Happy Halloween

After 364 days of toiling and troubling it's finally here, the last witching hour.

Huzzah.

I mean, Yay! So happy and . . .

Okay so after finishing up the last of pumpkin carving yesterday as I was sitting down with a cool glass of apple cider and watching my raven dance in the candle light I started to feel the icy prick of the rhinovirus' claw upon my throat.

About every home and store bought remedy later and here I am in this early morn knee deep in late fall cold territory, dreading all of the decorating that we stupidly put off for today. This isn't the first time I've gotten sick around Halloween, but at least last time it held off until the day after. Exactly the day after in fact.

But ignore me, I'm sure you're just here for pictures. Sadly we don't have many/anything yet. I can show off pumpkins though.

This is the first year my husband wanted to try sculpting a pumpkin (too much Halloween Wars rots the brain apparently):

I had some insane plan to paint one of my tree forests then carve around it with the Dremel. I was coated from head to toe in tiny pumpkin guts flung about like blood on the set of Dexter.

At one point I even rigged up a makeshift smock by cutting three holes into a trash bag. I had to stop when my glasses got so coated I couldn't see.

This is why I leave the carving/sculpting stuff to my husband and sit happily in my paint room slapping pigment on canvas.

And because we still have one pumpkin left I carved out the dragon from Dragon Age, painted a bit of red around it and called it good.

Pumpkin carving does not condone itself well to mid 60 temps, the things were getting gooey and rotting so fast you could feel it while slicing into the bloody thing.

Happy Halloween. Now where'd I put that pseudoephedrine?

Edited to add: Even though I'm still dragging godzilla tail I decided to put my makeup skills to work today:

Essie's Costume

As has become a yearly tradition today my husband and I headed to the dog park with our puppy decked out in her Halloween costume and I took about a billion pictures.

The terrifying thing is she actually likes her costume, when I pulled it out her tail started wagging harder than usual, she grabbed a ball and pranced around until I put it on her. My dog is clearly barking mad.

Meet Mr Headless Horseman.

 Hang on tight!

 He has a bit of trouble keeping his cape behind him, luckily he doesn't have any eyes for it to get in the way of.

 Throw the ball, come on throw the ball. Yes yes, I know mom's taking pictures but THROW THE BALL!

 I swear my dog isn't usually this rabid, well about anything other than her tennis ball anyway.

And because half the fun is watching the Horseman bounce back and forth in action:

Happy Halloween Eve!

Halloween Bash Introverted Style

Due to my proximity to all that hip haunter lingo I know quite a lot of random facts and ideas that would probably cause any normal person to turn funny colors and make loud gasping noises. Or maybe I should lower the dose on my Cinnamon & Arsenic cookies.

My husband and I could throw the rockingest Halloween party if we weren't one step away from perpetual hermitude with a penchant for wailing uncontrollably about how unclean our cave is. But I see no reason to not share with all of you so you can put some of my info to good use and so you won't steal all of my Juniper berries.

The Watermelon

When my mother showed up for the Fear Crafters Ball she didn't just bring herself, a costume and her purse large enough to smuggle in an Oompa Loompa.

At first two pumpkins appeared, unexpected but useful given the season and my love of roasted seeds.

Then came the watermelon to kill all watermelon and eat their seeds while their mothers watched.

There are a lot of things I never ask with my mother just smile and nod and then work to fix/change whatever giant mess she just made. Neither I nor my husband like watermelon much less want to eat a fridge filling gargantuan out of season.

So, after putting up with it for a few days hogging the whole shelf and making sure I can't get at the mayonnaise it was finally time and what better way than this:

Essie wanted to join in the fun herself:

Thus passed the unwanted watermelon.

Best Mac & Cheese

Back when my husband was a practicing catholic (As opposed to a performing one, I guess) I spent quite a bit of hair pulling trying to come up with meatless dishes during Lent. Being Methodist myself and only having a vague idea of these things called fish frys (fries? freeze?) I feel back on some classic recipes, one of them being Macaroni and Cheese.

There were a lot of false starts, the worst of which involved a shit ton of onion and was still the worst thing I have ever made for dinner. It was like eating an onion vaguely flavored with cheese and noodles. Blech.

But then, salvation, I found a simple recipe for some of the ooiest gooiest mac & cheese to ever grace the lips of a pretend Lenter.

The trick is to barely cook the macaroni and let that soak up the cream/milk over night.

First, move your ground breaker who was getting minor surgery off the kitchen counter.

Fear Crafters Costume Ball

This weekend Was the First (maybe) Annual Fear Crafters Ball.

And just what is the First Annual (Oh god) Fear Crafters Ball?

Well I'm glad you asked and since I have you hostage you have to listen, it was a crazy idea the leaders of our little Halloween club had way back in February or so when Richard and I were off in Detroit.

It started as this huge plan to decorate and throw a swinging Halloween party with the proceeds going to a local charity. People had insane dreams of packing the house, of covering the hall in all manner of Halloween decor and transforming it into a haunted house and raising enough money to power Bill Gates house for one day.

You can probably guess where this is going so I'll skip over all that and get to the pretty pictures.

First, to get it out of the way early mine and my husband's costumes. Everyone always wants to know what you're going as, not say the composition of your tombstones or how tall your bucky skeleton is so let's give the public what they want.

My husband went as Captain Jack Harkness - it's okay if you have no idea who that is.

Complete with Vortex manipulator - Gwen and Ianto sold separately.

And I went as an elf. Technically a Dalish elf but not a specific one. It started as me really just wanting to be a dual wielding rogue, realizing that well people might get an elf and then sticking some face tattoos on.

Now let's get to the good stuff

Halloween Wars - The Finale

We may have had to leave our one minority friend in the stalled car, break open the door to an abandoned fun house, hide in a pile of used clown hankies and then fall through the giant gaping hole in the floor anyone can see after our boyfriend was disemboweled for daring to have sex but we finally made it.

I can see the end of Halloween Wars in sight.

Companion Cube

 I choose Anders, Varric and the Cube to tank for us all.

One more Christmas Card for the Halloween fan.

Dig your own grave and save

When one is in the halloween mood and wishes to create a graveyard on their property without the hassle of digging up their lawn or embalming a few of their more unloved relatives one looks to easy and quick grave like solutions.

All you need is a brown towel, a bag of potting soil and spray adhesive for your very own recently dug grave.

Spread your towel out in a well ventilated and easy to clean up area.

I hope you're not too attached to it. Grab the spray adhesive and cover that sucker in great big gobs of greasy grimey horse hooves.

Now dump your potting soil.

Leave it out to dry for a few hours, maybe add a few leaves here and there and soon you'll have a recently dug grave as awesome as this:

Once Halloween is over just roll it up and wait for next year.

Doggies in Pajamas Are Coming Down the Stairs

Being the humoring owner of a sociopath on four legs there are times when to keep from snapping I like to embarrass the hell out of my dog to laugh instead of tearing my hair out in bloody chunks.

This started last year when at one of those "Please dear god just take this crap away" after christmas sales we found a dog sweater in an ugly green for $2. Thinking it'd be hilarious to put it on Essie, take some pictures and laugh for a while we got it and put it on her.

Then the shocker.

She loves the bloody thing. To the point where she fights us if we try to take it off. She wears it on walks under her harness, she wears it while rolling out on the snow, she wears it on trains in planes and while eating green eggs and ham.

Which is why my 50 lb Labrador retriever owns three sweaters and after last night a pair of skeleton pajamas.

*sigh*

Geeky Christmas Cards

I know I'm breaking all my laws and traditions and other pointy things that will stab me in the eye for daring to utter the C word before Halloween has even sprung but what can I say, I was issued a challenge.

