Tis the Halloween Season

Halloween is our favorite. 

We dress up as a family every year. 

We were the characters from Grease last year.

It's a whole thing we're known for.

But we really haven't been big on decorating for Halloween. 

We aren't into the scary scene of the holiday.

We have new neighbors with two little boys that come over and make Monte and I want to be better at all the fun things, including decorating for Halloween.

Monte has ALWAYS wanted inflatables for our yard for Christmas.

Not anything subtle, 

if an inflatable could be subtle.

No, Monte wants the Santa riding a motorcycle inflatable. 

Does Santa have tattoos?

Or Santa hanging out of the door of an Airstream inflatable.

Neither have ever fit into my outdoor decoration plan for the Christmas holiday.

The last few years, we've noticed a big decline in trick or treaters at our house.

We are close to the end of our street and I think kids have been turning around instead of walking all the way down to our end.

Monte suggested we needed something 

big, 

in the yard, 

a visual perhaps, 

to get the kids excited to keep on walking.

An inflatable.

I agreed only if I got to pick it out.

It's the only one that made sense.

Especially sense I found Monte looking at this one on display at a store months ago.

I can't even.
Too many questions.

We've been waiting forever to put up the dinosaur and decided this weekend was the time.

My parents were in town so my dad helped Monte.

He's 7 feet tall and lights up at night.

Our neighbors told their kids Monte is inside the inflatable.

I also decided to paint a few boards to decorate the front of the house.

I picked up precut four foot boards from Lowe's and painted them black.

I printed out one letter per page and used an exact knife to cut them out.

I thought I would stencil the letters but I didn't use card stock and thought the computer paper would let the paint bleed. I just traced the letters I cut out with a gel pen and then painted them white.

I propped the boards up on either side of my front door.

I also decided to make a new wreath out of eyeballs that I ordered from Amazon.

Note:  the eyeballs came with four Halloween plastic cups. 

I think I unknowingly ordered a spooky beer pong set.

I hot glued the eyeballs to a grapevine wreath I already had.

Yes, we still have the ancient door with the three windows.

It's been a big hit.

We decided to carve our pumpkins Friday night since the squirrels had already started.

Ellie decided to paint hers and one for McDaniel who is away at college.

She used glow in the dark paint for the BOO.
 I keep forgetting to look to see it glowing at night.

It's candy corn!

Monte went with the Kit Kat commercial carving design. You know, the whole "I'm sorry for what I did to your face" one.

Monte's

Kit Kat's.

I attempted to carve a T-Rex head and was really sorry for what I did to his face until I saw it lit up.

Then I wasn't sorry at all.

We had a bit of wind last night and Ellie and I decided to watch the inflatable since Monte was running an errand.  When we watched him do the splits, we decided it would be a good idea for him to spend the night in the garage so he wouldn't end up blowing all over the neighborhood looking like a Macy's Day Parade float.

On top of being the house with the inflatable, Monte also insisted on buying full size candy bars to hand out this year.

It's on, Halloween! We are ready!!

What's Really Scary

The other night Ellie walked out of the bathroom and casually mentioned we had an ant problem.

I remember seeing one teeny tiny ant during a shower once or twice the week before but clearly nothing that prompted me to dig out the ant traps

When I walked into the bathroom the vanity was COVERED.

As in, the whiteness of the porcelain was darkened 

by the immense number of the ant masses.

Translation:  there were 4 billion ants.

I have NO IDEA where they came from 

as there's no window in there.

Can ants climb up drains?!

In my shock and horror I grabbed what was nearby.

A bottle of rubbing alcohol. 

I started pouring it on the army of ants and once I saw its effectiveness,

 I. MADE. IT. RAIN. 

all up in the bathroom with the rubbing alcohol.

I wiped up the carnage as Monte laid out a few ant traps.

The next morning I flipped on the light in the bathroom to find a circle of ants surrounding the ant trap.

Since the ant circle was about 4 inches from the trap, I assumed they were dead.

Then I took closer look.

They weren't dead at all, but seemed to be MARCHING IN PLACE,

in a circle

surrounding the poison filled ant trap.

I'm pretty positive there was chanting 

the human ear could not pick up.

I'm not sure what your take away would be upon finding such a sight on your vanity first thing in the morning, 

but it felt DEMONIC to me.

SOURCE

I grabbed a spray bottle of bleach and squirted every inch of the bathroom. Then I followed it up with another rubbing alcohol rain.

Not today Satan.

Not today.

Monte came in and said the smell was getting toxic and my face was intensely red.

I forgot I had prayer group that morning and needed to change and start the coffee.

It was mentioned that it smelled "bleachy" in the house.

I just wanted it to smell like ant death.

Monte and I were walking on our street later that evening and saw all the Halloween decorations:

skeletons, 

ghosts, 

big spiders 

and spider webs.

Why aren't ants a Halloween decoration? 

They are no less creepy.

And no less welcome in our homes.

On top of it all, a few nights later I saw a mouse scurry across the kitchen and duck under the stove.

I have to admit, 

I was somewhat relieved 

it didn't have a long tail.

Monte was out of town.

Earlier that same day, I had to pull out a cheese cube from Nigel's throat.

As it turns out, when you hear what you think is a quack coming from your dog, 

he's not imitating Donald Duck, he's choking.

A few days later, Nigel peed on the cream rug in the family room 

RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

Monte was still out of town.

If I walk upstairs right now and find ants covering my bathroom vanity again, 

I am going to put out a Haunted House sign 

and charge admission.

Come see the horrors of a demonic ant army in the bathroom!

Come see a crazy lady making it rain poison in her pajamas 
to kill the demonic ant army!

Watch out for what lurks underneath the kitchen stove!

Beware of the stink in the basement--if you're lucky, it just might be two huge dead rats in the dryer vent again!

Come use the hairbrushes of our not once, not twice, not thrice but FOUR times lice-infested family!

Watch your step! You never know where the ghost of the quacking dog has decided to leave his mark!

At this point if a zombie or a ghost walked into the house right now, I'd tell them to 

GET IN LINE.

I've got much scarier things to attend to.

Something to Chew On

Monte and I had lunch together recently. The steak in my salad was super tough and I had to keep giving up on the pieces that my teeth could not get through.

Monte was too busy devouring his fried chicken to notice my meat struggles.

Until he did.

He commented on the grossness of the "masticated meat" I piled up near my plate.

Who says masticated?

It has a super inappropriate vibe to it 

for a word that simply means chewing.

Monte said it would make a great band name.

Would you wait in line to go see Masticated Meat on a Friday night?

He reminded me of a band bus we saw outside the venue where our friend got married many years ago.

The band name printed in big letters on the side of the bus was Dilated Peoples.

Can you imagine Masticated Meat opening up for Dilated Peoples?

Monte could.

And he'd go.

Mainly for the t-shirt.

We named other bands we remembered from living in Atlanta:

Betty's Not a Vitamin

and Kathleen Turner Overdrive.

We never saw either one in concert 

but appreciated their creative effort 

when selecting a name.

It made me think of all the memorable names of nail polish colors:

I'm Not Just a Waitress.

My Chihuahua Bites.

Aphrodite's Pink Nightie.

I wondered out loud if I'd every select Masticated Meat for a nice brown Fall color for my toes.

Nope.

Not a chance.

All the Things

I'm not sure why this month has been so incredibly busy.

Probably because I've yet again over committed myself.

And just when I thought 

I was making strides in that area.

Here are some things that have happened, I like or I found funny.

Back in September a big box arrived on our doorstep.

I called Monte to ask what he ordered.

He said not to open it since it was a birthday present for me that wasn't supposed to come until October.

Which is weird because I had not dropped a single hint 

about anything that I wanted for my birthday

mainly because it's not until November.

When Monte got home from work he said he was just too excited to wait and wanted me to open the present now.

So I did.

This is what I found.

Monte bought me a Jurassic World robot raptor.

It is a complex robot with a remote control that you "train" 

with clicks and commands and pushing of buttons 

and saying of things and touches, etc.

There are levels of actions to achieve 

once the basics have been taught and learned.

I never knew what was happening.

Sometimes it would just give us the side eye slowly and Monte said, 

"I feel like he's going to turn on us one day."

Which is how I feel about most technology.

I did scratch its head and under its chin when it did what I wanted and it made Nigel furious.

He'd run into my side hard with his nose as if to remind me that he still existed.

Nigel, not the robot dinosaur.

He alternated between being afraid of the raptor to challenging it with the same hate-filled intensity he saves for the mailman and the vacuum.

Nigel in the other room trying to decide what to think of this robot dinosaur.

Nigel retreating because the robot dinosaur moved.

Nigel safely hating the robot dinosaur from underneath my desk.

He got a hold of the robot dinosaur's tail once.

The toy quickly proved to be WAY too complicated for me.

I was at a neighborhood gathering when I told the mother of a kindergartner who loves dinosaurs about the toy. She asked for a link which I had to get from Monte.

It was only then that I discovered the price.

Monte spent $250 on a toy!

