Happy Re-Ween

I promised to share some pictures from The Most Haunted Hotel in America today, but I’m sorry to say, I can’t. My computer has a power cord problem (at least I hope that’s all it is) so I can’t get to the pictures. (Sorry, Megan.)

I will share them as soon as I get a new power cord. In the mean time, I’m reblogging from Halloween 2008. If you’ve read it before, thanks! (That means we’ve been friends for at least four years. LOL! )

~10/31/2008 Again~

Isn’t Halloween a great holiday? There’s not a lot of planning that goes into it. Just a little candy buying and costume buying (or making) and carving a jack-o-lantern.

For me, though, the best part is the memories.

I remember scary dreams I had on Halloween night as well as the dream one of my sisters (sometimes known as #4) had about a witch cutting off her leg. I thought it was funny, but she was shaking all over when she told me about it. Guess it’s a good thing dreams are age specific. 😉

I remember special years when we trick or treated. Once I was a blind ghost–holes in the sheet kept shifting so I couldn’t see where I was going. Once I wore my dad’s older brother’s clown costume he’d worn when he was my age. Kind of fell apart as we made the rounds, but it was a beauty.

A really special memory is the year my folk moved into the house I grew up in. A crowd of people from our old town (20 miles away) came to give us a surprise house warming and all our old friends were there to t-o-t with us.

To be honest, my favorite part of Halloween has to be the movies. My favs are not the cut ‘em up and watch ‘em bleed kind. I like the good OLD ones like The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr.

TWM  was made in 1941. (Makes you wonder if that was before the attack on Pearl Harbor, doesn’t it?)

When we were kids, my sister Debbie and I went to the movies most Saturday afternoons with our friend, Marsha Hagberg. Marsha was a little younger than me and a little older than Debbie, so she made a great friend for the two of us to hang with. We saw all the good old movies. Frankenstein–1931. The Mummy–1932. Several vampire movies that were all old and scary. And we thought everything was new!

Marsha watched most of them through her fingers or hiding her face completely while she whispered, “Tell me what’s happening! Tell me what’s happening!” Marsha usually sat in the middle, so I’m not sure what Debbie was doing. Either she was braver than Marsha or too afraid to talk loud enough for me to hear. (I seem to remember the two of us crowding into one theater seat a time or two, but I’m not sure which was more afraid. Her or me.)

Right now I’m hoping I can catch THIRTEEN GHOSTS, the original one made in 1960. There were wonderful actors in the movie. Martin Milner, Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West), Rosemary Decamp (from the Munster’s tv show)

For years I thought the picture was in 3D because of the glasses they gave us to wear, but today I found this:

• The movie was filmed in “Illusion-O” and a pair of special glasses where needed to see the ghosts. This resulted in a number of sources incorrectly stating that the film was originally shown in 3D. The “ghost viewers” contained a red filter and a blue filter but unlike 3D viewers, both eyes would look through the same color filter. One color would cause the ghostly images to intensify while the other color caused the images to fade.

I thought watching through the image fading color was a waste of my $$, so I braved it out. (I can’t say what Debbie and Marsha did.)

There are a ton of vampire movies I loved watching back then. I just wish I could remember the names of them in order to look them up. It’s funny they made so many vampires and so few wolf men, isn’t it?

Today you find more vampire romances to read, too, and very few werewolf.

(From Young Frankenstein) Werewolf?

Werewolf!

Where wolf? There. There wolf.

Why are you talking like that?

I dunno. I thought you wanted to. I’m easy.

Yeah. Funny scary movies rank up there, too. The (new) Mummy, Lost Boys and Young Frankenstein are on the top of my list in that department.

If you have a minute . . . I often wonder if anyone else had a movie childhood like mine. Did you catch any of these movies on the big screen? Which were your favorites?

~Today~

Happy Re-Ween! Hope you get tons of candy!

