This year we have season tickets to First Stage Children's Theater. We attended our first performance yesterday afternoon, Giggle, Giggle Quack. In a word, it was fantastic! If you are a fan of the Duck and Farmer Brown series by Doreen Cronin, you'll surely enjoy it as well. If you haven't read any of Cronin's Duck books (Duck for President and Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type to name a couple), you are missing out on the mischievous barn animals and their note writing abilities. The play was adapted by James E. Grote, with music and lyrics by George Howe.

Imagine back to when you were a kid, left in the care of a babysitter, and all the wild things you'd convince your sitter that it was okay to do. Ice cream and popcorn before bed? YES! Staying up late to watch television? Of course! My parents always let me! 

Farmer Brown goes on vacation and leaves Duck, Hen, Pig, and Cow with his brother Bob. Bob, who is from the city, is extremely guillable and not only does he order pizza for the animals, he also hands out electric blankets to them. One morning Duck forgot to change the note that Farmer Brown left and the animals race across the barn yard in slow motion while the theme to Chariots of Fire plays. Will they get to the note in time? You'll have to see for yourself, the play runs through October 19th and my family highly recommends it.

Okay, so I went a little bit overboard on Saturday at Teavana. I was out of my beloved Honeybush Vanilla tea, and was getting dangerously low on the Mate Vana/Rooibos Chai blend. How would I begin my day without it? And that German Rock Sugar, well I needed a refill on that too. I resisted the urge to buy a Perfect Tea maker to keep at work, because I thought my husband would have a cow, but I splurged and bought three tin canisters in order to keep my tea fresh. Oh, and I then I bought a cup of Spice Nut Mate tea, because well, I really needed some caffeine.

I brought all my tea (and canisters) home, lined them up on the counter, and watched my husband do an eye roll. He knew this day was coming, the day that I needed the tin canisters. They really do keep the tea fresher than the bags. Honestly.

So that afternoon we went to Whole Foods. I had a coupon for a free Seventh Generation laundry product -- ANY product. I wanted the big huge bottle of detergent, and I knew Whole Foods had the jumbo size. We love going to Whole Foods, one of the reasons being the free samples they have out. Zoe loves the Cheese Curls, my husband loves it all, and I love the bakery. When I told them we were going to Whole Foods my husband immediately piped up that he was getting a bag of the sunflower seed cookies. I admit, they are really really good, and I was hoping there'd be samples.

We get to Whole Foods, everyone goes off in their own direction, and the next thing I know they are both coming at me with armfuls of Cheese Curls (Zoe), Grace's Best sunflower seed cookies and beer (my husband). I counted all the bags they were stuffing into the cart, and seriously, it looked like we were hosting a party. Beer, cheese curls, and cookies. I gave him an eye roll, and he says to me: "They are two for $5."

Oh whatever, how can I argue two for $5? I can't. A little bit later we passed the cookie stand. $5.49 EACH. Not two for $5. I kinda cleared my throat, "Oh hello, they aren't two for $5." Then I made him put one back.

Tonight he was rummaging around in the snack closet, stuffing handful after handful of sunflower cookies into his mouth. Then he says, "I can't believe you made me put one of those bags back. All that tea over there (and then he pointed at the tea canister section on the counter top), that was waaaaay more than $5."

A few weeks ago I wrote of my experience watching the Brewers game from a luxury suite. Today, I will be writing about my experience in section 203. On Friday night we had tickets to go to the game, again with my husband's department at work, and I didn't get the tickets to see where we were sitting until we were on the way to the game. Section 203. Well, I've already admit that I don't go to the game very often so I had no clue where these seats were. My mom, who was sitting in section 437, in the upper deck, informed me that I was on the field loge level, and that I had "good seats".

She was so wrong.

As we walked around the stadium, in search of section 203, we passed homeplate, first base, and the outfield. Huh? And then we came to Section 203. The bleachers. The freaking bleachers.

Are you kidding me? I can't sit in the bleachers. I realize that coming from the luxury box the only way to go is down, but this is the bottom as far as I'm concerned.

We found row 10, and needed to get to seats 6, 7, and 8, but they were in the middle of the row and the people who were on the end offered to just scoot on down. So they scooted down, Zoe sat down first, right next to a guy in his 20's who had clearly shaved his legs. The (drunk?) girl in front of us then turned around, stroked his legs and said to my 7 yr old: YOU PROBABLY THINK HE'S A CRAZY MO-FO.