For me.

That I didn't ask for.

What in the Jurassic World?!

He defended himself by saying it was going to be the Tickle Me Elmo this Christmas and we could always sell it.

A few days later I was having lunch with a friend and the overpriced robot dino came up.

Her daughter LOVES dinosaurs AND robots and was old enough to really put the time in to learn and enjoy the toy.

I told her I'd talk to Monte and sell it to her if he gave me the ok.

He did.

He admitted he'd saved the box 

in case this happened.

Our friend's daughter LOVES the toy and calls it her comfort raptor.

Nigel is MUCH happier.

Monte grumbled only once when he realized 

the going rate for the raptor on eBay.

Speaking of dinosaurs, I had a dream the other night that I was being served dinosaur.

As an entree.

To eat.

I don't recall it being in rib form.
Or even where I was.

I woke up the next morning and asked Monte if dinosaurs were white or red meat?

More steak or chicken?

He didn't weigh in but commented,

"So you're eating them now?"

Days later, I took the question to girlfriends and we decided that if the prehistoric alligator meat was white and tasted like chicken, dinosaurs probably did too.

Ok. While looking for the Fred Flintstone rib picture above, 

I found a link to an oddly extensive article about which dinosaurs 

would taste best.

Apparently, it's the ankylosaurus for the juicy white meat win.

How. Could. Anyone. Really. Know?

Not long ago, a friend got lost coming back from another friend's lake house. There was construction so she was forced to take back roads rather than the interstate. She was very low on gas.

She called me in distress. I was on the road home too but found a way to get back to the interstate. I told her to call our friend back at the lake house who knew the back roads and I could possibly catch up to her since I was making good time on the interstate.

My stomach hurt with each mile I didn't hear from her. In my head I worked out how I'd find a gas station, buy a container and get gas to take to her on whatever country road she was lost on.

Another friend called to say she'd found a gas station and was on the right road for home.

Thank goodness!

It wasn't until the next morning that I realized I was almost out of gas myself!

In conclusion, I'm probably not the best first call in an emergency situation.

Our pastor retired after 24 years and I helped make and set up decorations for a celebration party. It was a fiesta theme.

Monte helped me set up the day before and the ground was soft from a lot of rain the week earlier. I was busy looking where to hang lanterns instead of holding the step ladder like he asked me when he fell.

He jumped up super quick after the fall and kinda hopped around trying to see if he was ok.

I could see the dirt on his back as he was hopping and I lost it.

Someone else walked up and asked if he was ok.

I couldn't pull it together for awhile.

Falling will always be funny to me.

The party was such a good time.

I am not sure what a shark hat has to do with a fiesta.

On a completely different note,

we are thoroughly enjoying the new show God Friended Me.

It's about an atheist podcaster who accepts a Facebook friend request from God and all that happens as a result.

I really like it.

COMPLETELY different from the above, is a show on Amazon Prime called Forever.

Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen star in this weird, bizarrely slow show that I can't help but be intrigued by.

The language is unnecessarily bad but the subject matter is interesting enough 

that I need other people to watch it so I can talk about it.

DO NOT read anything about it before you watch or it will spoil some significant plot points that I think are better to discover on your own while they are happening.

Switching gears again, 

I am LOVING Lauren Daigle's album Look Up Child.

I got to see her in concert last week and her voice is so good live. She's like a hippie Adele.

I'm also enjoying Tori Kelly's album Hiding Place.

Wow, can she sing!

McDaniel came home last weekend. We hadn't seen her since we moved her back in August.

She called before she left to say that all her roommates (five girls live in her townhouse) had lice.

In fact, most of the people she hung out with had lice.

She told me she was going to drive to a lice center nearby that only took cash and needed money asap.

We'd been to this lice rodeo before.

Too. Many. Times.

Why? Why of all the weekends it had to be the one she planned on coming home?!

I kept texting her for updates and she kept saying the line at the lice center was super long.

I worried it was going to be super late when she got home.

She surprised us by walking in before it was even dark with a report that she did not have lice.

I didn't even understand these words because I'd never heard them before.

Lice love Hartranfts.

The guy at the center took one look at her hair in a bun and asked if she wore it like that a lot.

She said she did and he said that just may have saved her from the menacing lice.

So, yay for messy buns!

And WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD US THIS NUGGET OF GOLD BEFORE NOW?!

McDaniel was here for one short weekend and scared us with the possibility of lice, ruined our bath mat with red nail polish and then left her wallet in a Target sack that I found on the bathroom floor hours after she left.

But it was so good to see her and hug her lice free neck.