Belated Haunted Hump Day.

I'm a bit late on the Haunted Hump day fun this week and missed last week entirely. But I haven't been feeling good and have been a bit busy. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it. 

I made this sun catcher thing for a friend for her birthday. It's in my coffin tray for the photo op, and in hindsight, I should have painted the wood black, but she liked it all the same. It seemed to fit with the Goddesses she's been drawn to lately and somehow when I was making it, I knew it had to go to her. I know it's not really a Halloween Craft per se, but the feel of it, to me, fits for this month.

 October 13th was Amanda and my 1st year anniversary of being married. We've been together for 11 years now. Anyway, the Twins, Bethy and Ashlee, like going to Scarrywood an wanted us to go with them, so they bought our tickets as a present. They certainly didn't have to do that, but we did appreciate it.

So Scarrywood, for those who aren't familiar with our area of the world, is where Silverwood Theme park flips itself into a giant haunted theme park every year. They run some rides, not all, have scare zones, and several themed haunted houses. The scare zones are open and you pass through them to get to the other stuff. There was Clown Town- which is my least favorite-, a spider section, The Doll's house- which was my favorite-, a chainsaw guy, a scarecrow corn maze-ish area, and a lot of actors walking around spooking people.  

Of the themed Haunted houses I went to, there was Blood Bayou, which is a hillbilly, Southern swampy, cannibal theme. I had trouble with the uneven ground in that one, and cannibals aren't really my thing, but the detail in that haunt is really beautiful. I just wish we didn't have to be pushed through so fast. I would have liked to stay in some portions to admire the work they'd put into it. But when you have a long line of people behind you, you move. 

The second haunt I went to was Pharaoh's Tomb. This one was a new haunt for the park and I guess some people think it needed some more work. I, on the other hand, really enjoyed it. The detail on this one was lovely and again, I would have liked to stay and look at the work done in more depth. 

I went to the magic show, Dillusion, put on by Nick and Amanda Norton. I always see their magic show when I go to Silverwood, and this year they were doing a Halloween one. I loved it, as usual!

This is the Doll's House Scare Zone.

One of the creepy dolls stopping a person. She began jumping as I was taking the photo. They liked stepping in people's way to stare at them and when people would try to move around them, the dolls would step with them, blocking their path. It was so much fun to watch them. One guy saw them said  "Fuck no!" and took off like a track star. One of the dolls chased after him just as fast and I laughed my ass off. There was even an Andy doll from Raggidy Ann and Andy, but he had a messed up face. He was also dragging a metal chair around which was a bit obnoxious. He got me twice. LOL! I was sitting while my wife and friends went to ride rollercoasters or visit haunted houses I didn't want to go through. (I had to rest because my back was being an asshat.) He would come out of my field of vision when I wasn't paying attention, sneaky fucker. 

This is a photo op we got with the dolls. Amanda's taking the picture and managed to only get half of me, there on the far right, the girl on the left is Ashlee and the right next to me is Bethy. 

On the home front, we have been super tired this week. I think I've slept more than I have been awake. Amanda and I have been taking it semi easy by watching netflix in the evenings. Last night I began The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell. I freaking love it! I saw, somewhere, that someone mentioned her being the Martha Stewart Goth people. Or something close to that. She totally is! And her house mates crack me up. Which was so very needed last night. My depression monster has been dragging me back down, horribly down, this week. Laughing felt so good. 

Earlier in the week Amanda and I watched The Haunting of Hill House with our friend Bethy. She lives about a hour and half away from us, so we call her and cue up netflix in time with hers and that's how we watch movies with her. We've done that with Cousin Kat, who live across the country from us a time or two as well. Anyway, we pretty much binged this show over three nights. We all really liked it. It was so creepy and fun. Definitely worth a watch.

