Happy Halloween Eve my Don’t Blink trick-or-treaters. No candy to give out tonight, just plenty of bad writing. Let’s get started with tonight’s rundown right away so you will have time to put the finishing touches on your costume…

Pumpkins – We purchased our pumpkins from the Safeway right next to our house. The display is usually in pristine condition but when we arrived the presentation was a little disheveled. However, there wasn’t any lack of size. Pretty much all the pumpkins were of the jumbo variety and at $.49 per pound, that meant we spent a little over $20 on the two 10-pound-plus pumpkins the kids selected. Next Thursday Rundown I will show you how they look as jack-o-lanterns.

Sloan and Beau stand in front of the “pumpkin patch” at” Safeway.

Springsteen Movie – On Sunday, Sid and I enjoyed a mid-day date at the movie theater. We watched “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.” Sidney was really excited to see the film and I love any excuse to sneak away to the theater. The verdict? My wife received everything she was expecting but I wouldn’t give it a stellar review. In my opinion, the film focused on a niche part of Bruce Springsteen’s life and the plot lacked depth. I thought Jeremy Allen White gave a solid performance but centering an entire movie on Springsteen’s push to record a folk album didn’t do it for me. Even though I am a fan of THE BOSS, I recommend that you wait to watch this at home.

Our tickets to the Springsteen movie that we saw on Sunday. I thought the film focused on a time in Bruce’s life that was a little too niche.

Chinese Checkers – There is a common phrase that goes something like this: I’m playing chess while you’re playing checkers. It is meant to convey that one person is at a superior level strategically than someone else. And, as it applies to my children, the adage is true…Sloan is currently playing chess while Beau is playing checkers. However, Beau is playing the Chinese variety of the latter game. While Sid and I went to the theater to watch the Springsteen movie on Sunday, my parents watched the kids and taught them how to play Chinese Checkers. Sloan evidently thought the game didn’t challenge her intellect enough but Beau loved it. My son used the same board and played with the same oooold marbles I did growing up.

Beau playing Chinese Checkers with my parents this past weekend.

Early Halloween With Sid – This is the perfect blog post for a Throwback Thursday image to one of the earlier Halloweens that Sid and I spent together. This was all the way back in 2015 when my better half dressed up as Wednesday Addams and I opted for a scary clown costume. Even though Sidney HATES clowns, she decided to stay with me.

I am a big fan of costumes! In this photo from Halloween 2015, I dressed up as an evil clown and Sidney was Wednesday from the Addams Family.

Halloween Candy Moderation – This will be the third year that Sid and I implement our Halloween candy moderation strategy for our kids. You can read all the specific details of the approach that I outlined in 2023, but here is the gist: We take the treat bags from both kids and combine them together. Next, we sort the combined contents into a “chocolate” bin and a “fruity” bin. We then put the bins at the top of our pantry and distribute to our children accordingly. By doing this we are able to monitor the candy consumption of Sloan and Beau, eliminate any fighting between the kids on “who got what,” separate the candy so the Snickers bars don’t taste like Skittles, and allow Sid and I to sample for quality control.

After allowing the kids to view/sort their candy, we then combine it and place at the top of our pantry.

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Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you have a safe and fun holiday. Watch scary movies, pass out good candy, and ENJOY. Don’t Blink.