Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.  My mom always did a great job of making it magical, and I intend to do the same for my own children one day.  You know all of those Halloween episodes of Roseanne?  That's totally how my family was.

In the meantime, it's a great excuse to dress up in costume and pretend to be someone else for a day!  I'm still recovering from my scarlet fever, so I'm staying in and just handing out candy to trick-or-treaters tonight, but I did manage to put on a costume for school:

You can't see it in the picture, but there are tuning pegs on that bone necklace.  I suppose some cellos must be included in my kills.  The hair was surprisingly easy to accomplish with the help of some very tight rag curls that I put in last night before bed.  I woke up looking like Bozo the Clown, brushed it out and sprayed it, and I got cavewoman.  Works for me.

For my orchestra's annual costume concert, I dressed as Marge Simpson:

A lot of people mistook me for Thing 1 or Thing 2, I think largely due to the bright blue of the hair.  However, the shape of my hair is completely different, as is the costume.  I know I'm wearing a red sweater over the trademark Marge dress, but there's only so much skin you can show at school, especially if you're the teacher!

Two of my previous costumes, as well as Marge, are visible over at Mental Floss right now, but they definitely pale in comparison to some other costumes!  Today at school I saw a wide variety of "Sexy (insert whatever here)" costumes on girls.  It's so sad that these are the majority of available costumes for women and young girls.  However, I saw quite a few creative ones as well.  There is a great tumblr by the group Miss Representation that is showing creative and non-skanky costumes right now.  Go check it out!

I had fun with my IB music class discussing scary music today.  We watched Keeping Score's video on Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (don't do drugs, kids!), listened to and followed with the unconventional score of Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, and watched the most incredible animation I have ever seen (made using sand on glass) to Schubert's The Erlking.  The kids enjoyed it, and to my great amusement, had the same reaction that my kids last year had when I explained what the elf king was.  "So, it's a German Cucuy?"  Yeah, pretty much.   Happy Halloween, everyone!  Enjoy the animation.

Sofa 3.0

The free sofa I scored back in August has been upgraded again.  The lady who I got it from found one of the seat cushions, so I took it down to our local fabrics and foam store and had them cut a duplicate.  Then, I used extra material from the original cover and some upholstery fabric from Hobby Lobby and sewed new covers for the cushions.  Here is sofa 3.0:

As you can see, the cushions are a little uneven since one is brand new and the other is old.  Also, the cats have taken it over.  There's not much point in me even trying to sit on it.

I also decided to finally put up curtains in the living room.  I think they really class up the joint, don't you?

As you can see, I also put up some Halloween decorations recently, because I love Halloween.

I'm quite proud of my outside decorations.  My scarecrows have a reputation for scaring the pizza guy. Last weekend, though, they managed to scare some religious folks distributing pamphlets on Saturday morning. I felt kind of bad, but then realized that these people did wake me up, and while I know their intentions are good, I'm quite secure in my own faith, thank you very much.

Now, for those of you following All My Kittens, an update!  Both are doing quite well and have taken to making lots of noise in the room where they are living.  It's a good thing White Cat and Moe are deaf.

I finally got the opportunity to check, and LJ is not, as previously thought, a boy.  The Kitten Formerly Known as LJ is becoming cuddly and will let me pick her up and hold her.  Mac still believes that I am the devil incarnate.  Her emails and Facebook posts are kind of rude, too.

Anyway, LJ needs a new name.  Suggestions welcome.