Halloween Festivities

So there's this blog that I follow called Cake Wrecks. And on this blog, they feature things like this cookie creation. We had a Halloween Party at work (more on that later) and someone brought in this cookie for the party. As soon as I saw the inscription, I immediately thought of Cake Wrecks. It's not too wrecky, but the Wreckorator does need a spelling lesson.


On the home front, the ApotheSCARY is back in action, this time in our front hall. Many of the bottles still haven't gotten labels. Guess people will just need to use their imagination to decide what's in them.



Also at home I had my glass pumpkins and some candles set out on the bookcases in the "library/office" area. It's really just this odd space between the front entry and the rest of the house where we've got a few bookcases and Chris has his computer desk. Anyway, I thought it was a good space for this display, although it is a little crowded.

The final area to decorate was the windowsill in the dining room. I had thought about putting things out on the sideboard like I normally do, but thought this was a more visible spot. It has my ghosts, a few more candles, and some items that I got from a swap last year. I had my witch mobile hanging from the ceiling fan in the dining room.


Since I had the ApotheSCARY set up at home, I wasn't sure what to bring to decorate at work. And did I even want to decorate at work? It was kind of expected of me since I still had the brick wall set up from last year's display, but what should I bring in? In the end, I brought in a large skeleton and some fake gravestones and had those set up. Not too exciting, but it also didn't take a lot of effort or creative thought (which I was lacking).


So more about work.... We had a Halloween party again this year, which I planned. We decided not to have a cube decorating contest again since so few people had participated last year. This actually was good for me since I was out of ideas.

Instead, we just had a costume contest. However, we did add a new category this year. For individual costumes we had winners for Best, Scariest, Funniest, and Most Original. And we added the new category of Best Group Costume. I was wondering how many groups would get into this and was happy to see that 3 groups participated (ranging from 3, and 4 participants, to a 12 person group).

The party itself was pretty easy to plan. Put together some invitations and posters, send out calendar invites, contact the cafe for food... Then on Friday run to Costco for beer and a few other food items, set up, and Party!





I actually ended up with two costumes. I wanted to wear my Ren Faire dress for the party and I wanted to wear a costume all day. However, I knew it wasn't practical to wear it all day. But then I decided to wear a costume for skating on Saturday, so got a cat costume. Perfect to wear for work! So I started off in a cat costume, and then changed just before the party. I had thought about just wearing the ears and tail with normal clothes, but then decided to go with the leotard, tights, and dance skirt. And jacket. A "must" since the leotard was a little skimpy.


The winners for costumes were: Me for Best, Jeremy as Dracula for Scariest, Chris as a Spelling Bee for Funniest, and Linda as "Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Rain". I don't have a picture of her costume, but it was a blue shirt with cotton ball clouds and she walked around with a squirt bottle spraying "rain".



The Best Group Costume was the Legal department as The Wizard of Oz.

Another fun costume was "Smarty Pants". And I got a shot of everyone from Marketing who was in costume- Flavor Flav, me, a cop, an escaped convict, and a hotdog.

As to Halloween itself, as I mentioned, since it was Saturday and I had skating, I dressed in a cat costume. I then wore my costume for various errands. But then in the afternoon I was exhausted I lay down for a nap. I ended up sleeping for 4 hours and woke up at 8:30. Chris hadn't turned on the outside light, so we never did get any kids at our house. :( How disappointing that I slept through Halloween!

Once again, my photos are "published" online!

A couple of years ago a photo I took was put online at BBC.com. Once again, I've got a photo up at an online news site. This one isn't quite as cool though.

Boston.com was looking for user submissions on Halloween decorations, so I sent them a couple of photos of my ApotheScary shop. Here they are! (You can click on them to view larger.)

Getting creative again

Wow, I scrapped! It's been way too long since I had a creative outlet. And then I got two layouts done in the past four days! I just need to keep this up. I was hoping to finish getting my craft room unpacked, but instead I just started to mess it up even more. Plus I think that most of what's left, especially what's on the table, is pretty much going to live there anyway.

It also helped that I joined the Tally Survivor challenges. And I did the challenge on the first day. That NEVER happens! Usually I make my LO on the last day of the challenge, or have to do a makeup challenge, so this is quite the accomplishment for me.

