Haunted Window

Well, here it is. Our haunted window. Not a very good photo, but it will have to suffice. We used glow-in-the-dark spray paint for ghosts, spiders and other creepy things. They don't show well. They also don't glow. Oh well. I put a string of orange lights in the window so they show up better when it's dark.

As for the painting of windows, what a MESS. When I mixed the soap into the paint, I knew it was going to be a runny, drippy nightmare. And it was. We put old gross towels down on the window sills to catch any drips. The towels are soaked in paint. The paint went on so thin I couldn't see the color. That pumpkin, which is painted very poorly, has about five coats of orange. The last two coats were straight tempera paint. I figured all the soap underneath would scrape off easily. And it does. I used my Sam's Club card to scrape the eyebrows, eyes and nose. A fingernail did the mouth.

The good thing about the runny paint was the drippy-bloody letters. That was fun. I knew immediately that I would do that when I mixed the paint. My husband thought it was an accident! Not! My husband was also mad my beware dripped into one of the ghosts. He made the template for it as the templates that came with the spraypaint were way too small.

DS did the graveyard and black cat and sprayed most of the ghouls.

Now that we know what we're doing, how messy it is, and actually how much fun we had, we'll do it again next year -- but we'll plan a cool window, rather than painting haphazardly.

We also splurged and bought purple and orange lights for our stair railing to our front door. DH and Thomas were booing me for picking purple, because orange is the color of the season, but the two together looked fantastic.

I wish I were rich. I would go all out, do a grave yard in the front and do lots of cool decorations. There are many wonderful websites with such cool ideas. I think I should go buy a lottery ticket.

Next week Thomas and I are going to grab a pair of DH's old jeans and an old ugly shirt of his, stuff it with leaves, and make a man. We'll sit him on a chair under our window, paint one of our pumpkins with a face, and let the man hold his head in his lap.

That's about as creative as I can be this year.

November 1st I'll grab my Sam's Club card again, scrape the windows, and be done. I think that's the easy part.

The Beauty of Homeschooling -- A Day Off

Yup, we're taking a day off today. Actually, we're switching today for Wednesday of next week as we already had Wed - Fri scheduled off. DH has the day off. Ah, I love homeschooling and having the freedom to do such a thing!

Oh, I had grand plans for DH...go sell one of our four cars. I've only been begging him to do this for YEARS. He got mad at me (again) for suggesting that he do that today of all days. I said again, if not today, then when? We pay way too much for car insurance, especially considering he hasn't driven this car in about three years. Ugh. It sits in our driveway, cluttering our home, our neighborhood, my mind and the checkbook.

It's still cold and the wind is a blowin' something awful. No outside work today.

DH is on the couch reading. DS is in my bed reading. I'm at the computer, reading.

I don't know what we'll do with the rest of our day off. I'm thinking perhaps we'll paint the windows. I found a recipe for making window paint:

Use Tempera Paint
1. For each color of paint, mix about 1 tablespoon of dishwashing liquid with 1/2 tablespoon of paint (the mixture should have the creamy consistency of house paint).

2. Using a different brush for each hue, paint on the window, being careful to avoid sills and woodwork.

Tips:
To remove the dried paint or fix a mistake, wipe it off with a moist paper towel.

DH said he didn't mind if we did this. (Yes, I asked his opinion. I would have done it anyway, though. lol) He's concerned about getting paint on the trim, though. I'll have to tape the woodwork really well before we start. I envision cute pumpkins and a scary witch or two. DS will probably make bats and spiders: easy art, but cool and creepy.

Today was just weird

Murphy's law was working against me today. This morning I started to do yesterday's dishes (all of 'em). They were stacked in the sink, unrinsed. I usually rinse. There were even some on the counter. It was definitely a full dishwasher load.

I turned on the water, started rinsing, and the sink clogged up. The disposer wouldn't work. Shoot. What a mess. I called DH at work. He wasn't happy.

It was C~O~L~D in Minnesota today. When I got up, I turned the radio on. The announcer informed me snow was on the ground and that it was a whopping 24 degrees out. There go my flowers! The kitchen was 62 degrees. I confirmed the radio's report by taking my dog outside. Brrrrrr.

After the dog was in, the coffee was made, I trudged down the stairs to turn the furnace on. Flipped the switch, climbed back up the stairs, and turned the thermostat on. Nothing. Oh, for the love of Pete. Nothing. I trudged back down the stairs, stood next to the furnace and heard a clicking. Click, click, click. Shoot. I called my DH. I asked him if he wanted me to call the furnace guy. No, he'd look at it over the lunch hour.

Did I mention it was 62 degrees in the kitchen?

I woke Thomas up. Luckily I had bought him a pair of fleece jammies for his birthday. He was in those. He was so cold that he put a big sweatshirt and sweat pants on -- on top of his jammies. He wore the hood.

We ate breakfast and started school. Funny, in this cold, I actually felt good. I hadn't felt this good in a very long time. The swelling in my foot was gone, for the first time in two months. It was either the cold or the fact that I did not take a sleeping pill last night.

The noon hour came quickly. He looked at the furnace, couldn't figure it out, and told me not to call, that he'd check it out after work. He ignored the sink. Yeah, that's okay, I don't need to do dishes. He was a sweetie and told me he'd take me to dinner tonight.

Thomas had an "on" day with school. He did more work today than he did the last two days put together. Maybe that cold was good for him, too.

