The stress of our dear Phoebe's passing seems to have taken a toll on my immune system. I am down with a cold. Or, not exactly "down", it's more of a cold medicine haze I seem to be in. Of all times to be sick! The family needs to stick together and pulling the covers up over my head and lying with a box of Kleenex and chicken noodle soup isn't an option right now. This is the first year that we didn't get our pumpkin's at the farm. Just the other night we realized that Halloween was going to be here any moment and we haven't done any carving, and - something I can't believe - we had not bought any Halloween candy! Our minds and hearts were definitely elsewhere. Yesterday the girls and I went to a little farmer's market stand just down the street and picked up a couple of pumpkins. (They came from the same farm we would have gone to anyway, we just saved ourselves some muddy boots. Trying to stay positive here .) Last week, every