Labor of Landscaping a/k/a If You Have It, Hedge It!

What did you do this Labor Day?  I had five whole days off. We were supposed to go to the cottage, but sadly, that was not to be.  Doesn't matter because B also had three whole days off. He hasn't had three whole days off since he started back up to work in the spring. Can you imagine getting up every day before five, seven days a week? Neither can I.  B doesn't imagine it, he does it.  Crazy.

So the Friday of Labor Day weekend was B's first day off. I gladly got up with the dogs before 5 to feed them and headed back to bed. Since I am narcoleptic, I can fall asleep quickly. B, meanwhile, slept in and then headed to the gym. He was home less than a few minutes when he told me he was off to the nursery. He wanted to do some landscaping.

He is nuts! Is your first thought on your day off to do hard labor? Not me.  What if the hard labor you were about to do is so similar to what you do at work that you might as well be at work?  That man is nuts.

In other news he planted some shrubs* in the area that you used to be beautiful and full of flowers, but was now full of dirt and dog prints.  The area is the take off point for the dogs and their zoomies around the yard.  It is also a fan favorite for digging holes and pushing balls under fences to just sit their and whine that the ball is on the other side of the fence.

So pretty. So precise.

Look at all of that green!

I am hoping they grow tall and block some of the neighbor's patio.
More for their sake than ours. Nosy dogs!

While I still think B is nuts in his love of labor, I really do appreciate the fruit of his labor.**

      




*I learned that these are NOT bushes. They are shrubs. All shrubs are not bushes and all bushes are not shurbs. Or something like that. I stopped listening. 

**Is it just me or does that sentence sound kind of gross?

Halloween Part Deux - Peanut Butter, Caution Tape and Cold Asses. Well Maybe Just One.

As you may be aware, the other night was Halloween. If you have been reading for a while, then you also know that we get a lot of children in these parts. And I mean a lot! Remember last year?  This year was no different.  The first car load was dropped off on a corner at 4:30!  After about 45 minutes they started making their way down the street even though it was still light.  By 5:30 things were in full swing and we were passing out candy left and right.

B grew big pumpkins again this year, although not as big as last year. He also carved three of them. I carved none.  

This is the one with all of the holes drilled in that looks so cool at night lit up:

This is B's pumpkin face:

Our nephew. You can find more of his Halloween pictures here:

He looked like he had many fingers, but he only had 10:

You are probably wondering what this is all about. Well, my sister-in-law took part in an advance sneak peek at some new Snickers candy.  As part of the campaign, she got materials and treats to give out on Halloween and she and my nephew came to our house since we get a lot of traffic.  We put up the Snickers sign, the tape, and the spiderwebs:

My nephew only cared about the pumpkins:

We were the only house on the block with the treats. Even adults were asking for them. I totally made up a random rule that if a child read the sign out loud they got a treat.* You cannot believe how many read it out loud!

Darkness finally fell:

And we finally ran out of candy.**  Not before seeing a Jason Voorheis adult sized mask on a five year old thereby making him the first horror movie dwarf, a equally small but proportionate Freddy Kreuger and the 10 year old in some kind of mask with, what I hope was a plastic bayonet, strolling down the street at a determined pace without a bag of candy. I hope he wasn't killing anyone.

And if you were wondering, the new Snickers has a secret ingredient:

Yes, it is peanut butter. I thought it tasted like a regular Snickers but when I ate them back to back I could tell the difference. Why yes I had to eat more than a few. Research people!

Next year I am going to convince B that we should do this to our house:

Piece of cake.  Or candy if you will.

*I had other random rules such as "OH MY GOD THAT KID IS SO CUTE - give him lots of candy."

**Or maybe we didn't, but I feared we would. And my butt was cold. Really cold.

October Roared in Like a Lion and Then Bit Me in the Ass. And It is Cold.

October is almost over with and fall is in the air. Well, actually I would like to call it WINTER.  It is freezing here.  For God's sake, B turned on the furnace! Only by one degree, but whatever. Seriously, the man turned the furnace on by one degree.  One morning as he was leaving for work and puzzling about why half my clothes were off and he was freezing (I get hot when I sleep), he announced "I EVEN turned on the furnace." I was shocked. I was even more shocked when I came home and it didn't seem to be any warmer in the house. So I looked at the thermostat: 62 degrees.  Um, not exactly a heatwave.  So I query:

Me: I thought you turned the furnace on.

B: I did!

Me: But it is cold in here.

B: It is on!

Me: But it says it is only 62 degrees in here.

B: Yes, but it WAS 61.

Me: Um, what?

B: It was 61 in here but it was chilly so I turned it up to 62.

Me: Let me get this straight. You turned on the furnace to heat this place up by one degree.

B: Well, it took the chill off.

Me: You are a rebel.

So now it is slightly warmer, but still dang cold for October around here.  Maybe by November we can turn it up to 65. So wild!

