Happy Halloween!!

I spent most of yesterday getting ready for today. It starts with the harvest party at Pipsqueak's school. They will be making applesauce, carving pumpkins and doing a craft with pressed leaves. They will also have some tasty treats provided by parents. I made a Spiced Pumpkin Bread from epicurious.com and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds courtesy of Kitt's delicious recipe.

At the end of the celebration, I'll be reading Too Many Pumpkins.

It's a great story and fun to read. It's about a woman that hates pumpkins. One lands in her yard when it falls off a truck and starts growing the next spring. Despite her neglect she grows a truck load of pumpkins, so she makes all sort of pumpkin dishes for the neighbors to get rid of them. It turns out she enjoys it so much, she saves a handful of seeds to plant the next spring. After I finish the story, I have a package of pumpkin seeds to give to each child with planting instructions.
Later, we'll do a bit of local trick or treating, and then go downtown for the Pumpkins in the Park event. There will be a pumpkin carving contest. I carved mine today: bats,

a spider, a Pipsqueak-alike, and a witch. I think I'll enter the witch in the contest. There is also a haunted walk, costume parade, games and a scavenger hunt.

Add into this an eye exam for me and after-school chorus practice for Pipsqueak and the day sounds frightening in a non-Halloween way. After the goblin has gone to bed, I think I'll need some BOO-ze. (Sorry; I couldn't help myself.) I'm tired just thinking about it, but I've planned not to have plans this weekend. I'm going to relax and putter around the house. I'm looking forward to that extra hour we'll get from setting the clocks back on Saturday night.

Handmade Costumes... Maybe Not So Thrifty

Growing up, I always had store bought costumes. Back then, they were in boxes with a cellophane window in the top, so you could see them all folded up with the plastic mask staring up at you. I remember some of them: Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty (that one had blond flocking on the mask for the hair), a witch and a bride. I don't remember asking to be anything except for the bride, so I don't know if I decided what I wanted to be or if my mom did. My mom was a beautiful seamstress, so I don't know why she didn't make my costumes. I've never asked her. I do remember the price tag on a box being something like 99 cents.

When I got older (maybe high school), I started putting pieces together to make costumes: an old lady, a hobo and a clown. Once I was out of school, I started getting crafty. One year I made crayon costumes for me and all the other tellers at the bank where I worked. I've also made a Raggedy Ann, a bumble bee, a skunk and pleather chaps for a cowboy costume. I'm not a great seamstress, but I can follow a pattern and make things that aren't too complicated. There's a lot of room for punting with a costume.

When my daughter was born, I appreciated simplicity (and I don't mean the line of patterns). I spent so much time nursing her and carrying her that I barely had time for personal grooming. Pulling out the sewing machine was not high on my list of moment-to-myself-things-to-do. For her first three Halloweens, she had purchased costumes: a ladybug, a cow and a frog.

As we were gearing up for her fourth Halloween, she told me she wanted to be Bat Girl. This was probably influenced by her father's hilarious imitation of Michael Keaton playing Batman which nearly had me driving the car off the road the first time he did it. She was in pre-school, and I had scads of time (yeah, right), so I decided to not only make it, but design it myself. Numerous hours and $40 at the fabric store later, it was done.

The next year she wanted to be a mermaid, but Ariel was not what she had in mind. Oh no. She wanted to be a purple mermaid. Although my designing skills, however limited, didn't fail me the prior year, I decided this project merited a pattern which I loosely followed. At least two full weekends and (gulp) $50 at the fabric store, and we had a beautifully sparkly, purple mermaid costume, and a personally designed headpiece which sort of made her look like a mermaid about to see Janis Joplin live at Woodstock. I can't believe this is the best photo we have of all my hard work. (She is posing with her grandmother.)

Last year, we spent Halloween in Florida, but I was not about to deny Pipsqueak the Halloween experience of costumed trick or treating. She said she wanted to be a witch. "Goody," I thought, "That's easy-peasy." We picked out some great fabric and I got the idea to trim it in black marabou. It was a screaming deal (compared to previous years) at $30, but do you have any idea how long it takes to hand-sew 3 yards of marabou trim? I think it was just over an hour per yard.

That brings me to this year. In September, we were shopping in TJ Maxx when Pipsqueak saw a beautiful Queen dress. Of course, she wanted it, and the bargaining and begging ensued. I looked at the price tag of $25. Then I looked closely at the dress, which consisted of 6 different fabrics and 4 different trims. To make something similar, it would cost well over $40 and 10-12 hours of sewing. I relented, but I didn't make it easy. Since no one local saw her witch costume from last year, I told her I would buy the queen dress one size larger and she could have it for next year if she wore the witch costume this year. The ultimate negotiator (she may make a good attorney one day), she said she would if I would get her a witch's broom this year. Done deal!

So if any of you are feeling guilty for buying Halloween costumes, DON'T! You'll have more money in your pocket and more time to spare.

More Snow

This was the scene outside when I got up this morning.  My grandfather used to say that in Vermont, we get 9 months of winter and 3 months of hard sledding.  With snow falling in October, he could be spot on this year.

Par Jamais

I was at a loss about what to post today, but then something happened. We were just finished with dinner and Pipsqueak was thinking about her dessert choice. She announced that she wanted Par Jamais. Sweetie and I looked at each other with intrigue and amazement. Where had she come up with this?

