simply fab!

What a lovely halloween!
The weather cooperated; the rains mostly held off and there wasn't very much wind, so it was reasonably warm. The kids had great fun.

The costume sewing was going mostly OK, until I had to quickly put the sewing machine away for a showing on Sunday night. No problemo - there's a spot in the closet where I can quickly tuck it in & the box of supplies and fabric. Where I went wrong is that since I would be back at it in 45 minutes, I decided to not bother taking the top thread out, and I left it on the little plastic stick that pokes up out of the top of the machine. Unfortunately, even though we went through tons of efforts to clean out shelves and closets so that there would be all this empty space to tuck things when in a hurry, the height of the shelves remained the same as it always has been, and for the last 10 years I have known that the little plastic thingy doesn't fit & has to be taken off. But that went out of my head as I was overwhelmed with feeling pleased with ourselves for being so organized and cleaning out our closets so well. Crack! went the little plastic thingy. No time to worry, I shoved the machine in further, grabbed the cat & ran out of the apartment (barely missing the agent on his way in with keener buyers).

The rest of the evening was spent in heating up fax machines with offers, counter-offers, counter-counter-offers, and some breathing in a paper bag.

On Monday, I finally pulled the machine back out to finish off those last few things on the costumes & of course the full impact of the problem became apparent. Not only had the little plastic thingy broken. That - I am saddened to admit - has happened before (yes, the same closet shelf problem). I have spares and when I can't find the spares, I use a skinny paintbrush stick. This time though, it had snapped off flush with the machine & left its fat little bottom wedged in the hole. And it would not come out.

I had to drill it out with the cordless drill (which was almost out of juice because that's how cordless tools behave - they drain just before you need them) and then ended up using the drill bit as the spoke for the thread because I couldn't find anything else that would fit into that hole. Luckily this machine is not a fancy Jen-elna-varna-nina so taking a drill to it didn't seem terribly frightening.

Cap the day off with a last minute dash to buy a curling iron (curls had been especially requested but slipped my mind), an adventure with the self-check-out at the Real Canadian Stupid Store, a slight miscalculation in how long it would take to curl a girl's hair, a dizzying amount of hair spray, last minute dash for pizza, wine & chat with a friend while the male persons take the kids around the neighbourhood, and a brilliant lot of candy.

Kids also collected for UNICEF this year, raising funds for schools in Africa. During the walk, they collected $25 but they had also solicited donations from relatives and there' s a check coming in the mail, so I'll update the final total later in the week.

And here they are: Queen Elizabeth I (crown & veily head dress thingy was put on later, and she has long white gloves under that cape), and the Pirate King (from Pirates of Penzance).