I’m blogging in the candlelight in front of the fireplace. Warming up after freezing my patootie off outside as it got dark out. There are candles lit everywhere, and one of iDJ’s disco lights is flashing swirls of colour across the big front window.
We have lights up, and styrofoam headstones, and cemetery fencing, and other stuff…
SomaFM is playing on the house stereo; Doomed channel, special Halloween mix. It’s good, have a listen.
I’m worn out after carving all seven pumpkins today. Yep, seven. iDJ found four tiny ones, then two middle sized ones, then one more middle sized one (all at different shops) and he bought every one he found. Glad he did, as they didn’t last long as they are hard to find in Ireland!
Only one small one went rotten in the weeks before today, much better than last year when two went bad, and very bad they were.
Here’s my store-bought crop:
Huh. I just realised that I can’t count. Eight pumpkins! No wonder I’m so damn tired. Glad I took the day off! Where the hell did the fourth medium sized one come from?
Oh, sweet. While I was typing this, iDJ posted the pics of my finished carvings on FB. Now I get to go rob them for here!
My owl. He’s got lovely red leaves stuck on like feathers. It didn’t turn out exactly as I imagined.
Cranky baby pumpkin. Shoulda put the single snaggle-tooth on the other side.
Skull pumpkin. I was already running low on ideas.
Stitched-up pumpkin. Not enough oxygen gets in to keep the candle lit so his lid has to be wonky.
Ya got me. Sort of like a pig or a bull. * shrug *
Probably my favourite. Pretty scary!
And, of course, a spider!
You might realise there are only seven pics. Pumpkin no. 8 was a mutant inside and I couldn’t carve it in a way that would allow a candle to light it up. I saved it to last, dithering, and what I did to it is too crappy to share!
Happy Halloween!
heretherebespiders 
OH – MY – GOD! I envy you so much right now! Look at all the decorations..!! How I wish people celebrated halloween here so big as they do there and in the usa. 😦 I would’ve gone totally nuts with the decorations!
And the owl pumpkin is adorable, and I love it! I think it’s really pretty! Scrap that, I love them all!
You should keep the cemetery fencing up the whole year. 😉
They don’t go crazy here – it’s mostly just me! Every year we manage to find one or two new things, so this took a while to accumulate!
Thank you! Soon I get to cook them all, fun 🙂 Not!
How to pumpkins tastes?
Um, ah… Hard one if you haven’t had it! Have you had sweet potato or yam? Sort of like that. Less sweet, but good either as a savoury soup or with sugar in pie or bread or cake, etc.
Sweet potatoe, I think I had it before, but that was years ago! Can’t really remember how it tastes!
not good
No? 😮 Why not?
I like it! Hearty and winter-y. Your BF might like it, too – different but not heavy? If that makes sense at all.
I’ll check if there is anything pumpkin’ish in the stores here. 😉
Orange. Bleh.
Pumpkin is most awesome in a pie and a fantastic color. It is very much like sweet potato, or a couple other squashes.
Ooh, I like sweet potatoes. 🙂
I know. Me too! And the window looks great. I have to fight hubby to care about even decorating for Christmas.
Thanks! We have WAY more Halloween stuff. He did all of the outside decor, I usually do the inside.
You go all over the top with christmas decorations? 😉
Not really, but I can’t even get him interested in decorating a little. I used to have a mini tree and I put it up myself. He just doesn’t really care about “getting into the spirit.”
Sounds like my boyfriend! My mother got me a mini tree for christmas, my boyfriend thinks it’s BS.
Cheery, ain’t they? 😉
Ohyes, veeeeery!
Heh. We’re atheists, but I insist on a HUGE, real, Christmas tree. Because the damn tree has nothing really to do with Christianity – it’s way older. And I love the way it smells, and the hunt for ‘just the right one’ and the fact that despite having three animals in my house all the time, they shrug their little shoulders and say ‘humans are weird’ and leave the tree alone.
I have wayyy more Halloween things though.
My mother will decorate the house like crazy with Christmas! At work they do it too, but they have horrible lights in the tree that make music…
Fabulous. I mean — FABULOUS!!!! I am fundamentally opposed to Halloween but seeing this here, I might have to revisit that conviction I mean opinion I mean prejudice.
Come toooo the daaark siiide! I love creepy stuff, and being a bit scared, and the actual art of horror and the grotesque. And as above, I’m an atheist so I have no fundament to sit upon. It never occurred to me to think of these things as ‘evil’, to be honest. Everyone has a skull inside their head, the freaky part is seeing it shed of skin. It’s good to realise that, but hard when humans are inherently empathetic and imagine how it would feel, or if it were someone they know. That said – some locals told me that their youngins’ said our house was ‘too scary’ to trick or treat at! Awww.
I think golems are pretty creepy too; the original zombie! And, doesn’t everyone everywhere like a bit of the ‘shivery’ now and again? Keeps us on our toes 🙂
I lovey love Halloween. I never saw it as evil in any way either. I think it might be in the upbringing. I love it for all the same reasons you do I think. I love the decorations and the creepiness of it. I love that this one time of year I’m not all that weird… it just a lot of my decorations are real.
Your house isn’t vaguely close to to scary! I wanted to do a haunted wood here, but it occurred to me that no one would see it. We don’t get trick or treaters our way and the last time I had a party only one couple bothered to show.