Happy Halloween!

Original post title, I know, but there's no better way to say it! We love Halloween around here.

It's Z's favorite holiday. We started the day by singing a duet (between yawns and giggles) from The Nightmare Before Christmas: "This is Halloween, this is Halloween... (Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...)."

This year she decided to dress up as Alice in Wonderland. For the past 24 hours, she has been leaning more toward a zombified Alice in Wonderland, but when she got dressed this afternoon, she decided to stick with the original plan.

This year she was invited to go trick-or-treating with a friend, making this the first year ever that we haven't spent the night together as a family. Why did we say yes when our ghastly little hearts were wailing "no"? Simply put, it's one of the mysteries of parenthood -- this whole "putting the child before your self" gig.

So Z went trick-or-treating halfway across the island. Rob and I decided not to be Halloween grinches and sit in the darkness of our house ignoring the children's cries for candy. We actually did some last minute decorating, and even put up a "Happy Halloween" banner.

Good thing we did -- this year, we were actually visited by several groups of trick-or-treaters. In years past, we've been lucky if we saw ten kids during the course of the night. Tonight, there must have been at least fifty.

I even managed to put together a "costume" of sorts: Paul Frank shirt + wings.

What am I? I have no idea. The Angel of Candy? The Obesity Fairy? The Weird Lady Who Refused to Let That One Little Boy Take the Glo Lights that Lined Her Walkway (and Who Nearly Pitched a Fit When They Went Missing Later)?

Alas, now the candy supplies are running low, and the collective groans of tots with tummy aches are rising into the moonlit October sky. It was a good night...although we missed our little trick-or-traitor Z. :) I think next year I'll go as a witch and hold my child captive for the night.

Lily Bee Halloween Album

Yet another testament to the versatility of Lily Bee's Audrey line...:)

This Is Just to Say

Happy Monday!

Okay, that's fake enthusiasm.

Mondays kind of blow.

Monday nights, however, aren't too bad.

Gossip Girl. Lie to Me. Big Bang Theory (even the reruns are awesome).

What's more, I even found a little scrappy time tonight:

The title comes from a William Carlos Williams poem of the same name:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

So of course I needed to write my own "notes" to my husband. They aren't apologies or plum-related at all. They're actually more like thank-you notes and declarations of his all-around awesomeness.

Here's to a happier Tuesday!

Away We Go

Five Faves Fri(tur)day

From the desk of Jill Sprott...here are my five fave items from my desk this morning.

1. Jenni Bowlin letter stickers. I've already gone through two sheets of them.

2. My favorite adhesives. I guess I'm a creature of habit. There are lots of adhesives out there on the market, I know, but I stick (har har) with those that I've been using for years. The K & Co. Craft Bond is relatively new, but I love how it holds everything and anything, so it's a keeper.

3.Studio Calico stamps. Genius can be contained in a little package, and set free on a page.

4.Zing! I love these embossing powders not just for their onomatopoetic name, but also because they're just plain brilliant. I mean it -- they retain their brilliant colors even after heat is applied. Amazing amazingness. Zing!

5. Maya Mist. I cannot get enough of this stuff. I can't seem to create a page without misting some part of it. My absolute favorite is the cream mist. It's awesometastic.

It's Gonna Be Goooood.

Her Woofness.

Last night I "stole" a little bit of time by ignoring my "to do" list, and I lost myself for an hour in the latest Studio Calico kit, "Yearbook." My scrap therapy pages always turn out similarly -- lots of color, bits and pieces of patterns, layers of paper, accents galore, and my trademark scrawl. No worries, no planning, no holding back, no careful placing of any given item -- and thus, it's a little messy, but it's ME.

Lily Bee, How I Love Thee.

Just wanted to share a few of my recent Lily Bee layouts:

Can you tell that I'm slightly obsessed with the black and white Audrey "Classy" paper? It seems to turn up in everything that I create lately.

Five Faves Friday

1. Starbucks Drive-Thrus.

If I didn't have the option of a Starbucks drive-thru each morning, there really would be no Starbucks in my life. I'm way too lazy to get out of my car in the morning. With the drive-thru, it feels as if I make no stops -- it's all part of the commute to work. Granted, thanks to this drive-thru "enabling", I'm out about ten bucks a day, but have you tried a coffee frappuccino lately? So worth living paycheck to paycheck.

2. Dan Brown's latest.

The man gives good hook. I'm a fan of Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, and this book seems to be on par with his usual style. Sadly, the movies have made an impact on my imagination -- I am seeing Tom Hanks instead of Harrison Ford whenever I picture Robert Langdon. Call it the Harry Potter Effect. Bummer.

Regardless, Brown does a great job of keeping the story moving while also somehow teaching along the way. I love the details that he works into his stories, illuminating his plots with historical and scientific facts. Somehow he's able to make even the wildest concepts seem grounded. I'm only a few chapters in, but so far, it's a good read.

3. Teaching Poe.

Every October I do a Poe unit with my students, beginning with "The Tell-Tale Heart." Once the students hit the word "acute," they tend to jump to conclusions about the accessibility of the text. We persist, though, reading the text aloud together, stopping along the way to ensure that everyone is following along. By the time they get to the word "dismember", each and every one of them gets the genius that is Poe.

This week, we made our way through poems such as "A Dream Within a Dream," "The Raven," "The Haunted Palace," and "Annabel Lee." With every new poem, the students seem to become more excited and enthralled. Today, upon hearing the line "For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams/Of the beautiful Annabel Lee," one of the girls exclaimed, "Oh!" We're talking swooning here. I get it. For me, that swoon comes with the preceding lines:

Neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

The students also loved the Simpsonized version of "The Raven" that I shared with them today. It never gets old.

"The Raven" on The Simpsons - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

4. Zombieland. We saw this last weekend, and it was definitely worth watching. If you're a fan of "Shaun of the Dead" (and who, worth knowing, isn't?), then you'll love this flick.

5. Friday. Can I just say how LONG I've been waiting for the weekend this week? The only thing that makes me more excited than the thought of Friday is Saturday. Have a good one.

Five Faves Fri(tur)day

1. Whip It = Good. Easily, the highlight of this week was seeing Whip It. Z and I went to see it yesterday after school, and loved every minute of it. It's smart, well-written, and hellafun. I'm also loving the soundtrack.

2. Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story. Carolyn Turgeon's re-vision of the age old tale is putting a smile on my face. I selected it for the October book choice over at the Bad Girls monthly book club. Feel free to join us!

3. Lie to Me. The season premiere was Monday night, and it was gooood. I was a little afraid that after a solid first season, the show would begin to lose momentum, but I was so wrong.

4. Chicken Potstickers. The menu at the Cheesecake Factory describes them as "dumplings pan-fried in the classic tradition, served with our soy-ginger sesame sauce." There's nothing there to the effect of "may cause voracious cravings, night sweats, and overwhelming symptoms of withdrawal." I could eat these every single day.

5. ilee Calendars. This week I received two of the new ilee 2010 letterpress calendars in the mail.

One is for me, and the other one will likely be given to some lucky person for Christmas. I haven't yet decided whose desk is worthy of this beauty. It needs to be someone who won't just use the calendar for its functionality (as in, "Oh, look, today is October 3") but will actually take time to feel the embossed surface of each card and take in the wonder of each design. It's a calendar, but it's not just a calendar. For instance, all year I've been eagerly waiting for October -- not just for the month of October, but for this brilliant piece of brilliance:

Now that's a calendar.