" Wrong.

this stuff is like whole foods crack. i've tried shooting directly into my veins.
The grocery budget is the hardest part for me. I have suffered far more than Dan. His beloved $3 triscut pizzas fit a lot better into the budget than my $9 a jar maple almond butter & $12 local organic green plums... I have a fetish for fancy cat food. Sue me.

you don't want to open and envelope like this
We were doing so well and saving so much money, we decided to go ahead and splurge and buy plane tickets to STG for Thanksgiving! I was overjoyed. Then, the day after said tickets were purchased, the registration on the car was up ($160), when printing the form our 6 yr old printer bit the dust ($100), and the IRS sent us a letter demanding money to be paid on a bonus Dan got last year ($600). Yeah, not as much in the surplus fund division as anticipated. 

french is hard, but he's "hanging in there"! hahaha
Dan lost his Young Men's Job. He was the Priest Advisor, but our last 18 year old went off to college, leaving our ward Preist-less. Don't worry, he already has a new calling: Gospel Doctrine Teacher. Guess we better find the Gospel Doctrine Manual in French - double studying. His French Program is moving lightening fast - as fluency is expected in just 6 months. I'm proud of Dan and how hard he is working in this class. Even if I get a teensy tiny bit annoyed when I realize that on date night, whilst pretending to listen to my really important story about a blog I read, he is secretly doing vocab flashcards under the table....

As for me, I continue to help alleviate the ever growing problem of facial wrinkles in the affluent Pebble Beach population. Outside of my job, I'm still loving my spinning classes and forcing myself to run. My Spin Teacher has promised Halloween music on Friday. And sadly enough, I'm super excited. The thought of doing jump drills to Thriller has me more excited than the average 4 year old is for Disneyland. Couple that with excitement at the knowledge that I have Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins hidden away for my personal consumption this weekend... Oh man,  I just I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight.