My favorite time of year...

I love fall.  I love the cooling temps and the beautiful foliage.  Most of all, I love Halloween.  It's my favorite holiday.  And that's saying something since I like to go all out for all holidays.

I love trick-or-treaters.  I love scary decorations.  I love candy.  I love parties.  I love everything about it.

Saturday night, Philip and I had a Halloween party.  Our house looked absolutely fantastic.  I wish I would have taken pictures of everything.  I'm still in awe of how awesome everything looked.  

Philip and I as the Joker and Harley Quinn.  Unfortunately, by this point in the night, I'd already lost my mask.  :(

Then, tonight, Philip had to work.  I was sick.  I can't tell you the last time that I was sick.  It's been forever ago.  I can't believe that this cold chose to pop up on my favorite day of the year.  

However, the neighbor kids gave up their night of trick-or-treating to help me set up the yard.  Then they helped me pass out candy and scared the older kids (my yard is the "scary yard" in the neighborhood).

The Harvester of Souls (Video)

A witch, a cauldron full of candy, and Little Luci (video).

Zombie Bait (video)

Giggles the Clown (video)

Philip and I made this ourselves after seeing this one and this one at Spirit. 

Creepy Crawly Zombie Girl (video)

Rosemary (video)

 

The kids drew chalk outlines around themselves in the driveway and then smeared fake blood all over them.  :)

Also an addition from the kiddos. 

Creepy girl hid underneath my car and crawled out at people while moaning.  We had the fog machine set up so she wasn't very visible until people were right next to her.  :)

Another shot of the prop Philip and I made.  :)

Haunted Hedges

Part of our cemetary.  I had another fog machine set up here to make it creepier.  :)

 So, despite being sick, I think I will still retain my title as "Halloween lady."  Thanks to the kiddos (and their mom) for the help in actually making this Halloween another success.  :)  

I'm guessing that my house will be egged when I wake up tomorrow since I sent several kids away.  Only kids in costumes get candy at my house!  However, over $60 worth of candy went out to the kids who showed up at my door in costume.  And we only believe in getting the good stuff!  Happy Halloween, everybody.  :)

My husband must hate me...

...because there are way too many clowns in my house for my comfort!  

I've allowed about a dozen clowns in our house, so it must be Halloween.  For those of you who don't know, I am terrified of clowns.  However, we're having a Halloween party on Saturday and there are a few other people coming who are afraid of clowns.  So, clowns are obviously a must-have.  And Philip keeps buying clown after clown for our house!

Philip and I have spent entirely too much money on Halloween this year, but our house is going to be the best house in the area (as if it wasn't already!).  I'm still known as "the Halloween lady" in my neighborhood because of our spectacular show last year.  :)

I still have a bunch of cooking and baking to do before tomorrow, but I'm super excited.

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

(Source)

This is the image that has haunted my dreams since I was a little girl.  I still won't walk near the damn sewer grates under the sidewalks.  

Happy Halloween, folks!  Be safe and enjoy!  :)

Trick-or-Treat Rules

It's no secret; Philip and I love Halloween. We dress up and we decorate our house to the extreme. This year was no different. Our house was really popular... I'm not sure if it was the crazy, scary stuff we had set up or if it was the handfuls of candy we were handing out. ;)

Anyway, I love trick-or-treaters. I love seeing the costumes. I love hearing the wee-little ones try to say "trick or treat!" I love making the kids happy.

Despite all the love that I feel for the day, there are a few things that really irritate me. Since we spent about $100 on candy (good candy, not the crap candy), and I am in control of said candy, you really don't want to irritate me (also, I'll make Philip sneak out of the bushes and scare the bejeebers out of you). So, here are my rules for trick-or-treating:

1. Wear a costume. I know a lot of people are sticklers for age. I don't really care how old you are. If you're wearing a costume, I don't care if you're 3 or 30, I'll give you candy. If you're not wearing a costume, get off my porch.
2. Use your manners. Don't take giant handfuls of candy unless you're told that you can (I told kids to take handfuls, but if the greeter doesn't say anything, assume you're only supposed to take 1). And say THANK YOU. It's not hard. For the really little ones, I don't really mind. I would probably be afraid to talk to a zombie bride, too, if I were only 3 or 4 years old (I was a zombie bride for halloween -- so much fun!). But, for the older kids, if you don't say thank you, I may just figure out where you live and tee-pee your house. Okay, so probably not... but I'll at least think negative thoughts about you. HA!
3. Don't walk across people's lawns. It's just rude. I had the sidewalk lit up for a reason. Use it. I don't care about my lawn that much, but come on parents! Teach your kids basic manners.
4. Parents, don't let your kids eat the candy before you inspect it! I know I didn't poison my candy, but do you really want to take that chance? Your kids can wait until they get home to eat some candy. Or you can check a few pieces while you're on the go. But, PLEASE, don't let your kid grab candy and automatically eat it. There are crazies out there!
5. Parents, if you dress up to take your kids trick-or-treating, I will give your kids extra candy. Yeah, I know. It's not really fair. But, I like it when other adults dress up along with me. :)

That's all I can think of right now. But, I did want to mention that my Zombie Bride costume was a huge hit. I even got hit on by one of the dads! The parents and kids loved the costume and the house. We were a huge hit! :)

For my costume, I used an old white prom dress and got some white tulle to make my own veil. Then, I did some zombie make-up and sprayed myself with fake blood. It was really easy and it actually looked great. However, I did have to do some major scrubbing to get the blood off my skin. It was definitely worth it, though!

