It's almost time for the annual Countdown to Halloween. I will be participating again, as I have been since 2009. It's always fun. I've just changed the background on my blog to look spooky for the holiday. It's always fun. Not sure what I'll be posting, but I'm always looking for and thinking of something. I try to think ahead about what to post, but it isn't always easy. Just so I get something.
And tonight I began my annual decorating of my front porch for Halloween, along with decorating my kitchen windows. I just hate the fact that there is no lighting or working light sockets on my lawn area. I keep getting the idea to set up a graveyard there, but without lighting no one will see it. Also, since I have neighbors on all sides, including behind me, it's likely no one but those people (whom I have never actually met) will actually notice if I decorated on the lawn. But that's just the way it is. I do what I can do. Pictures of my decorations will follow once completed.
Still a few things to do before my decorating is done and will be sure to finish it tomorrow. I like to have it up for all of October, which begins on Monday, and always start as close to the first as possible. I knew I would have to do it this weekend if I wanted to have it up by the first. Unfortunately, this was also the weekend I had to do laundry, so I did that first yesterday. I had a free movie ticket for our local cinema and wanted to see "Hotel Transylvania" so I used my ticket to see the show at 7:30PM. I rarely go to night shows since you have to pay full price after 6PM on most nights, but since this was free, I went last night. It was quite crowded, since it was Friday night and lots of families with kids were there, naturally. The movie was fun, and funny at times. Good way to kick off the Halloween season, and I'm waiting to see "Frankenweenie" next weekend. Sounds like a good one too.
Can't wait to see what others have planned for the countdown.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
End of Summer Post
It just doesn't feel like summer is over. The fall equinox is either today or tomorrow, yet the warm weather is still lingering. But then this is California, and that's how fall weather often is at least for a month or so, maybe longer.
Even if the weather is no reminder that summer is ending, other things are. The items in the back to school sales that began in July have been discounted to about 86 cents each. Halloween items have been appearing in stores since August. My place of work began getting Halloween even earlier that--beginning on the last two days of July. The temporary Halloween stores popped up before or after Labor Day. So far I've been to Halloween City more than Spirit. The Halloween City in Gilroy, CA is near where I work but Spirit is over the bridge from the intersection across the street from work, so walking over to Halloween City has been easier to do. I found a used poodle skirt at my hometown Goodwill almost tow weeks ago. I'd begun considering costumes for this year, and had a 50s one in mind among others. Once I saw this, I just had to get it and am now looking for a striped shirt, some scarves and pink jacket to go with it. I also need to know what shoes I should wear. and next weekend my Halloween decorations will be going up. I always try yo get them up as close to the first to October as possible. This year, the first will be on Monday, so I will likely start next Friday or even Saturday. Two years on a row, it was 90 degrees during the last days of September and I endured hot weather those two years to decorate the front porch for Halloween.
What did I do this summer? Well not too much unusual or out of the ordinary, but the first week of July I managed to go on my first casino trip, something I'd love to do again sometime. And two days later, went for the first time to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in Monterey, CA, about 45 miles from my home town of Hollister. Here are some photos from the aquarium.
There are a lot of displays at the aquarium and I took a lot of photos that day. It was hard to just choose a few for this post.
Unfortunately I did not get may photos of the casino trip, as I feared we would not be allowed to take photos inside the casino.
Summer may be officially over, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to retire the shorts just yet or go without sunscreen if I'm going to be outdoors for a long time in one day. The warm weather is still there, as of now at least.
Even if the weather is no reminder that summer is ending, other things are. The items in the back to school sales that began in July have been discounted to about 86 cents each. Halloween items have been appearing in stores since August. My place of work began getting Halloween even earlier that--beginning on the last two days of July. The temporary Halloween stores popped up before or after Labor Day. So far I've been to Halloween City more than Spirit. The Halloween City in Gilroy, CA is near where I work but Spirit is over the bridge from the intersection across the street from work, so walking over to Halloween City has been easier to do. I found a used poodle skirt at my hometown Goodwill almost tow weeks ago. I'd begun considering costumes for this year, and had a 50s one in mind among others. Once I saw this, I just had to get it and am now looking for a striped shirt, some scarves and pink jacket to go with it. I also need to know what shoes I should wear. and next weekend my Halloween decorations will be going up. I always try yo get them up as close to the first to October as possible. This year, the first will be on Monday, so I will likely start next Friday or even Saturday. Two years on a row, it was 90 degrees during the last days of September and I endured hot weather those two years to decorate the front porch for Halloween.
What did I do this summer? Well not too much unusual or out of the ordinary, but the first week of July I managed to go on my first casino trip, something I'd love to do again sometime. And two days later, went for the first time to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in Monterey, CA, about 45 miles from my home town of Hollister. Here are some photos from the aquarium.There are a lot of displays at the aquarium and I took a lot of photos that day. It was hard to just choose a few for this post.
