On Our Way

I’ve been quiet but I’m still alive. Our Halloween went well, and after that I mostly have been getting ready for my yearly trip to West Virginia. The preparation paid off, and we’re on the road!

The best way to start any trip is with lunch…

It was a rainy day, so there were a lot of neat clouds.

Since it was dark and raining I didn’t get many photos but I did see a neat tree at a rest stop.

It was an uneventful trip, especially after we reached Eastern Iowa and the rain slowed down. But we still stopped in Bloomington, Illinois for the night. The super 8 is pretty cute.

So of course it’s now time for Domino’s and Forensic Files.

Have a vacay kind of day!

Jo 🙂

Bye Bye Leaves

I went to bed and there were leaves on the tree. I got up, and they were mostly on the ground.

That was just grass the day before. Wow. I imagine it’s to do with the cold snap. It’s been in the 40s the last two days. Brrrr.

Still, we got some more of the Halloween stuff up. Not sure what I’ve posted already, so there may be repeats. But we gave Madao (the guy in the garbage can) a pet in a cage, added a couple birds for Gin to feed (Of Madao is there, Gin-san has to be somewhere) and put the vinyl on his sack. Also made red crosses for the back of the paramedics shirts (though they’re not on them yet) and you can see the patient’s fellow Frisbee players waving goodbye to him as he is hauled away, sans his hand. And in the front yard we gave our clipper guy something to clip (it’s the dead sunflowers tied to smaller pieces of rebar). Oh, and I tucked in the skeleton snake.

And then I started on the signs, which means I cut rhe vinyl on my cricut and stuck it on and then painted them. Yeah. I need stencils.

And that’s all I have worth sharing.

Have a dancing in the leaves kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Halloween is Coming Along

So, Halloween is inching closer and we got a bit more done on the decorations, this time we worked on Skully’s Lawn Service. As you can see they work very hard. The lawnmower comes care of our very awesome neighbor Bob, who was kind enough to loan it to us.

We also ran down to the local salvage yard to get some cement block bits to put in the bottom of our buckets. I always enjoy going down there. It’s like a dystopia landscape.

With Halloween coming, so is winter, so we picked the last of the tomatoes and had fried green tomatoes. Since Mom passed, I’ve been the only one who likes them, but my uncle was here and he likes them, too, so it was worth the effort. Not really worth it just for me.

Not much else worth mentioning. Got some neat clouds pics:

I leave you now with some decorations from Stadium 34. Live when businesses decorate!

Have a skeleton lawn workers kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Halloween is Coming – Blogophilia 15.14

Off and on for the last fifteen years or whatever I’ve participated in a blog group called Blogophilia. It started back on MySpace, and though it took a hiatus last year, it is now back! I missed the first week, but I’m here for the second, at least.

The way it works is Marvin (our fearless blogophilia leader) gives us prompts to use in our blog. This week’s prompts are:

Ecrits Blogophilia Week 15.14 Topic:

All Roads Point to Nowhere

Hard Prompt: Reference a Kevin Bacon movie (Footloose)

Easy Prompt: Include an object to your right while writing your blog (Benji the puppy)

https://marvgrn08.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/blogophilia-week-15-14-all-roads-point-to-nowhere

I still need to do the Renaissance Fair blog, but again, it’s the hundreds of photos hanging it up, so I’m gonna dance on past it now, Footloose and fancy free, as they say.

Haven’t done much that’s newsworthy, really. We went to Mondos the other day and, wow! It’s a Halloween explosion in there! This is what I mean when I say I want to decorate for a holiday. Sadly, I’m too lazy and crunched for time to do it, though.

We did get some work done on our display. We need to add the rest of the skeleton birds and the sign, but otherwise the Heluva Public Park is done. I’m not sure if you can tell it, but the guy on the stretcher got hurt playing frisbee with the other two. I need to add a beer can to the dude hanging out of the garbage can, give the bench guy some bird seed (and his other birds) and I think I’m going to make red crosses for the medic’s shirts, just out of sticky vinyl

We also started the front display, which will be Skully’s Yard Service.

