Trick or Treat?

It's a quarter to nine and we are back from a rigorous night of trick or treating with the little ghouls. WHEW

We forgot to take pictures before we left (hey, we were in a hurry) so we got some after we got home . . . and I almost forgot to take any. Oldest son is still doing the haunted house with the Drama department so he's not home yet and isn't in any of the pictures. If he comes home in costume, I'll snap some of him in his zombie costume.

Anyway, here we are in our bedraggled state of after trick or treating.

Me and my main Vamp:

 

My hair used to be all curled and pretty, but after a night of wind, it sort of fell flat. Oh well.

Here are the little ghouls:

It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the girls and I have the same dresses (they took off their neck pieces) and Hubby's costume matches ours.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great night!

Scare on . . . or sleep on if you're tired like me.

Halloween insanity

Tonight the little monsters will be getting bags full of sugary candy to appease the less angelic side in the hopes no pranks will be carried out. Ah, the joys of Halloween. =D

Each year our church holds a little fall carnival in the parking lot along with a chili contest/dinner, pumpkin carving contest, and costume contest (though no masks are allowed). After the carnival fun and contests, there is a trunk or treat (the kids go around to the cars in the parking lot).

In the past, I have entered (and placed) in the chili and pumpkin contests, but I have never dressed up in a costume. I've just never been that into it. However, this year I shall join the ranks of the costumed adults.

I'm not sure what has gotten into me. Sure, I wear a costume for my sister's annual Halloween bash (last weekend), but only my sisters and mother attend so it's not a huge deal. This time I shall don a costume and venture out into public places. I get chills just thinking about it.

My husband has never dressed up either, but this year, I bought him a costume. He's going as a vampire and I'm his matching vampress. Yee-aah, that's what I said . . . we match . . .  I swore I'd never be part of one of those couples who dress up in coordinating costumes. Something is definitely wrong with me . . . a midlife crisis perhaps?

But I have more proof of my insanity. My daughters decided they wanted to be vampire/witch/princesses so their dresses actually match mine. I even tried to convince my sons to switch from their chosen costumes to matching daddy/vampire costumes . . . luckily they refused so my shame is slightly more bearable.

I'm not sure what I was thinking! I'm half tempted NOT to dress up, but I know hubby won't let me get away with spending all the money on the costuming for it to not be used.

Oh well, I still have several hours of carving pumpkins, chili cooking (maybe . . . I haven't decided if I'm going there this year), and a birthday costume party (K's friend) to prepare for before I must fret more about my moment of insanity.

Hmmm . . . now that I think about it, I've been reaching back into my childhood as I write. Perhaps I've gained access to the child part of me who LOVED to dress up . . . yeah, that must be it! See, it's not insanity or midlife crisis . . . it's a side effect of the job. WHEW!

May you all have a great day and night full of hauntingly good fun.

Spook on.

Friday Fraction

It's Friday and you know what that means?! Time for another excerpt from one of my novels in progress.  Today I chose to go with a portion of the newly revised first chapter from WOLFSBANE AT MIDNIGHT.  Scarlet is in the herb garden in the heart of the forest . . .

 

"One arnica flower, one white poppy flower, one small garlic bulb, and one bloodroot rhizome," she read. And then she noticed a scrawl at the bottom, "Please return with these potion ingredients before sunset."

Why hadn't Grandmother Aradia said something before she left? She knew Scarlet loved to wander in the forest. Especially now when the trees gifted her with a canopy of vibrant color and a carpet of crunchy leaves to enjoy. Aradia had scolded her many times for her slowness, but had never given her a deadline before. Scarlet pushed the list back into her pocket. She had set out late in the afternoon, so she knew she needed to hurry if she hoped to return in time.

Shoving her hands into her brown leather gloves, she used the herb knife to cut a yellow-orange bloom from the stem of an arnica plant. After wrapping the daisy-like flower in a piece of cheesecloth, she placed it in her basket. She hurried on to collect one of the delicate white flowers from the stem of a poppy plant.

Icy fingers of fear trailed down her spine.

Someone or something watched her. She tightened her hand around the herb knife. The blade might be small, but it was sharp. Scarlet walked to the herb basket and dropped the poppy flower into it.