English: The Wicked Witch of The West, melting after being doused by Dorothy. From the first edition of The Wizard of Oz. Français : La méchante sorcière de l’ouest, en fusion après avoie été arrosée par Dorothy. Extrait de la première édition de Le Magicien d’Oz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Pinned

Remember when being pinned meant you were engaged to be engaged? (Or at least going steady.) Never happened to me, but I saw it on the movies. 🙂

Not anymore. Now, being pinned means Pinterest.

Of course, you’re on Pinterest. EVERYONE (even #4) is there these days. And I have to tell you, it’s addictive.

Go there, and it’ll take you about three days to surface. You can find anything and everything you want to know about there. If you can think of it and there’s been a picture taken of it, it’s most liked been pinned.

Recipes, arts, crafts, gardening, baby things, nail ideas, decorating, vacationing, house designing, boots, Hodge Podge, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, showers, birthdays, shopping and on and on and on.

The trouble I have with Pinterest is getting lost. I get so involved with it, I can’t turn it off. Or I click on a Pin, then click again to follow it to the web page where it came from. Then follow that and wander on until I’m not really sure where I started. Or when it was.

BUT there are some beautiful ideas. Such as this cute ideaI saw  for Christmas nails but can’t find again. The nail is painted red, and a white ribbon and simple bow painted on it. In the center of the bow is a rhinestone. Simple and gorgeous!

Delicious soups, such as the broccoli cheese soup crock pot soup I pinned (thanks to DIL Nikki) this morning.

• 1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter or 2 tablespoons margarine
• 1 (10 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 lb Velveeta cheese, cubed
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped broccoli

Directions:

1. Sauté onion and green pepper in butter.
2. Combine all ingredients on low in crockpot for 3-4 hours. Do not add salt.

I’m not a big Velveeta fan, but this looks really good.

To be honest, I’m not really sure how Pinterest works. If I pin something, I can’t always find where it went. (If I don’t pin it and want to see it again, it’s gone, for sure.) But when I can make it work, I love it!

Is this great or what?

Of course, I’d have to change BROTHER to SISTER, but that’s okay.

And I love this–

Now if I can find it again, I’ll follow to the post and learn HOW to make it.

Do you pin? If you do, come on over and follow me so I can follow you back. Then maybe you can tell me how it works. 🙂

Yard Shoot

While we were in Arkansas last weekend, I took a lot of pretty-leaves-from-a-distance pictures. I never thought about what closeups would look like. Then I read a blog where a woman said taking random closeup shots of fall leaves was good for her soul.

I loved her pictures and wanted to try it. Our leaves aren’t that gorgeous this year. And I don’t have a ton of time for going out to find them.

When I came home yesterday, I decided to try it anyway, and stay in my own backyard. I kind of like the results.

See what you think.

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I also took pictures of my one remaining tomato plant.

I had two plants here, back in the spring. After they’d grown a while, they looked like this–

Then one of the plants ate the other one, and now he looks like this.

I keep my fingers crossed that he won’t eat Molly when she’s out playing in the yard. So much plant, so little fruit. 🙂

Springing Eureka

As I mentioned Monday, some of our kids spent time with us in Eureka Springs this last weekend, so I thought we’d do a few things we’d never done before. G-Man and I’ve been to Eureka so many times, there’s not a whole lot we haven’t done, but I found a couple of things.

We toured the springs! (Yes, there are springs in Eureka Springs. LOL!)

It’s funny, but we’d never spent time actually exploring the thing ES is named for.

Eureka was first established because of the healing quality of the natural springs. Indians believed in the healing power, Civil War soldiers recouped there. And (I hear) people still soak in the hot springs in some of the spas. We didn’t do that. (Maybe on the next trip.)

The first spring we visited was inside an antique store. Yes, we bit the bullet 😛 and shopped at that store so we could see the Gadd Spring.

We loved this shop. Probably could have spent the entire time we stayed in Arkansas just exploring the place and grounds.

