This year just sucks, period.

So, I had the party on Saturday. A whopping 20 people showed up, not including my next door neighbor and her party guests who came over for a few minutes. It felt like a lot less people since a few didn't stay long and a couple didn't come til late. I almost felt like I went back in time to the first party I had where only 5 people showed up. It just seemed so danged LAME after the growing party every year. Anyway, I didn't stress out this year, didn't get all upset and end up in a crying spell at 4 pm before the party, didn't rush or yell at everyone. I just did what I could, Andy helped out and did what he could and whatever didn't get done just didn't get done. I just had a "screw it" attitude about it all this year.

I had to work on Friday night/Saturday morning before the party, so I came home from work around 8 am and took a 2 hour nap. The previous mornings I got about 3 or 4 hours' sleep, so I was pretty tired. I had a ton of food, even without doing all the homemade stuff and Jello molds and other things I normally do... which led to a lot of leftovers, so I took some of them to work for my coworkers to enjoy during our lunch break. I really am wishing now that I just canceled the party this year. My BFF and I ended up going next door and crashing what was left of their little party since every one left my house around 11. We played a dice game and had some laughs. I came home around 2:30, stayed up and talked with Andy until about 3:30, then cleaned up the party mess til I was falling asleep standing at the sink at 5 AM. I slept until 7:30 PM Sunday evening, when Andy had to come in and wake me up so I could get ready for work that night.

Since we didn't have many guests and the party just wasn't hopping like usual, we didn't take very many pictures.

This is me with my very best friend Shelly. Pic is dark and blurry, but I find that I look best in dark and blurry, especially standing next to her. :)

This is my other best friend, Ivy on the left, with two of her friends. Ivy was dressed as Ellen Degeneres... the costume was great!

This is our friend Gary's son, Jesus. If he is Jesus, does that make Gary God? Hmmm....
But I LOVE this picture. It just seemed so... perfect.

This is Chip and Cindy, Ivy's parents and our good neighbors that live down the street. Their costume with the body tattoo sleeves and all was a riot. These are two of the most laid back and reserved people I know. Cindy's a school teacher (sorta) and Chip's a lawyer.


This is Daniel the Dork who never freakin' dresses in costume and his beautiful and always perfectly costumed wife, Ashlyn - who even coordinates whatever wonderful dish she brings with her costume! This year, she was the Princess from the Princess and the Pea, and she even made matching individual beds with peas desserts!

Here we have an action shot of Gary and his wife Jackie and the rest of their gang. And all the rest of the crew, including a couple of our very best friends, Catherine and Darryl.


Andy, watching the World Series, he just can't resist.
Chip, Cindy, Shelly and her husband Dave.The rest didn't get photographed. I took a few pics of the food and stuff, but they're on a different camera that I can't locate right now. Andy and I were zombies, in case you were wondering. :) I didn't need a whole lot of make up with the lack of sleep and all. Next year, the invite list will be pared down some. Three strikes rule is in play now, and those who haven't attended in the past 3 years of being invited will be eliminated from the list.

It's beginning to look a lot like ... HALLOWEEN!

I am finally making some forward progress here at the Dead End. It's been a slow moving ride though as I still really just don't feel like doing any of it, but I know that if I don't get it all done, I'll be miserable and I'll regret it. So I plug along. My work schedule kind of puts a kink in things, but that's something that everyone else deals with too, so it's not a big deal. The hardest part is that I can't really work on anything that requires noise or being outside since I'm awake at night and sleeping part of the day when I'm off from work. If I'd gotten started sooner, I wouldn't be in this predicament! Anyway, I got all the invitations out save one or two that need to be hand-delivered. Kinda went simple this year:



Got all the gossamer up on the walls, webs up, most of the stuff that needs to be hung. Today we got the big stuff down from the attic and got the crypt put together. I set up most of the tombstones and 3 lights as soon as it got dark. So far, this is all we have:

Later today, I'll set the columns, arch and fence up, and get the FCG set up, as well as the beef netting webs on the house. I started to do them today, but I realized I had to clean up the hedge and trim back some limbs before I could get the ladder in there. I also plan to get the PVC set up in the back yard around the pool deck for the lights to be strung up and set up the assorted clay and ceramic stuff I have collected over the years for candles. I think I may stick some fake fall colored flowers in the flower pots around the pool too since I really don't have the time or money to plant live ones right now. Anyway, it's finally starting to look like Halloween (on the outside) so now people can stop asking me if I'm okay. :)

I've also been working on the website, adding new pages and stuff. All that stuff can be found on the home page or on the "In The Works" page for other stuff.

And speaking of the web pages, someone - wait, no, TWO someones - decided to burn my and other haunters' webpages and content to CD sets for sale on ebay. It ticked us all off, but the auctions have been reported and removed. It's not the first time, and certainly won't be the last, but it's prompted me to make a few changes on how I do things on the website. I won't ever take down my content though. The whole point of having the site is to share with other haunters. I just want to make sure that people know WHOSE content is being shown. ;-)

And speaking of "WHOSE"....... I was folding some Halloween t-shirts at work, and I got to looking at one in particular that has a picture of a mummy on it, and the caption says, "Whose your mummy?" That darn pet peeve of mine reared its ugly head and I hollered at one of the supervisors and asked who the heck authorized the sale of a grammatically incorrect t-shirt! I can understand a typo or grammar/spelling errors in a written ad or something that is not a big deal, but the MAIN QUOTE on a t-shirt being MASS distributed????? Aye yi yi! I can't believe that no one caught this before it went to print (either that or they're all just ignorant). I realize most people won't even notice it, but that kind of stuff just makes me shake my head in wonder. I know a lot of the t-shirts are made in [insert third world country here], but the designs are concepts by English-speaking artists.... there is just no excuse. (For those who actually DON'T get what the error is, the proper usage is "Who's" which is the contraction of "who is" -- not "Whose" which is the possessive form of who, like "my" or "your" or "their". You wouldn't respond like this: "My your mummy!" You'd say, "I'm your mummy!" That's basically the error made there.)

Aside from all the Halloween prep and things irking me out of the blue, things are going okay. I still love my job. My sister works with me now in the same department, which is actually kinda cool. It takes some of the load off of the other 3 of us and keeps things running smoother on the days I'm off because she's totally nit picky like me and takes good care of our sections.

So, that should catch everyone up for now!