It’s autumn in North Carolina. We know by several different reasons:

the constant shotgun shots that we can hear from our entirely closed up house signifying the slaughter of those obnoxious deer that like to run into the side of my car, the turning of the leaves (supposedly rather beautiful in the “mountains” of North Carolina), the turkey shoot at the “Concerned Bikers of North Carolina” club, the fun we had trick-or-treating last night, the subsequent crash from the sugar rush from last night, the changing of our clocks (which to most of you is a blessing, but for me it’s another hour of trying to entertain a four year old and a two year old), and, it gets dark at 5 o’clock…

We had a really fun time trick-or-treating last night. We went to my (soon-to-be-ex) boss’s neighborhood last night. Yeah, he’s leaving me after six years, I’m not happy about that. But, the neighborhood was nice. Literally, hundreds of children in costume wandering from house to house. One house played “Thriller” on a loop, an entire cul-de-sac decorated their section, handing out candy and adult beverages (to the adults, we hope), scary movies played from projectors on to the sides of houses, and men on stilts dressed as larger-than-life scary monsters. It was a lot of fun. Once again, Violet got that overwhelmed look on her face and Mason just took it all in.

The leaves turning around here really is spectacular. There are millions of trees around so there is quite a bit of color. I really enjoy this time of year around here. I really enjoy my yard this time of year.

Violet’s artwork is getting more complex by the day. She’s broken in to using numerous colors on the page instead of keeping it monotone. She sees more about the picture than she used to, like the picture I put up here: notice the dirt. We got her an Ed Emberly book from the library the other day. I remember those books from my childhood, how incredibly cool they were. She thinks they are just as cool. She’s drawing giraffes, lions, cats, pigs, the list goes on and on. We’re getting several of them from Amazon for Christmas for the kids.

We discovered this new (to us) band a few weeks ago, the Avett Brothers. They’re local to North Carolina, from Charlotte to be more precise. So, we’ve been listening to them a lot. We’ve got a performance tivo’d from David Letterman where they sing a really pretty song. The kids are pictured here playing along to the song.

We took the kids to see the Imagination Movers last week at the Durham Performing Arts Center. It was really their first rock show. Mason absolutely loved it and Violet didn’t know what to think. We had really nice seats, thanks to my magical touch when it comes to ordering tickets online.

Driving in the car today got me thinking about the music Violet and Mason listen to. They’ve got good taste, probably because of their parents. Here are Violet’s favorite songs of the year:

1.  Hiroshima by Ben Folds
2.  Old Dan Tucker by Bruce Springsteen (made popular to her by the Wiggles)
3.  Down to Earth by Peter Gabriel  (from the soundtrack of Wall-E, a very good movie)

Mason’s all time favorite song, ever:
Such Great Heights by the Postal Service

A few weeks ago I tried to fix this problem I was having with my iTunes. I had duplicates of just about every song on my computer.
It was absolutely annoying. So I fixed it. I thought.
I deleted all the duplicate files. I thought.
All the duplicate files ended up in the trash can. I hit the empty trash button. No problem, right, they were all duplicates.
The 600, or so, songs I bought from iTunes, 150 or so CDs I “archived” for the library in Englewood, Colorado, and the songs I had picked up in other ways.
I had duplicates, so I threw them away. 5,000 songs, I threw away the duplicates. No big deal. They were duplicates. Right? No, they weren’t duplicates, it just somehow seemed like the were duplicates. The five thousand songs are now 214. Depressing.

Normally, I blame that kind of thing on Violet. You know, the renaming of files, the altering of photos on iPhoto, the occasional deleted email. This one was all me. All my fault, no one to blame but myself.

The ever-so-optimistic Colleen has deemed this a positive. She wasn’t too keen to all the random crap I put on the iTunes. She has taken this as a sign that we need to update.  I’ve been allowed to buy a few CDs lately.  It’s so exciting, I haven’t really been in the position to purchase a new CD in a while, formula and diapers really dip in to your CD budget.

I mentioned the Mike Doughty CD purchase from a few weeks ago, we enjoy that one quite a bit.  Today is Vampire Weekend. I can’t explain what they sound like. One song sounds like Adam Ant could be singing, another sounds like it could be English Beat. They sound a bit like 80s brit-pop, before the Stones Roses and Oasis came along and changed everything. I loved the Stone Roses, maybe I should put that CD back on the iTunes.

Someone on Wikipedia said that Vampire Weekend is “influenced by both African popular music and Western classical music.” I don’t see it, but whatever. You know what Michael Scott says about Wikipedia, “Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information.”