What are the can’t–live–without things on your web homepage?
I can't believe I'm actually answering a lame commercial question, but I'm avoiding house chores right now, and any distraction is welcome ;) I could live without all of these items, but I do like having a custom homepage...it makes life easier! I use the igoogle page, and here is what I have on it (in no particular order):
- Gmail link (It's nice to see new messages as they pop up, instead of having to go into the program. Basically this means I'm more likely to return messages, because I can always see them)
- An animated hamster pet (I love real ones, but our house is already a zoo!)
- Icanhascheezburger rotating pictures (always good for a chuckle)
- My "horror" scope (not that I really believe in that stuff, but it's fun to read)
- IWatchStuff link (updates movie news)
- TheSuperficial link (updates the ridiculous things celebrities do)
- PassiveAgressiveNotes.com link (updates the stupid things people write to each other)
- Hangman game (I'm not very good)
- Supernatural Quote of the Day (It rotates the funny things my boys say. Is anyone really surprised that I'd have this on my hompage?)
I know there are many more interesting apps out there, but this is all I can fit on my screen. Back to "un"decorating I go....the house looks so empty without all of our cool Halloween decorations!
I'm sorry if I've overwhelmed your neighborhood pages with my pics! Most of you know how terrible I am at actually posting the pictures I take, so I figure I'm making up for it today. Knowing me, it'll probably be another five or six months before I post pics again!
Here are some pics from the kitchen. I actually cooked for this party, which was scary, because I NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER cook! I hate cooking almost as much as I hate grocery shopping and dusting (which is a lot). I made everything for the party, and was quite proud of myself. Nothing looked like it did in my cookbook, but I was pretty happy with how it all turned out. No one got sick, (as far as I know), which means I did an ok job!
This is how much of a non-cook I am/was.....last weekend was the first time I had ever baked cupcakes, or even frosted anything. I'm serious. I made some cupcakes, a trifle, a cheesecake, a broccoli casserole (that's the only thing I ever cook on a regular basis), some hotdog mummies, and I also cooked up some chex mix with m &m's. This was before I knew that you can buy it in the store, but I digress......;) I was especially proud of the mummy man cheese spread I made. It was a sticky mess as I was creating it, but I think he turned out pretty cute.
I'll post the pics of the treats, as well as a couple of party pics. Those will be neighborhood only, as all of my people-related pics are.
Here's the last batch:
Here are some random shots of the rest of the decorations, in no particular order:
Here are some pics from our Halloween party last weekend. I really went all out with the decorating this year, and I had a blast doing it. The best compliment was when some people wouldn't even go into the parlor, because it was so spooky! The hubby built a wooden frame for three skeletons, and my dad built me a coffin. The hubby wired the bones together (it's much cheaper to buy a bag of random bones than it is to buy a whole skeleton), and we attached them to the framework. One shopping spree to the Salvation Army later, and we had our creepy bridal funeral party!
I didn't have a definite plan for what the skeletons were going to wear, but when I found the Victorian wedding dress, I knew that was going to be my centerpiece. Then I tried to find older-looking dresses to keep with the theme of our parlor. The "groom" was easy...just a suit coat, shirt, and a top hat. I cut down the fading flowers in our garden prior to decorating the parlor, and gave the ladies dried flowers as a finishing touch. As our guests came in, they passed by the parlor to get to the dining room. I had spooky piano music playing, and a white ghostly spectre doll "playing" the piano. It was very creepy! Tonight I plan on tearing them apart to store for next year, and I'll admit, it's going to be a little strange. I don't really like being alone in the room with them......they are really spooky! I know it's dumb, but I have trouble turning my back on them. Too many scary movies as a kid, I suppose. Anyways, here are some of the pics from the parlor (it was much spookier at night, but hard to get a clear shot):
I rarely update my "this is what I am doing" section, but I couldn't resist today. Here's what I just posted:
" ___________ is spending the day cooking and baking. For those of you that know me really well (and my hatred for all things cooking-related), I promise the Apocalypse isn't here.....well, maybe in our kitchen, but the rest of the world should be ok! :o)"
That about sums up my day today! I'll take pics of my spooked-out house when I'm not so busy.
