Oh My Stars HodgePodge & other stuff

Here I am, catching up again! October is just a busy time for me, I try to get as much Halloween in as possible!

That being said - I've attached links to my other blog for some of the paragraphs.

Daisy avoids everyone in the house - the Spouse says he hardly ever sees her, until I get home.

Then this is their bedtime ritual. She gets up on his pillow and drapes herself across his head so he can pet her. I just put this on here because it's cute.

October 18 was the granddaughter's 5th birthday. She wanted to go to ZooBoo.

Which meant Chuck got to go!

The rescue where Sis1 got her last horse had a H'ween Open House - this was one of the games they had (which we found hilarious!) Toys were hidden in the sawdust in this stall and the kids had to use pitchforks to find the toys.

The grandson is fairly proficient at actually cleaning stalls so he was all over this game!

They also had a bunch of things to raffle off and I won 2 different baskets! One was called "blind date with a book" that came with a fleece blanket, a package of hot cocoa, a box of cookies, a candle and 3 books wrapped as presents. Then the second one - woooeee! It was an ENORMOUS basket filled with baby stuff, all horse-themed! Blankets & onesies & toys & bibs & even a pair of baby cowboy boots! I guess the grandson that's on the way will be set for a while!

My search & rescue team went to the "Top Lights" Trunk or Treat again.

This is the one with all the first responders. It was our first time seeing the new tent.

We ended up putting a second "wall" on because once it began at 6pm, they all flipped their lights on - and we were blinded by the fire truck directly to the left, facing us.

One of my favorite Halloween things to do is go to the school H'ween parade!

The granddaughter is the one laughing right there in front and the grandson is Spiderman in the back.

They start with the kindergarteners and walk around the outside of the school, picking up each grade as they go along. Then the little ones sit outside their classrooms and watch the older kids go by.

My favorite costume (who also happened to be the first kid who came to my house) was a blind referee - full referee uniform, sunglasses & a white cane!

Close second was the kid dressed as a fish taco.

I still have roses blooming.

The Spawn in her costume!

We had the most perfect day for trick or treating! The Spouse and I brought out the fire pit but we didn't even need it! He was sitting in the driveway in a t-shirt and I had a hoodie on.

btw - I don't know where all the kids went, but they didn't come down my street. Probably because hardly anyone ever has lights on and my house is right smack in the middle of the block. Spawn took the kids to the 2 streets to the west of us and had to stop by to drop off the extra bag she'd taken. Both kids had bags like she's holding at they got filled up! Then they went to the 2 streets to the east of us and same thing. Where we may have had 25 kids - which is less than usual.

So by 4:30pm on November 1 - my front yard was bare.

The Spouse & I bother had Monday off work and we got the hard stuff put away - the skeletons require taking a bunch of stuff out of the garage in order to hang them from the rafters. The shack was designed to be foldable for storage, but it weighs 827 lbs so we really needed to be motivated to put that away. All the blowmolds were swapped out with the Christmas ones so they're convenient. We got 2 of those giant totes from Home Depot last year that they advertise as holding a 12 foot skeleton. I don't have one of those, but I have 2 life sized horse skeletons, a pony and a LOT of smaller ones. They were filled.

Last weekend, I went with Mom & the sisters to Ohio to visit the brother again. We left Friday and came home Sunday. We took a lot of scenic routes - like 2 lane, twisty turny roads thru the mountains/hills. Just saying - it was my turn to drive and while I wasn't thrilled with following a tanker truck thru that terrain for 10 or so miles, I really did NOT like one following me! Apparently their terminal / yard / shop / whatever was out in there in the middle of nowhere and somehow I got sandwiched between them. We included a visit to "Tis the Season" which is a year-round Christmas store in the middle of Amish country.

One guess who picked out the signs.....

The grandkids thought since we were gone for 3 days, we were driving the whole time! So we took this pic in front of a Cracker Barrel to show them we weren't driving!

On the way home, we stopped by the Ohio State Reformatory - this is where the movie the Shawshank Redemption was filmed. It's also a former prison and is supposedly haunted. They also do Halloween events there. We didn't go in this time, but we drove around near it. We'll have to go back and take one/some of the tours they offer.