Halloween 2009

I had a lovely Halloween. My costume finally came together at the last minute. I finished it up the day before. :) Here are a few pictures of the finished products...

Little Red Riding Hood:









The Big Bad Wolf:










Pretty good, right? Everyone loved our costumes. And I'm pretty darn proud of them, too. :D

Halloween / Costumes

I know. It's still WAY early, but I'm working on my costume. I normally start preparing for Halloween very last minute and can't get a decent costume together in time. So, this year, I am starting really early so that my costume can actually be what I really want it to be. :)

So, what am I going as? Well, Philip and I decided to go as a pair. I came up with a few dozen ideas to start with and asked him to narrow it down. That went absolutely nowhere. So, I narrowed it down to four costume ideas that I actually liked. They were: Leia and Han Solo; a mermaid and a fisherman ("Catch of the Day"); Mario (Me) and Peach (Philip); and Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.

Philip was taking too long to decide so I told him that Little Red Riding Hood was my favorite and asked if he would be completely opposed to the idea. He wasn't; he was fine with it. So, that's what we're going to be. :)

So, I began shopping for my costume. I don't want to buy one already put together for many reasons. I don't like that they're cheaply made. I also don't like that they're completely slutty. I don't want my butt hanging out of my costume. I don't think that you have to be half naked in order for a costume to be sexy.

So, I made a goal for myself this year. I want to make a costume that looks sexy and elegant without looking completely slutty. I also want it to look original. I decided to go with a more dark/gothic look for my interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood.

I'm starting with a black underbust corset over a ruffly-ish white long sleeve shirt. Then I will have a full length blood-red hooded cape. My skirt will be checked black/red/white fabric over a roughly knee-length black petticoat. And finally, I will be wearing black fishnet stockings under mid-calf black high heeled boots (gothic).

I'm not sure if it will look the same in your eye as it does in mine, so here are some pictures of what I'm thinking about:

If you're ever thinking about remodeling a house...

DON'T DO IT! It's not worth the pain!

Buddy has promised us for the 537th time that today will be the last day and our tile will be finished today. I'm not holding my breath.

Rudy came out on Friday to set up the electrical on our hot water heater because the plumbers lied and didn't hook it up how they were supposed to. We now have hot water. However, the plumbers messed something up when they were working on our house and so our shower does not work. The sink and the toilet work, but the shower has no water running to it. They didn't call us back until today. They're going to try to fit us in today. If I have to pour water into my tub via Solo cups from the sink again tonight, someone is going to pay for it. Well, actually, I'm just going to take it out of their pay. For my suffering. People sue for those kinds of things all the time! :)

Also, we were paying the plumbers over $4,000 to replace all of the cast iron pipes under the house (~$2,000 for the pipes going into the house and ~$2,000 for the pipes going out of the house). They told Joe that they didn't replace a few of them because they were in such good shape, so they offerered to take a few hundred dollars off of the bill. First of all, we told them to replace all of the pipes no matter what condition they were in (cast iron will rust and deteriorate and PVC will not... we didn't want to have to worry about it down the line... just get it all over with now). And next, when the shower didn't work, Joe crawled under the house to check to see if they forgot to turn something on. They haven't replaced ANY of the pipes going out of the house. So, a few hundred dollars is not going to cut it. Try a discount of over $2,000. I think that they were counting on Joe not checking to see if the pipes were replaced! I mean, anyone could look and tell that they haven't been replaced. They are still cast iron instead of being PVC pipe! These plumbers are obvious crooks. Also, we paid them to install a shutoff valve in one of the closets because we didn't want to have to turn it off from under the house. Well, they installed one but it DOESN'T WORK!!! Why is everyone we hire so damn completely incompetent!?!?! It doesn't make any sense at all.

The house is a complete mess. It's covered in a thick film of dust from all of the work that's been done. I sweep and I dust and it just doesn't help. Our stuff is still sitting in the garage until everything is finished so that we can actually move in. That should be by this weekend. Should be. Of course, it should have been over 2 weeks ago that we SHOULD have been able to move in. But here we are. Still living out of boxes sitting in our garage.

Also, I decorated my house like crazy for Halloween and our neighbors promised lots and lots of Trick-Or-Treaters. I bought over 30 pounds of candy. Good candy. We had 13 Trick-Or-Treaters. THIRTEEN. That is not lots and lots. I totally got jipped. And now I'm going to gain 10 pounds by eating that 30 lbs of candy. Hopefully it will make me feel better about the lack of Trick-Or-Treaters at my house. I also went to Walmart and got a lot of Halloween stuff half off on November 1. So, I will be prepared again next year and still hoping for lots and lots of Trick-Or-Treaters. :)

Also, one of my bestest friends came to visit me yesterday. :) Everyone needs to go see the play that he's going on tour with for 14 months. You can go here to get tickets: http://www.annieontour.com.