Whoa. Did she just say "mo-fo" to my child?? So I said to her: CAN WE NOT SAY MO-FO TO MY 7 YR OLD PLEASE?

I think she gave me an eyeroll, whatever.

Then a very drunk guy comes back to the row in front of us, and as he trying to get back to his seat, the (drunk) girl notices that his fly is down -- and then she reaches inside his fly and pulls out his privates. Right there in section 203, row 9.

But wait, she wasn't just about public nudity for others, she whipped out her breast for a group photo, which I think my family may have been in the background for.

My husband got security, and then we left the section, watching the game instead from section 437, chair hopping among the 20-some seats that my family was in for my grandmother's 82nd birthday celebration -- where life wasn't quite that of a luxury box, but at least everyone was properly clothed and no one used "mo-fo" in a sentence to my kid.

Last night we went to the State Fair where Zoe actually asked if she could do the bungee jumping slingshot thing. HELL NO! I’m still slightly afraid that she’ll slither through the slots on the safety gate while on the sky ride that takes us from one side of the park to the other.

What did we do? Well, let’s see, we ate, I walked through the Wisconsin wine tasting bar, we had ice cream sundaes, Zoe milked a fake cow for 60 seconds (4 oz worth), and then we took the sky ride. We meant to look at the animals, but somehow got sidetracked in the Expo Center where Zoe made a beaded lanyard thingy at the kid’s “make it and take it” art table, and we watched a Chinese acrobat show.

And then, *we (and I use that term loosely to mean *my husband) found what we came for: Magicloths. It was the Magicloths booth, his Holy Grail of the State Fair.

Ever since the water tube to the refrigerator sprung a leak a few weeks ago and soaked the wall, the floor, and the carpeting, all he’s talked about is Cham Wows and Magicloths. I’m not sure why he decided on Magicloths over Cham Wows, but whatever. Our daughter is a sucker for any and all wonder-gadgets (MOM, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED? IT’S MUDDY PUDDY. AND ROLL N GROW. AND GREEN BAGS.) so it was no wonder that she was mesmerized by the Magicloths demonstration. I walked around a bit during the demo and came back just in time to get hit-up for the moolah by my family. Just as I was pulling out my last $20 from my wallet, the vendor says: OKAY, COME IN CLOSER, I’VE GOT A DEAL FOR YOU. SHHHHH, THESE ARE LEFT OVER FROM THE FIRST DAY OF THE FAIR AND I THINK I’VE ONLY 5 LEFT, AND IF YOU COME BACK LATER AND ASK FOR THEM I CAN’T GIVE THEM TO YOU, BECAUSE THEY’LL BE GONE, BUT INCLUDED IN YOUR MAGICLOTH PACKAGE FOR ONLY $20 (+TAX) IS THIS…

And then she pulled out a mop.

A MOP! And folks, that’s where I draw the line on what I will and what I won’t be buying (or getting free) from the State Fair. I turned to my husband and said: I CAN’T DO THIS. I CAN’T BE A PART OF THIS. A MOP?

And then I handed him the cash and got as far away from the place where a mop is included with purchase as fast as I could. When the coast was clear I did turn around, because I just had to get a picture of this. (Excuse the quality, I had to use my cell phone)

As it turns out, he explained to the vendor that his wife said NO WAY JOSE to the mop, so she gave him an extra package of Magicloths instead. I’m cool with that.

But I made him carry it to the car.

This Saturday, July 26th, from 9-4 my subdivision, Brook Falls, will be having their annual rummage sale. It's located off of Lilly Rd, right across from Lamplight Farms, just north of Hampton Avenue. You can enter on Camelot or Brook Falls.

I'll be participating in the sale, and I hope to have all my stuff together tonight, in the garage, and properly labeled. Most of what I have to sell is clothing, toys, and books that my seven year old daughter has outgrown. Due to favorites, and of course, growth spurts, there are some that she's never even worn.

My daughter is pretty excited about setting up her own little table this year, which was supposed to be for cookies, lemonade, water, and snacks. However she's been working on some crafts like mad for the last few days. Gosh, I hope someone buys them. She's struggling with a price point right now. Her father and I are trying are best to push her towards the $0.25 mark, we'll see what she decides tomorrow, I guess. Perhaps her grandmother will be able to talk some sense into her.

If you'd just like to stop by and say hello, please do! I'm the first house on Brook Falls Drive, the one with a giant Rainbow Play Set in the backyard. Ya know, what I should do, is offer a babysitting service for parents so that they can drop their kids off in my backyard to play on the Rainbow, while they rummage with ease through the subdivision. Now there's an idea.