In completely different news, Jersey went for her monthly bath. She came home with a very cute bandanna. The bandanna never lasts long because B takes it off. Not Jersey. B.   Something about it being too girly.  Um, bandannas are SO not girly. And this one was seasonal:

How dang cool does she look? COOL not cute.  She can't be girly.  I would reckon to say she looks like a stud:

You know, if she was a boy and all.  Also, that bandanna makes her look fat.  Look at that neck roll. It is the Sharpei in her, I swear.

What else did October bring other than werewolves and getting locked out of houses? Evil Dead the Musical. Twice.  Once just isn't enough. That is not their slogan, but mine. Did you even knew such a thing exists?  It does.  Did you know that you must go see it if given the opportunity? You must.  It will change your life.  You will break out into spontaneous songs singing things like "Do the Necrnomican" and singing "Candarian Demon" while making demon hands and looking at your dog who thinks you have gone nuts.  You will sit in the splatter zone and come home with "blood" in your hair and all over your clothes. 

So I just had to get up to let Jersey out and did the demon hands and she jumped and bit my arm. I may be bleeding for real.

I love Halloween.

October: The Fall of Temperatures , The Rise of Monsters, and the Riddle of All Ages

October is here! October is my favorite time of the year.  It brings giant pumpkins like so:

I can't wait to carve these like last year's.  So much fun.  October also brings monsters. Check these out:

Why yes, those are scary bobbles.  Why yes they are special Halloween edition bobbles of Star Wars characters. How fun is that? We have zombie Stormtrooper, werewolf Chewbacca and evil Yoda. I am just missing Darth Vadar, but I will get him this weekend.

In other news, remember when I saw that werewolf walking down the street?  Well, he looked kind of like Chewbacca up there. Also I saw him again while on the phone with my mom so now she can vouch for me. Well, she didn't see him but she did hear me scream "IT IS THE WEREWOLF GUY BUT THIS TIME HIS SHIRT IS CLOSED." Hell, I think werewolf guy heard me. In fact, I can almost guarantee this since I saw him yesterday walking down the street carrying a gas can and he looked RIGHT AT ME even though I was far away.  I am not sure yet what this means.

Other things that have happened since October began? The temperature dropped like crazy. We are freezing. Yet it is October so we don't want to turn on the heat. Hell, even I think it is too early. I am now attempting to keep warm by candlelight. Guess what? That doesn't work. At all.  Good thing it is supposed to be 80 on Saturday. Damn weather.

I also got a speeding ticket.  First one in MANY years and second one ever. Yes, I did have an immediate thought of running again, but decided against it.  Maybe in 15 more years I won't even think about running. Ha.  Also, could you give a girl a break? Apparently no. I wanted to shout I AM A GOOD DRIVER!!! But since I got pulled over that wouldn't seem entirely true would it?

I also had a first in my professional career the other day. A deposition in a church.  I have had some strange deps in my life (a post should really be done on that), but a church? I had visions of the videographer aiming toward the altar and the witness seated under a giant cross with Jesus insuring she told the truth.  Then I somehow turned that into a haunted church and walked around the house with a blanket over my head telling B that I was going to depose a ghost.  He looked at me like I was nuts, but who decided the next morning to talk about how difficult the dep would be if the person just kept saying "Booooo"? That is why we are in love people.

Speaking of ghosts, my main computer might have died. B thinks I killed it.  Perhaps because two others have gone to premature graves. I know that I am the common denominator but it is an Apple! It is not like I am running around getting viruses and things.  One has to wonder though, why do the computers just happen to break AFTER the warranty expires?

Riddle me that, people.

You Know It Is Going to Be a Bad Day When You See a Werewolf Walking Down the Street

Today has been a strange day. First, B found our back porch motion light on and deemed it "suspicious". Then later when I took Jersey out for the second time, her floating dummy was lying at our back door like some offering. I deemed that "spooky." Jersey just peed and went about her business.

Then I drove to work figuring all would be well. Until I saw the werewolf. Seriously, I looked over at something walking down the street and said, out loud in my car, that's a werewolf! Of course it wasn't really a werewolf. Turns out it was a guy with a very shaggy long beard and shaggy unkempt hair under a Indiana Jones' hat. Did I mention that his shirt was ripped wide open? Well, maybe not ripped, but open. It was 7 am!

That is when I knew there must be a full moon.

Look it up, folks. Full moon September 23rd. I knew I wasn't crazy. Actually I thought I might be going crazy, but that happens often.

By the way, if you try to look up images of werewolves on photobucket you will inexplicably find a picture of a dog that looks remarkably like your own. Then you will think about how your dog is not a werewolf, so why would this one be? Then you will realize "werewolf' is probably the dog's name.

Now that's a mouthful to yell out.

Oh, and if you go tell your husband that you were looking up pictures of werewolves and found one that looks like your dog. He will:

1. Roll his eyes at the fact that you just used "looking up pictures of werewolves" in a sentence.
2. He will then attempt to look up werewolves himself
3. He will completely disagree that the dog named werewolf looks anything like your dog named Jersey, despite this evidence:

They could totally be twins.  I hope that doesn't mean Jersey will be up howling all night tonight though. 

I need my sleep. 

