Indulge Your Shelf

It's Halloween and I've had a lovely Saturday so far; the sun is already low in the sky and soon the littlest trick or treaters will be here! I'm looking forward to greeting all the little ghosts and goblins, but sort of sad that my own son won't be among them. Since last year when he was 11, he's decided he's TOO OLD to go trick or treating. I'm reminiscing about his costume 2 years ago, which was a great idea of his friend Nicholas from something he'd seen on YouTube. Nick's mom and I brainstormed and came up with a way to attach light sticks to sweat pants. It's tricky because you can't snap the sticks and make them glow until you're just ready to use them! It was also real tricky figuring out how to get the heads to work. The results in the dark were SPOOKtacular ! Oh man, I miss those days already! Since I'm doing NaNoWriMo , once again this year I associate Halloween as "the day before you get to start writing." M...

As promised, I wanted to share my spooky ghost story with you on Phantom Friday . It was late at night on a Fall evening in San Francisco, CA, about 25 years ago. I was visiting a friend who rented a room in an old neighborhood near Silver Avenue. I visited often, and had heard stories of strange happenings in the house. It seems there had been a suicide there, and previous renters reported drastic temperature changes and other abnormalities such as "a presence" in the ensuing years. But I wasn't afraid to visit, and had never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Until that night. My friend and I were standing on opposite ends of the room, not looking at each other, but facing one another, when I heard a strange, long, loud whistle directly in my ear. The thing is, I not only heard the whistle, but I felt it as well -- I felt the air of the whistle on my skin. I looked at my friend, but before I could react he said, "Did you just whistle?" I shook my hea...

Well, we were snowed in again today, but this time for real as it's been howling and blowing all day! What better time to begin my first Artist Class project: Homage to a Loved One by Tammy Sprinkle. We were to create a box as a tribute to a loved one. I used a mini Lane Cedar chest that I bought at a thrift store. Because I really liked the wood grain, I washed more than painted it in a combination of browns of my own creation. I made the box as a homage to my mother, who passed away 5 years ago next month. Lest you think using her initials on the front of the box was unoriginal, I want to say that I put them there because she was really funny about her name. If you wrote it out and forgot the "J", she'd make you go and correct it! I think she'd be pleased to see her initials on there. I used sheet music of a Handel song called, Mercies Numberless; it really suits my mother, I think, who had a difficult life and yet lived to see many of her dreams ful...

We're having an odd day. I awoke to a snow-less landscape, even though we had been promised several inches and I'd listened to the blizzard blowing all night long. I guess the school district was also fooled, as they called a 2 hour delay. That's the second time this week. I can't understand, though, why at 7:30 a.m., with no snow on the ground, they then upgraded the day to CLOSED. It's now 4:30 p.m. and there's still no snow on the ground -- not anywhere in the district boundaries. I know this because I went out to a couple of thrift stores today which are located within the boundaries. No. Snow. So, even though I'm always happy to have my son home, I'm annoyed that the school has "wasted" one of the snow days available. The kids have hardly had a chance to be back to school after their 2 week Fall Break! Anyway, here are a few random photos for you: I switched out my tea cup cupboard when I found this one at an antique store. This ...

Do you believe in ghosts? They're one of life's mysteries. I didn't believe in ghosts until my early 20's, when I had a few experiences that I just couldn't explain any other way. Interestingly, I haven't had any "visitations" since then, but I can never forget those that I did have. Only one was frightening. My very first ghostly experience was one that I didn't even realize was one until many years later. Here's what I mean: one night when I was 10 years old I had just gone to bed when I felt something. It felt like something tiny and light had jumped up onto the bed. I knew it couldn't have been my dog, for she was much heavier, plus I would have heard her, too. I sat up in bed and looked around, because there was a lot of light coming into the room from outside. But there was nothing there. I lay back down and tried to go to sleep, and then I felt something again. I just paid attention to the strange feeling, and I wasn...

This weekend I went away with my son's Scout troop for a weekend campout in the forest just 10 minutes from my house. The camping trip was from Friday night until late Sunday morning; I lasted just one night and one day. In my defense, it's because my "0 degree" sleeping bag didn't live up to its claims. (And because the latrine was a snowy walk to the outskirts of camp and after doing that at 4 a.m. in 20 degrees, I was not eager to ever do it again.) The first morning I was part of a team that taught the newest Scouts some camp cooking skills. My group did banana boats, cooked in hobo sacks over coals. They were delicious! I left Saturday afternoon and came home, then spent the evening feeling guilty about being in a warm bed while my little one and all the rest were out at the campsite. I went back to the camp this morning, and it was snowing! The snow actually made it a bit warmer, though than it had been the day before -- about 33 degrees. We were so...

On the day of the OU-Texas rivalry football game, we dressed in their colors, Jenni put in her earphones to listen to the game, and we went off antiquing. We began our day with breakfast at Jimmy's Egg, an OKC staple! I had pigs in blankets, made with the most delicious pork sausage! Then we went on to Purcell. At our first stop, they were having an amazing 75% off sale in about 2/3 of the store -- I couldn't believe the bargains. I could have spent ALOT of money there, but since it was the first stop I bought just a few goodies: I'm going to have such fun with these little stamps! Next, we went to a store that had the most amazing booths FULL of owls: If they had been penquins, I'd have been in trouble for sure! There, I bought some authentic old can labels and a few of those cork lined bottle caps (I love those!) Then we stopped at a store that used to be the town's movie theater: Jenni could take out her earphones there, because they had the game on the store...