Eeek! 74 days!

First of all - let us embrace our inner basic white girl and have...

a pumpkin spice ice capp & donut!!

I feel like I should be dragging out headstones & touching up paint, making skeleton repairs, etc.  

But then I'd have to put them back away since it's just too early to leave them all sitting out!

I have 2 more headstones in the works - I have them sketched on plywood but still need to find the jigsaw to cut them out.  And I have a gallon of really dark green exterior oops paint and a quart of gray riding around in the back of my car for those.  The green will also be used to touch up the bottoms of the rest of the stones - since plywood + many years of Michigan Octobers = needs occasional reinforcement.     

I will make a video of when we open the shed.  It hasn't been open since things were put away last November, so I fear to see what our resident groundhogs and other rodents have done in there.  It probably doesn't help that at the end of last season, I sort of just tossed critter skeletons & stuff in there.  

A glimpse of my handy-dandy notebook.  

It doesn't look H'ween-y but this is where I keep all my thoughts & ideas & reminders & inventory lists (blowmolds, etc.)

Speaking of adding to the inventory...  I took the granddaughter into Michael's one day. 

One needs a praying mantis skeleton!

And also a giant mouse with antlers.  

Oh, and in my last non-vacation post I was torn about getting the koala skeleton from Target or not. 

Got it!

Looking at dimensions online are always deceptive.  The description said 8 inches, so I was not expecting life sized.  But this is still somewhat bigger than I expected! 

I gave up on the Home Depot jackalope.  I asked about it on the HalloweenForum message boards and someone was able to find a list of what skeletons they came out with this year. 

Damn. 

Last night I was scrolling on YouTube and came across Home Depot and Lowe's walk-thru videos from someone called @HappyHaunting (thanks, dude!).  I was mildly interested in the axolotl but didn't see it in the video or even where it would be on the shelf, but I did see the "wild boar" - it reminded me of a tiny Pumbaa.

Watching those 2 videos - it seemed to me like Lowe's actually has the better variety of animatronics.  Just my opinion, since I don't use them anyway.  I don't know the difference in quality, either.   

I might still pop in Lowe's on my way home from work tonight.  Just to see if they have anything out.  There's a few small things I might want, but the world won't end without them. 

Later this evening, we'll be making a field trip to Menards (with the grands, of course)

Same there - there's a few small things that looked interesting.  I just like to see them in person. 

Here's one thing that I did NOT see in person before buying! 

Walmart's 60" deer skeleton!  

Kudos to them for it collapsing down into a somewhat small box.  

The box also fits a small-ish 4-year-old girl with plenty of room to spare. 

The larger 6 1/2 year old boy fit with less room. 

The rear legs are attached to the pelvis but everything else fits together (and comes apart) easily.  I didn't attach the wires to see the whole body lit up, but I did play with the switch under the jaw - it has eight different flashing patterns which could be neat.  I missed where it said that on the website.  I thought it was just solid on.  And it came with 4 big metal U shaped landscape pins, too. 

In comparison to the Spouse's SUV. 

This is going to fit nicely in the giant tote with the HomeDepot horse & pony. 

It's definitely much smaller (and cheaper) than the huge deer Tractor Supply had last year! 

 

The forward-most tine of the antler is also exactly eye-level with the Spawn - 

ask me how she found that out!