Which side are you on?

I'm thinking Safeway should have used the word "fight" as the verb on this sign:

Kiva

My husband decided to leave his job in mid-September after 8 years to explore an opportunity in Utah. He's done some contract work for the company there (we are still living in SF) but is continuing to look for other options. He has some good prospects, but if you know of anyone who needs a great IT security strategy/compliance guy, we're all ears.

Anyway, to fill some of his down time, he's been volunteering 8 hours per week at Kiva. They allow you to use Paypal or a credit card to make small loans to people in developing countries who are trying to start or improve their own businesses. These entrepreneurs pay the money back, and you can then re-lend the money or cash it out. A little U.S. money in these countries goes a long way, so you don't have to lend a huge amount to have an impact. With Thanksgiving around the corner, it's a nice thing to check out at http://www.kiva.org/.

Halloween '09

It's Dash from the Incredibles!

And a baby monkey!

Our first preschool Halloween party (sans eyeliner/washable marker mask on Dash for this occasion):

Then off to our church party on Saturday. My husband and I are Target workers, which I kind of don't want to tell you since we'll probably use the idea again:

This year marked 1st Brother's first real San Francisco trick-or-treating experience (the at-night, in-a-neighborhood kind). In the past we'd done trick-or-treating at the Chestnut street shops during the day, but since he's 4 and more into it now, my husband took him to Sea Cliff:

And here we are with this year's carved pumpkins. We trekked to Kevin's Pumpkin Patch in Marin for them--STAY AWAY. These 2 small pumpkins were $11 (!), it was right next to the freeway, and they wanted $5 for each bounce house your kid wanted to go into (there were 4, so 1st Brother had to choose one). I felt ripped off and was grumpy all day about it.

I have to fight to keep the carving tradition alive--the boys aren't into scooping out the guts and we have no outside space to display our pumpkins--but hopefully the memories will pay off. The jack-o-lanterns did look festive for a couple evenings on our kitchen table, even if they were banished to the fire escape most of the time so we wouldn't get fruit flies.

Back to short

I decided to cut my luscious locks off at the beginning of October because:

-My locks weren't so luscious, usually just gross and flat
-I'd been doing that 4-ish months post partum, lose-tons-of-hair thing
-When I asked what he wanted for his birthday, my husband said, "You with short hair." That was the kicker.

Thanks Gary at Eclipse salon on Polk near Broadway! He's very good.

I'm hoping my eyes don't look this crooked in real life: