Artists, no matter how good their intentions, are always slower than they think. ~ Mark Millar

And slow I was. Mind you we had a few hiccups in the road. A trip to the ER, busy schedules, many things happening in the weeks leading up to the most awesome of holiday ever!

But I got there, finally.

I didn't put everything out, but enough to make a good show.

A new window display, the Witch's Kitchen, made it's debut. My new apothecary jars fit in so very well.

I made a "dug grave" in the front yard, with a lil illusion magic. With night and only the colored flood lights and tiki torches, I had a couple people ask how long it took me to dig the hole in the front yard. Amazing what you can do with a black trash bag and cheap towels dyed the color of dirt. I think the 'spade in the ground" sold it tho. The flashing "Vacancy" is a good gag as well. One of my wife's favorite parts of the graveyard.

The new costume was a hit as well. Lots of shrieks and running children everywhere. I was thinking the zombie pirate theme might be overkill, but it turned out awesome. I even put a horrible eye under the pirate patch. No one wanted to see what was under my patch, but those that did, were grosed out. Perfect!

Now the house is filled with boxes and bags of Halloween collected. The inside is now kind of a holiday graveyard. I took off the 1st to pack up and pick up. Plus I had to hit all the after holiday sales. I hate buying stuff before, hence the post on my fence earlier. Managed to get a few things, I swore I wasn't going to get. But isn't that the way sales go? "Do I need this? No....but I sure do WANT it!"

Half the fun is opening up rubber maid tubs in the attic next year and saying, "Did I buy this?!?!"

Another year done. It's over so fast, for all the build up that happens. As an on-looker said, "Your house is the one they are going to remember and tell their kids about." My response was, "This is the house I remember from MY trick or treating!"

Electric Dreamin'

I have to take a break from my Halloween fever (I'm so far behind...what does it matter?)

The home inspector came this morning for my Nissan Leaf charging station. Yes....charging station. I'm going NO TAILPIPE people! All in, all electric. I'm so excited I I can't stand myself.

I fretted for days over this inspection. We have a 75 year old house, smack dab in the middle of the snow belt. (we have won the 'golden snowball' trophy for the past decade, I think, here in CNY) There is just no way a cutting edge car could be plopped down right here. Well....it can....and it will!

It's the worst possible time to spend money on a car. I know. We'll have to do a few upgrades to get the house ready for the station. I know. We will only have one car for long trips. I know.

But as I said to my wife this morning, "This is like an aquarian's wet dream!"

• A new car would thrill my jug bearing brother, James Dean (who shares my exact birthday).
• The cutting edge invention would have fellow aquarian Thomas Edison telling Watson to lift the hood to see inside.
• The sense of "freedom" from the pump from aquarian president, Abraham Lincoln
• The feel-good-for-the-environment whimsy from my January Aqua-sister Ellen Degeneres.(and birthday twin of my wife)
• And you can't leave out one of my favorite aquarians, Oprah, "You get a car...you get a car....YOU get a car!"

And while I've secretly been dreading that this purchase might be a divorce between me and my wife, she manage to blog about me this morning: HERE

And since she's the writer in the family...she did a much better job then I ever have on my blog. :)

Viva La Revolución

"Don't just do something, stand there... Uh... no no! Go go! Go get my gloves! I'm late! " ~ White Rabbit, Alice In Wonderland

I finally got some time to do SOMETHING for my haunt and look what happened. My cemetery gates, the ones I was so excited about from Spirits, suck ASS!

They broke in 4 different places, the stakes on the bottom broke and they flopped over onto the ground as soon as I walked away. What a pile of crap! I knew I should have done my own columns this year. But like many years....I don't have the time to get into my basement laboratory and get things done.

I am making some delightful apothecary jars, with the inspirational help from LoveManor.com and their fantastic labels. But that's about it.

I turned cheap glass jars like this:

Into cool ones that just need a lil aging....

Oh..and I got up Spooky Town. But I couldn't find anything of good enough quality to buy new for it this year. Which also stunk. We did watch NBX this past weekend. I do love a movie that you can watch for Halloween and Christmas! It never gets old, either. It's still one of the best.

Well....there are still 12 days left. I have time to whip things into shape. Pumpkin carving date with my wife on Wednesday. If plunging a knife into the soft gourds adn scooping out their guts to toast and then eat, doesn't get me into the mood.....I'm a lost cause!

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin." Linus

Everything tastes better in a Jack mug. Don't you think? I use them all year long (yes...I said 'them'....I own a few)

This weekend it Halloween Time at ye ol homestead. Gotta get out the tombstones and start to scare-i-fy the house. I tried pluggin in my lil projector and low and behold...it doesn't work. There go my plans to turn the front sun porch into a movie screen.Great! Why didn't I test it when I bought it. Duh. Guess my make shift 'crank ghost' will fly again this year.

The temps are dipping into the 30's over night here in upstate NY. The trees are starting to get their color on. We are going apple picking this weekend. Maybe a trip to the pumpkin patch as well. They had pumpkin whoopie pies last year....I can not express to you enough how ah-mah-zing they were.My local coffee stop is making pumpkin brittle lattes and they are divine!
I pulled out my rubbermaid tub o Halloween shirts and am proudly sporting my newest Jack Skellington today. (perhaps a viewing of NBX is called for this weekend as well)

I think we should bump off Thanksgiving and make Halloween two months long. There just isn't enough time!

You put up a fence around a grave yard cuz folks are DYING to get in!

I've been looking to upgrade my lil grave yard fence for a while. And since I'm changing up my costume this year, I wasn't going to make anything for my tiny lil haunt. So when I finally got to Spirit's and saw these fence pieces, I thought I would grab a couple. Now...I'm more of a "day-after-the-holiday" shopper at Spirit's, cuz of their crazy prices. But we only have one location near me this year, and it's across town, and they only had a few of these fence pieces. So I'm not sure they would even have them after the fact.

Yes...I'm justifying it.

So after paying more than I would have liked too, I of course come into work to find a stinking coupon! UGH! Don't it figure.

You know when you buy new curtains for a room and then you start looking around and you notice the carpet doesn't really match and that old chair just looks shabby now and you should probably paint. Well.....this morning I woke up and started thinking, which is always a bad thing. "Maybe I should do some pillars for the new fence."

Yes folks, this is how it starts. Now I need to dash to Home Depot and get some lovely pink insulation, some grey paint, some big foam balls from Michael's for the pillar caps and the next few free nights are now booked. I will be holed up in the basement, my wife left to shake her head when folks ask where I am.

I figure, with the projects I've done so far, I'm pretty good with the faux stone. And pillars are just tall boxes, so it won't take THAT long....right?

SIGH....I never start early enough.

“I will not negotiate with the undead!” ― David Wellington, Monster Island

I was in Barnes and Noble's the other day and they had a cute lil display of a few Halloween items. What really drew my attention was the pile of Zombie books just in front of the cutesy-poo display.

Zombie Haiku

Lost Zombies

And your essential guide on how to survive a Zombie Apocalypse.

I'm thinking I might need to put a new twist on a old theme: Zombie Pirate!

Something new to scare the kiddes with!.

"Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” ~Scrooge to the "Grim Reaper" (Ghost of Xmas yet to come)

OK...I know....the clock says 50....but it's only 40. Which scares me enough, cuz I'm so not ready to even start yet. BUT, that picture is the countdown clock that I bought a couple years ago at the after Halloween fire sale at Spirit of Halloween. And it will remind me to take it out of our attic and begin the countdown.

To that, there is no Spirit near me this year. I'm genuinely depressed. There is one across town. So what. I had one just up the way from me the last couple years and spent a LOT of lunch hours there.

Although, with Halloween so commercial now, a lot of props for mass market are getting cheaper looking. It's been almost impossible to find a fun addition to my Spooky Town. Terrible paint jobs and cheesy themes abound. I do have a pretty big spread, so I really don't need anything more. But ya know....it's fun to add.

