In the morning Abe and Ammon left on a campout with the scouts, and Ammon was wearing the cargo pants Abe bought him yesterday and his new coat that just arrived. He took a ton of action figures with him and I hope he doesn’t lose them!

Mary had an art lesson in the morning and then scootered to Harris Teeter with Lana and Marina and then went to Sara Layton’s afterward. Clarissa and I decided to walk to Harris Teeter’s so we ran into the girl on their way back. Clarissa talked to me for hours straight. She talked to me about her dreams, things that she has watched, and also played a lot of “would you rather?” with me.

When we got to Harris Teeter she examined the chocolates and finally settled on a milk chocolate Ritter Sport because it had fewer ingredients and seemingly a better nutritional profile (there was protein) than, for example, M&M’s. It was a perfect autumn day and we had a great time walking and chatting back home. When we reached Huckabay she wanted to cut through Stuart’s house, but I wanted to take the sidewalk. I proposed we split up and meet at home. She said it would be a race and took off running.

I walked home but didn’t see her. Instead I saw Ann, my neighbor, and I chatted with her for a long time. I figured Clarissa had already beat me home but at the end of about thirty minutes she appeared. Apparently she had seen a strange man in Stuart’s yard so she didn’t cut and instead tried to come home on the sidewalk, but she overshot and ran all the way to Glenwood! At that point she started crying and turned around. She was afraid to ask strangers for help but figured the two women walking their babies were probably as safe as possible. She asked them where Lubbock was and they helped her find it. Honestly, I think she overshot again because when I saw her she was coming from the side of Lubbock close to Ridge.

I felt so bad for her! But she had a quick turnaround becuase Lola invited her to play, and so she spent the next hour and a half at Lola’s playing in Lola’s electric car and racing her on the scooter. She was in great spirits after that. I took her home, fed her and Mary some Taco Bamba, and then tidied and did laundry while they watched some show on TV. Currently they are playing together in Mary’s room and there is a lot of giggling.

I set up Mr. Bones arranging flowers. I actually panicked and drove back to Harris Teeter’s to pick up a pumpkin for him to carve, but then I thought it might be better if he carved them when we actually carve them. So he is arranging flowers. My other thought was to have him toilet paper the tree by the mailbox, but I like the flowers a lot. Maybe tomorrow he will cut coupons.

On Friday Lindsay and I took a walk around 9. Afterward I cleaned the kitchen while chatting with Lydia, who explained the plot of Carrie to me in great detail. She started this explanation yesterday but ran out of time, so finished this morning. I am glad she told me because now I feel like I can see Carrie references everywhere in popular culture.

Abe and I were still tired, but we went to weights around 11am. Afterward we went to Bottiwalla for lunch, and I picked up a latte at the food truck near the restaurant on my way out. Then we went to the Green Front to look at rugs and furniture. I had read about it in Sir Walter Raleigh magazine, the home issue. It was only five minutes from the Iron Works and we had the most fun looking at all the rugs. We kept staring at two distressed oriental (maybe called vintage?) in very differnet color schemes, but both beautiful and glowy. I didn’t like how rough the rugs felt, though. After I researched and realized maybe the wool quality wasn’t great.

After looking at rugs we drove to Meltwell, where we did the sauna. Abe actually slept in the sauna he was so tired. After that we hit Trader Joe’s to get some last minute things for Mary’s book club, and then we picked up Mary from art club. We drove home and chatted with Lydia on the way. and she hosted book club while I took Ammon to dance and then drove Clarissa to swim. She forgot her bag and I got very snappy because I was on three hours of sleep and also so frustrated about how much we miss swim. We drove straight back home.

Abe picked up Ammon from dance and drove him to the mall where they both got great haircuts from Billionaire Barber. Abe bought some needed travel luggage and a work bag, and also some cargo pants for Ammon.

I was so tired that I went to bed early.

On Thursday Abe was not feeling well. We both had phone calls we took from bed (I chatted with Amy for an hour and he chatted with some people at work).

After school I made some chicken with tomatoes and prunes and cinnamon from the Gourmet cookbook. I served it with couscous and a bagged salad at dinner, after which Abe, Mary and I headed to Capital Strength for our workouts. Turns out Abe and I didn’t have a session to 6:30 while Mary was at 6, so we were there until 7:30. Abe and I enjoyed our session with Carey so much.

After we played a game of Wingspan. Abe blacked out his board and filled it entirely with birds. I didn’t feel like I had a particularly strong game but I won. We concluded that an evenly played game always seems to win. I played evenly by accident.