Close Your Eyes...This Stuff is Scary!

I have to admit, I'm not really that big fan of Halloween. Let me rephrase that...I don't like spooky, gory, bloody, gooey, creepy Halloween stuff. I totally love my little cowgirl, Batman, and 50's girl. But I'm going to have real issues when they start wanting to dress up as scary, horror things (really I'm not too worried about Katie--I'm pretty sure she'll never go down that road). Plus, I love pink and spring and flowers (which I think we've clearly established on this 'ol blog)...I guess you could say I'm more of an Easter type gal than Halloween (even though 1/2 of my wardrobe consists of black clothing...that doesn't count).

So in the spirit of Halloween I thought I'd give you MY Top 10 scary things:

10. Freddie from Nightmare on Elm Street. He doesn't scare me anymore, but he was scary in his day, so he deserves a place on the list. And if you are near my age, you know that just once it crossed your mind that this creep might be lurking somewhere in your dreams. Huh?

9. Stephen King. I've met this guy in person (when I worked for a bookstore the employees got to have lunch with him, it was a small group so we got to actually converse with him). Let me tell ya...there's a reason he can write those freaky/scary books. The dude has a strange, strange mind.

8. Darth Vader. Come on, you have to admit that breathing was just plain scary. How'd you like to hear that in a dark room? And then when he took of his helmet thing and you saw his acid burnt, white scary face. Yeah, that was the closer for me. Scary.

7. Catwoman. Not the sexy catwoman from Batman. This woman. This is a lesson in plastic surgery gone wrong. Very, very wrong. And very, very scary.

6. Jaws. You know this bad boy crossed your mind the first time you went in the ocean after seeing this movie.

5. The Fog. Fog in general is not so scary. But fog with red glowing eyes (circa 1980). Now that's some scary fog.

4. The little girl on The Exorcist. Holy moley. THAT was some scary stuff! That movie still freaks me out everytime I watch it. It really has to be one of the most frightening movies ever. I find satan possessed-type movies to be WAY scarier than slasher type movies.

The following three are the trifecta that makes The Wizard of Oz one of the scariest movies of all time. I grew up in Kansas, so these three had an elevated scare factor in my home state...and I double checked the trees when my mom drove us here and there.

3. The wicked witch. She wasn't all deviled up looking. Just an old fashioned wicked witch. But man, she was scary.

2. The misty, fog laden Oz face. What was that? Part vampire (the fang-like teeth), part devil (the weird veins/horn type things), part goblin (shrouded in green mist). I don't know, but that Oz head was frightening. That poor cowderdly lion, no one should shame him for running...I would've run from that freaky thing, too.

1. The flying monkeys. Hands down, this is the scariest thing ever known to man. Flying monkeys. Scary!

Happy Halloween!

A Really Late What Would You Rather Do?

Here's one for all you book-lovers out there...

Would you rather read...

A sci-fi book

or

A Harlequin-type, mushy romance book.

Power to the book-readin' people! (Sorry, sometimes I say random things).

$1

It's amazing what a dollar can (or can't) buy...a candy bar, a piece of Hubba Bubba, a donut...um, that's about it.

It can also buy this.

WM ran to the grocery store yesterday and on his way there he saw this little boy with a chair and table and a box of toys set up in his front yard with a sign that read "Toy Sale" and his mom sitting on the porch watching. WM drove by and finished his errand to the store. But he stopped on his way back (he has a soft spot in his heart for these little guys--toy sale, lemonade stand, school fundraiser...ask WM, he'll say yes). So he stopped to help the little guy out and came home with that (pictured above).

Buzz Lightyear.

A talking, lights blinking, practically new/in perfect condition Buzz Lightyear. So he bought it--for $1

You can get this same Buzz Lightyear at Target for $34.

Patrick hasn't put it down since.

Here's Patrick laying on the couch watching Toy Story-with his $1 Buzz Lightyear.

