Hallowe'en Festivities

The Hallowe'en Sentinals.


Punk Fairy Diva.


Punk Fairy Castle.


Diva Maggie with her favorite boy and his happy parents.


Diva Molly with cousins Jamie & Holly and friend Michael.


I told the teenagers that if they did not dress up, they were not going trick-or-treating...nothing worse to me than older kids who make no bones about the fact it is ALL about the candy.


Princess Michael...what a guy!!! Takes a secure male to take on this look!!!!


And even lipstick!!!!!


More of the PFD!


PFD with the Horseback-riding Diva Witch.






MIL Grandma Dolores and SIL Debbie.


The crew is ready to hit the town.


It is also Debbie and Michael's birthdays. My divas made the cake.


Happy 16th...again!








Meave's stash.


And the sugar kicks in!












Hallowe'en family portraits....










Molly's face says it all...DONE!

Happy Hallowe'en!!!

Happy Hallowe'en to all of my Ghoulfriends!!

O' Great Pumpkin...part deux

(I have found that I so enjoy writing in the morning...better than reading the newspaper. I grab the coffee, hobble to the computer, and enjoy myself...ahhh.)

I had to be gone for the pumpkin carving festivities...2 clients and fabric hunting. I asked Michael to make sure he took pics. He had the nerve to look at me like I was asking for his kidney which meant he got an even more potent hairy eyeball back plus some grousing. He took them.

When I went to look, there were, once again, these experimental masterpieces by diva Maggie. Pics like these are in every picture file I have, even the dressmaking files. I never see her take these. They just appear.








Now on to the carving festivities... the young boy is our neighbor Ivan.










Notice the seed teeth?




Michael gave Ivan his pumpkin to carve.


The artists at work.


The monsters with their creations.






You'd think there was inbreeding at work here, wouldn't you?









O' Great Pumpkin, what a glorious tribute!!!

O' Great Pumpkin...

(Caution...Mama whining ahead...)

We finally got pumpkins yesterday at the behest of Diva Meave. We were hassled, cajoled, pleaded with, black-mailed, manipulated with hugs & kisses, and finally just whined at until I took her (& Maggie) to get them. The kid is relentless!!!

I am very behind on our usual decorating activities...so busy with the ID dresses that have to be done for the Southern Region Oireachtas that the time got away from me. Bad Mama!!

Grandma and Aunt Debbie and the kids are coming over for Hallowe'en...and my house is a mess. Actually, mess is too mild and kind a word. Susi, I am in hell!

We are a messy family...a slight adjustment to my blog description states it correctly: "My mother has always excused our chaos by saying it is a sign of creative minds...works for me." She is amazed by our chaos, but she is also amazed and very appreciative of how creative, involved, and happy my divas are...sometimes in spite of their parents!!!

But right now the mess is out of hand. Having company does kick me in the butt. And, I realized yesterday, when we found out we had been designated as the clan trick -or-treat house, that having company kicks the divas in their respective booties, too. The call for a house cleaning today came not from me but from Molly. All are prepared to work...after the pumpkins are carved.

Hey Mom! Coming for Christmas with Auntie Sheila and the new baby would set rocket boosters on this fine rear-end!!!!!

The mess gets to me, too. The smallest thing will finally send me over the edge. Yesterday, it was hair brushes...MY hair brushes...the ones that are supposed to be off limits but seem to have legs that take them off into the nether world...every freaking day.

Yesterday, this not only chapped my ass, it flayed my skin, stripped my bones, drew and quartered me, boiled it all in oil, set it on fire, and then slapped it all back on my VERY LAST NERVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHY CAN'T THEY LEAVE MY BRUSHES, EVEN JUST ONE, WHERE I CAN FIND THEM WHEN I WANT THEM???!!!!

Yesterday, doing my hair was to be a special, wonderful moment for me. You see, I am back to looking like myself. I have this itch that I get about once every 2 years to cut my hair off. I fall once again into the profound delusion that a short hip hair cut will not only look good on me, but that it will also be easier. NOT! You have to have a cute little round face on a cute little round head with a cute little round perky personality to pull off the kind of hair-do that I want in my fantasy world. I do not...I have a big ol' horse head with a long ol' face and a decidedly NOT perky personality...and short hair makes it all worse! All you see is a LONG face accompanied by irritated crankiness! And then, once I have completely horrified myself with my stupid choice (once again) I spend the next year growing it out so I can finally get back to the bob that looks good on me. My hairdresser, Kayelynn, now has notes in her book on me...next time I come in with that short hair bee up my butt, she is to stand her ground and remind me that it will not look good and that I will then have to deal with the dreaded "Mushroom Head" as I grow it out.

I am also not allowed to go conservative with the hair color. I did that last time and it is SOOOO boring. Yes, I color my hair. After I got sick and my hair grew back in, I had the oddest hair color. My wonderful light, bright red hair was gone and in its place grew this weird alien color. That's what I get for proclaiming myself beyond the vanity of hair-coloring when I was young and arrogant. Stupid girl! Now I say, Bring it on!!!! I am a dark red with lots of bold, light red highlights. Coloring my hair makes me a happy camper!!

