Too old for Halloween

Feel free to judge.  We are comfortably boring teachers in our thirties, and we ended up club clubbin' this past Saturday.  

 At a Hard Rock Cafe. 

In a way, I judge myself. :)

Yes, I've mentioned before that Dan and I feel way too old for the club scene, but in our defense...

No one was having a Halloween party this year. 

and

I really wanted to dress up.

I'm probably not helping my case, am I?  Anyway, after much discussion, we decided to go out with my sister, since she's still young and hip enough to bust up in the club.  Just call us thirty-something tag alongs!

Yes, I did have a moment where I was scared of a run-in with the bouncer outside like in the movie Knocked Up.  You know the scene I'm talking about where Katherine Heigl and her sister try to get in a club?  I could just see the bouncer looking at Dan and me and saying, "You two are old. Everyone else is in their twenties, so you can't come in. Can't have two old asses running around in here!"

Luckily, they did let our old asses in.  Anyway, before I share our get-up from this year, I thought I'd give you all a peak a few past Halloweens to show my love of costumes, thus justifying our choice to go club clubbin' at a place known for Elvis memorabilia and selling over-priced hamburgers...

Three years ago, we were pick-up lines.  Want to guess which ones??

Notice the sign I'm wearing on my hip:

 Did you get them?  If not, you haven't spent much time in aforementioned skeezy clubs.  You are so classy!

Dan: "There's a party in my pants... and you're invited!" 

Me: "Did it hurt... when you fell from heaven??"

Then, we were lazy one year and dressed as an eighties bride and groom:

We didn't want to spend much money that year, so we pulled out his t-shirt tuxedo and worked with what we had.

  

Last year, you might remember Dan was Mr. Frederickson from the movie Up, and I was the house. 

We won first place at a small party... and celebrated like Emmy winners.

This year, we decided to be iconic snack super stars. 

Hello, from Mr. and Mrs. Peanut!

I bought the accessories at Walmart and cut out the letters for the hats.  I cut out the peanuts from foam and pinned them on the front and back.  It was a comfortable costume, so Dan was happy.  We got a great reaction on the metro in DC and the rest of the night!

My sister and her boyfriend were inspired by Monty Python; notice that she's the serf with the coconuts to give sound effects to his gallop.  They ended up winning first place (a Carribean cruise!) at a contest later that night!!

Other note-worthy ones that night?  Bethy's friend dressed as the lamp from A Christmas Story:

Wayne and Garth:

My favorites are always the clever ones.  This one guy dressed in a suit with paint samples all over him.  I couldn't figure it out.  Sample suit??  I looked closer and saw all the names of the paint colors:  charcoal, dust bunny, dove, stone wall...  Finally giving up, I asked him what he was.

His answer?  "Fifty shades of gray." 

Wish I had snapped a picture!

Despite my massive hangover the next day (never happened to me in college... gah), the night was cheesy and fun, so it all worked out!  Bethany has a full on obsession with Halloween that makes my love for the holiday pale in comparison, so she's always fun to be around.  I have to share her gift to me, just because she likes to pass on Halloween love, and she knows I love pumpkin anything:

Yep, she gave me a pumpkin-themed gift (pumpkin candy, socks, pumpkin popcorn, straws, and candle).  I loved it!  But who's surprised?  It was the ultimate indulgence in my inner child.  I've decided I'll never be too old for Halloween.

I'm just too old for the club.

Fall= folk yeah!

As I copped to in my last post, nosy comments and baby frustration have been bringing me down lately.  No glossing over that it.   I see a fertility doctor for the first time next month, which makes me feel scared... but also officially lets me breathe a sigh of relief to try something new.  I need some advice other than a huffy, "Do it a lot", which was all my OBGYN said. 

 I wanted to bitch slap her.

But I am feeling better just having shared a little of this.   I also feel like fall is in full swing now, which is one thing that always improves my mood. Here are some of the more recent causes of endorphins, all fall related, of course!

I took these:

And made this:

 It was my first attempt at crisp.  It's healthy because there's apples in there, right?

It was for a get together at a friend's house where we washed it down with some apple sangria, gossiped, and carved pumpkins.  Some people's husbands came, but I didn't get on Dan about it because he's more of a beer and football kind of guy.