I think I'm more or less caught up. let's get on to the HodgePodge!

Hodgepodge Questions by Joyce at From This Side of the Pond

1. Marilyn texted me something that inspired this question, so thank you Marilyn! Of the following sayings, typically associated with the (American) southern way of speaking, which do you most relate to right now? Explain.

Bless your heart ~ too big for yer britches ~ madder than a wet hen ~ you're preachin' to the choir ~

knee high to a grasshopper ~ oh my stars

Hmmm, I'm married to a southern (from Arkansas) boy, but he doesn't use any of these! However I'm familiar with the sayings. So the one I relate to most is "you're preaching to the choir." I've mentioned the Spawn & grandkids live with us - and it's actually quite a trial. Mainly - they're messy. However I get to scape daily and go to work, but the Spouse works from home. The Spawn doesn't do a whole lot, however she did have a couple interviews this week! Ooo, I went off track. Anyway. he complains to me about her. As if I don't have eyes and can't see the disaster that is our house.

2. The Hodgepodge lands on (US) Veterans Day this year. Are you a veteran? Have a family member who's a veteran? If you answered yes, tell us something about them. Will you do anything to mark the day in some special way?

Yes, I'm a veteran. I did 8 years in the US Navy. My first ship was a submarine tender, so the subs would come alongside and we'd transfer supplies, mail & weapons to them. My second ship was my favorite - I got to do cool things like be in the first group of women stationed on an aircraft carrier and also re-enlist between the rudders of said aircraft carrier. Fun fact - the post office on the ship is directly above one of the reactors. I was a postal clerk and we could hear the speaker system in the reactor space. Which only scared me once - during a drill when we went "dead in the water" and they shut the reactors down. After the drill, they went to fire it back up and we, in the post office, heard them do a countdown, then "oh shit".

USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72 - my home sweet home for 2 1/2 years!

Moving on - today I went to the Veteran's Day ceremony at my VFW.

This was one of our special speakers - Frank is the oldest member of our post. He's 101 years old and was stationed on a tugboat who brought barges full of weapons to Utah Beach in Normandy on D-Day+1 (so June 7, 1944) He would have been there for D-Day but they came from England and it was not a fast boat. He also would have been in Japan for Nagasaki / Hiroshima (August 1945) but his ship got delayed on the way due to dysentery!

3. Is breakfast for dinner a stroke of genius or a sign of total household collapse? Is breakfast for dinner a regular thing at your house? Are all family members on board?

I love breakfast for dinner. The Spouse isn't a fan tho - so I'll do it when he's not home.

4. How do you see the world?

I was in the Navy - I saw a lot of it. It's ocean!

5. And this week's gratitude question-what's something about your surroundings (home, neighborhood, city) you're grateful for?

My house may be small, messy & crowded but it's almost paid off. The walls are solid. The roof and furnace are only a couple years old. So I'm grateful for the shelter it offers. We live in a safe neighborhood. We're all healthy and came afford necessities. I'd say life is pretty good!

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Adding some more links to my other blog.....

Halloween Night

Halloween in Daytime

Catching Up & an Independent HodgePodge

Yes - this was me!  But then I turned right around and am stressed because there's so much I want to do and need to get done and there's just not enough October! 

We took the grandkids to this event downtown called "Nightmare on Auburn Rd" (terrifying sounding, isn't it?) The road was closed and there were vendors with tents in the middle of the road, and a bounce house and a DJ, then live music.  It was pretty fun.  Trick or Treating was over at 4pm and you could tell that it was slowly turning into an adult thing, which was fine - the kids were ready to go home. 

Last weekend we went to a local-ish (about 45 minutes away) MetroPark to do their "Great Skeleton Scavenger Hunt".  Saturday was a beautiful day, so it was perfect to be out walking the trails.  

I made a full post over on my other blog but basically, we had to find 10 skeletons and write down what they were doing.  Then when we turned in our form, we got a little prize.  

This one has a camera around its neck and a "nature photography for dummies" book. 

And of course I took Chuck!

The prettiest skies are always seen from a parking lot! 

I'm behind the ball on getting my Halloween display set up.  I did get some more lights out there last night.  I was excited to find out Harbor Freight carries 2-foot extension cords, sometimes you just need a little bit more cord! - and some nice lightweight 10' ones, too.  However, I learned that at least the 10' ones glow in the black light.  

Looks like I need some more black spray paint, because that just isn't going to cut it! 

I have a half day of work tomorrow and the plan is to get the critter skeletons out.  They're currently staged on the patio table. 

So that's about all that's going on around here.  This Sunday is the granddaughter's 5th birthday.  I'm sure we'll do something fun for that.   

Moving on to this week's HodgePodge - I've been slacking muchly in this department. 

Linking up as usual with Joyce over at From This Side of The Pond.

1. Do you think you're driven more by curiosity or comfort? Explain. 

I'm thinking 50/50.  Sometimes it's just comforting to stay in the ol' rut and coast along, but then other times it's neat and interesting to try something new. 

2. What non-food item is in your refrigerator or freezer? 

Without looking, I can't think of anything unusual - other than ice packs for lunchboxes.  That's probably the one place in my house that has normal things!

3. Are you comfortable with silence? If you're home alone, do you like silence or do you need regular background noise? Do you seek out times and places to be silent? What's your favorite place to find silence/be silent? 

While I'm awake - I'm ok with silence. I have tinnitus (thank you, US Navy ships!) so I'm never in complete silence. I'm currently at work and we have a window open and there's a truck (I work for a trucking company) sitting out there running and it doesn't bother me in the slightest.  But at bedtime, we usually have a noise maker on.  The Spouse likes to find "night noises" on YouTube so we go to sleep hearing frogs and crickets.  But I found I need a steady sound - one night he put one on that had a bullfrog in it, too and I got fixated on trying to figure out a pattern of the bullfrog's croaking.  So, I had him change it. 

I've mentioned this before - I love to explore cemeteries, so I enjoy the silence there. 

4. Carpentry, electrical, plumbing, landscaping...which skill would you most like to possess and how would you put that skill to use today?

Carpentry with a little electrical.  I took woodshop in high school, and I enjoyed building stuff then.  And I've changed the socket in a lamp before, which I was super proud of, but that's about all I've done. 

I'm afraid I would build more stuff for my Halloween display!  I do have a full-sized coffin that I built back in 2009.  During October it's in the yard, and the rest of the year it's used for storage, so I guess I did an OK job on it! 

5. Do you lean more towards being too needy or too independent? Which do you find harder to deal with in others? 

For some reason I have a hard time being needy.  I feel like I HAVE to be independent.  I'm a big, tall-ish large person so it almost seems like people expect me to be able to do things.  While the Spawn, for example, is currently 23 weeks pregnant and I'd be surprised if she's hit 100 lbs yet.  She's a tiny thing and people don't expect her to move boxes or anything remotely strenuous.  

6.  Insert your own random thought here. 

The squirrels around my house are getting bold!  I was in the backyard, using a jigsaw to cut out a couple new headstones for Halloween and 2 squirrels raced down the tree, chasing each other and they ran between my feet - while the saw was on!  I felt a tail swish around my ankle!  And the Spawn was sitting on a cushion in the front yard one day and a squirrel sneaked over and stole some fries from a McDonalds bag that was within her reach!  

I'm back!

There's no particular reason as to why I haven't been on the ol' blog - just the usual stress of the homefront and now a whole new episode at work.  Oh yay!  

I have any annual cardiologist appt tomorrow and just know he's going to say "reduce stress" and he won't say it but it will be in my chart..."lose weight".  I've been having episodes of Afib lately even tho I've been taking my meds regularly.   

The grandkids started school on August 31.  Here they are at "Meet the Teacher" night.  

I went along with them, since sometimes I have to pick them up from school and it would be nice to know where their classrooms are.

Kindergarten & First grade!