I'm pretty sure that we'll never get this kind of return on our investment ever again.

See what you can get today for $1 that will give your child hours and hours; days and days; months of enjoyment.

$1

Perfect Pairing

Visit Baloney, Baloney, Bo, Boney's site for more Perfect Pairings. Here's mine for this week.

He tunnels through the rock;

his eyes see all its treasure.

He searches the sources of the rivers;

and brings hidden things to light.

--Job 28: 10-11

Adventures in Mexican Relaxation

I've been meaning to do a post on our recent (3 weeks ago) trip to Mexico. But I just can't organize my thoughts to tell all about it. So here's a very abbreviated version.

Went for 5 days to Maya Riveria, about 20 minutes south of Playa del Carmen. Great resort-I'd recommend it and if you go there--take advantage of the spa services. WM golfed in Playa one day and said it was great, too. It's called Adventura Spa Palace. We went to Cozumel back in February and I wasn't real impressed with it, but I really liked this place and it gave me a different attitude towards vacationing to Mexico (even though I still prefer Polynesian destinations).

Here you go:

Our room with a (sort of) view. That jungly looking area below had a sweat-lodge in the midst of it.

The big pool.

The littler pool (this makes it look really tiny...it wrapped around that fountain and expanded on the back side).

The indoor pool.

Where we laid out most of the time.

The back patio.

Pretty flowers everywhere in many colors.

Pretty floral arrangement that was delivered to our room the night before we left.

Weird looking berry/nut things on trees (anyone know what those are?).

Wildlife. These were everywhere in all sizes. This one was probably in the mid-size range. We saw little bitty ones and WM had to wait for a pretty big one to get off the 18th tee box while golfing.

WM feeding El Gato.

The view over to Cozumel (you can barely see the cruise ships docked over there).

And if you're feeling a little flabby from all the food, fun and drinks...you can always run into Playa del Carmen and work it off at a Pole Dancing class.

Gracias--buenas dias!

Goldenrod and Tumbleweed

As I've mentioned, I have a love/hate relationship with my hair. For the past 7-8 years it's mostly been a hate relationship (except for the 9 months I was pregnant with Patrick and I had FABULOUS hair). Until I got pregnant with Katie (7 years ago) I had pretty manageable, good hair. It was very straight, but very thick--very low maintenance. A flat-iron never touched my hair until about 4 years ago.

I do believe that part of the problem is that I've highlighted/colored it for several...many... A LOT of years and I think all those chemicals are taking it's toll. I've had good colors and I've had bad. It's been anywhere from light brown to platinum-ish (not true platinum, but it's been close a couple times). It seems like it's getting harder and harder to get my color to look like what it used to and what I like. Maybe I need to work on my communication with my stylist.

Needless to say, I've become super self-conscious about my hair.

One of my Katie's favorite things to do when she gets home from school is to sit at the kitchen table and color and draw. Yesterday she calls out "mommy, what color is your hair?" I asked her why and she said she was coloring a picture of me. She says "come here, I've picked out all the colors that it could be."

Here's was the line up she had prepared for me to choose from (I was deleting photos off my camera, that why it was in hand when she called me into the kitchen):

I pointed to the one which I thought was closest to it's current color--a crayon color called Goldenrod (4th crayon from the left in the photo).

After about a minute long contemplative analysis of my hair, she said "no, I think it's this one." She crayon she picked is appropriately called Tumbleweed (5th crayon from the left).

There couldn't be a more accurate word to describe the state of my hair lately. I do, indeed, feel like I have a tumbleweed on my head most days.

Techies-Please Help!

I'm getting there with this new blog look, but there are two things I need help with from my techie friends out there!

1. How do I get the copy in my posts so they are not centered?
2. How do I get the titles of my sidebar widgets so they ARE centered? (the one's that say "The Three Little Lams" and "Things I Love", etc.

Those two things are bugging me.

Anyone know?

Anyone?

Anyone?