Sometimes that all it takes to get me down this path, someone wishes for one thing or out pops a curious idea and much like a young child with a little encouragement soon your fridge is covered in Tardis paintings.

For your discerning Lovercraftian friends, a Cthulhu Christmas Card

Don't celebrate Christmas? I got ya covered with a Happy Hogswatch:

(Can you spot the Hogfather in there?)

And for any Whovians the Tardis swings by the North Pole:

Those are all free for one to click, save, print and send to horrified family members.

I also have a set of Servo in the Snow cards for sale if any MSTies have a long list they need to get through.

I make Christmas Cards now, apparently.

Expect more geeky/nerdy goodness to come rolling out as the icy winter wonderland embrace comes upon us all.

Occupy Mordor

Giant glowing eyes are the 1%.

How the Time's Flown

Has it really been three years since I turned mutant green and battled Frankenstein's and Chucky's Brides?

Or my husband grew a paint mustache and started ruling small made up countries after shooting elephants in his pajamas?

 If you have no idea what I'm talking about those would be some of the pictures from that wedding thing we all slapped together three years ago (If you don't care I'll release a bunch of endorphins so you won't notice).

And now that I've been married for a whole three years I think I can finally dispense with advice that is certain to fit every single couple out there regardless of life, liberty or levels of pudding.

1. It is best to consider yourselves working together on a team, striving to save the world in your underwear. But every great hero needs an arch-nemesis. Sadly you cannot pick up a giant brained blue guy at the pound but you can get a dog. She'll push every button both of you have and weasel her way into trying to destroy every last vestige of life you once held dear. But knowing that it's you and your spouse against the monster will bring you even closer together than before.
2. Separate blankets. It makes doing laundry a bigger pill but if one of you likes to be warm and the other tends throw all manner of duvet and blanket and fitted sheet onto the floor in the middle of the night, separate blankets are a god send.
3. Duct Tape and Spray Paint can fix just about any hole, fallen side mirror or the fact that grass refuses to grow on the back third of your lawn.
4. Lentils are an excellent source of protein in that you can throw them at someone until they give you their steak.
5. The Cake is a Lie.

There you go, the five big tips to have a perfectly happy marriage (with a few dog vomit covered in duct tape and lentil fight side effects).

Halloween Wars - Week 3

Hello Boys and Ghouls, Crypt Keeper here to replace that dead wood they propped up to host this monstrosity of a halloween show. He wasn't so happy to go but chainsaws make for such wonderful bargaining tools.

Let's get this waste of a perfectly good night I could spend grave robbing started.

Literary Barbies

Anymore it seems if you get enough clicks on Youtube someone is willing to turn you into a doll. And yet for those who prefer say the collected works of the Bronte sisters to the collected work of a Twisted Sister, you're plum out of luck. Until now!

Okay so I've only made three so far and damn if they weren't a pain in the butt. It's that cursed recognizable hair and finding period clothes and that ever present vacant stare with a bit of drool on Ken's chin that gets me every time.

Any votes for a favorite author you want to see immortalized in plastic?

Okay, one more.

Coffin Cake

On top of Redcliffe and the hand that refused to stay buried my husband and I also hit up what appeared to be if someone crashed a Hallmark into a Ben Franklin using a small restaurant and picked up a coffin pan.

Like all baking paraphernalia left in the world this comes from Wilton

The picture on the box and recipe on the back suggested one use brownies, but coffins aren't usually crumbly and made to look like dirt. That's what the grave is for (this edible death analness is why you all love me, yes?), so I tossed the suggestions and hauled out my Evil Cake Overlord Cookbook.

This time I went a bit easier with an Autumn Glory Cake. I also halved everything from the original to fit.

• 1 1/2 cups Cake Flour
• 1 1/8th cups Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon (okay I kept the cinnamon amount the same because I love that stuff)
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
• 1/2 tsp Ground nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 box of instant vanilla pudding mix
• 3 Eggs
• 3/4 cup Water (I used apple cider because I had some around).
• 3/4 cup Butter
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract

I'm sure you know by now mix together all those dry ingredients, add in eggs and water (or cider. . . Mmm, apple cider) mix, then butter and nilla.

I baked my little coffins at 350 for 30 minutes (cakes call for 45-60 minutes) as well as 6 extra cupcakes thanks to left overs and they came out looking like this:

Kind of cute right? Well wait until I extract them.

Is that not the most adorable line of coffins you've ever seen? You just want to scoop them all up and shove them in your mouth.

I'd almost call them done myself but what is cake without frosting? Again I have no technique whatsoever for putting a sugar and egg white mixture on top of delectables so just squint a bit.

I'm almost thinking next time I'll make some red frosting and pipe that into the middle like a bedding but leave the coffin sides unfrosted. The cake is so tasty it really doesn't need that much frosting anyway.

Now to find some unsuspecting Trick-Or-Treaters to unload these babies on.

Zombie Hand Paint Job

Due to the fact my husband and I will be spending our anniversary knee deep in Costume ball decoration for our anniversary we decided to celebrate early.

And what better way than by traveling to the Big City to do some Halloween gawping?

(For the sake of my acting like a slack jawed yokel Omaha is a big city now while Lincoln is just some tiny hole in the wall with three people and 10 cows. You know, the way everyone pictures Nebraska.)

We said goodbye to the dog and were off on a grand adventure of wading around piles of sticky kids who were adorably pushing their noses against the glass waiting for stores to open and not so adorable sticky teenagers.

The trip was mostly a look and savor, neither of us expected to find much of anything but there were a few cool scores. First up was this Lenticular I'd had my eye on for some time from Halloween Express.

I call it Redcliffe. If you have no idea why I call it Redcliffe it's really not worth explaining, but trust me it makes me a giant dork.

Now the really cool thing that I didn't realize from looking online is that it's actually 3D and a pretty good 3D too. It gives a nice slightly more authentic undead coming at you feel that other lenticulars don't have.

But enough about Redcliffe now to get to why you're all really here. The hand.

This zombie hand was only $6. And the details in the sculpture are amazing, not something I'd expect to find for such a low price that's for certain. But that paint job, unless one has an unusually large undead smurf population it simply wouldn't do.

Luckily we have ways to fix that - Mwhahaha ha *cough cough* ha. Okay I'll get to it.

Halloween Wars - Week 2

The amount of Television watching in this house is so sad it actually made those little Nielsen diaries they send to you with five bucks cry a bit and grab it's little hat before Mary Poppinsing out through the chimney.

But come Sunday night, after a week spent scrabbling and crafting finally my husband and I plop down exhausted on the couch and try to zone out to what used to be the most bland offering of the cable line up: The Food Network.

Despite the inevitable slide to EXTREME! DANGER! WHO WILL SURVIVE THIS CHILI COOK OFF WHERE WE MAKE CONTESTANTS EAT LIVE BUGS! every cable channel makes towards  reality hell still we watch it. I hadn't intended to do a recap of any Food network show unless my life depended upon it (a bunch of people enter the stage, they make shit, someone gets money and we all feel a bit dirtier for it) but this is Halloween stuff and I'll happily take the bullet if a spider or witch is involved.

Right off the bat (snicker, I said bat cause it's Halloween and throwing around terrible puns is the best the FN writers can do) you feel slight stinging in your eyes, your skin goes clammy and your short of breath as an ominous voice echoes from poor ADR across the $20 set they stole from some kids play about the Three Little Pigs.

There, your worst fears are realized. Your own personal death is hosting this show:

It's the douchebag from Cupcake Wars, a show much like the Black Death that creeps in on grim reaper wings and next thing you know you're bleeding out of every orifice watching your loved ones convulse, screaming about Red Velvet.

I always wondered what Death looked like. For some reason I never pictured a Sears blazer, spiked hair from a 90's boy band and some of the most excruciating puns this side of a bubble gum wrapper.