Halloween Construction Paper Drawings

The extent of my decorations this year...

The cat with the spiky tail and the robot are my favorites, though the ghost's eyes are the inspiration for my upcoming Dead Bride costume.

Have a great Halloween!  --Lu

Shall I share the magical how to do your hair videos?

I shall, indeed.

In case you need some serious hairdo help for your Halloween costume.

Love,
Your New Life Coach
Lu

The secret to big hair:



Quick updo.

More hair rat.  (you've always wanted a rat!)

Marie Antoinette (seriously, there is enough room in there for a three layer cake!)

Poof you're a frog!

For the FP's Halloween carnival last night, I dressed up as a Fairy Godmother.  Five yards of tulle, one yard of silver mesh, 2 yards of satin ribbon, a poofy white skirt, a sparkly necklace from an estate sale, and a bunch of glitter eyeshadow...now that's my idea of a great costume!

The shoes, however, were my pride and joy.  And now, I share them with you.  Sadly, there are no "before" pictures, so just imagine with me that there is a pair of Very Pink high heels before you (straight off the shelves at Goodwill).  And with a wave of my tinfoil covered cardboard and dowel wand....

These shoes are the results of silver screen print paint, copious quantities of silver glitter, plastic "jewels" and modge podge.  (And that's the wand making an appearance there at the top of the photos).

In a stroke of I'm-trying-to-sleep-but-my-brain-won't-turn-off inspiration: it came to me that I should hand out "wishes"--gifts I might bestow on people if I really were their fairy godmother.

"Broccoli will taste like candy to you."

"Your bike tires will never go flat."

"You will find buried treasure."

"Your breath will never be stinky again."

"You'll never have to cut your toenails."

"You'll never be kidnapped by pirates."

And if you were here, I'd bestow just such a wish on you.  POOF!  --Lu

Yet another reason why watching the Food Network during workouts is such a good idea

This is the Barefoot Contessa's Easy Cheese Danish. (I would have included a picture of the ones I made, but my camera is hiding from me and only the burned ones are left. Which reminds me: if you have two cookie sheets in at a time, watch the bottom one Very Carefully.)

I thought I had orange zest in my freezer (to substitute for the lemon zest) but I didn't, so I used a teaspoonfulish of orange juice instead. So, so, so delicious. The consensus was that adding a bit of jam to the filling would have been a good idea, though I think they taste wonderful plain too.
--Lu

typophile

I happened to run across this video that makes use of squash, jello, cool aid, incense, ham, and purple fur...wow. (note: "Everything in the film is real – no CG effects!")

(image from byu.edu homepage)

In which I wonder, "Did he just threaten to shoot us?"

And I quote The Rock:
"Our bike ride today was somewhat typical of our rides. We explored new territory, exhausted ourselves, returned the people who came with us in no more than two pieces, and ran into machine gun toting militias. Maybe it's the first time we ran into machine gun toting militias."

Let me explain. We rode out of the FP along a Very Rough dirt road for many miles. And then there was a gate. With the sign: Private Property, No Trespassing.

I'd heard there was a group of gun happy, compound loving types out along some road, and I joked that maybe this was the place. Turns out, I was right.

The Rock and his coworker had the guts to approach the compound to ask permission to cross their land. They called out as they approached the Bunker (for lack of a better name), upon which a man exited with a Large Gun in hand and cocked it. (also, the Bunker did have a large amount of weaponry inside it. Just FYI).

At this point The Rock was thinking, "Great. Now we're going to get yelled at."

No joke.

I would have been thinking, "Great. I'm going to die."

That's why he was sent as the liason, not me.

At this point another man exited and was quite friendly, saying, "We don't want you riding back the way you came, you'll just get lost. Sure, you can use our road."

Wasn't that nice of him?

We got a ways down the road (it was smooth, smooth, downhill) when The Rock's tire blew. He was all for walking the rest of the way ("I want to get off their land as soon as possible") but somehow he ended up changing the tire.

At this point we heard a vehicle approaching, which raised my heart beat a little because, well, the Gun People were coming.

A man in a Ranger pulled up next to us, asked what the matter was, listened to our tale about the flat tire, then with no prelude, lifted up a sleek handgun with a silencer attached to it (I knew what that was before he told us because, thank you, I haven't been watching Jason Bourne all these years for nothing.)

He held the gun up and out, pointed directly away from us so we all could see and said something to the effect of, "Ever seen one of these before?" in a voice that conveyed that probably this was more than just an idle question.

Imagine now the moment of awkward (and tense) silence that followed, because, hey, we've all been watching Jason Bourne for years now, and we know what happens when the silencers are on. And it's not deer hunting.

At that point I wondered, "Is he actually threatening us?"

Then he fired it. (away from us, thankfully.)

It was plenty quiet, I'll tell you that.

He must have sensed our discomfort because he made some comment about how those silenced guns are extra dangerous around kids who don't think they're harmful because they're so quiet. (which, also, sounds like an indirect threat.) Whatever, man. I just want out of here. Now.

Then he joked about blowing things up (such as a refrigerator) and the tension broke.

Then the real show and tell began: he pulled out a Big Gun. This time no fear inducing question accompanied the presentation of the gun. Our eyes goggled at the Fully Automatic M16 with sweet laser scopes, etc. And I will tell you, it is too heavy for my weakling arms to hold upright for very long.


(p.s. Go me for picking the cheesiest pose imaginable when holding a gun like that. I was happy to crop it for your viewing pleasure.)


So, what started out as a semi-frightening situation turned into one in which all the members of our party wondered, "Can we come out here and watch you blow up refrigerators, shoot your sweet sweet guns, and maybe even take a ride in your helicopters?" Because it turns out we all have a little bit of the Gun Compound Militia gene in us. --Lu

Tune for Autumn