250 days - some thoughts & plans for 2026

I was watching the YouTube videos that I've made for Halloween the past couple years.

I really think I did a better job on my lights in 2023 / 2024 than I did in 2025. 

I need to work on that. 

2025 was such a weird year.  It's February and the shack is still sitting out in the front yard.  Folded up and leaning up against a bench, but it's still out there.  Now it'll probably stay out there until it gets warm.  The Spouse did a great job of designing it to fold up for storage... but it weighs approximately 942 lbs so it takes 2 of us to put it away.

However, the area where it gets stored is currently filled with blowmolds and such.  So that will need to be emptied out & rearranged.  Ugh. 

The grandson cleaning snow off said shack for me earlier this month. 

I'm pretty sure he wanted to slide down it because once I suggested it, he didn't waste any time going over the top! 

At least I got the critter skeletons put into the shed (rather hap-hazardly); however the human ones are all still on the patio.  They don't appear to be messed up by spending some time under a layer of leaves and snow.   Whew!

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As much as I hate to admit it - my 2 little "helpers" (aka the grandkids) add a degree (or two) of difficulty to setting up.  Sometimes I just need to stop and think things out and having a certain little person (especially the boy!!) right there asking what he can do 1000 times (and then moving things around!) makes me crazy.

Maybe I'll schedule a bunch of half days off work the end of September / early October so I can get things done while they're in school.....

BING!

Noted.

Oh, and since I was just looking at my calendar - as you know H'ween is on a Saturday.  I'm sure we'll do the usual take the cemetery down on 11/1 and get it put away (unlike 2025) on 11/2.  Leaving it up for that extra day last year just totally derailed everything. 

I really need to control myself this year - I have so many skeletons now that the cemetery is just TOO BUSY!  However, I will be on the lookout to see if Home Depot brings their jackalope skeletons back!  My random armadillo needs a non-Michigan type friend!  That was probably one of the only places I didn't randomly stalk last summer and then missed it.  I think of giant human skeletons when I think of HD, not critters!  Funny since I got my first horse and the pony from there. 

And dammit - there will be yet another headstone added to the car plot in the cemetery.

The Spawn needs to move someplace where snow doesn't happen.   

At least I already have a rough idea of the shape of said stone. 

I also saw a FB video of someone exploring an old cemetery and there was a really cool headstone in it that I'd like to replicate.  But if I'm not careful, it'll look like a gumball machine. 

The Sign. 

I want to strip the paint off the sign (but maybe not the legs) and just leave it the bare wood like it was for so many years.  

 

I'm not even sure why I painted it to begin with!

I have a million other things listed in my notebook already.

Repaint this.

Remember that. 

Fix this.

Try that.  

Come on warm weather!!

Added - a step in the right direction!  

Last week we had some days up in the 40s and a LOT of snow melted.  So while the skeletons still aren't put away in the garage, they're at least stacked neatly up off the ground on the patio! 

All the 5+ footers

All the 4 foot and unders plus a random bat.

Ya know, the squirrels aren't too smart in my area.  

I've also found saltines on the windowsill in the front of the house, and I watched a squirrel bury something in a snowbank before.  I also recently watched one climb up the shepherd's hook to get to the bird feeder. I tapped on the window to get its attention, and it stopped and just slid back down the pole, almost in slow motion! 

Headless Todd now has a friend! 

I think I just had an idea of what I could do with them.......

😅😅

Friday the 13th - part 1 2026

One of these days I'm going to actually get to explore these 2 cemeteries!

They're both located in / near Kalamazoo, Michigan which is about 2 1/2 hours from my house.

Yeah, I stopped right in the road and rolled my window down to get this pic. 

 

 Last year, I was supposed to attend a VFW conference in Kzoo and I was excited to get the chance to do some exploring afterward..... then I came down with the Flu and didn't go.

So this year, again, I was going to visit after the convention!

But a foot of snow and temps in the teens kind of deterred me from getting out of the car.    

Someone else was a lot braver (and had a bigger vehicle) than me!

I saw on Find A Grave (well, Google maps) that there's not an actual road thru the cemetery, just a paved driveway thru the gate, then it changes into a dirt 2 track. And it's a small enough cemetery where the road doesn't even loop around - it just goes straight to the back.

I really want to check this one out, since it's full of people with really interesting & unusual names!

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The next place, I probably ~could~ have explored, since the road and sidewalks were all nicely cleared.

But I was just wearing a hoodie & tennis shoes when I drove thru and didn't want to stop and dig my winter weather gear out of the back of the car.

Also called Gate of Heaven Cemetery

What is super interesting about this cemetery is that the graves are all nuns and some priests.

And even rolling slowly thru in the car, I could feel how peaceful it was.

There were lots of deer in the area, too.

The 4x4 post on top of this little hill says "priests".

 

One of these (warmer) days!

Adventures in (non)travel with Mini-Chuck

I was ~supposed~ to spend a long weekend in Arkansas, but the fates decreed otherwise.  

