Cheap Halloween costumes

As hurricane Sandy bears down on the east coast and dumps rain on those of us further inland (I'm not complaining), all my kids care about is that tomorrow is Halloween. I shopped for their costumes at the very last minute on Amazon, using the one day shipping option. (Quick aside: I blame the last minute not on my procrastination abilities, at which I'm quite capable, but Halloween just happens to be last on my list of holidays). With the storm, I thought I was out of luck and the package would arrive late. I mentally rehearsed my conversation with the kids, asking them to just wear last year's costumes, as I relished the thought of returning the shipment and getting my money back. Well, amazon disappointed me (in a good way) and the package arrived on time. Today.

The kids, home from school apparently thought school closed today so they could receive the mail. They tore into the box and got into their costumes. Three minutes later, my son's Mario costume had popped a button. Another two minutes and the second button. Ten minutes later, the dungarees strap. All these were decorative items and did not impact the outfit staying on the body. But still...

I understand why Halloween costumes should be of poor quality. It gets worn once and lands in the scrap heap. But shouldn't that mean that they are correspondingly cheap? I don't consider $20 for a flimsy costume that barely lasts 10 minutes cheap!

Now my son has told me he would rather wear last year's costume. Unless I break out my needle and thread which I'll have to do if I don't want my money to go down the drain...assuming Sandy let's us trick or treat. On a positive note, Mario's hat is intact and looks solid enough to survive another day or two.

Reading and retrieving

"Wow! Wow!", I said to myself as I read this blog post on a system to track your takeaways from reading books - How to Retrieve What You've Read - Almost Instantly | Michael Hyatt.  Personally, I can't stand to highlight books or read highlighted books.  It just feels like defacing something beautiful (unless it's a workbook). But that's besides the point.  The point is that Dwayne Morris describes a more thorough system for performing 'memory recalls' of books than I could ever have imagined. It underscores the amount of work and thoughtful planning that go into processes that appear effortless to the casual observer.  It makes me feel ashamed of my disorganized scribbles into whatever writing material happens to be closest by when I'm overcome by an insight from my reading. I depended on the discipline of writing what I read to get me through high school and college. Then I became lax with it as I read for pleasure (I tell myself). I feel upset with myself that I have accepted inadequacy in myself in recalling book details.  It is all too common for me to say stuff like "I read somewhere that..."

Now to make amends. I will not force myself to highlight physical books, but I will work out a system. Kindle books I highlight with wild abandon, and I'm glad to learn I can print or copy my highlights from amazon. Did not know that was possible. Blog posts, online news, etc., I also need to figure out. I typically email them to myself, but that system isn't working. (Why did I continue to do that?)  Until a new system is figured out, blog perhaps it is.