She wanted nothing more than to run from the clearing, but she'd returned once before without the herbs and couldn't face Aradia's disappointment again. Despite the pounding of her heart and her brain telling her to flee, she reached for the garden trowel. Her hand shook as she stabbed it into the soft ground and hurriedly dug up the garlic. Normally she'd push the rich black soil back in place, but she left it with the promise of fixing it tomorrow.

She tossed the garlic into the basket and hurried down the row to the bloodroot. A web pulled at her hair as she bent down. She brushed it aside and hoped the spider hadn't found its way onto her head. Digging even more quickly, and damaging a few roots in the process, she managed to expose a suitable rhizome and harvested it.

Somewhere close by, a branch snapped.

She swung her head to the left.

Yellow eyes gleamed from behind a nearby tree.

Scarlet's eyes locked with the glittering ones of a wolf as it stepped from the shadows.

 

And that's all for today. Happy weekend to everyone.

Write on.

One project down . . .

The fence is finished. I put up the gate, got the porch blocked off and the dogs are once again running free in the back yard. =D They're happy, I'm happy, and my kids are happy.

Yeah, I had to put those plastic pieces along the bottom because I raised the gate up too high and the little puppies could slip through. It opens the other way so it'll do for now  . . . until hubby can fix it because I've had enough of it. LOL The kids are happy to have their trampoline area be a dog free zone.

 

"Ha ha," I said to them. "You can't get through!" And it felt so good to say it to them. ;-)

They're so happy to play in the leaves.

The next step is to give them baths (all 11 of them) so they'll be nice and clean again . . . but that will have to wait for another day because it's too cold here right now.

Now I have to build the laundry hampers (yeah, didn't get that finished before class last night) and get the laundry sorted. But that will also have to wait for another day because I'm going to do some revising!! I think I've earned a writing break, don't you?

Write on.

Building fences . . . an explanation

Okay, I said I was building a fence and I think it needs some clarification. Yes, I'm really building a fence, and I'm doing it completely on my own without any help from anyone else (because I'm stubborn) . . . but I'm cheating so I'm not sure it counts.

First of all, why am I building a fence?

My neighbors have big Boxer dogs and I have little Toy Fox Terrier Dogs. We already have a chain link fence around our entire back yard, but since it's on the property line, the neighbors share our west side of the fence. Their dogs and my dogs don't get along. So for the last several months, my poor little doggies who used to run free in the grass of my back yard have been confined to the dusty what-used-to-be-a-garden area, shown here:

While they are small dogs and the garden area is quite large, it is dusty. This isn't a problem until I bring them into the kennels in the laundry room at night (because I can't let them be out barking at the neighbor's dogs all night). Because they are dogs, they like to shake their fur (you know what I mean, right?) and my laundry room ends up looking like this (note, I dusted this on Friday and this is what it looks like already):

I'm SICK of dusting!! When doggies ran free on the grass, we didn't have all the dust. Sure, we had grass clippings on the floor, but all I had to do was sweep them back out the door. They never got all over my walls and washer and dryer. *sigh*

Besides, do these puppies look happy to be fenced up in the dust to you?

So, I took apart my huge dog kennel and have been putting it along the sidewalk and shed on the west side of our yard. I'm not having to stretch the chain link or anything since it was already put together on the kennel.

I'm simply pounding these

into the ground to help stabilize the heavy kennel panels and binding them together:

I have also been building this

to block access to the other side from the porch (which extends beyond the sidewalk into the west side of the yard). I still have to finish the gate

and attach it to complete the blockade. I have also had to do this

along the bottom of the porch (same mesh and wood as the blockade on the porch with the addition of pretty plastic to try to make it look nicer). I still have to make a similar contraption to block these parts on the sides of the cement steps

.

So my projects are not quite done, but I'm getting there (and yes, I know the porch needs painted, that's on hubby's list of things to do . . . I already bought the paint for the outside of the house and the porch . . . I may end up doing THAT project on my own too). Oh, and on an annoying note, the kennel pieces didn't quite stretch all the way from the porch to the back fence. Luckily there is a shed to help make up the difference (yes those pieces of firewood are blocking access to under the shed).

Hey, a girl can only do so much! ;-)

And there you have it. And to think all this started because I was sick of dusting . . . after all the struggling to lift the heavy kennel pieces and maneuver them into place (not to mention the pounding, pounding, pounding with the hammer to build the porch blockade), the dusting doesn't seem so bad. =)

Build on!

Monday Mania

Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Yeah, that's why I'm in this predicament in the first place!