When It Rains, It Pours Yogurt a/k/a If Life Gives You Yogurt, It is Probably Because You Dropped It

Things have been quite busy here in the Riddler household.  Life at the office is scary busy.  The trial did not help in the bit, especially when it took 7 days when it should have taken 2.  And I didn't win, so there is that.*  Grrr.

Also, I have been writing more reviews for Daemon's now that fall TV is picking up. They are also letting me review DVDs.  That makes for fun, but busy times.

So it really was no surprise to me that eventually I would be moving too fast to not pay attention to what was going on around me.  That was the other day.  I like to call it Raining Yogurt Day.  I was in a hurry, of course. Did you not read everything I wrote above?  So I grabbed a yogurt from the fridge before sending Jersey to her resting place. No I didn't kill her! Her crate. HER CRATE! Geez, people.  Well, I missed with the whole grabbing-the-yogurt thing and it fell to the floor. I picked it up surprised that it hadn't broke and threw it in my bag.  Then I noticed it was leaking. So much for the no breaking thing. I grabbed another one and took Jersey out for a final pee. No, I didn't kill her! Final pee until we returned home.  You people are very suspicious.

I thought it was strange that she was running around and licking my pants until I realized they had yogurt on them. Nice.  So I spotted them with a lot of water and was off to work.  Yes, I probably should have changed pants, but I am BUSY.  Of course that resulted in my turning on the heater in the car to get the pants dried, but I was awfully proud of myself because you could not tell what happened.

Yeah, right.

After running into the ladies room before hitting the office, I happen to catch a glimpse of something pink in the mirror.  YOGURT. ON MY SLEEVE. And when I mean on my sleeve, I mean covering it. Covering the jacket. Inside on the tshirt. How could I have missed this? And so I scrub and wet and all is right.

Until right before I get home and see more yogurt on my pants.  Seriously, I don't even think that all of the yogurt I found could even fit into the container that I dropped.  How do I consistently have these problems with food? 

I blame YOU mother. Maybe you should have spent more time teaching me how to eat instead of teaching me to read at 3. Priorities!

Speaking of priorities, Jersey sure has hers:

Yes, that was a rather lame segway to show you a picture of my dog. Were you expecting something more?  Look how comfortable she looks jammed up against that bookcase. I would break my neck. Of course, that is mostly because she had just gotten down from laying completely across me with her head backwards and in the crook of my neck forcing me into some weird C maneuver with my head in order to still watch TV. Yet, I didn't move.  Who owns whom again?

In other news, her legs still seem awfully long and I fear she is not done growing. 

I guess we will keep her anyway.

Today is our big block party in our hood. Stay tuned for an update. Actually, I don't think I told you about last year's party, so stay tuned for a double update. And when I say "stay tuned" I do not mean tonight.  Two blog posts in one day is a bit overreaching for this blog, peeps.

Happy Block Party Day, bitches!

*Well the Plaintiff only got half of what she was asking for, so that is kind of a win. It is not a victory.

Fall Has Finally Come and the Colors Are Gorgeous!

Last year we did not have much in the way of fall. It was summer one day and 12 hours later winter had blown in and had taken all of the leaves from the trees with it. This year is different though. With the up and down temperatures, we actually have some color. Friday as I was driving home, I realized how much had changed over night and snapped a few photos.

I love the little red bush in the corner of their front yard:

The view from our porch:

And the other side:

Down our street:

The corner of our house and the trees behind us:

The tree in front of our house and our neighbor's trees:

Down the other side of the street:

Same view, my camera just colored it differently:

And a wider view:

Again, the camera colored it differently. This one is my favorite as it feels like fall:

Upstairs view of the backyard and trees behind us:

And the other side and the trees you caught a glimpse of when looking at the corner of our house:

Do you have any fall colors where you are? I cannot get enough of this!

Halloween Came a Little Early

As we did last year, this past weekend we went on our family trip for an old time Halloween trick or treat walk. Unlike last year, B did not trip me on the bridge. I consider that a success. This year, our nephew L dressed like a dragon. A SCARY dragon:

Yes, he basically spent the entire trip staring in awe from the wagon while eating an apple. I think he was just trying to take it all in.

And in typical B fashion, he tried to snap millions of candids of me. I decided to return the favor. We have a lot of photos like this:

and this:

My favorite part of the walk however was the scarecrows. We knew from last year that there were three scarecrows and one of them was a real person that would scare whomever took a picture by it. This one was fake:

This one was real:

That is my brother-in-law and B's cousin's boy running from the scarecrow. My BIL convinced poor G to have his picture taken knowing that scarecrow was real. If you want to see the before picture, head over to my SIL Jenny's blog.* Speaking of Jenny, here is a great family shot by a huge thing of carved pumpkins:

Look how cool and spooky they are without a flash:

It was a really fun time especially since B's cousin was there and her kids all dressed up. Alas, we didn't play any cruel jokes on the people around us by claiming that our baby was missing upon exiting the bridge. However, the bridge was extra spooky his year because it had crazy lighting in there. That may be why B didn't trip me; he was distracted.

Happy Almost Halloween!

*You can also see more pictures of L and his skeleton pjs!