Adieu!
Will you be giving out candy to trick or treaters this year? If so, what goodies can the ghosts and goblins expect to bring home?
Been there, done that! We haven't given out candy the last couple of years (I know, I know...I'm a scrooge). Honestly, the week before Halloween is just about the worst week for a teacher.....the kids start inhaling candy on Monday, and it gets progressively worse until Friday. There's nothing like 20 sugared up super-hyper kids crammed in one room to keep you on your toes! So, when Trick-or-Treat night rolls around, I usually am not in the mood to give out more candy.
This year, though, we decided to. Or I should say, the hubby decided to. We were working on a lot of projects last night, but he did go get some candy, with the stipulation that he was in charge of handing it out. I'm trying to get ready for our Halloween party, and didn't want to spend three hours standing at the door. We blew through the candy he bought in about half an our, so I manned the post while he went on a candy run.
OK, I'll admit it.....once I was there, I kind of had an epiphany. Sure, I had a lot to do, but this night only happens once a year. The kids looked really cute, and I got to see a lot of my current students (I was amazed how many of my kids traveled to our town, since it is about 30-40 minutes away for many of them). I was able to visit with some of my former students who are in the high school, and were taking their younger siblings trick-or-treating. That was really great. I love seeing how my kids turn out! I visited with one girl that is a senior now. She said the most amazing thing to me......"Do you remember that book Blackwater you read to us in fourth grade? I still remember that book, and I have been trying to find it everywhere. Do you know who the author is?" I told her the author (Eve Bunting), and she was really happy. I am just amazed that something I read to her eight years ago is still with her! It was a very humbling experience.
Let's see.....what else. The more I got into the spirit (no pun intended) of the night, the more fun it became. I dressed our pooch up in his Halloween costume (he's going to be The Great Pumpkin) I know, people think dogs in costumes are lame. We don't have kids yet, so he gets to dress up instead. He's good with things like that, and he gets extra pets and scratches, so it's all good. I opened up the second door on the front of our house (it's a double), and turned the lights on in the hallway. It was a very festive atmosphere, and the kids loved the lights/webbing on our inside stairs and the dog and his costume.
We did have fun messing with the kids a little bit. One group of three came up to our porch, and they all said, "Trick or Treat!" The hubby gave the first one some candy and said, "I'll give you a treat", said the same thing to the second kid, and for the third, said, "And from you, I think I want a trick!" She froze, and you could almost see the wheels turning...."He wants me to do a trick? What am I supposed to do?" He laughed and gave her some candy too, and then she burst out laughing. One boy came up to me and said, "Trick or Treat, smell my feet!" Then he cackled, quite pleased with himself. I looked at him and said, "I'll give you a treat if I don't HAVE to smell your feet!" He stared at me for about ten seconds as he was processing that and then bent over in laughter. He found that very funny, apparently!
So, all in all it was a good night. The best part is that we had a little bit of candy left over, too....Kit Kats for me, and Mounds for him. Now I plan on spending the rest of the day cleaning/dusting/baking etc. I love having parties, but could do without the prep work ahead of time!
Will you be giving out candy to trick or treaters this year? If so, what goodies can the ghosts and goblins expect to bring home?
Been there, done that! We haven't given out candy the last couple of years (I know, I know...I'm a scrooge). Honestly, the week before Halloween is just about the worst week for a teacher.....the kids start inhaling candy on Monday, and it gets progressively worse until Friday. There's nothing like 20 sugared up super-hyper kids crammed in one room to keep you on your toes! So, when Trick-or-Treat night rolls around, I usually am not in the mood to give out more candy.