On a trip to Ross to look at Halloween stuff, Amanda bought me a cup. I will share it of course. She also got me towels for the kitchen that say "I love you to the tomb and back", which fit us more than my kitchen at the moment, but I still loved them. When I was still working at my friend's bakery, I'd bought her a skull spoon rest. When my depression gets super bad or I have a bad fibro flare, she's been stepping in to cook, so I thought she'd like it. 

We finished the entertainment center I think two weeks ago and I found our Halloween decor from the garage. I managed to hurt myself when trying to pick up one of the tubs, it was caught on something and ugh, it was bad. But, I got both tubs in and I didn't even put everything we have out. Some of stuff isn't Halloween decor, but our normal decor, and I would show more, but the house is a little messy with laundry I've folded an some art supplies. Amanda got a little candle happy, but I like it, so it's okay, they are just hiding a couple of things. The cats like it too. They like jumping up behind stuff to look out the window.

I've one a little with the little mantle over our fireplace. We'd planned to finish the painting and do touch ups, but we just didn't get to it this year. We'll work on it soon and I have plans to build a fireplace mantle and facing. That little one just doesn't do it for me. 

I put some dollar tree puple led lights in the alcove and while this is blurry as hell, I really like the result.

I've also added some around the living room and really liked how they look on this wall shelf- which you will better see in moment.

This was the shelf before we figured out what we wanted on it. Batlas stayed of course, its the safest place for him. Also, Amanda and I took all the pictures and art we had with us to a thrift store and found frames there. Gold was not an accent we were planning on having, but I really loved the amount of vintage/antique-ish frames they had and just went with it! Some frames we got were black or we painted them black. A couple of pieces I made, like the key one and butterfly one.. that you can't really see.

Of course this was all done before we got our sofa back, but that's the current layout. I want to make a couple little things to put in, but too much more will be, well, too much.

Well, there you have it. 

Someday, I will do a proper house tour so you can see it seamlessly.

Haunted Humpday

For this Haunted Humpday I'm sharing some of the Halloween decor we've brought out this season. Please excuse the quality of the photos, I took them with my cell phone camera which I have a love hate relationship with. We also have more decor and I am making little pieces every so often- mostly in the form of coloring sheets this year.

I decided to collage my photos for the purpose of space. The witch sign and coffin chalkboard sign are in my kitchen, obviously. I glued the wooden bottle piece to the chalk board. The fox salt shakers are from Wal-Mart. My Wal-Mart is always hit and miss with a lot of stuff and for some reason they only had the one piece, there's supposed to be a another piece of a fox laying down. Amanda thought a good way to tell between the two was to give one of them a bow. The Pumpkin chimes are from Aanda's Mom two Xmas' ago. We had them in storage to keep them safe until we had our own place and could bring them out at the right time. 

Collage #2 is full of stuff at various points in the living room, kitchen, and hall way. Starting from the top left we have the skulls I made a couple years ago. For some reason two of them really like to face the wall. Next are my Dollar Tree magnets, a Lily Munster coloring page I found and colored, and my blurred dialogue idea for a story I am working on. Third is a little ghost a friend gave us, Narcisa's treat jar, a pretty flower arrangement, and a little coffin box I made. Middle photo is of my fireplace mantle. You can see some branches of my Halloween Tree. this photo was take pre-fixing of my raven candle holder- yes, I broke it, but it's fixed now. The bottom left photo is another Dollar Tree find of a Vampress that I hung behinf the front door.  Next is my Resting Witch Face mug which we picked up at Wal-Mart this year and lastly is a cute Cool Gear can/bottle/cup thing also found at Wal-mart but from the year before. 

On to something interesting and a spooky story...

The first Haunted Humpday story I shared this year, I spoke of a creepy being with red eyes that scared the shit out of when I was a little girl. I never knew what the thing was called. A couple of days ago that changed, I think, when I was watching this video, and heard The_Goblin_Queen call things like it "shadow people". She's doing a series on her channel called "The Lady of Haunts". Which is pretty neat, if you want to check it out.

