Thread: Trying hard to get in the mood...

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It has been a TOUGH couple years...

Started a new job last spring that took me away from my family (and brand new baby boy) for 4 months, and we lived in temporary housing until the week of Halloween... then we moved into a rental house, so we only put out a couple things. First time in 6 years we didn't have our big annual bash, too.

This year, we are still in the rental house and our old house has yet to sell some 16 months later. It has been hard to get into the spirit. Normally I would have been working on a new project and prepping hard in the garage by now. I have yet to do one thing. A few months ago, I went thru my stuff with great intentions but never followed thru.

I haven't even had the stomach to shop around and see what's out there... normally I'm prowling around looking for the first sightings and stalking websites for new releases!

I need some inspiration! Anybody struggling with motivation? I've been wanting to plan our party, but in a new town I'm not sure what type of turnout we'd get, and it would be mostly work associates...

Well, wil, you might want to start looking at this as a "New Beginning". Once the house sells, you'll most likely get another in the general vicinity of where you are now. The visitors you get this year will, if suitably impressed, will follow you to the new place next year...
Don't let it get you down.

I'd say just go to the store and browse in the Halloween aisle..... the magic will return, have faith!

I say Party ON!!.. Make some cool invites ..invite the neibors as a get to know each other!.. We invite the block all ages are welcome .. we also invite the co workers and have even invited some of the spirit workers that we have gotten to know over the years.. have been asked more than once if they can bring a friend .. We say bring them on over.. costumes a must and also make it a potluck ..Have realy gotten to know those who live around me better and when we get to loud ....well not much of a problem when the whole block is at my house ..!

I advise you not splurge on anything until you know for sure what you want to be doing this year. You obvioulsy know your work associates better than we do, if you don't believe there would be much of a turn out, perhaps it's not worth persuing this year. I blew a bunch of money on a party one year that never happened due to too many schedule conflicts. Weigh the pros and cons, if you do decide to throw a party the best inspiration comes from selecting a theme, and we have no shortage of theme ideas on this forum lol.
Hope that helps some!

Co-workers are all pretty cool (well, mostly) and would at least act like they would come. I get the vibe there would be a lot of last-minute de-comits as schedules change.

Our neighbor are awesome. They invited us to a huge block party last year on HW night, among other things. I can see them coming to a party, but they also all have lots of kids... which makes scheduling tough, as they pretty much seem to use the same sitters.

My invites are ALWAYS awesome. ;-) In the past, we have done a mix of email and mailed postcards very professionally designed by MOI.

Will start putting together some guest lists and see if I can get a vibe from them during conversations at work. (I did win $50 in the work deco contest last year...so they know I'm into it.)

Don't fret over the house not selling, things are looking up and it is just a matter of time before yours will to. We had three houses up for sale on our street for 16 months, then last month they all sold, one right after another.

Beyond that, the best advice I can give is to keep coming back here and seeing the cool stuff that people post. It keeps me motivated! Hoping to show off my latest creation in the next week!

I've been beyond rut....Things were so bad last winter with things happening in my life for a few years that was beyond my control that I went a little nuts to the point I BURNED many props and the facade over a few days time and felt things couldn't possibly be worse....Things get pretty bad when you get to that point and I still get down or down right angry sometimes because of the circumstances but the one thing I think I'm learning out of many from that experience is THE SITUATION DOESN'T LAST FOREVER...That's what you should take from this....I know what it feels like, like it's not going to change back for sure....If you don't have a party or decorate this year...I'd HIGHLY suggest making a date to go to the local haunted house or maybe a ghost tour...Or better yet both...It gives you something to look forward to and it gives you a way to celebrate the holiday so it doesn't feel like you missed out all together....ZR

Eventually the house will sell, but right now we are priced at our break even point. Ugh.

We were one of those stupid people who had a home equity line and then saw our house value drop by around $60k.

I did go to Netherworld here in ATL last year via a group event here. Only 3 of us showed up, though! Maybe this year will be nicer.

We set up Hallowindow and some black light ghouls in all the windows and got tons of comments on it... if they only knew. HA. I pulled out the pneumatic stuff but since I didn't have time to test it and tweak it, I just canned it for 2008.

Just watched a Home Improvement HW episode... so I'm getting a little more stoked!

I totally understand lack of motivation!
My youngest son graduated this year, thus ending my 17 year career as a full-time school volunteer, so now I have all the time in the world! Cool, right? Well, it has been a crappy year for us on all sorts of levels, and I have gone into "crawl in a hole and stay there" mode.
Not much happening in the ol' project room, even though I had great intentions.
I get where you're coming from, believe me.