How did you celebrate the season today?

Photo by sean dreilinger, from Flickr

A cool and rainy Saturday. After going out for dinner with friends, I noticed there was a Michaels store next to the restaurant, and we went in for a look at the Halloween and Christmas items. Saw all the Lemax Spooky Town items — the haunted pirate ship, the House of Wax, the witches "carpooling" on a broom, etc. Thought about buying a yard sign, but instead bought a sealant to spray on pumpkins after I paint them (the paint on last year's jack-o'-lanterns flaked after a while). When we got home, I kept the door open because the cool autumn air felt refreshing.

I looked through all my photos of things I bought for my costume party haunt and made a folder for each room and labeled the theme for each. I moved all the photos into the correct folders and left on for Unassigned for things I am not sure about yet. Even though I have a nice notebook with all kinds of lists and plans and I update it as i go, this visual helped me to sort things out.

I also went to my favorite thrift store, but didn't find anything for once. I stopped by the Salvation Army Family Store in an adjoining town and did buy some ghost tinsel that is cute. Thee were two really long pieces of it. It is black with little white ghosts. I got both for $1. I will use it in my bedroom Ghost Motel. I also bought the cutest wooden skeleton. He has arms and legs that are jointed. He had one arm unattached so she let me have it for $1. I came home and used a white twisty tie to reattach it. There were already small holes where it had come undone and the ties worked great and since it was white, it blended right in.

I then stopped by CVS and bought a couple of ghouls that hang. They are pretty cool and were on sale for 25% off, so they were under $5 each. I will probably hang them in a tree or on the screened porch. I picked up a few other things at the dollar stores to use.

It was a nice cool and fall feeling day.

Well, Tuesday (Sept 29th) was the big "pumpkin delivery day" at Central Market. Truck loads of beautiful pumpkins came in and I was there with a nice warm coffee to enjoy the whole thing. Literally tons and tons of perfect, happy orange and white pumpkins.

I had that glee a child at the pet store has when looking at puppies -- I wanted to take them all home.

Thursday, Oct 1st, I was sick!! I had people calling me throughout the day asking if they should come over and help set up, but I was just too sick to be of any good. I even called into work and told them I was sick -- and I only do that one every two or three years!

I felt better on Friday and went straight back to painting props and pulling orange bins down from the attic. I got all the Halloween shirts out and sorted them for the girls to start wearing to school. My six year old has the most right now. (I think she can wear a different shirt Halloween every day in October!)

Yesterday was spent decorating the interior and more prop painting outside.

Today (Sunday) I'm taking the whole family back to Central Market for family pics in front of the pumpkins. Here's are family pic from last year: