My December

 

 How's your December been?

I've been away from here too long...

This post may make sense or not...nothing really seems to lately.

 My birthday was a couple days ago..

I had a nice time..

I even splurged and had chocolate mousse cake.

  I don't know about you, 

but I always mark the year by my birthday.

It is your very own New Year after all.

This year for me has been one of many losses.

Situations that I thought I would not survive if they came to pass,  started to happen.

 It began last December 29th, when my father passed away.

His illness began in 2011, so wrapping my mind around

his eventual demise was extremely difficult.

I was so focused on his dying that I neglected many of the living. 

 It was fast as far as this particular illness goes.

I'm grateful his suffering is over.

 We lost many beloved pets

this year too...

We went from having eight cats

 to two in a matter of days really.

Compared to my dad's passing you'd think it

wouldn't hurt so much

but it really did. 

As you know, my daughter moved away

for school... 

she left and and my niece went with her.

They aren't very far away

but their absence is palpable in this house.

 I'm proud of them.

But...

There's no arguing,

 no piano,

 no arpeggios flying though the rooms.

Just a lot of quiet.

I also lost an old friend

we shared many experiences,

And all the emotions that go along with any relationship.

Happiness, sadness, joy, fear, relief, anger, love

All of that is gone. 

If this person even existed at all,

I'm half convinced it was an illusion.

 This house always felt so small

not enough room for everyone and everything.

And I liked it that way..

Did I want a space of my own to do with as I pleased...?

yes of course!

But the bustle and mess were priceless,

for all my complaints about having to clean up

I was pretty OK with it all.

I knew it wouldn't remain that way always.

 

 

I have my little one

and she is my northern star

my lighthouse.

As I am hers.

Our happy adventures are just starting.

This new year is going to be much better than last.

I say a year of loss, but it's more a year of change I guess.

Beginnings not endings.

There will be joy again...

for all that this year has been to me

I will continue to be who I am.

 I'd like to thank everyone

 that has been there for us and offered their

 love, support &  friendship

I'm so very grateful to you.

And if life is feeling off and

pushing you down,

hang on,

magic will find find it's way back to you soon.

 See you really soon :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great Pumpkin weekend

Hi everyone!

How was your weekend?

Mine was awesome.

It started with dinner out on Wednesday,

then we stopped at a pumpkin patch afterwards

 and bought a few over priced pumpkins..

Helena got a chance to visit the mini petting zoo,

So it was worth it.

Then on Thursday

We drove up to Tempe to see my daughter and my niece

to celebrate

 Great Pumpkin Night

and guess what??

The Great Pumpkin

brought me gifts too!

an incredible Frankenstein bag filled with a bunch of goodies!

A stack of spell books cookie jar,

some warm fuzzy socks

 A crystal ball necklace....

 Ouija board planchette earrings...

A gorgeous fleece throw blanket from 

'The book of life' movie...

And this delicious smelling shower gel/lotion gift set,

cause the Great Pumpkin knows I love smelling yummy:)

There was also a bag

 of sugar free chocolate covered peanuts

 that rapidly disappeared  before it could be photographed.

We drove home Saturday and I created this canvas

as a tribute to my parents for Dia de los muertos...

Most of Sunday I spent lying in bed watching 

a marathon of the Gilmore Girls on netflix.

It's been great.

The weather is really cooling down and it puts me in a good mood.

I'll be back here in a few days...

I'm off to buy a cup of caramel coffee!

Have a great week.

Haunted Humpday X

Happy Haunted Humpday!!!

How did it get to this?

The last days of October?

Why is the time flying by so quickly?

All these questions...

the most important being...

do you have enough chocolate for the trick or treaters??
wow, did I used to eat loads of it every October...
just doesn't seem very festive without the candy.

 So what are your plans for Halloween?

I am going to visit my daughter and niece in Tempe

for Great Pumpkin Night!

Great Pumpkin night started 21years ago

when my little one was two.

I don't care for walking around the neighborhood. it's never been safe and most

people just don't participate..So I thought it would be

nice if the tricks and treats came to us.

So on October 31st at midnight

the Great Pumpkin drops off large bags of the best candy and fun toys

to good little girls and boys
(that live in this house)

I really look forward to this tradition,

there's good food, scary stories and spooky music.

Plus I make one very special Halloween gift for each child.

I'm very excited to spend time with my two favorite girls!

(here's a couple of very early photos of them..
they were two and three here)

(three and four here)

I'm really hoping to get back to normal soon...

I love November...

Dia De Los Muertos is in November and that's my second favorite holiday....

And December is my birthday month  so I have to be better by then right??

Thank you for coming by to visit and share.
I really appreciate it.

Have a great week

Happy Halloween!

Haunted Humpday IX

How's eveyone this week?

It's our ninth 

I'm sorry I've been so out of it...

