Best Birthday Present Ever

      I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I am a huge fan of The Bloggess!  She's hilarious, and awesome.  Not to mention about a year ago she wrote a book, and it was one of those rare books that had me laughing and crying.  Anyway, in the book she devoted one whole chapter to my favorite blog post of hers entitled "And that's why you should learn to pick your battles".  You should go check it out.  But a brief overview (seriously, go read the whole thing, this summary is a pale shadow of the awesome humor you'll be missing out on.  Still here?  Fine!)  so in the post she talks about how her husband sent her to the store with a warning to not come home with any more towels.  Well, she obeyed that particular order, and instead came home with a $100 giant metal chicken.  At least it wasn't towels.

     

     My big sister was the first to introduce me to The Bloggess, so when I bought the book I was quick to ensure that she was the first to borrow it (after I had read it, of course).  Next I spread the awesome around to my mom.  She loved it too.  In fact they both appreciated it so much that they hatched a brilliant scheme.  Not long after my birthday, I managed to escape to Louisiana for a day, my first trip home in a few months, and so my sister promised to have my belated birthday present waiting for me.  She had prefaced this gift with a few hints of, "I'm so excited to give you this", "Mom and I went in on something awesome", and "You're gonna love it".  I had no clue what to expect, so when I opened my mom's front door I was in utter shock.

     Around my chicken's neck was a sign that said, "Knock, Knock....." and a birthday card that introduced this chicken as being Beyonce's less expensive little sister, my very own Star-Spangled Solange.  The laughs alone were worth the price my mom and sister paid for this present, and I was excited to bring it home and put it in my garden.  The problem was, Solange wouldn't fit in my tiny Saturn Ion, so we had to leave her with my sister.   This Saturday we went to Louisiana again for my godson's birthday party, and we were finally able to bring Solange home in my husband's car.  It was a tight fit, and Monkey was given many warnings not to touch the tetanus chicken on the ride home, but we made it back without event.

     This morning J was sweet enough to give me a day off by waking up and bringing Monkey and her friend we carpool with to school.  I didn't get out of bed until around 8:00 this morning, and after I brushed my teeth and opened my door to go downstairs in search of food, I was greeted, yet again, by this familiar face:

     I was really worried that the chicken joke would wear off after a while, but after about five minutes of giggling this morning, I have to say it's still funny.  And I have to give J props for lugging Solange all the way up the stairs this morning.

     So there was point a to this post, other than showing you how awesome my family can be when it comes to carrying out an epic joke, but whatever the other reason was is gone now.  I'm actually just hiding out here in blog-world to avoid studying again.  I have my final exam in Gero/Psych Nursing Friday, and as usual, "I don't wanna!!!"  Instead, how about I show you some more of my Halloween decor?

     No, J is not part of the decor, but this awesome mummy is:

   
     I found these giant glow-in-the-dark eyes at the Dollar Tree, and I decided to use them to mummify our back door.  J and I used white crepe party streamers for the bandages and taped them to the door until is was mostly covered.  We only had to do the top portion of the door, because the screen door blocks the bottom part from view.  Not to mention we were getting tired of tape.  And streamers.  And each other.  ;-)

     This next decoration is a spin off of one of my favorite garden decorations.

     I took an old pallet and had J bust it up.  I used the various broken pieces to make the different signs by painting them all black.  For "Pet Sematary" and "'Salem's Lot" I used a copy of Stephen King's novels as a guide to get the handwriting the same.

     After designing the different signs, I screwed them to a post I had also painted black, and voila!

     The final bit of Halloween decor was something so simple, yet it may just be my favorite.  I made a spooky sort of set up by my front door with a vase, a skull, and a pumpkin.  The plan was to have my cauldron set out there filled with candy for trick-or-treaters, but I have something else in mind for that now.

     This vase is my favorite part of the set up.  It's just a bunch of sticks Monkey, J,  and I gathered after one of our family runs.  I painted the sticks black, and I put them in this old vase.  I added a bit of the cheesy "spooky cloth" you can buy at any dollar store at Halloween time to the inside of the vase, so you wouldn't see the ends of the sticks.  Next I propped a black raven from Michael's on one of the sticks.  Finally I used some leftover ribbon from my new wreath to finish it off with a pretty bow.

     I really like it.  Now all that's left is to set up my cauldron for trick-or-treaters and carve the pumpkins we got yesterday at our local pumpkin patch.  Have I mentioned how much I love this time of year?