So I'm at home. 

Here's my adventures on Thursday. 

I was up and at work at 6am, stayed in the office until 10, then went home to "work" from home until 2.  My flight was scheduled to leave at 5:44pm at an airport 45 minutes away. 

First of all, since I was only going for a weekend, I was only taking a carry on bag.  Which meant Chuck would have taken up too much room.  So I ordered a pair of 16 inch skeletons from Amazon that were supposed to deliver Wednesday.  Weather delay!  I really thought I was going to have to make due with....

micro mini Chuck!

But as I got in the car to leave, 

I saw the mail truck on the other side of the street!  

So I went to get gas in the car and came back to get... 

the perfect travelling buddy!

Welcome to Flint Bishop International Airport!

We got there in plenty of time but we waited.

And waited. 

Flying out of Flint meant I had to change planes in Chicago before going on to Little Rock. 

Between mechanical issues and weather, there was a 3 hour delay and I was going to miss my connecting flight. 

So United was going to put me (and a bunch of other peoples) up in a hotel in Chicago and rebooked me on a different flight into Little Rock.  

So we waited some more. 

Starting to snow!

We also got a $15 food voucher for some dinner while waiting. 

Yes - the place was a ghost town!

Just a cool light sculpture on the store. 

I was in constant contact with the Spouse and he let me know about this before United did. 

AAARGH!

More snow. 

Oh look - a tiny little plane!!

You can see the guy in yellow out there guiding it in.

Heading down the jet way.

I'm 5'8" and my head almost touched the ceiling inside the plane - I can't imagine someone tall going in!

Speaking of, I'm so glad there were some empty rows because I originally was squished in next to a big guy.  Once I got the blessing from the flight attendant, I moved back a row so we both had 2 seats to our selves. 

Mini Chuck reading the safety card. 

Anyway we sat in the plane for a good hour & a half waiting for visibility to lift and for random maintenance snow sweepers to get un-stuck from the runway and to make sure there were enough people to do the de-icing. 

The plane had just landed and we boarded right away and there was already over an inch of snow on the wing. 

Getting fuel. 

So anyway.  That's a far as I got in my trip.  

Not long after this, they decided to cancel the flight. 

Since I'd been talking with the Spouse, we just decided that I was just going to cancel my trip and go home.  I feel fortunate that I was able to do that, since a lot of people were trying to get home somewhere else!

ugh.  NO.

I love the paper airplane art in the terminal!

So there was about 3+ inches of powdery snow already on my car when I got to the parking lot.  And it was super windy so drifts between the cars. 

In retrospect - I'm kind of glad I didn't have to fly anywhere in that little plane with the wind the way it was!  

I got home shortly after 3am.

I couldn't tell where the lanes were on I-75!

Maybe next year will be less stressful.....?

2025 part 1

2025 part 2

Also - even if I had made it to Hot Springs like planned...coming home Monday might have been another adventure!

Tote has been acquired!

I’ve been talking about and talking about getting one of those giant totes from Home Depot that they advertise as being able to hold a 12’ skeleton.

Well.... I finally got one!

(proof of delivery from the HD guy in his full-sized pickup)

 I almost didn’t do it, since I checked the measurements against the back end of my car and I really didn’t think it would fit.  Then I saw HD would deliver but I cringed at the $35 shipping fee.

I looked on Amazon and saw they had the same totes for $75!  HD has them for $99.  However, Amazon’s shipping was $125!!!!!  Eeek no. 

Suddenly the $35 didn’t seem so bad! And I had forgotten that I get the military discount, so that was $10 off, too. 

Chuck for scale.

Of course I had to throw the grandson in, too!

I was taking Christmas blowmolds to the backyard, waiting for him to get home from school just so I could do this!

Uh oh.  

The ribcage from DedBolt, the TSC horse, takes up a LOT of room!  

Once I got the enormous skull, neck, tail & legs in there.... 

the other horse & pony were NOT going to fit. 

Which is what I was hoping. 

The OG skeleton horse (ordered from HD in April 2017) and the pony (also from HD in 2017 but picked up in store for 1/2 price October 30) have been stored in the horse's cardboard box ever since then and it's getting pretty ratty. 

So, I had a chat with the Spouse & he gave me the go-ahead to get a second one! 

Ordered & delivered today!

(proof of delivery from a different HD guy in his full-sized pickup)

Fun fact - it took longer to find the allen wrenches in the garage for the TSC horse's base than to take all 3 equines apart! I struggled with one leg on the HD horse for a minute, but everything else came right apart. 

Still lots of room in there with ZipTie & DucTape!

I should have put them away as soon as it was delivered - since it started to snow later so they got put away snowy. 

Now....I still have the stack of human skeletons on the patio that need to get put away somewhere out of the weather.  We just had a couple oddly spring-like days but even if I hadn't been at work, it was raining.  Maybe they'll get put away before June!