This year, though, we decided to. Or I should say, the hubby decided to. We were working on a lot of projects last night, but he did go get some candy, with the stipulation that he was in charge of handing it out. I'm trying to get ready for our Halloween party, and didn't want to spend three hours standing at the door. We blew through the candy he bought in about half an our, so I manned the post while he went on a candy run.
OK, I'll admit it.....once I was there, I kind of had an epiphany. Sure, I had a lot to do, but this night only happens once a year. The kids looked really cute, and I got to see a lot of my current students (I was amazed how many of my kids traveled to our town, since it is about 30-40 minutes away for many of them). I was able to visit with some of my former students who are in the high school, and were taking their younger siblings trick-or-treating. That was really great. I love seeing how my kids turn out! I visited with one girl that is a senior now. She said the most amazing thing to me......"Do you remember that book Blackwater you read to us in fourth grade? I still remember that book, and I have been trying to find it everywhere. Do you know who the author is?" I told her the author (Eve Bunting), and she was really happy. I am just amazed that something I read to her eight years ago is still with her! It was a very humbling experience.
Let's see.....what else. The more I got into the spirit (no pun intended) of the night, the more fun it became. I dressed our pooch up in his Halloween costume (he's going to be The Great Pumpkin) I know, people think dogs in costumes are lame. We don't have kids yet, so he gets to dress up instead. He's good with things like that, and he gets extra pets and scratches, so it's all good. I opened up the second door on the front of our house (it's a double), and turned the lights on in the hallway. It was a very festive atmosphere, and the kids loved the lights/webbing on our inside stairs and the dog and his costume.
We did have fun messing with the kids a little bit. One group of three came up to our porch, and they all said, "Trick or Treat!" The hubby gave the first one some candy and said, "I'll give you a treat", said the same thing to the second kid, and for the third, said, "And from you, I think I want a trick!" She froze, and you could almost see the wheels turning...."He wants me to do a trick? What am I supposed to do?" He laughed and gave her some candy too, and then she burst out laughing. One boy came up to me and said, "Trick or Treat, smell my feet!" Then he cackled, quite pleased with himself. I looked at him and said, "I'll give you a treat if I don't HAVE to smell your feet!" He stared at me for about ten seconds as he was processing that and then bent over in laughter. He found that very funny, apparently!
So, all in all it was a good night. The best part is that we had a little bit of candy left over, too....Kit Kats for me, and Mounds for him. Now I plan on spending the rest of the day cleaning/dusting/baking etc. I love having parties, but could do without the prep work ahead of time!
Have you ever had a premonition? Did you heed it?
Submitted by aynge.
Oh my gosh, I had a HUGE premonition about a week ago, and I am so thankful that I followed it. The hubby and I hang a heavy curtain in our bedroom doorway. It keeps the cool air inside in the summer, and the warm air inside in the winter. Our big 'ol house can be a drain on the pocketbook during the cold months, so we try to save wherever we can. We would love to shut our door, but the furry family would not be cool with that. On any typical night I push through that curtain five or six times before settling down for bed. (I'm the type of person that has to do a lot of busywork before I can settle down). I never give it a second thought, and am too lazy to move it to the side....I just push on through.
So, last week I'm getting ready to push through into the hallway when all of a sudden I stopped dead. As soon as I stopped, I thought "SPIDER!" I had this irrational fear that there was a spider on the curtain (which is really weird, because I had never really even thought of that before). I looked up, and what do you think I saw? Yep, giant, spindly, brown, hairy spider legs slowly unfolding themselves over the top of the curtain rod (from the other side). Blech! The rod is about four feet or so above my head. There is no way I could have seen him ahead of time, because the hallway light wasn't on (so no silhouette), and it was my first time going out.
So, how did I know he was there? I can't explain it. Some warning bell went off in my head, and I was smart enough to listen to it. If I hadn't, he would have probably landed on my head or my face, and I would have died a little bit inside. Once I saw him, I immediately went into panic mode. I froze. Even though I take pictures of spiders and other creepy crawlies, they still have some weird power over me when I am startled. I thought I was over my arachnophobia, but obviously I'm not. I literally froze in the bedroom, like a deer in headlights. I felt sick to my stomach, and a bit dizzy. It hasn't been that bad for me for awhile (the last time was when my dad brought me a spider to photograph and it jumped at my face).