Anyway, I've decided to look into shadow people more in depth and even managed to come up with a plan, ha ha another list, of things I want to research and write about- mostly for personal fancy and interest and probably not for my blog. So that's kind of a stumble upon hey I might not have such a dead end, what the fuck didn't I think of this sort of resolution direction, what have you. 

Spooky story:

Another of my personal experiences comes from when I was a child, around 5 yrs old. I awoke in the middle of the night. I don't remember being scared, but I do remember my two cats, Pandy and Ceaser, and our dog, Obi, curled up on my bed with me. That's kind of a rare thing because Pandy generally hid from me. I was not the nicest human friend to her when we first got her. I am sad to say that I was actually quite mean, but learned that you don't try to pierce the cat's ear with scissors so she can wear earrings like the cats on TV or try to keep her in your closet by tying yarn around her neck and putting her on the high shelf. (I learned how to be a good cat owner very quickly and Pandy and I later had a much better and proper relationship.)

But I digress, it was odd for her to be curled up on my bed, while it wasn't odd for Ceaser and Obi. Still she was there. 

I remember laying there, looking out the window at the big tree in the back yard, watching the tree in the back yard sway to and fro when I heard something roll across the bathroom counter and into the sink with enough force that it did the back and forth motion in the sick twice before settling. I knew exactly what that was, a yellow tractor I'd brought home from my Grandma's house to play with. I'd left it in the bathroom, when I'd been playing with it, in the sink (I liked to play in the water, much to my Mom's annoyance), the evening before, and to make sure it wouldn't get knocked off on the floor, I'd pushed it up into the corner. There was no way it could have moved on its own. Since the animals were in my room, I knew they hadn't done it. My parents were asleep, I heard them both snoring across the hall. That's when I got scared. I remember reaching for Ceaser and closing my eyes tight, hoping I would just go to sleep. At this point, I knew that my Mom had miscarried with my older sister and my younger brother so I remember hoping that it was just one of my siblings coming to play with my toys and oddly enough, I remember hoping they weren't mad at me for getting to have toys while they didn't. 

The next morning, when my Mom woke me up, I went to the bathroom, and guess what was in the sink? My tractor. I took it out of the sink and never left it there again. In fact, I never left it where it could roll across anything ever again. I'm not sure what happened to the tractor. I suppose it made its way back to Grandma's house or got put in with some things to go to the Goodwill.  

Bad Kitty, cold breakfast, leaves falling, and writing

Art work by Joseph Vargo 

At 52 degrees Fahrenheit, this morning is a bit chilly. I've been up since around 7 am this and opened the windows to let in fresh air, but it is only now that it seems the birds are truly waking up. Perhaps my rattling around the kitchen in my efforts to cook breakfast and clean kept the quite. Maybe me yelling at Narcisa to get her claws out of the screens and to stay off the altar frightened them. And maybe my hobbling about outside made them hide. Perhaps not since they've gone silent again. For me its been a semi- productive morning. 

Despite my desire to go back to bed this morning, I got up about 15 minutes before Amanda left for work. I was having really weird and kind of upsetting dreams anyway and didn't really want to return to dream land- especially when it involved me being in India and not being able to go pee even though I was in a bathroom, and having some bad people chasing me, I think because I went to some weird forest and brought brought people/creatures back with me... I am not really 100% clear on that. The forest was in another dimension... Or at least it felt that way.  

Anyway, I was up, brushed my hair, got dressed, and came out to the wreck of the Hesperus- as Amanda's Dad often calls messy houses. Groaning a little, I started coffee and cooking my breakfast. While that as going, I emptied the dishwasher, put in the new load, and started that. Because Narcisa was being a bad cat this morning, I spent some time scolding her, and then cleaning up the mess she made of the altar. She ate one of the pieces of wheat a friend gave us and tried, once again, to run off with some Rowan berries. I also spent a little time picking up the living room before my ankle told me it was time to get off it. Of course by this time my breakfast and cup of coffee were both cold and Narcisa was still getting into and onto things she knows she shouldn't. 