Can you imagine the joy of having this inside your shop? Too cool!

See the water falling toward the bottom of the picture? That’s the spring, springing! Great place to grow plants.

e-Gadd! 🙂 LL–this pic is for you. It’s a banana plant growing next to Gadd Spring.

Basin Spring

This is the spring most people see, but I’m not sure they realize it’s the spring. The water has been routed to this fountain, which runs pretty much all the time. Beautiful, isn’t it?

 Laundry and/or Onyx Spring

This spring had two names. It was called Laundry Spring, because so many people did their wash there, back in the day.

 This bench says, “Onyx Spring,” because at one time, there was onyx there. It’s gone now.

Looks like a water fountain, doesn’t it? Several of the springs have those, but there are signs that say, “Do not drink the water.”

We didn’t.

Grotto Spring

This was a gorgeous place. Lots of room to climb or just hang around.

Here’s the undrinkable fountain at that location. We met a woman from the area with her two kids (and their dog, Barney) at this spring. The kids were polite, obedient and delightful. The woman was friendly and full of helpful knowledge.

She told us about walking trails, where we could find free maps, and that we could go into any of the public areas at the Crescent Hotel without worry. (I’ll tell you about visiting The Most Haunted Hotel in the World on Halloween.)

Then we ran into this woman and her kids every place we went. She even stayed at our hotel for the weekend so her kids could swim, so we had breakfast near each other a few times. (She could sniff out a full coffee pot with the best of them!)

Is that a cool mom or what?

Grotto Spring Cave

This candle was burning in Grotto Spring Cave, wherethe spring originates. The woman from ES hated it being there because, she said, it’s killing the cave life.

We didn’t blow it out anyway.

Magnetic Spring

The last spring we visited was Magnetic Spring. It’s near the bottom of Magnet Road, which leads from the Passion Play to Main Street. I’m not sure why they named it Magnetic.

Like the others, this spring was lush and beautifully landscaped.

This is Matt, standing in front of the two basins, filled with water. We drove by once and saw some kids wading in it. The water was up to their thighs.

The upper basin spills into the lower basin, keeping them both fresh and pretty.

I hoped we could do the family pic at one of the springs, but that didn’t happen. Gonna have to try for some group shots again. Soon!

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Fall Tripping

Recognize this?

My favorite time to take a road trip is autumn. (Big surprise, huh?) We invited our kids and their honeys to join us over the weekend. (I had lofty dreams of taking family photos, too.) It didn’t work out the way I wanted.

#3 son had another commitment, #2 son couldn’t come until Saturday, and his wife couldn’t come at all, but #2 son and his wife were there. We had a great time!

I love hanging with someone who has great taste.

We saw some beautiful foliage. Have I mentioned I like fall leaves?

BEE–

–YOU–

–TIFUL!!!

Most of you probably know, I’m talking about Wareagle. So many great ideas. So many I want thats! (So many, “I can do thats!”)

Wareagle developed around a grist mill. (That’s the water wheel that turns the millstone inside.) There’s a restaurant in the top of the mill, but we never get close to it during the craft fair. It’s much too crowded. After all, it’s been going on for 59 years!

It’s set in a gorgeous landscape. I love this river.

 There’s an old one-lane bridge that crosses it. The fair is on both sides, and so much fun!

Of course, there were a few things I thought were just too cute to ignore.

Anyone have a spare horseshoe I can borrow?

By the end of a day at Wareagle, I’m always exhausted. But by next year, I’ll be ready to go again. 😛

I’ve talked since the last time we went to Wareagle about the witch’s brooms nearly all the women (besides me) were carrying. G-Man insisted I buy one this time. (I’ll be adding a bat to fly nearby, and maybe a spider.) When we got it, he suggested I fly it to the car. 🙂

I told him I would, except we didn’t have a long enough extension cord.

I bought this doll from Polka Dot Pig. Trouble is, she doesn’t have a name.

 Want to help me name her?