13 Days of Halloween: Day 13

 

We've come to the end of our little project, but not Halloween. Since trick or treating was rescheduled for Saturday, this year Halloween is kind of like Christmas. It just never ends.

I was hoping to put some photos of the Halloween party and parade at Lauren's school, but I missed it. During the last two years, I either took the day off or worked from home. This year, I had planned to leave early from work. Oh, I left with plenty of time to spare alright, but I didn't account for the fact that I would be sitting in traffic for 40 minutes just a mile from my office. So costume photos will have to wait until the weekend.

 

Since we didn't have trick or treating, we spent the evening carving pumpkins and watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Oh, and eating donuts. We always have donuts when we carve pumpkins. It's a long standing tradition.



Lauren's design - Kitty Coconut pumpkin.

Happy Halloween to all, and to all, a good fright!

13 Days of Halloween: Day 12

Because after a hard day of bewitching, I like to catch up on all the Hates on Frightbook.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 11

Don't worry about Kitty Coconut. She eventually got her revenge. When I came home from work today, I found that one of the rats hands had been torn off and was left unceremoniously on the step. She may look like a little princess, but trust me, you don't mess with Kitty Coconut.

In other news, we're now in the middle of the Frankenstorm, but in my opinion, this storm is more of a mouse than monster (Get it? Mouse?) for our area, no matter how much of a fuss our local media is making about it. Nevertheless, our district has cancelled school tomorrow and already called for a two hour delay on Wednesday, while our township has postponed trick or treating until Saturday. I'm all for the rescheduling of trick or treating, but I think they should have waited to see what the night brings before cancelling school. Well, if they're isn't a Day 12 tomorrow, you'll know that we lost power!

13 Days of Halloween: Day 10

A little fright music...

We're in the home stretch! I already shot tomorrow's photo, and I have an idea for Tuesday. And in spite of the torrential rain that is expected, I'm sure something will present itself on Halloween.

On a photography related note, I've been doing some experimenting with on-camera flash. I took this one and the one of "Thing" bouncing the flash behind me, rather than pointing it in front or up to the ceiling. I'm fairly pleased with the results, and I think this one looks especially natural (Well, you'll have to take my word for it that the, raw unprocessed version did.). This could come in handy during the dark winter months when I have very little natural light to use. Speaking of dark winter months, can you believe that we'll be turning the clocks back next weekend? Yuck...

13 Days of Halloween: Day 9

Why, thank you, Thing!



Bonus photo: By the way, these came from a local bakery. My talents do not include anything do with decorative icing.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 8

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to the nearby cemetery to take some photos. As I was driving to get to the older part of the cemetery, I noticed that there was a guy on a motorcycle following behind me. This freaked me out a little bit because, hey, I'm a woman alone in a cemetery at dusk. On the other hand, it was a bit irrational, because the part of the cemetery that I was driving through faces the main road of the town. As I got to the turnaround, I noticed that a woman was riding behind him. Then I realized that it was the nice man that plays accordion at the local Lion's Club spaghetti dinners, or at least I thought it was. Then I saw him again today on the way home from work, again with the woman riding behind him. The guy gets around. Either that or he's stalking me.

Anyway, this statue is actually the top of a tombstone. I drive past her everyday, but I have no idea who she is supposed to represent. I like to think that maybe she's Saint Joan of Arc, because she's holding a Bible and sword. I would have loved to have captured her from the front, but there are some unsightly power lines and buildings along the road.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 7

Aren't these lanterns adorable? I found them at the dollar store today. I bought three of them, but I'm thinking I should of gotten a couple more. They even light up with two AA batteries!

13 Days of Halloween: Day 6

Ugh - sorry for missing yesterday. I just had one of those days where nothing seemed to go my way. I had three different ideas, and none of which really panned out. Today I made up for it, and decided to take no prisoners by making a shopping trip to the dollar store for props and stopping by our local cemetery. I was going to skip this one and instead post the two photos that I took today for Day 6 and 7, but I decided against it after I heard that we're in for some awful weather next week. So I figured that I was better off being slightly ahead of myself, just in case something unexpected happened next week which would prevent me from having a photo to post.

Anyway, this is Zero, Jack Skellington's faithful ghost dog from A Nightmare Before Christmas.



The theme song always get stuck in my head...

13 Days of Halloween: Day 5

A quick post today because I'm busy tonight between soccer practice and Girl Scout business. Looks good on black, if I do say so myself.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 4.

Beware of devil dog.



Mark used ravioli to get him to pose. Cesar Millan ain't got nothin' on Mark.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 3

Today our Girl Scout troop held a special ceremony to invest new members and to bridge the girls who were moving on to the next level of scouting. So Lauren is finally a Brownie!

As usual, I thought that I had it all under control. Ceremony written - check. Pins and awards purchased - check. Ingredients purchased to make pumpkin muffins to bring to the ceremony - check. Attached patches to Lauren's new Brownie sash - check.

Then, at the eleventh hour, everything fell apart. Lauren had slept over at a friend's house the night before, so when she arrived home, I had her try on the sash. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get it to fit quite right. It was two hours before the ceremony when I realized that I had attached the patches to the wrong side. So rather than just go with the flow, I, being the perfectionist that I am, ripped them all off. This left an ugly sticky residue all over the sash. I attempted to sew them on correctly, but it proved very difficult to get the needle and thread through the thick patch.

Mark gallantly took up the sewing effort because I still had to get my pumpkin muffins as well as myself together. I had found this great, simple recipe where you combine yellow cake mix, a can of pumpkin and pumpkin spice together to make muffins. As I was putting them into my carrier, a horrible feeling washed over me.

I forgot to add the pumpkin spice. I had been interrupted by a phone call while I was baking, and just completely skipped that step.

Although I was in the midst of a complete nervous breakdown, my scouts were counting on me, so I got a grip on myself and headed to the ceremony. Mark stayed behind to work on Lauren's sash and would catch up with us later.

In the end, it all came together. Everyone enjoyed the ceremony, the girls especially. No one seemed to notice that my muffins lacked spice. In fact, not one was left over. And thanks to Mark, who never fails to demonstrate what it is to be a good father, Lauren was able to wear her new Brownie sash while standing side by side with her Girl Scout sisters.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 2

Lauren loves these mallow cream pumpkins. When we went shopping today, I bought a big bag along with a few other Halloween items to use in future photos. It was probably the most excited she's ever gotten over a photo shoot prop.



Bonus photo - this was actually my original idea, but I liked the bowl one better.

13 Days of Halloween: Day 1

Here we go! I hope I can manage this. When I did the 25 Days of Christmas, I made myself adhere to the rule that I had to take the photo on the same day that I posted it. This time, I might allow myself to stock pile some when I have the time to shoot because Halloween is a bit more challenging for a theme. Also, I won't get stressed out.

Anyway, today we learned that even spooky ghosts need a snack after a long day of scaring.

P.S. Yes, Craig. That is a Panera cookie.

Stray cat strut.

Checking in to share a somewhat happy story. It's only somewhat happy because it has to do with stray cats. This is Henry. Henry is one of the stray cats that hang around our neighborhood. The neighborhood children named him. Personally, I call him Baby Spud because he is the spittin' image of my dearly departed Spud. Possibly, he's even Spun reincarnated. Or maybe even risen from the dead. He is buried in the backyard afterall. Anyway, Henry's appearance today totally made my day. When he wandered in our yard back in May, as he was often prone to do, I had a photo shoot with Henry. When we were finished, I went into the house while Lauren continued to follow him about the yard. Something must have spooked him, and he ran out into traffic. As Lauren came and told me, "Henry ran at the wrong time." I didn't really get the gravity of the situation, until Mark told me what he witnessed. While Henry made it across the street, Mark explained that it appeared that he got hit by a car. Sure enough, several months passed without a Henry sighting, so we assumed the worst. I felt partly responsible for his demise, and never published the photos.




So when I saw him in our yard today, no worse for wear, I was stunned and ecstatic. Perhaps cats truly do have nine lives!




Oh, and apparently while Baby Spud, I mean Henry, was away he went and got a himself a girlfriend. Meet Jessica (Again, as named by Lauren and her friends).




Unlike Henry, Jessica is a little shy. She had some scratches on her nose, and appeared to be missing the tip of one of her ears.

[Insert PSA about spaying and neutering your cat, or at least keeping them indoors]

I'm thinking about doing a 13 days of Halloween project, similar to the 25 days of Christmas one that I did last year. If I'm up to it, it will start on Friday.

Pumpkin fever.

I think that I've finally resigned myself to the fact that summer is over.



It was difficult coming to terms with the decreasing daylight, the cold, damp mornings, and the evenings filled with homework and activities instead of carefree fun.



But then this weekend, I remembered that with all those things also comes something else.



And then I was happy.