Unfortunately I did not get may photos of the casino trip, as I feared we would not be allowed to take photos inside the casino.
Summer may be officially over, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to retire the shorts just yet or go without sunscreen if I'm going to be outdoors for a long time in one day. The warm weather is still there, as of now at least.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Back to School: This Week's Assignment From the League
I haven't posted on my blog in over two weeks and only once in all of August, and I haven't posted in the League since that one date that month. But here I am with this week's League topic:
And of course to go inside the binder I always had to get paper, pencils, pens and a pencil pouch. I pretty much gave up on binders once I got to high school and we were required to have notebooks for each class. I must confess I never used a backpack all that time and always had a ton of homework each day! And I had to walk home for most of those years.
Until fifth grade, I would always get a new lunch box, one of those with some currently popular character. I don't know what happened the ones I once had, but I know I had a Strawberry Shortcake one once. Beginning in sixth grade, my lunch went into a paper bag.
College was more of the same with buying school supplies. Going to community college first meant getting the same supplies as in grammar school, middle school and high school, as well as having to buy textbooks and supplies from the campus bookstore. Anyone who has been to college will know how expensive this stuff can get. It was good thing I took both semesters of Spanish since the same textbook was used for both terms. Going to a four-year after ward was still more expensive textbooks from the campus bookstore as well as buying writing supplies and paper, but now that I was living on the campus, I would need dorm supplies--bathroom stuff, some snacks, my own TV set (which last years after I graduated) and my own phone. This was in the late 1990s, before cell phones and when everyone had a cordless phone with an answering machine (I still have one of those!)
Though I'm done with college and have no children, I still find the back-to-school sales at stores to be helpful. I always see a coupon for two packages of Bic Pens in the Sunday paper at some point during the late summer. I always keep it because I know that some store will eventually discount the school stuff, including these pens. I took advantage of this last week when target discounted these pens to 86 cents a package and used the coupon to buy them. When I last worked at Dollar Tree, they had pocket calculators in their back-to-school display and when I got off work one day, I bought one of these, which I still have today. It's been seven years since I last worked there, but my cheap calculator from then is still working. Everyone still needs pens and stuff, so even if you don't have to worry about children and are no longer in school yourself, these sales can still be of some use to you.
__________________________________________________________________________
Some of this weeks other participating bloggers are:
Monster Cafe Saltillo
Memories of Toymorrow
Green Plastic Squirt Gun
Here's my take. In the early years of school, the end of summer meant getting new clothes and supplies for each year. I can remember having more than one Trapper Keeper binder in several different school years. Remember those things? I don't know if the one in the photo below was one that I had, though that design is certainly one that I would have liked back in the day.Summer’s over, it’s time to go back to school! (Interpret it as you will.)
And of course to go inside the binder I always had to get paper, pencils, pens and a pencil pouch. I pretty much gave up on binders once I got to high school and we were required to have notebooks for each class. I must confess I never used a backpack all that time and always had a ton of homework each day! And I had to walk home for most of those years.
Until fifth grade, I would always get a new lunch box, one of those with some currently popular character. I don't know what happened the ones I once had, but I know I had a Strawberry Shortcake one once. Beginning in sixth grade, my lunch went into a paper bag.
College was more of the same with buying school supplies. Going to community college first meant getting the same supplies as in grammar school, middle school and high school, as well as having to buy textbooks and supplies from the campus bookstore. Anyone who has been to college will know how expensive this stuff can get. It was good thing I took both semesters of Spanish since the same textbook was used for both terms. Going to a four-year after ward was still more expensive textbooks from the campus bookstore as well as buying writing supplies and paper, but now that I was living on the campus, I would need dorm supplies--bathroom stuff, some snacks, my own TV set (which last years after I graduated) and my own phone. This was in the late 1990s, before cell phones and when everyone had a cordless phone with an answering machine (I still have one of those!)
Though I'm done with college and have no children, I still find the back-to-school sales at stores to be helpful. I always see a coupon for two packages of Bic Pens in the Sunday paper at some point during the late summer. I always keep it because I know that some store will eventually discount the school stuff, including these pens. I took advantage of this last week when target discounted these pens to 86 cents a package and used the coupon to buy them. When I last worked at Dollar Tree, they had pocket calculators in their back-to-school display and when I got off work one day, I bought one of these, which I still have today. It's been seven years since I last worked there, but my cheap calculator from then is still working. Everyone still needs pens and stuff, so even if you don't have to worry about children and are no longer in school yourself, these sales can still be of some use to you.
__________________________________________________________________________
Some of this weeks other participating bloggers are:
Monster Cafe Saltillo
Memories of Toymorrow
Green Plastic Squirt Gun