The hubby heard me in distress, and it woke him up. I totally played the girl card and asked him to kill it. He went out into the hallway and told me to stand back. It took him a lot of whacks to kill that sucker. He said it was almost as big as the creepy spider I photographed on our patio. That's waaaaaaayyyyyy too big of a creature to be crawling around my bedroom!
I know I already posted this picture, but since it's relevent I'll post it again. I don't understand how I can take pictures like these but still be afraid of them! I guess I just feel safer when I'm looking through a lens.
So, I don't know why I got the urge to stop that night....it felt like I was slamming against an invisible wall with Danger! Danger! going through my head. I find that the older I get, the more open I am to the bigger universe that's around us. That's not to say I'm going to start watching the sky for aliens any time soon, but I'm willing to believe that there are things out there that are beyond our comprehension. However it happened, I am very grateful. I think I will be more likely to listen to my inner voice in the future....especially if it means I can avoid having a spider crawling on me!
On a related side note, I watched the movie Premonition (with Sandra Bullock) last night. I found the story difficult to follow, and the writing was kind of crappy. I think the actors did a good job with the material they were given, though.
A few minutes ago, I watched a couple of trailers for the movie Paranormal Activity. I don't live under a rock, I have heard about it, I just never watched the preview. Holy crap, that looks scary! I am interested in seeing it, but I don't think I will. One, because I am a chicken, and two, because there is a bit of "activity" in our old house, and has been ever since we moved in. I don't need to see a movie about it to give me any more ideas!
I've written about this before, if any new neighbors are interested, here's a link to the original blog: http://shutterbug55.vox.com/library/post/qotd-ghost-stories.html
Since I wrote the blog, one of the creepiest things that has happened would be the hubby getting poked on top of the shoulder three or four times in succession while he was lying in bed....awake. Now, I will be the first person to admit that many of these occurrences over the years probably have natural explanations. I immediately discount any "orbs" that show up in house photographs, because I know they are probably dust. Still, there have been so many tiny unexplainable events over the past nine years that they start to add up over awhile. I have heard and seen things that I just can't explain away. I can often sense things, as well....I liken it to the feeling you would get if someone was standing directly behind you, almost touching you. There are plenty of times that I will get that feeling out of the blue, look down, and see the hair standing up on my arms.
The hubby is a skeptic, and I am as well, to a point. The second something weird happens, I immediately start looking for causes and scientific reasons. Many times there is an obvious answer. Sometimes there isn't. I think it is presumptuous to assume that we know everything about this world, so I try to keep an open (but still skeptical) mind. I do believe that there might be something here with us, but I don't think it's bad. I've never gotten a bad vibe from it. Unsettling, you bet! But not evil. Whatever it is will be dormant for a long time, and usually only gets "stirred up" when we are ripping a room apart to remodel it. That seems logical to me....we are disturbing 137 years worth of history. If I was a ghostie, that would probably disturb me, too!
The house was really "active" the first year I lived here (alone). The hubby wasn't the hubby then, and was working a few hours away, and only came home on the weekends. We were in full renovation mode, and there were a lot of changes. I have noticed that over the years, the activity has calmed down a lot. Maybe we're all getting used to each other, I don't know. Months will go by with nothing out of the ordinary occurring. Sometimes I wonder if I really imagined it all (but I don't believe that....I've been keeping a journal for years documenting the weird things that happen, and it is multiple pages long).