Dan did humor me by oohing and ahhing at  my attempt at artistic carving (fall leaves jack o' lantern):

What else?

Dan and I went here:

via

It was a folkin' good time!

I didn't make that pun up, but I've been looking forward to using it... twice in one post, apparently.

Lastly, I've got such good people in my life.  Like my mom, who will let me vent about anything I need to for hourse.  Or my sis and Dan who are always so supportive.  

Like my friend Missy, who came over for lunch last Saturday and brought a surprise "I know you love fall" gift, just because!   I had mentioned how much I loved this Andy Warhol soup can project from YHL to her and how I wanted to make vintagy potted plants in them for my kitchen.

 

Look what she brought me!

She picked up one of each can of Warhol labeled soup

 oyster crackers to enjoy with said soup

and a huge bag of pumpkin kisses!

 How pretty are these guys?

I can already see some succulents growing out of them in my kitchen...

 

She downplayed her amazing gift as a "little something", but let me tell you, it meant so much to me. A YHL-inspired project, fall food, and pumpkin... how awesome is this girl??

 I'm off on a weekend getaway with Dan to the mountains in a few weeks for some much needed time away with him and the season I love.  Who else is soaking October lately??

"A little bit pregnant"

    I was reading a friend's blog post the other day about comparisons, and it really resonated with me, especially this quote she included:

     The first thought that came to my mind: "True!"   The second thought:  "My blog is definitely my highlight reel."   From trips to recipes, inside jokes to fun projects, I keep this blog mainly as a cheesy scrapbook to things that make me happy.  I love scrolling back to look at, say, Dan's hysterical-to-himself posed pictures or re-read about our family's surprise Christmas.  That doesn't make my blog phony or embellished or untrue.   It simply focuses on my highlight reel.        

      I guess this post is about the more murky "behind the scenes".

     Lately, I've been thinking that there are few black and white things in life, but pregnancy is supposed to be one of them:  you either are, or you are not.   Like the saying goes, you can't be a little bit pregnant.

     I am not.  Just wanted to clarify that before going any further.

       Of course, you all are reasonable people who believe me the first time I say it, unlike a bold colleague the other day.  She came up to me during the ear-shattering pep rally, and I couldn't hear her question to me.  She smiled knowingly and crowed, "You're so out of it today!  I think you're pregnant!"
    
       She didn't know.   She didn't know about the boxes of ovulation tests we've blown through.  She didn't know about my feelings of wistfulness when I see other people's chubby newborns on Facebook.  She didn't know about Dan's hilariously uncomfortable visit to a certain doctor's office. She didn't know that I miscarried last year.  To be fair, she was just making a cheerily innocuous comment, hoping to be the first to discover some minor bit of gossip.

   I choked out something like, "Uh, no, not pregnant."  I thought that was the end of the interaction, but somehow it wasn't. She began to rationalize her sleuthing skills.  "You had that doctor's appointment on Monday, and you look exhausted!"  

** NOTE to self:  Re-stock concealer. **

       At this point in the conversation, I would not have been surprised if she had peeled up my shirt to poke my muffin top and squealed, "There's your baby bump!!"

        Getting pissed, I repeated again, "Seriously, NOT with child." 

      She just smirked, all Uh-huh, whatever preggers!  I'm on to you!  

      When I denied it a third time, she stopped smiling because I think she felt a bit embarrassed and chirped, "Well, it'll happen any day now!"  It was her way of being reassuring, after an exchange that felt like a punch to the (baby-less) gut.  It sucks to have to convince someone that you're not pregnant.

     Not even a little bit.

     The idea of being a little bit pregnant is, of course, false.  But it reminds me of another rather thoughtless comment made by a different teacher lately.  She had asked me about how the baby making was going, and I confessed that I was frustrated and also scared of miscarrying again, like I had the first time.  She commiserated with me about this fear, and then launched into a story about her sister losing her pregnancy at ten weeks, which was understandably devastating to her.  At the end, she said, "I mean, Christen, she was really far along, though.  It wasn't like yours where you were barely pregnant."