And if you keep in mind what you might be adding for next year, like I do, you can get great deals after the holiday, if you hurry. Folks clear out Spirits after the holiday. Boy do they! Last year I got a great deal on a projector for a DVD player. I want to put a sheet inside the windows of the sunroom and project old black and white horror movies on it! I think that would be fun as the backdrop to the graveyard on the lawn.

Yes.....I'm that serious about it. Do you all not know me by now?

Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King ~ This Is Halloween

It's the lil things.

Rounding the corner at the local grocery store and seeing a maze of decorated boxes with Halloween candy in them. Candy corn on the impulse buy area of the checkout line. And that lil hint of fall in the air.

Or something so innocent and simple as my wife texing, "Would you like a re-usable pumpkin bag?"

The answer is always, "Yes!"

"IS IT SO SMALL A THING TO HAVE ENJOYED THE SUN?" ~MATTHEW ARNOLD

I love the beach. I'm a second generation Cali beach girl. My mom was the original Gidget: sand volleyball, hours in the sun, walking to the beach every day. My favorite moments were sitting at sunset, my toes curled into the cooling sand, breeze off the water, watching the sun slip past the horizon.

Syracuse...is landlocked. Yes, there are lakes, rivers, fake beaches with imported sand on bodies of water. But that's not the ocean. The mighty ocean. The rumble and roar of the surf, pounding the earth. I would roll in the waves until I was body tired, climb to the shore and crash on my towel. When my heart stopped beating so loud that was all I could hear, the voice of the ocean would replace it, through the towel, through the sand, just past the squawking gulls. The rolling thunder of the might ocean

When the opportunity came to stay at Cape Cod, the promise of laying on sand and playing in waves, was like a breath of life! When we got there, it was just like the pictures I had found on line: sea grass and grape stake fences. The sand, a lil coarser. The waves, a lil shallower.

But all in all, a fantastic replacement for my long lost west coast beach. After 8 years of visiting the Atlantic, I've created a new set of moments and memories. We got a puppy 7 years ago and now that beach will never be the same without Roxy running up and down it. Lifeguard towers, as only that Cape can do, now adorn our Christmas tree yearly as an ornament, due to the one right across from the house we rent. I can also say I've experienced 2 hurricanes there. (possibly a 3rd this year?) Never had to worry bout those on the Pacific!

And I can say I got married next to the Atlantic, on that east coast beach in the Cape. Our "first anniversary" this year, after said wedding, will be celebrated right where we stood.

I know the sun isn't good for you, but I just can't resist the warmth and berry brown glow on my skin that comes from it. So we go, as far east as we can, to find the beach once again.

"Shake, shake, shake, Señora, shake it all the time" ~Harry Belafonte

Yesterday a jolt in the earth in VA found it's way allllll the way up central NY. Pretty impressive! I didn't feel it, I was on my way into work, but everyone in the office experienced it. I sure heard about it when I got in tho. And I had the funniest reaction to it: I got homesick.

Earthquakes are so very California. I have been through a dozen or so, that were worth mentioning. Only one of them was really scary. Most of them were enough to say, "Meh....it will be over in a second."

I suppose one should fear the earth, taking it upon itself, to dance and flow as if suddenly liquid. The pictures on the wall, tuned askew and the various books and nick-naks flung akimbo.

Just another 6am wake up call for this second generation California girl.

I use to hear them, actually. Right before they would hit. A low rumble, the earth clearing it's throat, perhaps? Maybe it was more the vibrations that I could sense. But I could call them.

I remember working at Barnes Wholesale and I was sitting and jawing with a co-worker. There it was, the thundering moan of ancient earth turning under the crust that we call home.

"Earthquake." I said in almost a whisper.
"What?" said my co-worker
"We are about to have a earthquake."
"Shut up. You know if we did right now I would jump up an run my ass right outside screaming. I can't stand.......SWEET JESUS!"

I stayed seated on the small sofa in her office, she dove under her desk. When things stopped rocking, she poked her head out.

"Next time you get that juju thing going....walk away from me and don't say NUTHIN!"

I was in senior English when the class room started rocking. A scream from the class room next door and a thud. The sound of 20 sets of knees hitting the ground, shortly after. My teacher looked at us and we scooted back and forth in our desks. "Should we get under?" I reassured her, "It will end in a second." So we waited. And it did.

There was no way this 5'10" girl was going to squeeze under that tiny desk.

The teacher next door, poor thing, was from the middle of America and it was her first earthquake. She pretty much abandoned her class and dove under her own desk, leaving her students to follow on their own.

I've been in bed for most of them. On the toilet for one, when I was a lil kid. Walking across a college campus for another. The cars, bouncing and moving closer and closer to each other. Their alarms, defining. Their owners left to figure out how to get into the cars with the doors touching. I was in our family cabin in the mountains for another. The wagon wheel lights swinging.

There are two kinds of earthquakes: a roller and a shaker. One you can ride out, like being on a boat. The other will bring things off the wall. In 1994 the biggest in the history of my 44 years hit Northridge, CA. While it started out lightly waking me at 4am with its rolling action, it soon changed it's temperament to a shaker. So much so that I finally felt scared.

"HIT THE DOORS!" I yelled from my room. Instructions for my two sisters, who I could hear awake, next door to my room. They tell you to brace yourself in a load bearing door frame for safety. It was the first time ever that I had felt I needed to do just that. We camped out in our doorways like it was forever. 20 sec, tops. Pictures dropped, books flew, my parents scrambled down from upstairs.

We were fine, the house was fine, but a lot of other people weren't. The 6.2 magnitude quake was the worst on record since San Francisco.

Maybe I don't miss them too much. But they beat a hurricane or tornado, hands down. I mean, at least you know where you stuff is. In the other two you have to go two counties over to get it.

A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween. ~Erma Bombeck

How early can I start talking about Halloween?

Well..it's my blog so I can start right now if I want too, so there :P

I'm already stalking my favorite sites that stock up early for the best holiday evah. I have a long history with Halloween. I think it might have been a favorite holiday of my grandmother. She loved to put on a mask to hand out candy. I have a picture of her with plastic, bloodshot eyes and vampire teeth.

On Halloween, we would hit our own neighborhood, but then it was off to my grandparents to really do it up right. Nan would put out apple cider and donuts. A long gone tradition of an older generation. Decorations that collectors hunt for now, adorned her house: The plastic arched cat with the pumpkin on its back that lit up, and probably a fire hazard. Paper pumpkin candy bags, in burnt orange,black, and a dash of bright yellow. It's googly eyes looking scared. Noise makers and rattles with sexy dancing witches on them, striped stockings and wide brimmed hats. Skeletons in the window, when you walked up to her backdoor, their joints sporting shiny brass brads that let them pose in a spooky greeting.

After bleeding the 'hood of all it's candy, we would travel across town to a family friends house, where 'Crazy Aunt Joan' would be in full wicked witch of the west garb. I would have to be ushered around back, too scared to go to the front. One year she let me pop the balloons on her back that made her witchy humps. Finally the spell broken, my fear gone with each pop.

When Nan passed, leaving a gaping hole in my life, my mom asked if there was anything I wanted, I knew exactly what I would like to have. I wanted the big orange serving dish she would put the candy on each year. It rested on the tall entry table, heaped with treats. She would answer the door, grab for the enormous plate and administer goodies to the kiddies.

We would root though our haul in our bags and sort out what we didn't want. A tangle of salt water taffy, DOTS, gum, black licorice, and donate it to the big orange plate. Then off we would go again, to fill our bags.

Halloween is in my DNA. In fact I think it was just last year, in a sad display of Halloween things in a drugstore, there were those same plastic, bloodshot bug eyes. And I smiled and thought of Nan.