Something very, very strange happened last weekend, and I am still at a loss to explain it. Here's what happened: I had been climbing around on a ladder for most of the day. I got hungry, and decided to take a break. I placed the ladder firmly against the blue entryway wall (see picture below). I remember pressing on it to make sure it was indeed propped firmly against the wall, because we have a cat that loves to climb ladders. I went into the kitchen, and a few minutes later heard a short clattering sound. I yelled up to the hubby to ask him what he dropped, and he yelled down at almost the same time to ask what I had dropped. We both went back and forth "The sound came from upstairs! No, it came from downstairs!" for a few seconds. Then I walked into the dining room (which is right next to the kitchen) and saw this:
The ladder was perfectly balanced on the table, with the feet about ten inches in the air (I put the hubby's jersey on the floor to show the depth). It wasn't rocking or moving in any way...it looked like someone had just neatly hung it on the table. What I can't figure out is how.....how did a ladder that I firmly planted on the floor move itself two feet, and hang itself up on a table with a rounded edge? The pets didn't bump it, because all four of them were upstairs at the time, and only came down after we were gathered in the dining room.
After taking pictures the hubby and I tried to figure it out. If it falls diagonally, it bypasses the table completely. If it managed to angle itself perfectly to align with the table, how did it then jump up ten inches and balance on a rounded edge? The hubby concluded that it is possible according to the laws of physics, but that it was a one in a quadrillion chance that it would happen this way. He had walked across the upstairs, but I know that ladder was wedged as tightly as possible between the floor and and the entryway....I couldn't move it from side to side, because I tried before I walked out of the room.
Here are a couple of other views of the spooky ladder in question:
So, I don't know what to think. One other creepy event happened in almost the same spot a few years ago (don't remember if I wrote about it in my blog or not). We had an old fashioned dial for the furnace before we upgraded and got a digital box. Our old one was the kind where you would have to turn it five degrees higher than the actual temperature you wanted, because it was off so badly. The hubby and I discussed how warm to leave the downstairs, and I remember watching him set it for 70 degrees (so it would be 65 all night). The next morning, he goes downstairs at 7AM or so and yells up the stairs at me. "Why did you turn the furnace off? It's freezing down here!" I thought he was messing around with me, and asked why he had turned it off, because I was worried about the pipes freezing.
After going back and forth, we both realized that neither one of us had turned it off. I hadn't been downstairs since the night before, and this was his first trip downstairs. We didn't have the dog at the time, so I can't blame it on being half-asleep and forgetting that one of us tried to turn the heat up, but instead turned it off. So, I would like someone to explain to me how a furnace dial gets turned all the way to the left until it clicks off, when both of the human inhabitants in the house were upstairs the whole night... I've got nothing.
So, that's my spooky story. I guess I'll end with saying that I don't completely believe the ladder was "helped" along, but I don't completely disbelieve, either. It could have been a one-in-a-bazillion coincidence, or it could have been something else. I just don't know. I do know that I don't like walking into a room and seeing something that shouldn't have happened staring me in the face! If it was indeed a ghostie, I think they have a pretty funny sense of humor. A couple of hours before the event happened, I was standing near the table talking about the decorating I was doing for our upcoming party. I said something along the lines of, "I just don't know....the house doesn't seem spooktacular enough yet". To which the hubby replied, "What are you talking about? We live in a really old Victorian house that you think might be haunted. How much more "spooktacular" do you need it to be?" Two hours later, I have a ladder perfectly hoisted up and balanced on a rounded table. And the best part? It was resting on a bottle of wine called.....wait for it......Apparition!
Whether there is something here or not, this is our home. I fell in love with it the first moment I stepped through the double front doors, and immediately got the feeling that this is where I belonged. I know some people think we are nuts for living here, but it really isn't that bad. It's not like a horrible horror movie or anything! I do feel unnerved from time to time, or like I'm being watched, but I think I've just gotten used to it over the years. I don't mind sharing, because this was their house first. I feel like we're just the caretakers, slowly bringing her back from all of the years of bad design decisions and disrepair. If I have to put up with some strange things from time to time, I still think it's worth it in the end. We are very happy here, and have no plans on leaving anytime soon!