The weekend before - August 29 was mine & Sis1's birthdays.  It happened to be the same weekend as the Spouse had BikeMS in Frankenmuth.  He's volunteered for these MS events longer than I've known him.  This was the first time I went along with him!  They basically patrol the route that the bike riders go to make sure nobody needs help getting to a rest area or back to the start/finish line.  I didn't ride with him, I rode along with a couple ladies and we had a good time! 

Even Chuck the skeleton made some new friends - Cookie the Goat and Stormy the Bear.

Then after a while, Sis1 met us at the start/finish line and I got in with her and we did some shopping in Frankenmuth.  We went on a horse & carriage ride and then on a riverboat cruise!  She's the one I share a birthday with.

We had a lot of fun.

Speaking of rain, we (like a lot of people) had some storms the week before Labor Day and the restaurant Mom wanted to take me to for my birthday dinner had no power!  So we went to a fancier steakhouse and OMG - prime rib. 

On the plus side, the Spouse has been taking meds for his diabetes (that most people take for weight loss) and it's been cutting his appetite - he's lost 20 or so pounds so far!  An I think it's affecting me subconsciously and I haven't been eating as much lately either.  Normally I would have polished off that hunk o meat AND the potato, but I didn't even touch the potato this time.  My Weight Watcher workshop has been closed the last 2 weeks and I worked late the week before that so I haven't been on a scale in over 3 weeks.  I'll see if I can make it for the entire workshop tomorrow or if I just run in to get on the scale.  I sort of don't want to waste a non-rainy day when it's H'ween set up time!

So the plan is to start putting the Halloween cemetery up this week.  However our lawn guy ghosted us and it hasn't been mowed in over 3 weeks - and we had some nice rains recently so it looks like a jungle!  I normally cut the front yard real short before setting up and letting it grow all October.  It's been raining most of yesterday and today so hopefully it'll dry out sometime this week and I can go mow it myself.  

Last Sunday, we were out in the yard and the grandson noticed this huge green caterpillar with spikey orange stalks all along its back.  I looked it up and it was cecropia moth caterpillar (thankfully harmless) and we let it go about it's business.  

Monday, I sort of wondered where it had gone to, and I started moving my headstones so I could clean the dirt & spiderwebs off of them and I found it!

On one of my headstones, of course.  And I looked it up again and read that they overwintered in the cocoon!  That's not going to work in my world.  I contacted the local nature center and they said I could slide an index card under it and move it to a woody debris area, which we happened to have in our yard, too!  But before I could get from from work Tuesday, something had eaten it.  I was so sad!  Probably those darn groundhogs in my shed.  This bugger would have been a moth as large as an adult's hand!  

The sisters and I went to have breakfast last weekend and went to a craft fair type place and one of the vendors told us about the pumpkins her husband just harvested.  So we went there and these were the prettiest pumpkins I've seen!  I bought 2 even tho I'm sure the squirrels will get hold of them before we could even dream of carving them. 

I had jury duty last week - I thankfully wasn't chosen but what I did see was entertaining.   Guy was being charged with 1 count DUI causing loss of life and 3 counts DUI causing serious injury - and he was pleading not guilty!!  I would have liked to hear the argument for that.   And even better - as soon as my group walked into the courtroom for the jury selection process, the prosecutor and the guy being charged freaked out and they and the other lawyers ran up to talk to the judge - the guy's MOM was in the jury pool!!  Needless to say, she was dismissed very quickly.  Can you imagine???

Speaking of last weekend - the Spawn had sort of a little gender reveal gathering for us and her best friend.  She ordered a pair of baseballs in the appropriate color and tossed them to the grandson (one was for backup).  I made a video so the sound was hilarious but here are some stills...

It's a boy!

Grandson was celebrating and rolling around in the blue powder.

The granddaughter however - I heard her excitedly say "it's a boy!"

and then she apparently realized what she said.

I stopped recording when she got up and came at me crying.

She went to both me & the Spouse and we reassured her that she was always going to be our special little princess.  Poor little middle child to be!

The Spawn claims she applied for assistance from the state but I don't think she really did. I don't know what she plans to do with her life. 

Send prayers and good thoughts!  Just typing those sentences made my stomach hurt - which has been a common thing with me lately.