Hallowe'en Part 1

Well, I think I made an excellent witch at the Swing Dance on Friday. Participation in the costume part of the evening was fantastic! Myles made a dashing pirate - and won the award for best male costume. Personally I think his secret was giving each lady he danced with treasure from his stash (chocolate gold coins) - it can't have been the way he called us all wenches! I was most impressed - we stayed nearly to the end of the evening (we left at ~12:15) and he kept his sword, hook and eye-patch on the whole time... he even managed to dance in that get-up - albeit with a significantly limited repertoire of moves.

For me, of course, the dancing was more important than the costume, so I lost my broom after the first dance; and, due to a problem I didn't foresee until I tried to dance with it, the hat followed quickly after. It turns out that dancing gets to be very tricky if you artifically add a foot to your height. Even my shawl was a distraction that could get tangled up and become a choke hazard if I wasn't careful. Next year, there will be more attention to detail in the "making my costume dancable" department!

The Swing Ottawa flickr sitehas a few more photos for anybody who is interested - now all I have to do is track down Adrian for the photo he took of me!

Saturday we carved pumpkins - always lots of fun, though I was distracted at a critical moment and the top layer of pumpkin seeds got a little charred. I stuck with my traditional triangular evil jack o lantern face, which looks good as always... but I may have to figure out a way to up the ante next year. It's good to try something new once in a while, yes?

Last night I stayed up once again sewing costume bits... I now have a pink underskirt and a sparkly blue overskirt (cut with the traditional fairy points). If I could only figure out what to do for a headpiece!

Stay tuned for Hallowe'en Part 2!

On witches and goblins and other spooky things

Despite getting the call to play ultimate on an emergency substitue basis at 8:17 pm last night, I still managed to make my witch's hat! I think it turned out pretty well, all things considered... there's nothing like making up a sewing project as you go to add to the feeling of accomplishment at the end.

It may or may not stay on better than the ones I could have bought at the dollar store... though I'm planning to add a chin strap to increase the odds as much as possible. It probably won't last any longer than storebought; there are some disadvantages to using cardboard as the framework for a hat... but how often am I going to be a witch anyway?

As for goblins, does anybody else remember the very silly Hallowe'en song that was printed in one of the very early piano lesson books? (probably Grade 1)... I found some lyrics on the internet (see below) but they don't quite ring true to my memory, so I'm soliciting other opinions:

Halloween and out we’re going, ghosts and goblins all about.
Halloween and out we’re going, out to play the game shell out!
Knock, knock, knock, and then we’ll shout!
Knock, knock, knock, shell out, shell out!
Then a gust of wind comes blowing
Blows my pumpkin lantern ouuuuuuut.

I think the other spooky things are all in my head. I'm still fuzzy from whatever bug took me out on Monday - and staying up late to sew probably didn't help.

Next up, carving pumpkins!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A bit belated, perhaps, but I feel that it is imperative not to let it go by unmarked. I have so much to be thankful for, after all, with a wonderful set of friends and family - and especially those friends whom I consider to be family :-)

May all of you be as blessed as I am!

Yay! I have a mirror again!

No thanks to the efficiency of Suzuki, mind you!

A few weeks ago, I had the unhappy experience of coming out to my car on a Saturday morning to discover that the driver's side mirror had been smashed overnight.

I still can't quite decide whether it was deliberately vandalized (you'd think that if someone was into vandalism they'd to a more thorough job, by keying the car or the like - not that I'm complaining if it was mysteriously restrained hoodlums!), or whether it would have been an accident... but regardless, nobody left a note or took responsibility in any way.

Fortunately, they only damaged the top inside corner of the mirror, so I could still use it while driving.

Or rather, that was fortunate, right up until the moment that I took my car into Suzuki to get them to fix the mirror. They'd quoted me a $14 part and half an hour of labour to fix the problem... but when I returned to pick up my car they informed me that the part they'd received from Suzuki didn't actually fit my car.

I'm still not clear on whether that was because they ordered it wrong or because Suzuki didn't make it clear in their catalogue that the mirror for the 2004 Swift+ was different from the mirror for the latest Swift+ model... but I don't really care.

Because of them I had to drive around for two weeks with no driver's side mirror, just a black box staring me in the face every time I wanted to track the cars coming up behind me on the left...

And the different mirror part cost $23 instead!!!!

Youch! the big 3-0

How'd that happen?

Had a very lovely family dinner party last night... fabulous prime rib roast beast dinner, beautiful pineapple upside down cake (with maraschino cherries! yay!), a grandmother, a brother, fabulous presents (some of which were handmade by not-quite-three-year-olds). Quite a nice way to soften the blow :-)

Of course, Myrna got me when I walked in the door to drop off Omi and go to my ultimate game. She came down the stairs, looked at the top of my head, and said: "What's that?" I, of course, being oblivious, did not clue in, until she said something along the lines of, "You're gonna have to start pulling those out!"

Groan.

Darcy asked me what my plans were for the next decade... I must confess, I don't have one. All that planning never worked out anyway.