Missy's blog: October 2022

October was a crazy active month for us. Here in no great order is a review.

Kiernan went to his first concert. We saw Gorillaz. I love that band.

Happily Kiernan loves them maybe even more than I do. It was a chilly night and there was so much weed in the air that we left early but not before 10. He enjoyed it and so did I.

Megan is such a fan of October. It has her birthday and Halloween and many opportunities for dress up.

For the first time we didn’t manage Jack o’lanterns but there were some good looking gourds around.

Megan had a birthday party with ice skating and rockband.

She had friends over and I think had a good time.

I boldly began prep for my Spanish trip next year. We are planning to walk 10 miles a day and right now my feet hurt so much I can’t manage 1.

I’ve torn the facia tissue in my right foot in two places. I’ve strained the left one as well. Because I hate going to the doctor I’ve dragged my feet (ha) about getting them looked at. Finally I went and was, of course, sent to another doctor. Now I have a podiatrist.

The podiatrist put me on steroids.

This was to bring down the inflammation. I’ve never been on steroids before and my anxiety had a field day over it. I just barely convinced myself to actually take the pills once I had them.

The whole first day was a mass of panic attacks and hypochondriac dread.

It was fine. No adverse reaction. Plus it helped a good bit.

My left foot no longer hurts and my right feels much better.

I got some 3D scans of my feet and some custom foot support.

We shall see.

I have a bit of excellent news.

I finished my bachelors degree finally.

I have been assembling the announcements and scheduling my marching date. I got a frame and hung up my diploma.

I am very happy.

October was very very beautiful. I think the trees haven’t been this lovely in years.

There are two other great birthdays in October. Opa and grandma Mary both also have birthdays too. For Opas we had a picnic in the mountains. I had a migraine and missed most of it but it was still great to have a family get together.

We’ve been playing lots of Rockband with the kids. We are working on the first game and our usual line up is Kiernan on bass or drums, Meg singing, David on guitar or bass or drums or singing, and me on bass or singing.

It’s gone so well that I showed the kids Rocksmith. Rocksmith is a game that uses real instruments instead of controllers.

Kiernan announced that he would like to work on playing the bass.

We loved this idea. Both kids have small scale guitars but neither uses them so we hatched a plan to trade in Kiernans as down payment for a good bass.

I presented this as the rock fairy exchanging a controller for a bass.

He’s been playing it quite a lot and is not at all bad.

We went out trick or treating.

We only went for a few blocks but because it was rainy the kids got so much candy. One guy even gave us parents a lottery ticket and peanut butter cups.

The kids spent twice the candy collection time in deep negotiations afterwards.

We did some stuff at Haven too.

Kiernan now knows how to pick locks.

He was having a really hard time at school and then on the night of the lockpicking class he just wasn’t getting it and you could see the frustration and sadness in him.

One of the Haven guys (Gene) sat with him after the class was over and helped him and sat with him more until it all clicked (so to speak).

I am so grateful for that kindness.

And once he got it he really got it. He spent the next few days practicing and teaching us and getting faster and faster.

David took us to the Kennedy center for a long deferred Hamilton.

I love Hamilton so much. It was a great show and a heck of a 20th anniversary celebration.

I let myself in for a major project in November and spent much of October with it on my mind.

I agreed to be the feast steward for Highland Havoc. This means that I agreed to make lunch boxes for 75.

I wanted to do it vegetarian as I am vegetarian. I wanted to do it with local products as much as I could. I wanted to use no plastic waste and to make food with a medieval feel.

October is apple month and this time when I went to get my bramleys and local cider I talked to Rob the cider guy at DLC.

He said he could provide apples and cider for the event.

David and I also went to a concert in D.C. This was my anniversary gift to him. We saw Wardruna.

They are a norse folk and metal(ish) band. We both love them.

We took the truck for its final run to the dump. We were planning to buy it from Scearces after they will done with it but after inspection it turned out to have way too many dangerous and expensive problems.