the artistic side of fall

One of the many artistic things I enjoy seeing in the fall is carved pumpkins. There are many detailed faces, carved smiles, unusual positions, but my favorite is the creative designs. Here's one that someone spent a LOT of time on:

the death star from Star Wars!
http://www.fantasypumpkins.com/2006-pumpkins/deathstar1.jpg

there's many variations of this on the web
http://www.productdose.com/phpwiki/uploads/Tyler/99927813144d5f02e14eb77a5a851015_pop.gif

I love the fact that they used the stem for the nose instead of cutting the stem portion off...how creative!
http://img.hgtv.com/HGTV/2007/07/12/halloween_carved_pumpkin_w609.jpg

Very creative! I would have NEVER thought about carving the world into a pumpkin! www.coyoteblog.com/.../2006/11/my_pumpkin.html
Now, I don't know if that is real food inside the pumpkin, but this is a VERY creative carving. I've found this on many sites in many forms without credit, so I don't have a link to post on this one.

And for my all-time favorite:
I've seen several variations of this one. There's one that has the eyes with slits and it makes the pumpkin looking as if it's really in pain and sick. But that one is copyrighted with a watermark on the picture so I'm not going to post that one. This is close enough.

There's a lot of other creative carvings out there that are just downright sick, but these were some of my favorites. I've only carved a pumpkin once. It's not all that easy. And not wanting to be wasteful, I saved the actual pumpkin and made pumpkin pies, which I discovered I'm not all that crazy about. I wanted to try again this year, but with the dogs I'd be surprised if it lasted a night. That's too much work and time to have my little savages rip it apart or eat it. So I'll be content to browse the net and see what others have done.

things we do for love

Saturday we had a baby shower for Bobby's niece. As I was making the mints, Bobby asked what else was on the menu. After I recited off the litany of items, he responded with "No peanut butter?! This shower is for Hannah! What's she going to eat?" (Hannah has had stomach problems over the years and has been unable to tolerate many foods, but peanut butter has been her staple.) Despite my assurances that she would enjoy the foods we were having, he was adamant that I needed to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the shower. Even though I protested that NOBODY took that to a shower, he persisted, and informed me I could make them dainty with my little cutter. And so I did. To my surprise all but 3 were eaten. Who'd a thunk it?

get your house in order

My grandmothers were very clean people. My mother thoroughly enjoys cleaning, though she doesn't quite hit the same level my grandmothers were on. I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do like things to be clean. I've almost given up on neatness. One thing that they all instilled in me is the crazy concept that your house must be in order before you go somewhere big - like a vacation or something. After all, you could die in a car crash or have to go to the hospital, and then people would go into your house and find it in a terrible mess. Who wants to be remembered by that? So up until this past year, I would sometimes be up almost all night not only trying to get things packed up, but also trying to totally clean house as well. Or should I say, make the house presentable? The Chinese had a horrible superstition that my mother and grandparents would have enjoyed. Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar) required EVERYTHING to be cleaned top to

fun...funny houses

We saw the above house in Pittsboro while on our way to the mountains. It was the strangest house I've ever seen. Evidently this isn't a modification, for Bobby remembers thinking it funny as a child. Evidently a governor lived here at one point. I think the sign said it's now a Masonic lodge. And if seeing one funny house wasn't enough, the latest issue of This Old House had a link to their website that had several galleries of funny (or strange houses). Here's my favorites from their collection: Szymbark , Poland This just makes me laugh, and I would love to visit this house in person. Created by a designer who wanted to demonstrate "wrong-doings against humanity". Visitors have stood in line for as long as 6 hours to tour the house, and many come out feeling "sea-sick". Kalambaka, Greece... This 1,000 foot cliff drop has housed monastaries since the 11th century. Six of them are open to the public, " assuming, of course, th

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