Halloween 2012

Princess Candy Corn

The boys are pretty generic superheros this year for Halloween, but I wanted to do something fun for the Princess. I think her candy corn dress (candy corn tutu? candy corn costume?)  turned out super cute.

Trick or Treat!

Trick or Treating should be a drinking game, no? A Kit Kat? Take a sip. A bag of mini- M&Ms? a drink. Someone else in your costume? A drink. A Tootsie Roll? Drink nothing or you'll be drunk before you make it around the block.

Anyway, here's the required pictures of my cute kids.

 Ballerina

 

Vampire

 Astroboy

No one knew who the Bug was, no one. And half the houses said, "Oh look how cute she is!" referring to the Bug, but he LOVED it. Here's what he looks like in the movie:

We had a pretty small haul, by my standards of my youth, but the boys are in candy heaven.

Back later with another post, I think, should the children cooperate today!

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Got Candy?

We do!

Actually, we only filled one plastic bucket before calling it a night. The Pirate had a lot of fun, the Bug went right to sleep in the stroller. The first time someone held the bowl of candy out for the Pirate to choose his own, he said "whoa" and tried to take the whole bowl. Good try!

He has now had more candy than a 3 year old should have in one evening and I suspect bedtime is a long time coming. (Our theory on Halloween being- it's one night a year, knock yourself out.)

Happy Halloween!

A good blogger posts about her kid's Halloween costume. A GREAT blogger thinks to take pictures early so she can share them ON Halloween.

I am not a great blogger.

You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the cuteness that is the Pirate (NOT a Pirate) and the Bug (NOT a Bug).

For today, I have a question! Do you dress up at work? I work in a small credit union. There are 9 employees. We are allowed, and even encouraged, to dress up. Previous years have been hit or miss, but each year I've tried to do SOMETHING. Last year I was a witch. I was also newly pregnant and sicker than sick and creativity was not high.

This year we had the brilliant idea to all be nerds. Not the candy, the people. Somehow that evolved into being "Mathletes"- a specialized type of nerd (apparently) who competes with a calculator, not a scoreboard. We all have on black t-shirts with iron-on letters spelling out "Mathletes" and we have a competition name on the back. Mine is "Lady Logic". I have my hair pulled back in a series of sparkly banded pony tails. I pegged my pants and wore striped socks. The others have similar hair styles and socks. I'll try to get a picture.

This was a great idea... and then not everyone participated. So there are 5 of us as nerds. 1 of us (the only male) is a 1970s police detective. The other 3... did not participate.

Tonight, I shall change out of the nerd shirt and swap into a very light version of the costume the Pirate wanted me to wear.

So, are you dressing up? At work? For a party? To Trick or Treat with the kids? What's the best costume you've seen so far? What was the favorite costume YOU ever had? I'll share my favorites tomorrow.

Last year's witch, camera phone photo.

Ghost Story

The Halloween bag giveaway is STILL OPEN. Come on people, don't make me change my rules! I wanna mail this in time for Halloween! We need just a very small handful of comments...

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With Halloween fast approaching, it seems a good time to talk about ghosts. Do you believe in ghosts? I'd like to say I didn't, but I've had two experiences that just lead me think... maybe...

The first was a common ghost story- as a teen I heard voices and people walking around upstairs and upon going up found no one home. It was spooky and my friend and I (there were TWO of us hearing it!) were both creeped out. Lots of people have a story like this. The second though, is a bit more complex. Wanna hear? (er, read?)

Of course you do.

(It's kinda long, sorry.)

My freshman year in college, I live about 5 hours (234 miles!) from the school where most of my friends were. (UNA to Auburn, for those of you from Alabama) I spent a lot of weekends driving back and forth between the two. One weekend I made plans to ride down with a friend of a friend. We had never met each other and wouldn't meet until we were loading up to leave. It was storming and we got a late start and then with the rain it was much slower going. Since we didn't know each other, we spent much of the drive talking about our respective boyfriends (who both went to Auburn) and complaining about the drive.

Between Auburn and Birmingham there is the little tiny town, with a little old graveyard. I admit, I didn't remember the name of the town, but a little bit of Googling suggests that it is Waverly. The graveyard is right on the highway. (Or was, I just read something that says the highway has since moved. I haven't made this drive in 8 years or so, so I could be totally wrong on this.) A, my passenger, was telling me that she had heard a ghost story about that cemetery. In her story, there was a young male ghost who stood on the edge of the graveyard and waved to certain passing cars.

Now, I'll grant you that we worked up the possibility in our heads. But I *promise* you, that as we passed the cemetery, there was a teenage boy standing at the end of a stone wall. There was still a drizzle of rain so it was pretty hazy, but he was wearing dark pants and a white shirt with a fedora style hat (NOT a baseball hat or stocking cap or hoodie or anything like that.) As we passed the guy, he WAVED AT US. We were the only car he waved at, in a decent flow of traffic. We were at least 2 hours behind schedule. A did not know what kind of car I drove. This was pre-cell phone, so there was no way she could have set this up. Plus, she was as freaked out about it as I was. Even now, 14 or so years later, I have chills thinking about it. He WAVED at us.

For years, literally, every time I drove past the cemetery I cried. I can feel the way it felt RIGHT NOW. There is just no way that she could have set it up. It HAPPENED. I have goosebumps, now, today, writing this.

Do you have a ghost story? I mean, one that happened to you personally? Do you believe in ghosts?

Halloween giveaway, Part 2

Wanna win this bag?

This is a one of a kind bag, made from a Betty Boop T-shirt. It's a simple bag, no pockets, perfect for collecting CANDY. Or just use it as a purse or lunchbox until Halloween!

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Posts will be moderated, and I won't be letting them through. Once I have 31 comments (Halloween is on the 31st) I will draw a name at random. (Or possibly more than 31, if a bunch of people comment while I'm at work or something.)

You may comment more than once, but there must be at least 1 hour between your comments. I don't mind you coming back to say "Now? Now are there 31?" but I don't want anyone spamming me to get there with back to back to back comments.

EDIT: AS OF 8PM MONDAY THE CONTEST IS STILL OPEN!

Ready? GO!

Halloween Giveaway, Part 1

Tomorrow, I am going to give this bag away. It will be a very short contest (I hope), so be sure to check often if you want a chance to win it!

Unless, of course, it sells overnight.

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The Sunday Salon: My first, with a giveaway!

You know how all the cool people do something that looks cool and you always feel too dorky to ask to join in? Well finally, I'm going to do the Sunday Salon with the rest of the cool peeps. (Is "peeps" still cool? I don't know. Mmm sugary goodness.) I'm finally starting to get a rhythm going again with reading, and I hope having a regular posting schedule will help. I plan to blog more too, I'm sure you're all excited.

This week I finished reading Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside by Katrina Firlik. I love memoirs that show a life I'll never lead. I love learning the fascinating details that you'd never hear in a book about something else. I have a huge stack of these waiting for me, some of them were gifts/contest winnings from some of you- A Piece of Cake and Queen of the Road, for example. Anyway, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is about Firlik's experiences as a neurosurgeon. It has a lot of potential as an interesting book, but in the end it kinda falls short. Firlik seems to lack some of the cues to make a person empathetic, even though she takes great pains to emphasize her great bedside manner. She is arrogant and a bit conceited, clearly thinks she's better than her readers due to being a brain surgeon, and even more so for being female. The chapters are only vaguely cohesive, one anecdote running headlong into the next before she finishes the point in the first. Regardless of this, I read the book over the course of a couple of days because I found the idea of reading about brain surgery fascinating. I finished it early in the week, and even now can't remember what I learned from it.

Next I read the short story by Patricia Briggs about Anna and Charles from On the Prowl, and got a good start into Cry Wolf. It is excellent, and I'd have finished it last night except I left my bag at the hospital while visiting a relative and haven't had a chance to go back for it.

Because this is October and signs of Halloween are appearing everywhere, I've considered limiting my reading to my insane backlog of spooky and paranormal stories. I know there are a couple challenges out there dedicated to this, but is anyone else thinking of just reading on topic like this? I have some Laurell Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, the last Carrie Vaughn, along with some new to me authors sitting in the TBR. I could so easily make it the entire month, especially now that I only manage a couple books a month. (I'm trying to rectify that, too.)

Last month I read and reviewed The Thirteenth Tale. Because this is my first Sunday Salon and it's a respectably spooky tale, I'm gonna give it away! If you're one of the 4 people in blog land who has not read it, please leave a comment and I'll draw for it next Sunday in my second Sunday Salon. It is not in pristine condition, but is definitely not worn. I tried to give away A Nation of Wimps a few weeks ago, and had not ONE taker, so if you're reading this and want that, let me know and I'll draw for it too.

My plans for today: go get and finish reading Cry Wolf, clean my house so my father-in-law can visit, get a little sewing done for tomorrow's Etsy update, and list this Halloween bag in the shop (It's gonna be cheap, it has a tiny flaw on the back that bothers me!) What are your plans for today? Are you reading anything spooky for October? Have you read Cry Wolf?