Halloween & the Days that Preceded It

Today at work I made myself dizzy with Deskloops. Such a great idea, but I couldn’t toggle between an IM window and browser window without the whole loop rotating. I had a headache by 3 from watching my windows loop all day.

Anyway, rewind to this weekend. Friday I went home for my Dad’s birthday. So it was chill times at home with relatives and hanging out with my parents. On Saturday, Jules and I went shopping at Ikea, determined to start really decorating our place. After living here a little over a year, we realized we’ve haphazardly filled it without much planning and recently decided to kick it up a little. Yeah, okay, maybe not quite Emeril-caliber, but felt ambitious nonetheless.

After emptying our wallets at Ikea, I went over to Ryan’s place for dinner. He made some honey Dijon chicken with mushrooms and crushed bacon, some cheddar-covered broccoli, and steamed rice! It was a really good dinner. Afterward, Darrin, Bree, and Sean came over to play some poker.

This second poker game wasn’t quite as satisfying as the first one–I didn’t win a single hand for nearly an hour and a half! But it was still pretty fun to hang out with friends and play. (Not to mention Bree brought these mini-brownies.) I somehow won again. At the end I was dealt some decisive hands. Oh Hold ‘Em, how trixy you are. Sean came in second and Ryan placed third again.

Then it was Daylight Savings and we got an extra hour. Hoorah.

Sunday Ryan and I went out to dim sum for brunch! Jules met up with us at House of Hong. Haven’t had dim sum in a while and it was good. Even tried a few new things (like a rice ball and some deep-fried bacon wrapped shrimp). Then we went on a Costco run and I went home to clean and set up the recent Ikea purchases with Jules. It was tiring. But it feels good to finally have things on the walls. Then I went to church and went to bed (I’m sure I checked MySpace or something in between there).

Monday, on the big Halloween day, nearly our whole department, including myself, came to work dressed in black in order to “celebrate” the recent name change of our division. To do so, we had planned on staging a funeral for our old name, to be acted out at this year’s Halloween party. Ha, I guess you can say I was a “mourner” for this Halloween. So yeah, it was cheesy and great. Nearly everyone remembered to dress up, my co-worker Joe played his trumpet, and we walked through Pioneer Square to our other office, where the party was being held, carrying a cardboard coffin filled with old reports. Now that attracted stares. It was later followed by a eulogy given by my manager and pumpkin beer. We won the contest for best group spirit or something. I’m not really sure about the criteria, I just know we now get a pizza party, haha.

After the office Halloween party, I went home to put the Costco shepherd’s pie in the oven and put Buster out on display. Jules and I had Ryan, Casey, Irene, and Chrysti over for dinner. It was quite an anomaly that Ryan was the only guy at this gathering as compared to every other event I’ve hosted. After dinner and much pumpkin dessert eating, we watched some ANTM before calling it a night. There’s my Halloween.

And with that, check out: Cookie Pic 1 & Cookie Pic 2