I have not quite finished up the newsletter (need to do a final read through) so I've got to do that this morning.

I didn't get the fence in the back yard finished so that needs to be done.

I have homework (reading) for class tonight.

I have laundry all over the floor. This must be remedied right after the newsletter (which will be taken care of after I post this). Why is the laundry all over the floor instead of in the laundry hampers? Because the poor old laundry hampers had had enough and broke! Yeah, it's a sad, sad thing. They served us well for many years, but the hampers finally keeled over. It might have had something to do with the fact that I've not kept up on the laundry over the last several months. This made the hampers full to overflowing, and the kids resorted to shoving the clothing down into the hampers in an effort to keep the floor clean. Yeah, poor hampers can't take that kind of abuse month after month. I'm surprised the clothing hamper police didn't come arrest me and throw me away, such was the abuse occurring in my home.

Alas, this morning found me purchasing new hampers (for the one hubby and I share also suffered so much abuse that it is beyond saving). I spent the weekend washing clothes, but I still didn't get ALL the laundry finished. So there will still be clothes to fill the new hampers . . . which is kind of depressing.

Anyway, it will be an adventure to sort through all the laundry this morning and continue the washing/drying process so when my kids get home, they can start folding/hanging their laundry and putting it away. No more will clean laundry have a place on my couch (where it has comfortably watched television with the family for the past few months)! No, my friends, the laundry will once again be banished to the drawers/closets where it belongs. No more will hampers be filled to overflowing and abused until they finally collapse.

Yeah, it's going to be a rough week. BUT, I have decided I will only devote a few hours to chores so I will still have writing time before the kids come home. I mean, I can still do laundry once they are home, but I can't get any writing done once the little monkeys return from school.

Oh . . . I still have three reviews I need to write for TeensReadToo.com also. Yeah, I've got to get to those today too. Hope you all have a great day! Wish me luck with mine. =D

Write on.

Friday Fraction . . . and birds

Okay, before I get to the Friday Fraction, let's deal with the birds issue. I joined Twitter a while back and have had no luck in figuring it out. I fly to my nest now and then to "tweet" (that's what it's called right?) but I have NO IDEA what it's supposed to do for me other than make me feel silly and confused. Silly because I feel like I'm talking to myself (though I have a few followers) and confused because I have no idea what the purpose of twitter is.

Birds travel in flocks and I'm assuming twittering is supposed to help you connect with people like blogging and Facebook, but I just don't get it. I have a few people that I've found and I hear their tweets on my page, but I'm not sure how to "communicate" with other people. Is there no such thing as communicating on twitter? Do you just tweet and let it float out there with no one to answer?

If you'd like to add me to your flock, I'm justJoanS. Also if you'd like to explain the whole twitter thing to me, I'd be eternally in your debt. I'd offer to name a child after you, but I'm done having children so you'll have to accept my undying gratitude instead.

Okay, now that the bird issue has flown south, let's get to the Friday Fraction.

Today's excerpt comes from my WIP (as in still being written) young adult novel,  BEAUTY: A MYSTERY SOLVED (lame title, but it's a WIP people!!). Here we go:

Dad says Mom picked my name. Maybe she thought naming me Beauty would make it so. She was wrong. Or maybe she really thought I was beautiful. I've seen my baby pictures, and if she thought my wrinkly pink face with too large eyes and mess of frizzy black hair was beautiful, she needed an eye exam.

Perhaps I could be beautiful. I don't know. I've never tried. Why should I? I was condemned to sub-zero status on the first day of kindergarten and haven't moved even a millimeter up the hotness chart since.

I've often wondered if things would be different if Mom had lived past my fourth birthday. From the photographs I've seen, she was beautiful and maybe I could have learned a thing or two from her.

Dad insists my stepmother, Candy, could give me a few beauty tips. Maybe he's right, since she certainly taught my stepsister, Melody, how to spritz, spray, powder, and gloss her way up the hotness chart. But I can't bring myself to ask for advice from a grown woman who dresses like a high school girl and has invested enough money in cosmetics to pay for my first year of college.

As for my stepsister? She's too busy idolizing miss popularity, Charity Davis, to pay any attention to me. No one ever paid attention to me. I liked it. But my days of invisibility ended when Charity went and got herself murdered and I became the prime suspect.

 

And that's all for today.

Write on.