Post - Halloween 2014

So another year has come and gone....

I took the day off work on Friday.  I drove the kid to school, then went to the local Walmart Supercenter because I hadn't yet been there to check out their H'ween offerings.  The regular Walmart didn't have much of anything. Yet again, I wasn't impressed.  I found myself wandering thru (don't throw tomatoes at me!) the Christmas section....where I found these lovely indoor/outdoor LED spotlights!  Granted they only had red, white & green, but I grabbed one to try it out.  I may go back and get a couple more, to replace the green CFLs I used this year.  This isn't the mini-spot that I eventually want, but it throws a nice spread.  

After Walmart, I grabbed some breakfast and went home. I sat in the quiet for a minute (with the dog staring at me) and decided I really had nothing pressing to do and went back to bed!  I was rudely woken up 2 hours later by the weather alert radio going off - high wind advisories from 3-10 pm - SHIT!!  And it had started to rain. Randy took a half day off work, so I met him for lunch, then we just sat around and chilled for a couple hours.  It felt weird - like there was something I needed to be doing, but for the life of me couldn't think of what it might be.  I did venture out around 4:30 to change the lightbulb on the front porch - a plain white bulb just was NOT going to work!  In the few minutes it took to replace that bulb with a blue LED, the wind blowing out of the north (straight down the street with no wind blocks) just about froze my fingers!  This did not bode well. 

I had already decided to dress up for ToT.  I was going to stick with my rather uninspired witch costume that I'd worn to last week's pub crawl - but with a few more layers and a shawl!  The hat is attached to a headband, so I was able to wear the hood of my hoodie up and still keep my hat on - along with my totally un-witch like ginormous golf umbrella. 

Shelby Twp uses the outdoor warning sirens at the beginning & end of trick or treating.  They sounded at 6, it started to rain again at 6:05.  Later came the white stuff.  It was hard to ignore, since the flakes were easily peanut M&M sized! 

  It was cold & miserable, so I tried to find positive things to think about.  This year I am healthy, last year I had a yucky cold & did not want to be out with my bag o' candy.  And - (I'm stretching here!) I did not have to worry about my apple ale getting warm!  In fact, it was colder outside than it was in the fridge! 

This skeleton held my ale and guarded the lunchbox full of candy. 

I tried to get a pic of the snow.  

I'm sorta glad I didn't get it, since I don't want to see it again for another month or so! 

The wind blew all the lanterns out, but the JOLs burned steady all night. 

And damn if this wasn't Saturday morning.  

Blue skies & sunshine, even if it were frosty out. 

I sucked it up and this is what it looked like by 5 pm on Saturday afternoon.  

Like it never even happened! 

Don't look if this is scary - but I had to take the C-mas blowmolds out so I could put the H'ween ones away.  So I hosed them off and checked the lights before putting them back in the shed.  Honestly - these guys and a string of lights on the edge of the house and along the fence is all I do for Christmas.  

Can you tell which holiday I like better?  LOL!

We still ended up with around 50 kids coming by, which is about how many we had last year - also in the rain. I'm glad I didn't play the Frozen drinking game, since I only had one Anna / Elsa combo come by - a little girl and her mom. Plenty of ninjas & Spidermen, tho! A group of teenagers came up (all in full costumes!!) and each said a different holiday greeting - Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Easter, etc. They were hilarious! One boy commented about my umbrella being the biggest one he'd ever seen, so I had to say the same about his bag - him & his friends were all using body pillow cases!

My favorite visitor of the night was a little guy around 5 years old, dressed as a Ghostbuster. His dad had a hard time getting him to go to the neighbor's house before coming to mine. Once he got in my driveway, the dad sighed and told him to go ahead. He whipped out the wand to his proton pack and proceeded to shoot my yard! Of course I had to make a big deal about him shooting my ghosts! The dad told me the little boy couldn't wait to come by my house and talked about it every time they drove by for weeks! He was so adorable! 

One 9ish year old ninja, even with his staff, refused to come up the driveway - I can only imagine how he'd be if it was scary!! I heard lots of people, kids & adults, say my yard looked amazing. Toward the end, Miss Angela came out to raid the candy and she watched as a car pull up in front. A woman and several kids poured out and she told me that her kids were frozen and they were on their way home, but they had to stop by and get a closer look at my house during ToT ! Then they got back in the car and left, not stopping at any other house on the street. Angel was amazed! She looked at me and sounded surprised - they came just to see you! 

Yes, my dear. That is why I do what I do.