Spooky Times at Starlings

There hasn't been much time but we have managed to do some spooky things this month to celebrate the season. We decorated, no new decorations but with a new house it was fun to find new places to put them.




















We had  Third Annual Spooky Stories and Carmel Apples Night 


with Los Dominguez.


It was a hit even though I bought poor apples.

My spooky story recommendation  for the year is "The Dream Woman" by Wilke Collins. (Scroll down to #18-22)

 There was pumpkin Carving And last but certainly not least the costumes.

 

Camrock as The Grim Reaper with a homemade paper mache scythe.  He made it all by himself.

 

Boba Fett as Harry Potter.

And Nutmeg as Tinkerbell. 

 

I think might just start referring to her as Tinkerbell.  When the folks at Disney were imagining Tinkerbell in 60 years ago I am sure that they had Nutmeg in mind.

She looks just like she stepped out of the movie 

 

complete with the attitude.

 

This is not Tinkerbell doing the Robot  but Tinkerbell measuring her hips

This is Tinkerbell being really mad at Wendy (the redheaded pirate lass) because Tinkerbell isn't winning a cake in the cake walk.

She has been flitting about for two weeks doing her Tinkerbell imitation and it is good, really, really good.

 

Making the Tinkerbell hair bun was a feat of engineering that I am particularly proud of, it involved mohair yarn, Styrofoam and lots of hairspray.  I made the wings and sewed the costume from a pattern I had in my head but the Disney Store made the light up Tinkerbell shoes.  The only decent thing I have ever seen at that store.

The Fall - Sabbath Leaves

We were standing in the kitchen yesterday afternoon when I looked out the window and witnessed The Fall.  The maple that has been sprinkling leaves for the last few weeks decided to let it all go and  we watched as it rained leaves.  It was magical as so many moments have been this autumn, we stood and watched the yellow rain.  After a while a gust of wind blew through and the leaves fell ever faster.  Now our lawn is covered in a yellow carpet.  A wet carpet as the fall happened just a few hours before a very heavy night of rain.

I am feeling much better this Sabbath day.  This week I have knocked on the door of despair, have had some prayers answered and some prayers I haven't found the answer to yet.  I have regained peace.

I am so grateful for the lovely Indian summer we have had, full of sunny but not hot days; it ALMOST makes up for our nearly non existent summer.  I am glad that it has rained because I need to plant my spring bulbs and the earth was too hard to dig in.  Hopefully the rain has softened it up.

What is a "Demi-Millinery?"

I have been keeping a secret from this blog. 

 

For the last year I have been developing a little place I like to call "The Demi-Millinery."  The Miss Moss Demi-Millinery is a place where I design and craft and sell hair ornaments.

I have so much fun in the demi-millinery and I can't wait until November 13th when I will be packing up the demi-millinery and setting it up again at the Boutique at the Barn. 

I have been out of the craft show scene for a while now but I am ready to jump back in with both feet.

Please stop by The Miss Moss Demi-Millinery to watch it grow.  I have a lot of millinering to do, an appointment for photos and am looking for someone to help me with a logo and cards.  I am expecting great things.

If you are in the area stop by the Boutique at the Barn and say "Hello."

Pumpkining

I got my 2nd BlogHer check, and again I made about 11 cents a day, and even though I should have used that $25  to buy shoes for the kids, Moose said I could do whatever I wanted with it.

Things have been happening on the selling the old house front.  Good things, bad things, disappointing things, stressful things, but things, things that require risky decisions to be made.  All choices are equally risky and safe.

I am not going to say just what because I don't want to jinx it.  I believe God is in control  and has a plan for us that we can't always see but I also believe in jinxing. ( I totally jinxed myself out of getting a big calling recently.  I was certain that it was going to be a BIG one, one with a LOT of responsibility but because I told people that I jinxed myself into one with very, very little responsibility. SWEET!)

I can however relay facts. 

• Fact one, we still own our old house.  
• Fact two, said house is empty.  
• Fact three, we can not afford to pay 2 mortgages next month. 
• Fact four, rental management properties have been spoken to.  
• Fact five, someone is interested in buying said property but since no paperwork has been made it is still only interest and interest doesn't pay the bills.  
• Fact six, November is coming quickly.

So last night as I tossed and turned in my bed while I tossed and turned decisions in my mind I knew exactly what I was going to do with my BlogHer check.  Buy pumpkins.  What better way to soothe mid autumn nerves than with big orange squash?

This morning I put the situation to the kids, I had a $25 limit for pumpkins and the pumpkin farms charge a lot of money for the attractions and the pumpkins and as far as I can tell none of them do what they used to do which was pay a fee to do everything at the farm which includes a pumpkin. So we hashed it out and decided to buy pumpkins at Winco (17 cents per lb.) and go to a pumpkin farm that had free attractions.

 

The main attraction was the "Hay Pyramid"  I even managed to get some pretty decent pictures from the broken camera.

 

 And just when you think it isn't possible to love Boba Fett any more than you already do, I give you....

Boba Fett the Basilisk, complete with hissing.

On the hayride Camrock spun a tale about  how it was really a vehicle taking us to a Zorg prison camp.  In this picture he was singing a song, presumably a prison song?

As we left we bought some apples for a snack and corn for dinner and a full hay bale.  The hay bale will serve 3 purposes; first, Halloween decoration for my porch, second, a target for my avid archer son, and third, dry matter for the garden.

The best part is I still have $5 left over.

Starlings Cinema Presents

 Last Friday we strung a sheet between the trees, borrowed a projector,

 Moved all the furniture out on the porch, popped popcorn, invited all the neighbors,

And watched a movie.

A neighbor said that from across the street it looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting - if there had been home movie projectors then.

Mission accomplished.

I only wish that it got darker earlier in the summer and we could do this all the time.

New Alarm Clock

I am not exactly sure when Boba Fett wakes up but he claims it is like clockwork at a time that is about 2 hours before I generally wake up.

I have been thinking that if I would just get up a little bit earlier I would get more done each day and so I recruited him to be my new alarm clock.

I am sure that this will be very effective because there are a few things you can count on Boba Fett to do, one is to remember things every single day whether you want him to or not,  and the other is to take his responsibilities seriously.

He woke me up this morning just as I asked him to and it was a most unpleasant time.  I regret it already.