I think I have been over doing a lot lately.

Tonight has been nice...as I sit and type this, I can hear

eerie music coming from the living room...

my niece is visiting and she's carving a pumpkin with Helena.

After it's done we are going to turn off the lights and watch the candle

flame dance inside the creepy jack-o-lantern for a while.

They chose a scary movie and we're having popcorn and cocoa too:)

We did have some good news today

.

Our kitty, Logan was very very ill.

He has asthma and his meds were not working anymore.

We thought his days were coming to a close..

but it turns out he's going to be fine

and we couldn't be more excited.

I still feel weak and I don't really have the appetite I used to...

But I do feel better, thank you all for your well wishes.

How is it only ten days left?

Saturday we are indeed going to the Howl-O-Ween 

event at the zoo.

(cross your fingers)

Helena has decided on being Bloody Mary.

I will be a zombie with a slashed throat

I'll try to remember to take pictures:)

So I'm wondering...did you enjoy the video last week?

This is another one that's pretty good too!

Here's our pumpkin...

they did a great job!

Oh I watched this amazing movie this weekend!!!

It was so good.

If you get a chance, watch it!

Alright!

I'm off to have a cocoa now.

Hope your week is fun.

Humpday VIII

Happy Haunted Humpday!!

Instead of trying to throw together a halfhearted post,

I decided to just let everyone know that 

I'm not really feeling up to it this week:(

There is, however a really good video that I'm hoping you will watch.

Now dim the lights and press play:)

Have a great week.

Humpday VII

Hi everyone!

It's our seventh Haunted Humpday

of the season.

What are your plans for Halloween?

We are probably going to stop by our local zoo..

It's called Howl-O-Ween night

and it's filled with

spooky lighting, decorations, and best of all,
we get to see some of the animals that are nocturnal
while waiting in line for treats:)

I found this recipe on Facebook
& we're making it tomorrow night!!

So how much stock to you put into urban legends?

I know some people that truly and honestly 

believe them.

I think they're pretty fun, most of the time.

One of my favorites is the Bloody Mary story.

Most of you know the tale,

she goes by different names at times,

she was believed to be a witch,or a psychopath, 

or the victim of a terrible car accident.

Either way the ritual is the same..

A darkened room lit only by a few candles, a mirror

a few people with the need to see what shouldn't be seen..   

Everyone says her name three, thirteen or thirty times.
And she is supposed to appear behind you in the mirror.

When I was in school

A few of my friends convinced me to ditch.

We all went over to one of the girl's houses

 where the parents were at work.

I didn't know that the main objective to this

'field trip' was to play this particular game.

We all went into the bathroom

lit a small votive candle in a red glass container.

Then we began the chant.

Bloody Mary 

Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary

I do not remember who began to scream

But the door flew open and they all ran out

leaving me in the damn bathroom alone!

They were all huddled by the sofa

when I walked out.

They all swore that MY eyes had begun to turn red!

I tried telling them that it was most likely the candle container

reflection, but to no avail.

These dummies were convinced that I was turning into 

Bloody Mary!!

" via "

There was a local legend around school

that the tunnels underneath a certain part of town

were haunted by a monster of some sort....

Allegedly these tunnels were only reached by going down a steep wash

and the opening to this tunnel was supposed to be 9 feet in diameter.

People would whisper about how they had traveled down

into these tunnels with a friend once ( a friend no one had ever met) and that friend had disappeared,

never to be found again.

Well of course my band of friends wanted to go explore.

Did I go??

ugh, yup, I did.

It was a bit exciting 

we kept retelling different versions of the tale we had heard.

One was about a kid's head that had been

cut clean off by the scythe of a creature that was in a large chamber miles into the tunnel.

Another was about how there were water falls and large chasms that a person could

drop into and drown surrounded by the skeletons of all the kids

 that had ventured forth into the darkness.

After a long walk down a super steep

dirt covered path

and almost getting eaten by a group of feral cats and maniac ponies, haha

 We got to the opening...

 it was indeed very large at least six feet high

there was a small trickle of water dribbling out...

perfect, we decided who was going to go first, which was important..

and who was going to go last, which was even more important, and scarier.

There were four of us..

First

Isabel

then

 Alex

then

me

then 

Christina.

It was fine...at first.

Then we realized that a flashlight

would have been smart

not a book of matches...

heck, even a lighter would have been better.

Then, the water began to increase.

we had been walking for about half an hour..

the tunnel had been getting smaller and smaller

we were walking single file

and at first we just had our heads down 

but by this time we were 

hunched over.

and we only had six matches left.

As we were talking about how stupid we were

and how it was now past time to turn around we heard a noise

from up ahead.

Lots of water splashing and running...

and a voice

someone calling out in pain!!

sounded like a child to us...

we hurried onward

suddenly realizing that the complete darkness wasn't so dark anymore.