I need to get one of my folding chairs from Mel’s so the boss can sit in it, and then we’re going to try to borrow a mower off someone for the mowing gag. Also have a gag coming with the wheelbarrow that we need to set up. And of course, make the sign.

The man eating plants haven’t made it any further, but hopefully this week they will. I don’t know where all my time is going lately, but so far this year all roads lead to nowhere and I can’t seem to get anything finished. Benji says it’s okay, though.

And for those interested in the yard saga, they are all done and even put grass back on it!

they even seeded the other part that has no green stuff on it. So, yeah, I was impressed.

Okay, that’s what I got.

Have a Halloween is coming kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Halloween Begins

I’ve been working on a blog with lots of autumn pics but having upload issues. It’s coming, I promise.

Meanwhile, we have just started out Halloween decorations. This is part of the park area.

And these are a couple I’ve seen around town.

And now I leave you because I have to be up at 7 am. Bleh.

Have a Halloween starts kinda day!

Jo 🙂

P.s. the yard now has a box in it.

Red Hot Dogs

Yesterday I discovered red hot dogs.

Apparantly they are made in Nebraska. We had the beef ones, and they were really good! I’d never seen them before, so that made it extra fun. https://www.wimmersmeats.com/brands/fairbury/

We also tried Tres Leche cake, which was super good!

What else…oh, I met a froggy friend!

Isn’t he adorable? Hubby found him for me because he knows I love them. After the little guy calmed down from being captured I couldn’t hardly get rid of him. He was super clingy, probably because I was warm and it was chilly out last night.

And that’s all I’ve got for now. Have a red hotdog kinda day!

Jo 🙂

The Driveway is Fixed

First, a shout out to the Villisca Electric crew for fixing the mess in the driveway. Tada!

Looks as good as new, doesn’t it? Very happy about that.

Let’s see. Yesterday. We walked down to the Cafe and here are a couple of autumn esthetic photos for you.

Though in my old timey day we called that autumn themed, but I guess the word theme is out of style now. Progress.

Anyway, had a nice lunch at the Cafe. Chicken sandwich and curly fries.

Oh! And out Halloween candy came!

Normally I like to be the Reeses house, but last year with the shortages we couldn’t get them and ended up with odd stuff including pixie sticks and dum dums and bizarrely enough they were super popular, so I thought what the heck, we’ll do that again.

What else…family is here for the weekend. They arrived yesterday, so that’s fun. Past that, nothing exciting to blog, so I leave you with some semi blurry sunset photos.

Have a pixie stick kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Starting Halloween

I’m behind this year. Normally I start Halloween crafting in August, but it’s been that kind of year. Anyway, Tuesday I got started on the monster plants. These guys are supposed to be a super cheap thing you make with dollar store pumpkins, green paint that I guess you already own, real leaves, tree branches, flower pots, and expanding foam. If you’ve ever made a dollar tree craft you know the first rule is that your dollar tree does NOT have the item, never has, and never will. Since they had to be hollow, carveable pumpkins, I ended up having to buy them from Michael’s for 20$ a piece. Yeah, so much for cheap. But, I have the pumpkins, so time to get on it.

See my cool little pencil lines? Don’t they look nice? The directions suggest using a pumpkin carving kit to cut that pit, but mine is buried in a mess we didn’t get to work on this summer like planned, so instead I used a steak knife. It was actually pretty comparable.

Roar. Looking good except now I have to duplicate that on the other side…so how am I supposed to manage that when I am incapable of symmetry? Yeah, I had to make a pattern. I’m not going to lie, it took longer to figure out how to make the pattern that would curve around the curved pumpkin, and make it match what I already had, than it did to cut the thing. But, after a lot of trial and error I cam up with this hinged design.

Best part is it could flip both ways (since it has to be backwards for the other side of the pumpkin. Anyway, so taped it on, traced it, then cut it with my handy steak knife.

Nom! Nom! Then I did the whole thing over again for the second one.

And the final was to do a spray paint test and make sure the paint wouldn’t eat the foam. I used the scrap piece and it did okay.