Now I need to edit some photos and place an order. I have about a year's worth of photos to scrap. Yikes, I've gotten behind!

Edited to say, that after posting this, about an hour later I finished another LO. I'm on a roll!

It's official...

... we're homeowners. On the 14th we closed on our house. Spent Saturday painting. A little more painting on Tuesday. And two days ago we moved in. Lots of boxes! Still a few miscellaneous things at the old apartment that need to get moved over.

HUGE thanks to Andrew, Gentry, Kristin, Jason, Pete and my dad for helping us move. Sorry we had to pick one of the hottest days of the year. Too bad that rain didn't cool things down and cut the humidity. Wish we could have done more for you than just feed you pizza.

Also HUGE thanks go out to Liz for her assistance with unpacking yesterday. I realized last night that I lack focus. Actually, I think I knew that, but I confirmed it to myself. Chris was putting together the cabinets that we got for the kitchen. I was unpacking a few boxes that I had borrowed from work and needed to return. Most of these boxes were in my craft room. So I go in there, open one, and realize it belongs in the office. So I bring it to the office. Then I notice an open box of books. So I take out the books and finish putting those away. Then I have to break down the boxes. Um. No. I needed to get those original boxes emptied.

This is why Liz was fabulous. With her help we got the dining room completely unpacked and put away. And she put out some candles to give it a nice decorated touch. She also tackled the kitchen. This room was completely overwhelming me because there weren't nearly enough cabinets. (What you see pictured is all of them, probably about half of what was in our old place.) But she found a place for almost everything. And I think that with the cabinet that we got, we now should have homes for everything.

Tonight's agenda is to go to the old place and try to get the remaining stuff. Tomorrow is trash day, so we'll put that out (there's a lot!), empty the fridge, load up the cars, and if the weather isn't too gross, maybe I'll dig up some plants that I want to take with me. And at some point later in the week, we'll get around to cleaning and touching up the walls. Unpacking at the new house? Probably not so much of that tonight.

Sunday was Father's Day and in honour of the occassion I made these very cute desserts. I got the idea, directions, and templates from Bakerella. Pretty easy to make, but a bit time consuming due to all of the steps. But worth it, I think. Next up, cake pops?

Happy belated 12th of June!

Apparently our town decided that they didn't want to deal with fireworks on the 4th of July, so instead they had them last Friday. Huh? And Boy Chris was able to have an "I told you so" moment. The fireworks were scheduled for 9, with music starting at 8. So I suggested that we bring some food and get there around 7:30 or so. No one was there. Ok, the DJ was there, but that was it.

Silly me, I assumed it was live music and that people would get there early, set a blanket out on the ground, and have a picnic. Nope. Seating was on the bleachers of the football field. Around 8:30 it started filling up. I'd say that we now know better for next time, but seeing as how we're moving, there won't be a next time.

I did have a chance to play with my camera and try some new things with taking pictures of fireworks. Would have been better with a tripod, but I didn't want to deal with that.

What?

It's 10 days before the Derby and I'm actually done with my car? This is most unusual. I'm usually finishing it up the day before or the day of. But here it is.

I also am making another car. It's the same design that I've done before- one that's pretty quick. I usually make a simple one and then don't feel so bad if I have to give up on my fancier car. So my simple car may need another coat of paint, but otherwise is more or less done.

I guess this means I can spend more time doing other things like decorating cookies and baking Friendship Bread.

Britain's Top 10 castles

The Travel Channel had a program a while back of Britain's Top 10 Castles.


10. Windsor Castle
9. Hampton Court Palace
8. Edinburgh Castle
7. St. Michael's Mount
6. Stirling Castle
5. Caernarfon Castle
4. Leeds Castle
3. Tintagel Castle
2. Warwick Castle
1. Tower of London

I think I've been to all of them except for Stirling Castle. Although Caernarfon I saw when I was 8 and really have no memory of it. After this trip Chris will have all of them except for Stirling, Caernarfon, and possibly Leeds.

I guess next we'll have to work on Europe's Top 10 Castles.