Have a great weekend!

Over the past few weeks I've been running outside, rather than running on my treadmill. My dog, Maisy, has been my running partner. She does pretty good actually, and I'll bet we ran close to 15 miles last week, only taking Wednesday and Sunday off. Perhaps you've seen us running through the subdivisions off of Lilly and Hampton?

The only problem with running with my dog is that I don't want to push her, and in order to make sure she stays properly hydrated, I bought one of those Camelbak packs from REI. It's not the big one that goes on like a backpack, but rather a smaller one that actually I wear like a fanny pack and the water bladder rests on the small of my back. Surprisingly, it holds 48 oz of water, and Maisy is pretty good at drinking it straight from the hose like it's a bubbler.

Tonight Maisy and I were getting ready for our run, and I don't know if it was the water pack that got my daughter, Zoe, so interested or what, but she decided to come along with us. I thought about just doing the 3/4 mile loop through my subdivision, but she was doing so well that I keep on going my normal route and in all we went about 2.5 miles. Sure, we didn't go super fast, and we walked here and there, but I'm so impressed that my 7 year old actually did it! Our pace was slow, due to the walking, as well as I tried to teach her not to burst out full steam ahead.

Even though we both had our iPods on, she talked the entire time. Over time she'll learn to concentrate on her breathing, and maybe not talk so much, or maybe the talking will turn out to help her. Personally, I can't really talk when I run. Anyhow, normally I'd have dropped Maisy off at the house and then gone out again by myself to do another loop, but it was getting late so I didn't this time.

Thursday night I'll Storm the Bastille with my husband and my sister-in-law. My brother and my nephews are supposed to be running the 5K too, but we'll see, they changed their minds last year. This run is my favorite run of the year. I'm really looking forward to it!

Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head

I must confess, I don't care about parades. At all. Maybe it's because I spent a great deal of my childhood marching in parades, both for the Robinette's (I was a baton twirler) and for the Templeton Middle School marching band (I played the clarinet and the flute). Once I got to high school, I quit the band because it was mandatory that we had to march, and I'd had enough marching.

On the way home from work yesterday I took note of all the people along the Menomonee Falls parade route who were scouting out their spot for tonights parade. It almost made me wonder if the parade was last night, instead of tonight. This morning all the stakes and string and caution tape and lawn chairs, and other marking devices were there. My daughter, who is seven, asked me: What is going on? Why are all these people in areas that are marked off with caution tape?? And I had to explain to her that it wasn't police tape in this instance, it was areas that people were marking as their own for the parade which is later tonight.

And this is what she said to me: But it's just a parade.

My point exactly. It's just a parade. I don't get it. What ever happened to showing up for the parade right before the parade started? Where the kids sit on the curb as it passes by, and the adults stand on the sidewalk? Does that not happen anymore?

You are probably wondering if I still ran the Riverwest Beer Run considering the weather conditions at 11:30 a.m. today. The answer is yes.

Yes, I ran in the rain.

Now, I have to tell this is completely out of character for me. I'm not a fan of running in the rain, and I certainly don't like getting my running shoes wet either. However, today I stomped in the puddles with all the other runners. All the other CRAZY RUNNERS who came out even though the sky opened and poured down upon us. A LOT. IT RAINED A LOT! It was a complete downpour right before the race started.

Speaking of rain, at least my basement is dry. Unlike my parents basement in Sussex, and my brother's basement on the northwest side of Milwaukee near Mount Mary College. And what about you? How did your basement hold up this weekend?

About six weeks ago I hired Merry Maids to come and clean my home. They are to come every other week, and while I'd love for them to come every week, I simply can not afford it. Their sales person came out to my home, and walked my husband and I through how the cleaning would be done, what it included, what we could expect, and how much it would cost us. We signed up right then and there.

The first cleaning was amazing. AMAZING! They knocked our socks off. The second cleaning was pretty good, but they missed a few things, like the laundry room, the bay window, all the window sills, and the faceplates of the electrical outlets, something they said would be done. Also, every week they'd choose two rooms that they'd pay extra special attention to, those rooms get deep cleaned and everything is moved out of the way, cleaned under, and then moved back. During my second cleaning the master bathroom and master bedroom were the rooms that were to get the special attention. It was in my opinion that while they were clean, they were NOT given special attention at all. The fact that I found things underneath the nightstands and dressers told me that they didn't move a single thing, nor did then even stick a vacuum hose under them.