After I ate, I decided to carefully shove my feet into my shoes and go outside to collect a few leaves. No, it probably wasn't the best idea to hobble around the back yard with my ankle the way it is, but I want pretty leaves damn it, and I wanted to check on our pumpkins. We have two green ones and two orange ones. I think I am going to have Amanda pick the orange ones today.

Because I am a list maker, I've made a list of things I would like to get done today. One of those is to do some personal homework. I have two books to read and some writing to do, which I am pretty excited about. My thought was to hole up in my bedroom at my desk, but its so nice out today and the view out of my dining room window is so pretty. Plus the leaves are falling, birds, squirrels, and cats are running about, and Narcisa is naping- finally- on the ottoman. So, I think I will stay in the dining room. 

Now to go along with some of that writing, I am need to start brainstorming what I am going to do for  Magaly Guerrero's Witches in Fiction Challenge. Due on Oct 21st, I think this particular challenge is going to bring about some positive energies through the participants. Sure, we'll be looking at stuff that's harming or rotting the world, but in turn we'll be seeing what each other brings to help heal it and I think that's what's going to heal a little bit. No, it's not going to change the world or fix it but I do think every little bit helps. 

Lastly, I am going to share some crappy pictures taken with my phone. I would have taken them with my good camera but my computer hates the memory card and grrr, I don't want to talk about it. Anyway, here are some pictures.

This morning's list and my coffee- you can get that mug at Wal-Mart, for those of you who want it.

Here is my Autumn/ Halloween Altar, for the moment. Typically we have two pictures on either side of Hern but since we moved the altar over to make room for the TV so we could get the fireplace ready for cooler weather, they haven't gone up again yet. And we need to unplug the air conditioner and do something with the cord. 

I turned the photo of my Grandparents around because my Grandma said she didn't want her picture on the internet some time ago- never mind that I have some beautiful photos of her and my Grandpa that I would proudly share...

Left side of the altar.

And the right side. 

Fall Finally!

It's that time of year again! My favorite time of year, Fall/Autumn. Tomorrow is Mabon and we are heading out of town tomorrow morning to spend it with some friends who couldn't make it up. Tomorrow also happens to be Skoora's 30th birthday.

We finally got the fall/Halloween decor from the garage. I spent most of yesterday putting it up, not because we have so much, we actually don't have much at all, yesterday I was just feeling really bad physically. Thankfully it's not much work to put some window clings up, put faux flowers in in vases, and set up the few little nick-knacks we have. Skorra made a 'haunted doll house' out of cardboard boxes for our Monster High Dolls.

I feel so much better now that that awful medicine is out of my system. Well, at least I feel more like my usual self. Aside from that I've just been tired, but that's kind of become a normal feeling in the last year or so, so I'm not all that worried.

What I am worried about is Yoda-chan, my eldest cat. At first I thought he was having trouble with arthritis he's a 16 year old cat, it's to be expected. But then Galen, my other cat, has been bullying Yoda a lot more than usual and really trying to push his way in closer to me. Which is very strange because he's always been an anti-social ass. Now, I think it's all of the above. Yoda is a pretty clean cat but I haven't really seen him groom lately and he has mats in his fur, several of which I've had to cut out. He also spends most of his time hiding/sulking under my bed. Usually hes out and sitting with me. And he's really pissed because I keep cleaning the litter from his paws. He doesn't seem to understand that peed on litter stuck in his fur and caked around the pads of his feet isn't a good thing and since he insists on back up into where he just peed instead of walking straight on through the litter box, he's going to have to put up with getting his paws washed. I don't want to find cat litter in my ear again or in my hair. He likes to sleep on my pillow sometimes. I am going to see if I can get him to quit pouting and perk up a little and if he doesn't then I need to talk to the vet to see if there is something that can help him feel a little better, more like himself so he can at least fight Galen back.