DH got home from work and went straight for the sink. Wouldn't you know it, he got it unclogged in about two minutes. The disposer was working again. I don't think he did anything other than turn it on.

Then he went downstairs to the furnace. He vacuumed the thing out and tried it. Nothing. I brought him a flashlight and he just started laughing. It seems when the air conditioner repairmen were here this summer (of which we had THREE different companies) one of them turned the switch inside the furnace to the off position. We never do that, only the outside switch. So he turned in on and.....ah, warmth.

DH was relieved that he didn't have anything major to do, no headaches, no cursing. I was relieved everything was working. DH lied down on the couch, snuggled up under a Biederlack blanket, and fell fast asleep.

Me, I got on the internet instead of doing dishes.

All is well in my world, the heat is working, the sink is draining, Thomas did an awesome job with school today, and no cooking for me tonight!

Candidates for Mayor

Last night, minding my own business while shopping at Kmart, this guy came up to me. I was looking at pumpkin cake pans. He started talking about the pumpkin cupcake pans next to them. He talked and talked.

I'm thinking to myself...I'm fat, I'm in sweats, I haven't touched my makeup since early in the morning, he's not coming on to me, but WTF does he want??? (Yes, I thought the "F" word, it was so weird.) He kept chatting away, very nice, then all of a sudden he says...I have something for you. He reaches into his back pocket slowly. I kept thinking...I have to be safe, I'm in Kmart, for crying out loud. He pulls out a brochure. Whew. He's running for mayor.

He then proceeds to BS me for about 15-20 minutes. He was very nice, but also very uneducated. I just have a thing about people using poor grammar. It bugs me. Not that mine is perfect, far from it, but ain't ain't a word, ya know? lol Trying to put that aside, I listened to what he had to say. He was a rebel and wanted to make changes in our unprogressive little town. I kind of liked his spirit.

I did catch him in a falsehood -- or an uneducated assumption. He mentioned the place my husband works, not knowing I have an affiliation with it, and that their salaries aren't any higher because there is no competition in town. I smiled my evil grin and asked him if he was positive that no competition had any relevance? Oh, yes, he assured me.

Then I let him know that it didn't. I told him that the company is a Fortune 500 company, it is international, and there are three divisions in the United States. My husband would make the same no matter where he lived. That's just poppycock. And it is.

Gosh, get your facts straight before you start throwing stuff out in your campaign.

I checked his website out when I got home. Let's just say he's not a good testament to our local public schools. Every plural word he used he spelled with 's. Yup, an apostrophe S. He spelled economy "ecconomy." Actually, he had tons of misspellings. No, I won't hold all that against him, but it still gets under my skin. Hire a proofreader, for crying out loud.

So fast forward to early this afternoon. Thomas and I are snuggled in bed for reading. Okay, I admit, I'm napping and he just started Little Town on the Prairie. All of a sudden BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM -- someone is pounding on the door! Scared the you-know-what out of me. My dog went crazy. I actually had another WTF moment.

I get up, peek out the window, and no one is there. I open the door. Not a soul. I did find a brochure. Another mayoral candidate. Sheesh.

When my hubby got home, I told him about it. I told him it really ticked me off that the guy pounded on my door. I said the only time anyone pounds on my door is -- well, no one pounds on our door. I told DH that I was going to shoot off an email.

Before I emailed, I read his brochure. I liked it. He had a proofreader, that's for sure. lol I agreed with the few things mentioned on the brochure.

So I composed my email. I told him we had a doorbell and that I thought the pounding was very rude. Then I switched, told him one little problem with our city -- tiny, but something people of importance might not know about. Then I asked him his party affiliation.

Five minutes after I shot the email off, the phone rings. It's mayoral candidate number two. Apologizing profusely. Mrs. Straight, I'm so sorry, that was me. I did knock on your door. (He pounded.) He said he did that because doorbells don't always work. I'm thinking to myself it would be smart to try the doorbell first. We chatted a little bit. He didn't know about my little problem and was thankful that I mentioned it.

One of the questions I asked him in the email was his party affiliation. He told me that didn't matter for the position of mayor. I told him it mattered to me, because we need a progressive mayor for our city, and open-minded mayor, and someone who is an ultra-conservative (which our town is full of) won't be as open minded as an independent or moderate. He then told me he was a republican, but that he had democrats working on his campaign. I checked it out, it's true. So that tells me he'll be an open minded mayor. (Hopefully.)

I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet. I do know this: Mayoral candidates are a pain in the neck. The guy last night took up so much time that I didn't have time to leave Kmart and go to another store that closed at 9pm. Darn it all, I absolutely needed a new Yankee candle. And who in their right mind goes to Kmart, pretending to shop, but in actuality it is a guise to campaign. On top of that, he was going on and on about the crime problem in our little city. The crime here is horrible. I started laughing when he said that. I told him he needs to move to a big city if he wants crime. He said that we have actually had a few murders through the years and there was recently a stabbing. Now those things are awful, but I had to open my mouth again. I told him I was a court reporter for 11 years and that I had sat through more murder trials than I care to admit. I told him our community is very safe. And it is. As much as I hate this town, the one thing I will say about it is that it is very safe.

The guy today violated the peace of my home. You just don't pound on doors. It's rude.

Oh bother. I will stay informed and watch the televised mayoral debate tonight. Maybe then I can make a good decision.