My third cleaning was today, and let me tell you, I'm so disappointed. My husband left the house at noon and told me that Merry Maids had just arrived. I got home alittle before 1 p.m. and circled the block because I saw they were just leaving. ONE HOUR. They were here for ONE HOUR and folks, it showed. My seven year old could have cleaned better than they did. The utility room was not even swept, there was cat liter on the floor and under the throw rug; the bathroom floors were not washed, nor was the master bathroom floor even swept (and the reason I know this is because my shoulder length hair was ALL over the floor!); the bathroom countertops were not even wiped down, and the sinks were rinsed at best; my sliding glass doors were not cleaned; and the dressers were dusted ONE handlength in on the tops, leaving a very nice line of dust. I also ran my Dyson through the house and filled the canister 1/4 of the way. Did they even vacuum? I doubt it.

I called and complained. Three times actually. They aren't charging me for today's visit, and they shouldn't because I really think they fake cleaned my house.

What did they do? Well, I know they did wipe down my end tables and my coffee table in the living room because there was an oily finish to the them when I walked in, and they took out the trash, but beyond that I have no clue.

I'm giving them one more chance to get it right, and if they don't, they'll be fired. At that point, I'll be looking for someone else to come in and clean my house. For REAL. Can you recommend a good cleaner?

Some may say that I'm being too picky. I disagree. If you sell me a service and tell me that you'll pick up every single thing I own, wipe it down, then wipe down the surface it's sitting on, you had better do it -- because that's what I expect.

On Saturday my husband, daughter, and I were at Panera for lunch, it was the Brookfield location at Ruby Isle, and if you’ve been there before you know about the separate dining room that is off of the main room. It’s quieter in there and for some reason it’s Zoe primo spot when she’s choosing a place to sit.

So we were eating our lunch, and there was a couple of ladies a few tables away, but other than that we had the room to ourselves, when all of a sudden, I swear to God, I heard a bird chirp. I glanced around and didn’t see a bird, nor did I see anything that could have made that noise, so I went back to eating. A few minutes later I heard the bird again. I looked up, thinking I’d catch it flying across the ceiling or something, but again, I saw nothing. My husband and daughter heard the chirping too, so at least I wasn’t hearing things.

This is where I have to say that stuff like this drives me nuts! I know I heard a bird, but I never ever saw it. I’ll bet in all we heard it at least five or six times over a 20 minute period, yet every time I looked around, I couldn’t find it. If it were not for those ladies sitting a couple tables down, I would have done a complete top to bottom search of the room. However, since they were there, and didn’t seem to even notice the chirping, I’d look rather insane if I dropped to my knees and started looking underneath all the tables in search of where the chirping was coming from. Although, I did take the opportunity to look behind the garbage cans when I cleared our trays.

Zoe kept saying, ‘Okay, if I hear that chirping again then I know there’s a bird here for sure!’

Folks, let me tell you this: There was a bird there, I’m sure of it. And if I would have had the time, I would have done a stake out, if only to say ‘A ha! There’s the bird!’  and then I’d have gone about the rest of my day, just waiting for the next crazy thing to happen.

One time, at our last house, I was in our family room watching tv. My husband, and daughter, who was just a baby, were both sleeping. All of a sudden something flew across the room! My mind started to flip through it’s internal rolodex of all the possible things it could have been, and it stopped on: bat. A BAT!!! There’s a bat in my house! In the room where I am sitting!!!

And that’s when I started shrieking and threw a blanket over my head. I was frozen in my chair, and thought that if I got up and ran to the other room, the bat might just fly into me. SHRIEK!!!!! SCREAM!!!!!

My husband came running from the bedroom, saw what I was screaming about, and pretty much commanded me to get into the kitchen where we could close the swinging butler door behind us, thereby quarantining the bat in the dining room and family room area. I shot like a bullet across the room, with a blanket over my head, and he shut the door behind me.

Now what do we do? How in the heck do we get that freaking bat out of our house? Well, we walked around outside to the front door, opened it, and then waiting for the bat to fly out. Which he did, and it only took a few minutes actually. That stupid bat. That was probably one of the craziest things to ever happen.

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

My daughter is seven years old, and she's desperately wanted a swingset for as long as I can remember. That child has always loved the swings. ALWAYS. When we'd take her to the park, she'd spend the entire time on the swings, and if we were able to pull her off of them and over to the slide? She'd slide down and then race straight back over to the swings, as if to say: "Are you happy now? I went down the slide! FOR YOU!! Now I'd like a push, please."

My daughter, who is an only child, also snubs almost any toy she gets. Moon Sand? She had to have it, played with it once. American Girl Doll? She couldn't live without Nicki (and her horse, and her dog), but really isn't interested in playing with her. Wii? No thanks. A bicycle? Sometimes. She's just not interested in any of them. However, give the kid an artbox and a pile of paper and she's making drawings and pictures until the cows come home. While she's extremely talented when it comes to drawing, she's a kid and she should go outside and play! Put down your markers and go run around! 

We decided to make her swingset dreams come true and we bought her a Rainbow Play System. This is where I tell you that we didn't specifically set out to buy her a Rainbow, but it ended up that way, and we could not be happier. It was installed on May 5th, and she's outside playing on it every chance she gets. Friends are popping up from the subdivision too, which is really nice to see because when we moved to Menomonee Falls we chose to keep our daughter in the school she was previously attending, which meant not living near school friends.

And the added bonus (besides the fact that she's watching a lot less Sponge Bob Squarepants and Hannah Montana)? The Rainbow is big enough so that I can play on it too. There's nothing like revisiting my own childhood on the swings for a while, and yes, I've even jumped off mid-swing. Wouldn't you? 

Saturday morning I decided to check out a growing puddle of water in my basement. I grabbed the mop and started to clean it up, and that is when I saw where it was coming from. It was flowing out of the bottom of my hot water heater. HOT WATER. OUT OF THE BOTTOM OF MY HOT WATER HEATER.

And all I could think about was how much my next water bill was going to be.

I've heard tales of the $900 water bill from neighbors of neighbors who've had something go wrong in the basement and they didn't know they had a problem with wasting water until the bill arrived. And I've head there is no credit given when something breaks and money runs down the drain.

My husband figures that the water is leaking at the rate of one gallon per hour. That's a lot. And who knows how long it was leaking before I noticed it. A week? A few days?

On Saturday we purchased a new water heater, but since it was the weekend I'm sure I'll have to wait until Monday to get the install scheduled. If you know me, you know that I'm stressing about the water going down the drain. I know how expensive the water is here in Menomonee Falls, and with gas being $3.79 a gallon, and grocery store visits costing nearly $200 a week, the last thing we need is an out of ordinary water bill next quarter.

Yesterday my daughter and I spent the day at the Milwaukee Art Museum. We were there for a children's class about Georgia O'Keeffe, however Art in Bloom was also going on and we stayed the day so we could attend the workshop with the lovely Lois Ehlert who wrote and illustrated many children's books. The event is going on again today, and Lois will be there again from 1-4PM, I highly recommend stopping in to meet her, read a few of her books, and then create some art to add to the flower garden. It was a lot of fun!

It's been a super busy week! And Daylight Savings hasn't exactly helped. My sleep is all off, my body clock is off, and I'm hungry for lunch at 11 a.m. -- sometimes 10:30! I don't know how I've managed to get out of bed early every morning so that I can run 3-4 miles before I get my daughter ready for school, and then go to work. Perhaps it's just because I know that I won't have the time in the evening to do it. And my pants were getting too tight. And those darn Thin Mints are so good!!!

So what is on my agenda for the weekend? Well first up is wine club on Friday night. This month we are tasting Super Tuscans. I don't have a lot of experience with these wines because they are rather pricey, but what I've had, I've loved!

Saturday is Sleeping Beauty at First Stage Children's Theatre. We haven't been to a theatre performance in a while, but they are always enjoyable.

Then on Sunday afternoon is the Admirals hockey game with my daughter's school, Milwaukee French Immersion. She received a free ticket for reading and she's pretty excited. I haven't been to a hockey game in years, but I used to go fairly often when I was in my early 20's. There was a point where I was as in to hockey as I'm now into grand slam tennis (VERY!).

In between all of that I have a final project due for my Productions and Operations graduate course.

Have a great weekend! I'll post a wine recap on Saturday.

p.s. In case any of you are wondering, my phones are plugged back in. That's right, the phone company had unplugged my wire at the big box up on the corner. They thwarted my phone-lines-are-located-in-the-basement security system and everything! Kudos to you AT&T! But I'm plugged back in, my iPod is charged, and since my DSL is working too I can continue to blog about stupid little trivial things .... like how much I love this video and I'm trying to talk my husband into taking our two treadmills and putting them side-by-side so that I can practice the moves.

