We’ve been walking more in our immediate neighborhood. I don’t usually talk about it much, because – well, there’s not much to talk about. It’s a sketchy, industrial area. And I don’t typically take photos of it because – well, I don’t want to walk around with my camera for fear having it snatched from me. But, there’s a lot to see, and a lot of photos waiting to be captured. There’s tremendous texture to be found in industrial lots.

We used to go urban-exploring all the time in metro Detroit…. around all the abandoned buildings and lots that littered the city. One of my favorite places was an abandoned turn of the century asylum for children – so spooky. Recently I discovered that Massachusetts has numerous abandoned asylums, and I brought up this funfact to my husband and asked if we could go explore and photograph the buildings. During [what seemed like 2 hours] a few seconds of awkward silence, I realized this was the difference between someone who grew up in an old industrial city, versus someone who grew up in modern suburbs around the world. MP just thought I was insane for bringing up the idea (no pun intended), let alone thinking it would be a fun adventure. We’ll see.

Small steps that will lead to big changes. That’s the plan anyway…..

Buckaroo Cowgirl, Abe Lincoln and Andy Warhol….. and……

A little hen. Oh the humanity!

It’s already Sunday night, what happened to my weekend? I’ll tell you…. we spent most of Saturday fixing our washing machine. It takes both of us because it’s approximately 42 tons and the hoses are difficult to reach. But fix it we did…. and then of course there was the afternoon football game, a veritable stand-off in this house- I busy myself with sewing and cleaning and wondering how on earth I arrived at a point in my life where sports are on – in my house – with an apparent sports fan shouting at the television.

We also managed to figure out our Halloween costumes…. this is a big deal for me because I’m kind of like the Scrooge of Halloween. Sometimes I think it’s because I grew up in Detroit, home of Devil’s Night. Halloween was a HUGE deal in my hometown, bigger than anything except Christmas, and I do remember loving the treating part. But it was also a holiday of major tricking and mischief and getting in trouble was not really my scene (not to mention the news coverage the next day of burning buildings). I LOVE horror movies and the spooky-season programming on TV, but costumes and stuff are just too much trouble.  I’ll pass out candy if I’m home, but I’m not really one to dress up or take it to a really theatric level. [Note to self: maybe I'm not really a scrooge, maybe I'm just lazy?] My nephews and niece always think up their own costume concepts and they picked some winners this year: Fin will be Abe Lincoln (I made his bow tie because Jules could only find clip-on bow ties, totally not period-appropriate!), Milo is going as Andy Warhol, and the Little Darling will be a cowgirl- complete with red boots that I’m sure Julie will not be able to remove for another 3 or 4 months…. Julie is psyched because each one is a manageable concept without me there to help her (no store-bought costumes allowed for this family), as opposed to last year when Milo was a blue jay. That’s right… a homemade blue jay.