We entered a large room at least 12x12.

it looked like there were grates on the ceiling because there was a very dim

light coming through...

there actually was a waterfall coming from what looked like another tunnel on the far wall..

the floor of the room was just churning and roiling water.

We turned around and began running through the pitch dark tunnel...

no one spoke a word.

All I recall is being hunched over and running through a dark, splashy nightmare of a hallway for what seemed like hours.

We could eventually see a faint  glow coming from around a bend...

the exit!!! At last!!

The outside world was blinding.

It had become overcast while we were in there but it still hurt our eyes.

I'd never been so happy to be standing upright outside!

As we began our journey back through feral cat/maniac pony country,

we started to talk about why we became so frightened.

The cries of whoever we heard in the room had begun to sound like the cries

of an infant...

that's what scared Isabel and Chris..

Alex didn't hear a baby

She thought she saw something else.

she described a very tall figure in the darkest corner of the room..

at least 8 feet tall,

with extra long arms,

 ribs that were exposed,

 it had wild looking hair on a large skeletal head.

We laughed a bit at this and convinced her that it was a trick of the light, 

we'd been in the dark for so long that our nerves were jangled and our eyes

and ears were playing tricks on us.

I was terrified...

It was the exact same thing I had seen.

What absolutely ridiculous escapades did you go on as a kid??
I was 15 when this happened...my mother never found out...
thank all that is holy!!
She would have killed me.

ok
This is it for today...
I'm not 100% better yet:(
Those of you waiting on a giveaway..
rest assured it's on it's way!!!

Have a witchy week!

Haunted Humpday VI, Welcome October!

Welcome to our first 

Haunted Humpday 

of 

October!!!

Such an exciting time of year!

It's cooling off a bit in the evenings now,

we had a low of 59 degrees last night!

You have to remember that our high's hit 112 in July, 

so it was chilly:)

 This Haunted Humpday is a bit abbreviated

due to the fact that I am now recovering from

food poisoning!!

I'm still a little weak

but the Halloween spirit is strong!

How many of you have heard of the Devil's Tree?

It's located in New Jersey.

According to the legend

A farmer killed his entire family then hanged himself

from the tree.

Many suicides and murders have occurred there.

Towns people swear it's a portal to Hell

since for some reason the tree is warm to the touch

and snow will not gather around it.

Allegedly, to touch it, is to invite bad luck into your life.

Several stories talk about how the trunk of the tree 

is scarred from axes and chainsaws..attempts to cut it down

that failed, since death awaits any that may succeed.

One of the defining features of the tree is one low hanging branch

that is parallel to the ground..

this branch, was supposedly used to hang many 

unfortunate people..

 Is there anything like that near 

where you live?

One of my favorite stories from childhood is

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow..

When the cartoon would come out

I knew Halloween was close!

This summer I went to N.J.

& I was able to visit

Sleepy Hollow!

(I had to take a photo of the school.)

It's gorgeous there.

It's so green!

very unlike here, let me tell you.

With many areas just covered in trees, night time there is

very dark and scary...it's very easy to imagine

a  headless ghost riding a giant horse through the woods.

I took loads of photos but my computer is acting up and I can't

seem to find any of them. 

I'd like to show you a few creepy postcards....

And this super cute figurine...there's a teeny pumpkin inside the box.

I guess this story is my favorite because it's one of the very first ones

I remember reading on my own.

look at how adorable and icky these cookies are!!

this first one is created simply by dragging a toothpick

through a still warm from the oven cookie.

This one uses melted chocolate piped on in spider shapes.

When my sisters were little, about six and seven

they shared the back bedroom.

They both had strange things happen to them in there.

One time for example

the younger sister started screaming in the middle of the night

when my parents questioned her she claimed a tall man without a face

Had come out of their wardrobe

and was trying to take her older sister.

 He disappeared when my parents arrived.

One time both girls heard a loud noise coming from the room

when they entered they watched as a small wooden chair moved across the floor on it's own.

As the little sister grew older (and the older sister moved into her own room) she continued to see and hear different things.

She was 13 when she saw the man inside the closet again, this time his entire head was missing.

On different occasions she would come out of that room terrified,

 The light would turn on and off

a dusty, forgotten on a top shelf music box would suddenly start chiming 

Her dog would jump up and growl and bark ferociously at an empty corner of the room

Sometimes she felt as though someone was sitting on the bed and the blankets

would pull off. 

I am now the owner of that same back bedroom

nothing has ever happened to me..(knock on wood)

Oh, I get creeped out occasionally,

 probably due to one of my constant bedfellows  

Stephen King:)

As for the man without a face/head

He resides in another closet most likely...

maybe yours.

Happy October everyone!

(everyone that has a prize coming from me, I've not forgotten you!)