We have no phone service at home, and no DSL either. No one ever calls us, but my iPod desperately needs to sync up with the mother ship — that’d be iTunes. Oh, and I’ve kinda gotta get back to my Scrabulous game on Facebook too.

Do you remember when I wrote this:

The only access I have to my backyard from my house is my sliding glass doors. I have no idea why I don’t have a back door, or a door to the yard from the garage. My best guess is that the guy who built this house thought it would be too much of a security issue. Yes. Right here in Menomonee Falls. I can’t understand it either. All I know is that my house is wired up the wazoo for just about everything. I’ve got a security system, overhead sprinklers in the hallways, motion detectors, and my phone lines are located in the house – you know just in case my life turned into a suspense thriller movie and I dunno, the bad guy came and cut my phone lines. Now you know that you have to invite yourself into my basement to cut my phone lines. Good luck with that. Have you seen my Boxer?

And now I’m wondering, did someone sneak into my house and tamper with my phone lines while I was escorting my daughter onto the school bus yesterday morning? Or, did AT&T decide to cut me off?

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

The only access I have to my backyard from my house is my sliding glass doors. I have no idea why I don't have a back door, or a door to the yard from the garage. My best guess is that the guy who built this house thought it would be too much of a security issue. Yes. Right here in Menomonee Falls. I can't understand it either. All I know is that my house is wired up the wazoo for just about everything. I've got a security system, overhead sprinklers in the hallways, motion detectors, and my phone lines are located in the house -- you know just in case my life turned into a suspense thriller movie and I dunno, the bad guy came and cut my phone lines. Now you know that you have to invite yourself into my basement to cut my phone lines. Good luck with that. Have you seen my Boxer?

As I was saying, I can only get to my back yard via the sliding glass doors in my dining room. My dogs use that door on a regular basis to go outside, the backyard is completely fenced in so we just open the door and let them run around. The problem is that the doors keep freezing shut. How do I keep that from happening? Any suggestions?

Visit me here if you'd like read about my latest dinner disaster.

You will not believe what happened. On December 22nd I let my dogs outside and when I looked into the backyard there was a HUGE hole in our cedar fence!! We live in a subdivision, however we are the first house and the yard faces Lilly Road, which is a rather busy street. My heart just sank because it would have been devastating if my dogs had found their way out of the yard and onto the street.

The fence looked like it had been kicked in from the outside, but with the snow we'd see footprints if that was the case. There was a big boulder of ice (like 2' long and 40 lbs. heavy boulder of ice) right inside the fence ---  it took us a while to piece it together that the snowplow had passed the house and in doing so shot the ice right through the fence. I figured we had nothing to lose, so I left a voicemail with the person in charge of the snowplowing with the Village of Menomonee Falls. He returned my call later to let me know that he came out, looked at the fence, and would have it repaired this spring. In the meantime, my husband covered the hole with three 6" wide planks of wood. That's how big that hole is!!!

Here is a photo of my fence, and the boulder. Who knew a snowball could be so dangerous?

(Cross posted in part @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

The Trick or Treat for my subdivision is being held tomorrow night between 5 p.m. and  7:30 p.m. The only thing I need to do to participate is turn on my outdoor lights. It seems to be a simple task. It's not.

All of my outdoor lights are the kind that automatically turn on when it gets dark, and off when it's light. They are also hardwired and I don't even have a switch to turn them off and on.

It gets even more complicated because my house is the very first one in the subdivision, my driveway is the only one on that particular stretch of road, and you can't see my front door, or porch, from first street corner where the other homes are located deeper into the subdivision. It's a tough call for a kid. Should they walk all the way over to my driveway to see if I'm indeed handing out candy, or assume I'm not and hurry on to the next house.

Last year was the first Halloween that we were in our house, and it took me a good hour of not having many kids ring my bell before I realized that I needed to do something to attact their attention. First I hung a pumpkin basket at the end of my driveway, on my mailbox, which did bring a few trick or treaters my way. Then I opened my garage door so they'd know we were indeed home.

One of the parents asked me, why don't you turn on your lights? To which I explained, as I was applying electrical tape to what I thought were the sensors on my lights, that I couldn't because they turn on automatically as it gets dark. (The tape did not work, by the way.)

So I went for my last option. My house came fully equiped with Christmas lights strung all along the soffits, and they are controlled with a timer in the garage. All I had to do was turn on the timer .... and like magic, wah-lah, my house was lit up like a carnival ride at the State Fair.

Tomorrow night my house will be lit up with Christmas lights yet again: Christmas Lights = Halloween Candy.