Hope this finds all SA Friends well and getting ready to enjoy time with family and friends later in the week.

We are well into the week of preparations for the Oireachtas which is the Mid-America Championships for Irish Dance covering a multi-state region. My girls did well last year, "the worst of the best" which was an upgrade from the "worst of the worst" two years earlier. My younger girl is rumored to qualify for Nationals (which are in Chicago this year) based on her progress and performance in class, and my older daughter has come a long way from a gawky sort of kid to someone with great stage presence at 5'7" and 90#. I am quite proud of these two, can you tell?

I was able to return the $58 eye shadow purchase to Sephora since the team dancing make up will be done professinally. Both girls have dark brunette wigs (standard to have all dancers look alike) and we've had good luck with the temporary hair dye for their bangs. We've also had good luck with tanning their legs and will use our normal coppertone tanning lotion. Today older daughter's school dress is coming home (made custom for her) and younger daughter's dance dress will come back from the tailor tomorrow. Shoes to be polished and I'm fairly organized this year.

Christmas shopping is going well. My kids are all done and while I will admit to overbuying for them, I was able to easily remedy the situatino by selling some gifts to my parents and brother.

I used $10 off on a $20 purchase for a gift for my SIL's baby, well my X-Sil who had a beautiful bouncing baby boy at a whopping 9#. My brother's ex-girlfriend's brother was murdered two weeks ago and I've decided to have a Catholic Mass said for him. I know that he was a Protestant but I've gotten over the whole label thing of "catholic" vs "protestant" and have decided that since we're all Christians (speaking here only of my family and his family) it was fitting.

The stirring creature you might be wondering about mentioned in the title of the post refers to a mouse that was spotted in my house - in my kitchen - apparently coming up through the cabinet base where the pipes are. Found a cheese stick wrapper stuffed in the hole and didn't think much about it until I spotted mouse droppings. DH purchased traps so we'll see what we yield. I hate to admit to being skiddish but I am. I am afraid to open my kitchen cabinets though there's been no evidence of anything in the actual cabinets. It was clearly a quiet homework moment that brought the creature out because lately it has been a zoo here with constant Irish dance music and hard shoe pounding and trumpet practice.

Hope everyone enjoys their time off. See you November 28th.