All-Hallows-Even

Let me start off by saying this: I have next to no will power. As in nil, nada, zilch.

Okay, on with the story. The festivities began on Saturday evening. We were invited to 3 halloween parties, but only made it to 2 of them. I was reluctant to go at first, but Meg gave me the required kick in the pants and we dressed up

It was a re-tread

Meg went as Little Red Ridinghood and I went as the Big Bad Wolf (in Gramma's nightgown, of course). We used these costumes several years ago, and so it was easy to pull off again. There's not much to it actually. Meg had a red cape, and I had a nightgown and some face make-up. There really aren't too many costumes you can pull off with a full beard. A wolf happens to be one of them.

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and had a decent time. In fact, at the one party, we even won a second place prize

To Be Fair

There were only about a dozen or so folks at the party that actually dressed up, so I wouldn't say we had very stiff competition...

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for "best costume."

Then on Sunday we hosted a little pumpkin carving party at our place. It gave us a much needed excuse to give our house a good cleaning! We served a stew and a vegetarian chili and warm apple cider with rum to spike it with (note this is a difficult one to bolus for). It all went well, until 5pm rolled around and two families were still on their way and we were basically out of food (that NEVER happens! We usually have sooo many leftovers it's ridiculous). We scrambled to throw a pizza in the oven, whip up a salad, and grill some chicken-apple sausages to feed our hungry guests, and all went well. It was a little chaotic there for a bit, but all-in-all a good time.

We carved up a bunch of pumpkins, roasted some pumpkin seeds, and everyone left with all their digits in tact

Pumpkin Carving Tool Sets Rock!

Seriously. These little tool sets are awesome. I started to carve mine with a big knife, but then switched to a little saw-blade tool, and it was like going through warm butter. Hands down, a great invention!

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(which was really the only goal for the evening). I went with a minimalist design for my pumpkin.

Tonight, we handed out some candy. We live on a busy street, so we didn't get too many trick-or-treaters. Essentially, that means we have tons of leftover candy. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I have no self-control. I've been around bowls of halloween candy for the past 4 days, and my blood sugar graphs look like some sort of scary new roller coaster ride. I start of trying so hard, but then I slip, and believe me, it's a slippery slope. On both Saturday and Sunday nights I was so pleased with my blood sugar readings in the middle of the evening, that I went ahead and rewarded myself with a (few) "fun size" candies.

Big mistake.

These little suckers are evil, not fun. Do you know how easy it is to throw back a half-dozen of these in no-time flat? That's like an entire day's worth of calories! And not only is it hard to keep track of how many you've actually eaten, they should each probably get their own little square wave bolus. I did neither. For the record: random guesses followed by random boluses = random blood sugars. Indulging in these while at a party and having a few drinks produces the double-whammy of having blood sugars climb slowly overnight. Waking up with a 300+ reading is not cool.

I need to get these candies outta the house and take them into work were folks with normal pancreases can indulge.