We put our current house on the market over the weekend, and there were several showings. This meant we needed to be out of the house. The house also needed to be picked up, which is fine. It’s good to get in the habit of putting things away and making the beds. I find some of the expectations of “putting things away” funny, though. When we returned on Saturday from spending the day out and about, the agent told me where I could find my shampoo from the shower (it had been stashed in a cupboard). The dish soap had also been put away. I guess the toaster can stay on the counter, but not the dish soap.
The leaves are pretty close to peak around here. A few weekend highlights: I took the 12-year-old out for a sushi lunch on Friday (the kids had a half day)….and then took a nap to recover from my ridiculous Thursday night O’Hare-plus-hotel experience. I ran 6 miles with Jane along a river trail on Saturday morning. We went for a family walk along a trail and through a local cemetery. We went to Dutch Wonderland’s Halloween event on Sunday. This little amusement park in Lancaster isn’t exactly Disney World, but the kids had a surprisingly good time. I think it helped that it wasn’t crowded so they could go on whatever rides they wanted whenever they wanted.
And, finally, trick-or-treating! We had a vampire, an inflatable dinosaur, another vampire, a ninja, and an adorable little lion. The dog pretty much refused to wear his pumpkin costume, so that was that. We did two local neighborhoods where the houses are close together and the streets quiet. Some people went all out, though I was surprised at the number of houses that put a bowl of candy outside rather than have kids ring the doorbell. We tend to do this — because we are out and about with our own kids — but we’re talking houses that had done fairly elaborate get-ups in the past. Maybe this is the new post-Covid world, where people look for ways to limit interaction.
Now it is November. This always happens the day after Halloween, though it seems to sneak up on me nonetheless. I think November is an under-rated month, with the leaves at their peak at the start, and the month ending in a cozy holiday vibe. Unfortunately, it’s also going to start getting pretty cold. And I will just be cold again until May….
Yeah, what is up with hiding the dish soap? I’ve visited people who seem to do that all the time, when I’ve thought it would be nice to pitch in with the dishes while I was a houseguest, then been unable to find the means to do so without snooping through the kitchen cupboards! I can’t think why it would be considered advantageous to give visitors the impression that your dishes never get washed, lol!
The other one I don’t get is hiding the bathroom trash can, or not providing one at all, which I’ve also encountered in people’s houses from time to time. There’s nothing worse than needing to change a sanitary napkin and finding nowhere to dispose of the used one! Even if there are no women of child-bearing age in residence, who doesn’t ever need to throw out dental floss, cotton balls, band-aids, tissues, and a hundred and one other things in a bathroom, of all places?!
Omg THIS! I can understand single guys not getting that you need a trash can, but women who don’t put one in their own guest bathroom?? The grossness of having to smuggle your used tampon or whatever into your purse is just awful.
@Gwyneth – yes the fictions are annoying… and kind of strange. We had to remove the shampoo bottles from our shower. Really?
What an adorable little lion! I also completely relate to feeling like November has snuck up on me, even though I’ve been very aware that it’s coming it still just feels a little too soon. We took our 5 year old trick or treating last night and were also surprised by how many candy bowls were just out on the porch and I had the same thoughts. It will be interesting to see what happens next year. I also woke up feeling for school teachers because man, Halloween on a Sunday was rough on bedtime/wakeup. haha Hope your house sells quickly! The extra clean house showing mode is always such a disruption. Hope you get an offer you love soon and you all can go back to normal…ahem, until moving. 😛
We ALWAYS go to the door IF we get trick-or-treaters. We turn on the outside lights, leave our primary door open, put out a jack-o-lantern, and we RARELY get any kids. The problem is we’re not inside a subdivision, but on the outer street (it’s a 1950s subdivision, so the outer houses don’t have their backyards to the street like made ones do), very few streetlights, and no sidewalk on our side of the street, although there’s a paved trail across the street. Everybody stays in the interior of the subdivision. I get it, but it’s SAD on our street. We had ice group of teenagers (probably 15-16 years old) last year, and I was thankful for them – they were in costumes, polite, enthusiastic, and thanked us profusely! They could have returned anytime, but they probably are to old for it thus year. The ONLY group we got this year was my friend’s three kids from the newer subdivision across the street, and their dad drove them over. I miss having lots of kids stop by.
@Ruth – I wish we had more trick or treaters. We once would leave someone home to hand out candy but we’ve had an average of one every other year. We shall see if this changes on our new street, though I somewhat doubt it. Long driveways.