So I just need to get paint, leaves, and expanding foam. Since I’m sticking them in the bushes I’m going to use a couple of last years black buckets instead of a flower pot. I’m also thi king about making some googly eyes to stick randomly in the bushes, too. I have the plastic “eggs” from the Fashion surprises (like the mini brands but they are tiny purses) so I’m thinking of using them. We will see.

In other news, the electric company is still at work in the yard.

And they have done something weird. All along where the lines go is a raised incline now that’s cracked.

The driveway is the worst

We talked to them and they are going to squish it back down flat. It is apparently a thing that happens sometimes – they had a term for it – so hopefully it will be taken care of.

As for yesterday we did our weekly Council Bluffs trip and ate at Hu Hot.

And from there things went down hill, but that’s another story.

Anyway, for now I leave you on a more interesting note. Pumpkin Spice Cream Pie. Is it just me or isn’t that what Pumpkin Pie is, already???? Is dumping a can of spiced pumpkin pie filling into a bowl and adding an egg before dumping it into the crust too complicated? (Or yu can skip the egg and get a nice custard. I’ve done that before because I was out of eggs).

And now I leave you because I have work to do before the family gets here.

Have a Hu Hot kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Angel and Root Beer

Yesterday. Hm. I really can’t think of much worth sharing. It was a day. Oh! I did get my squishable angel disguise. Who better to try it on than the vampire squishable? Heh heh.

Isn’t that adorable? It’s part of their undercovers line, where they have several squishables in disguises. The Devil, Santa, and angel are the only disguises they sell without a plushie included, though I wish they had more because when I buy a disguised squishable, I feel bad stealing their outfit and so the ninja and Reindeer have remained in theirs permanently and no one else gets to try it on. Let me find you a link so you can see what I mean. They are all so cute!! https://www.squishable.com/category/undercover.html

And for the foodies, here is some root beer float ice cream that I got the food coloring a bit weird on.

It tasted ok. It was a little strong IMHO- I used 2 tsp of root beer flavoring – but the bro liked it, so there’s that.

Not much else anyone is interested in, so I’ll end this here.

Have a squishable undercover kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Council Bluffs Day

Yesterday was Wednesday, so ot was the weekly Council Bluffs trip. Pickle Day it was 93 degrees, but Wednesday was like 68. And cloudy.

On the way to CB is a rest stop that’s been there since at least the 80s and probably longer than that. It’s the rest stop I’ve been going to since I was a toddler and, sadly, they’re building a new one. I’m sure it’s going to be nice, but it won’t have that nostalgia hit.

The restaurant of the week was Primos Mexican Restaurant and I have to say that the steak tacos were amazing!! The meat was so tender and spiced perfectly and…mmmmmm! So, so good!

I mentioned that semi wreck the other day? So on the way home we stopped and checked out the aftermath. It’s not as bad as we thought – they missed the water and the culvert by a hair. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they did go through at least one tree and a fence, as well as the metal guard banister, but they didn’t end up down in the water, so it could have been way worse.

We got home in time for a surprise – someone is digging holes in my yard. Again. Though it’s not AS surprising as it was years ago because this time we at least have watched them coming up the street slowly. I’m not sure you can see it in the pictures, but the machinery is parked right next to our walking stick tree, so I’m a little nervous, especially after the mess FMTCs people made when they dug up the yard (for instance they wrecked one flower bed buy just digging it up and throwing it all over. I still have Irises in weird places from that).

We ended the day by watching the last episodes of Hometoen Cha Cha Cha. My official review is “squeee!!” if that says anything. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I can now say that I really liked it. The dentist lady was kind of annoying to start with, but she got better. Her live interest, Chief Hong, was not annoying, however, which is why I initially stuck with it. That and the town’s people. They were a lot of fun, too. They also wrapped everyone up. Like, seriously, everyone. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a show that so complete covered what happened to every single character, no matter how small. So that was good

And another fun thing, they had that coffee candy on it.

I love how they work their product placement in as just a part of the show. I wonder if my little TV buddy liked it, too?

There’s half an hour left until Rings of Power, so gonna go get some things done before it starts.

Have a Cha Cha Cha kinda day!

Jo 🙂