     Again, she just didn't know.  She didn't know what that night was like for us.  She didn't know how I couldn't stop crying, how I ransacked my house and threw the bib I bought to reveal the news to Dan, the pregnancy book, and my diary and slammed them away in a drawer that I haven't opened since.  She was trying to be reassuring that things could be worse.  I've thought a lot about this a lot and have decided that as well-intentioned as that comment was, she's just plain wrong.  There is no "barely pregnant".  I was. And even though it was over in seven weeks, it didn't make it easy to lose. I still think about it all the time.

    If it sounds like I'm throwing a pity party for myself, that's not my intention.  I know there are more extreme losses than mine, that people struggle for years with conceiving, that couples spend thousands in rounds of IVF.  There are so many things to treasure about having this time with just Dan: sleeping in, our winery visit the other day, date nights with no need for a sitter...  It's not lost on me!   If I need to be patient on waiting for a family, my best friend is a pretty damn good person to do it with.  No pun intended.  It's just lately other people's comments have mingled with my own frustration.  Anyone else been there? 

     Like I said before, there are very little things in life that are black or white.  This blog might usually show one side of my life, my highlight reel, but I thought it was worth giving some screen time to my frustrations and, yes, even sadness, too.

Halloween Decor: Part 2

So, I've already shared my living room after it had been Halloweenified:

Here is my dining room!  The birds started wrecking havoc on my frames, per the usual.  I like to have at least one out of balance, just for fun:

Besides posting the birds, I brought in some fall leaves, my burlap runner, broke out a two pound bag of candy corn, and added one more Halloween pillow:

I've seen this idea to use the candy corn as vase filler, so I decided to try it.  By the way, I kept noticing a slightly askew candle and finally realized that the candy corn wasn't as high as before.   Dan had been snacking every time he went by- ha ha!

The candle on the left is pumpkin scented, of course.  It makes me want to bake my whoopie pies again.

I found this cube for a couple bucks at a vintage store last year; it's kinda whimsical, right?

Lastly, my foyer is looking festive with more leaves, a labeled bottle of wine, and one of my dollar store skulls nestled in a bowl of candy.  I also spray painted some branches from my backyard black and stuck them in the trick r' treat bucket.

This was taken a week ago.  There's barely any candy left in the bowl anymore. :)

This is Halloween!

Errr... 28 days early!

My sister is as Halloween-crazy as I am and wanted to see my decor, so I'm posting this early.  She sent me one of those adorable, pop-up Halloween cards the other day with this message:

 No argument from me!  Halloween can be a whole season!  It's a weird holiday to be into, but kinda nice that she shares the commitment!

(Last year's Halloween:  Bethy as Black Swan and me as the house from the movie Up)

 Anyway, if let's get this season started off right!  If you've read this blog from year to year, you know I don't usually fuss with mantle arrangements, but every October I allow my cheesy Martha flag to fly and indulge in some arranging.

This year, I stuck with black and white theme again and went to Pinterest for inspiration:

via here

and this:

via here

I knew I wanted to go with black and white and have some sort of banner like the two spooky above mantles.  Here's what I came up with:

I know the Halloween tree is massive, but I kind of love the spooky vibe!  The banner and pillow are the only new objects (both from Target).

I probably should take some night pictures since I happened to snap these on a sunny morning and forgot that my camera's exposure setting was up pretty high, making this look downright cheery!  Imagine it darker with the candles in the fireplace emiting the only light...

On the left, I plunked down the magnifying glass (mad scientist vibe), my halloween tree with the candy boxes I bought for my murder mystery party a few years back, and a ceramic pumpkin:

I filled the apothecary jar with white shredded paper from a gift bag and filled it with the plastic spiders, so they have their own little nest now. 

On the right:  the ceramic deer antler, some plumes, a plastic plate from Target, and some votive holders.  I stuffed some black napkins in the vase with the plumes to make them a little taller:

I kind of feel like the banner makes the whole thing:

As for the rest, I've believe you met my mice friends before...

If I was more rock and roll, I'd keep this pillow up year round :)

In case you're as Halloween crazy as me, here are my previous year themes:

2011 was all about the spiders:

Post is here

And in 2010 I framed pictures from horror movies and made a chalkboard pumpkin:

Post is here



See part two of my Halloween decor here!

Anyone else decorating for Halloween??