And then the hair cut. The bob is back...short, but present. I look like myself once again.

So, yesterday...I went to do the 'do...and the necessary brushes were nowhere to be found. Again. I flipped a lid. Why is it that when I ask nicely for my brushes I simply get an "I dunno" with no eye-contact, but when that lid is flipped, I have 4 brushes in 10 seconds accompanied by high blood pressure and then guilt on my part?

(whiiiine) I just want my brushes to stay in my room because if they join the chaos in this house, they will be lost forever!!! (whiiiiine)

O' Great Pumpkin, hear my plea!!! (The pumpkin carving offerings will come later today...pics then.)

Ok, off to the dungeon...

A Vegetable Victory & A Witch

When I am working on digitizing (as I have been for about 6 days now), everyone in this wonderful diva family cuts me mucho slack. The work-arounds are not always complimentary to me (which means someone, usually hubby, gets barked at, usually by...well...me), but life freaking continues... if I could use my favorite string of curse words here, I would be SO COMPLETELY FULFILLED...but I cannot. Big sigh.

In the midst of my braincellsuckingcomputerwork, Michael and I have had a couple of school meetings, culminating with a child study meeting yesterday. Today my time on the digitizing computer has been interrupted by so many things, for better or worse.

Tonight, after homework, studying for tests, listening to rehearsal recaps, came dinner...chicken florentine...with spinach. Sometimes I really am so over the fact that I have so effectively TAUGHT my children my gag-reflex distaste for vegetables. They eat more of them than they know because I am so creative with my inclusions...as much for my health as theirs. But tonight, I was not in the mood to whitewash the spinach, figuratively OR literally. So I got to Meave first...told her that the gross green stuff was spinach but that it tasted TOTALLY like the sauce...and she was going to eat it even if it choked her. She looked at me in that demon-child-considering fashion that she possesses...slowly took a bite of ONLY the spinach...and declared it really good. After that, the older divas had to eat it or accept defeat at the hands of their little sister.

They actually came back for seconds.

Later Maggie and I worked through a different homework routine...both of us were calm and happy at the end...cannot even begin to describe how amazing that was!!!

And...then...

Meave came quietly into my work space and requested pics. Last weekend, there was a shopping trip for Hallowe'en...our favorite time and holiday of the whole year. She found an old wig of mine, did her own make-up, and put on her whole, self-organized costume. When I had finished the pics, she asked, "Will you put them on your blog?"

"Is that what you want?"

"YES!"

So, here is Diva Meave in her costume, no help from me...







I think that I am only cracking the tip of this kid...

Just 'cause...

I sought this post out tonight for someone in my new knitting group, Ravelry (I will do a post on this very soon).

Why re-post? BECAUSE...she understood "Póg mo thóin"...I liked reading about those few days again... it's my blog and I wanted to write something nice...for my...blog...'cause, well.... I FELT like it, ok? But I could not write...so here is something that made me laugh again!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

--

Aunt Margaret Stratman, 1935-2007

My father's sister died in California tonight. She had emphysema and had been in the hospital for the past 2 1/2 weeks.

This is the aunt I wrote about here: Clarity . She will be horribly missed.

I woke up this morning after a very weird dream of her and her cigarettes and her beautiful fingers, and I just knew today was the day. Called my family to get the news...she was still fighting to live. That's my scrappy Aunt Margaret.

Tonight both of my sisters called at the same time to tell me...we are all 3 in different parts of the US and right now that really sucks. My sister Bernie in California was closest to her, and she is taking this hard as obviously my cousins are, too. Wish I was home.

She is not suffering anymore.

Love you, Aunt Margaret.

Narcoleptic comment

I am butt-stuck to my chair in front of the computer today...3 dresses to digitize. That means I am also here when comments and emails come in which is fun.

I have enjoyed the comments on the Narcoleptic post. Caroline's just came in:

Caroline said...
I've never had it as bad as you, but I do always fall asleep during afternoon classes at the university. It can be the most interesting class ever, but at one point I will bang with my forehead into the desk because apparently...I've dozed off. Very embarrassing and impolite, but I really cannot help it! I have not to this day found a way to prevent this. And I have been a student for ...well...a long time :-)

I started chuckling, then laughing, then snorting! It reminded me of my teaching days.

For quite awhile, I was teaching a course called "Dance & Society." It was a lecture course, in a big auditorium filled with students...and it was a night class. It started at 5:15 pm and was 2 1/2 hours long...and the students ate dinner right before class.

Guess how many students' foreheads slapped the desktop in every class!?! I tried to make the class as interesting as possible, I really did! We even had class in the dance studio when I had guests to teach them different ethnic dance forms...but even there the foreheads still hit the floor when they sat down!!

Some of my colleagues were so irritated by that and would call the students out on falling asleep. I always figured that the red mark on their foreheads and the snickers from the other students was punishment enough.

One young man even apologized to me once. He was embarrassed but relieved when I laughed.

Thanks for the memory retrieval, Caroline!