She doesn't speak French other than a few words often used on trips to Canada, e.g. bon jour, bon soir, merci, au revoir. We asked what this Par Jamais might consist of. "I'll show you," she announced proudly. She brought the following ingredients to the table: ice cream (she informed us that flavor didn't matter, however, our in stock flavor was chocolate chip cookie dough), snack-pack chocolate pudding and Hershey's chocolate syrup. For the sake of cleanliness, I offered to construct said Par Jamais under her tutelage. I was instructed to place two small scoops of ice cream in a dish and place chocolate pudding between the scoops, finally topping everything with swirls of chocolate sauce.

While Pipsqueak and Sweetie devoured her creation, I hit the French/English dictionary. "Par" mean through or by way of. "Jamais" means never. From my four years of French in high school, I remember that modifiers sometimes follow what they modify, so I'll give this a loose translation of "never through" which I think is a great name for a dessert.

Swapcycle

If you're like me, you are in a constant state of cleaning out. I figure that stuff is coming in the door all the time, stuff has got to keep going out or eventually we'll be buried in stuff. Then there's the fact that kids outgrow and outsmart stuff (clothes, toys, games, books) and our tastes change. What we thought a few years ago was so hot, is now so not. Then there are gifts that we will never use and things we bought that just sit there.

So what to do with all the stuff? The easiest thing is to take it to goodwill or a thrift store, but that seems so.... well.... unthrifty. Selling stuff on ebay can be profitable, but you do have to pay to list items even if they don't sell and it can be time consuming. There's also Craigslist and yard sales. Are you thinking, "There's got to be an easier way!" There is.

There are lots of internet swap groups out there, but I'll tell you about the one I use. It's Swapcycle. There are currently 72 member all of the country. No money is exchanged on this group. Instead, each member gets "credit" for the items they post and they can then spend that "credit" on items others post. For example, Mary has a Gamecube game that her son no longer uses, she lists it on the group for $15. Jane grabs the game and uses $15 of her credits to "pay" for the game. Mary now has $15 to use on the group. Shipping costs are to be built into the dollar amount posted. For example, if the Gamecube Game is valued at $10 and it's going to cost $5 to mail, than it would be listed for $15. Essentially, you're only out-of-pocket expense is the postage to mail the items that are grabbed from you. New and used items are welcome, as well as direct sales consultants. There are consultants in the group for Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Creative Memories, and Stampin' Up, just to name a few.

Posting items is simple. Just take photos and post them in album you create in the photo database. Then fill out a simple chart for each item with the date, your name, total value and description.

I've been a part of the group for almost a year and have gotten lots of great stuff: DVDs, books, jewelry, kitchenware and more. There aren't many rules: don't grab if you don't have credit, you must list at least one item per calendar month, and you must ship within two weeks. If you're interested in joining, click on the link above and follow the directions. I recommend signing up for the daily digest of emails, otherwise, your inbox will get inundated.

The Best Birthday Gift

A couple of months ago, I gave Sweetie some plans I'd found for building a barred owl box and told him that was what I wanted for Christmas. (I'm nothing if not practical.) Much to my surprise, he made one for my birthday.

He added the natural stick perch today and mounted it to a maple tree about 20 feet up where we can see it from the house, but far enough away that the inhabitants won't feel intruded upon. I've read that they should be up in September when owls are looking to nest, but I'm hoping for an owl that may be disenchanted with its original choice of home and is looking for a last minute upgrade. Perhaps I should place an ad: One bedroom nesting box in great location, newly built, clean, close to excellent hunting grounds, southern exposure.

Call me crazy, but now I'm going to ask for a bat house for Christmas.

Growing Older

A couple of weeks ago, I heard about a man that was found behind a Burger King, somewhere in the US, badly beaten without any ID. He was taken to a hospital where he recovered. He did need some surgery prior to regaining his vision, but it's several months later and he has no memory of his past or identity.

He said that it was a couple of weeks before he saw himself in a mirror due to the eye surgery, and he was surprised that he appeared to be in his 50s. He said he felt and thought he was in his 20s. That really has stuck in my mind, and I keep rolling it around. Imagine that for a minute... you don't have your vision and you have no idea how old you are. How old do you feel? Your eyes could not see the the fine lines, the gray hairs, the age spots and the things that aren't so perky anymore.

I've often said that I still feel 18, but as I turn 44 today, I think I should up that to 25. I know much more about life now than I did then, but if I had no memory of prior experiences, would I have the additional common sense that I've gained over the years? I expect that I would realize that my sleep habits had changed since I was young; I can't stay up until midnight partying and sleep until noon anymore. But if I couldn't remember that I did that, would I realize that was a sign of middle age?

I think that our bodies, the vessels that hold our mind, spirit and personality, betray us by prematurely aging. We feel young, but we don't look young anymore, and we can't do what we did when we were young. I think that if we didn't give a number to our ages... if we didn't celebrate our birthdays, we'd all live longer. Maybe we'd feel younger if we didn't do the math, and didn't look in mirrors.

I see that Pipsqueak put 15 candles on my cake. If I was blind AND deaf, I wouldn't believe I was THAT young.