Spooky Time Jingles and a weird dream....

Spooky Time Jingles is having its update on November 13th. The update is posted on Thursday, midnight EST. Here are some pics of the pieces I have finished. This month, since Halloween and Day of the Dead have come and gone, Dani has suggested we do Thanksgiving and Harvest pieces. I decided to make some different Fridas, and dress her for harvest time. And I made elves for Christmas. Love me a good elf, I do.

Now for the dream. I have the weirdest dreams in the world, and a lot of them are nightmares. I've often said if someone could figure out a way to tap into my night-time brain, I would be rich. But I digress. The other night I had a little 'dream-let' (a short dream) I wanted to share. In the dream, I was in a forest, and there were two trees in front of me. One had the number one on it, and the other the number two (think of Jack in Nightmare Before Christmas with the holiday trees). The bark was very rough, but I could tell there were doors in the trees, and there was a handle branch on each one.

All of a sudden, a narrator pipes up. He says something like, "Behind one of these doors lies absolute proof that God exists. Pick the right door, and you will feel the hand of God upon your shoulder! There will no longer be any doubt in your mind that God is real, and that there is indeed a life beyond this one!" He goes on and on about meeting God, but now I'm looking at the two doors very carefully, as you can imagine. I wasn't allowed to touch them, of course. Not until I picked one.

Then he says something like, "Behind the other door is lifelong uncertainty. You will always Doubt." Well, now I'm thinking, "I don't want that tree. I live that tree!" At this point he puts a full court press on me and asks "Which door will you choose? Number one, or number two?"

I'm actually a little afraid now. Meet God? You read about Moses, and all the prophets, and it's not always a happy happy joy joy experience, but still, I am thinking "I have to pick the right door, I have to know - what a relief that will be to be sure!" So I'm looking at those two doors, and they look exactly the same, but then I think I see (I'm not sure, but I think) a tiny sliver of light coming from the bottom of door number one. So I figure, okay, that has to be the right door. God's light, etc. So I reach out (I can see my hand reaching, and it's shaking), and I take hold of the handle and I pull with all my might.

And it won't open no matter how hard I pull. The end. Fade to black.


When I woke up, I had a good chuckle. I know I picked the right door, and I couldn't get it open! Ah, my mind is a very strange place. But I am grateful for it. At least I am never, ever bored.

Who's a lucky duck? Twice? I am!

Christmas came a little early for me this year. A few days ago, my prize from El Milagro Studio arrived. My friend Anne had an amazing giveaway on her blog. She dangled art supplies in front of me!



Art supplies...art...supplies...ooo...ooooh. Sorry, I drifted off there. Of course, I had to enter. I do enter contests and giveaways. And I try to act happy when other people win them. You can imagine (well, maybe you can't, so just trust me on this) my euphoria when I found out I WON. ME!!!! I won! (That concludes the gloating part of the post).

Nothing prepared me for what came in the mail. It was like my husband, or my children, actually LISTENED to me when they asked me what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas. It was like opening a treasure chest.
Look! There are fabulous papers! I will have to get over my fear of messing them up, but I am going to use them, Anne, I promise. :) There are lovely little shells, beads, glitter, and milagros!


I almost fainted when I saw those. There are incredible napkins and some fluid acrylics (WOW!) and Mardi Gras necklaces. So many amazing things, including a tiny little canvas painted with a heart - I wanted to hug it.

She gave me enough canvases for a year's work. I am flabbergasted. She gave me the gift of making art. Anne, I can't thank you enough for your generousity. If you haven't visited Anne's blog and looked at her amazing artwork - get thee over there promptly.

And so, you would think, "Well, that Pam, humph, she's been very lucky and spoiled and her turn is over!". HAH! You would be wrong! Because in the mail, completely unexpected, PERCIVAL appeared!

Percival was hand-stitched by my talented friend, Sally. Sally has a blog, Sally Annie Magundy, where she shares her life, her art, and the fabulous things that she finds. Where she finds all the things she posts about, I have no idea, but I think magic is involved.

Percival is adorable, and so beautifully made. Tiny little blanket stitches! I just love him! It's like a hummingbird made this ornament. I sew more like a water buffalo. :) AND there was chocolate in the gift as well. See's chocolate. As a transplanted Southern Californian, this was like finding my lover after I thought he'd been lost at sea. :)

Thank you so much, Anne and Sally! I am well and truly blessed, and spoiled, and yes, gloating just a smidge.

Some WIPs...and a do-list

I was trying, trying, trying, trying to think of something to blog about. It has to be the time of year that makes my brain fritz so badly. I have a mental 'do-list' that keeps looping and it doesn't allow any original thought to sneak in. Which is why I most likely will get very little writing done on my book until after the holidays. :)

I've decided to revise the loop playing in my head. How about adding:

Have a cup of nice hot tea and watch the birds at the feeder.

Send a card to a friend. Not an email. A handmade card would be extra nice.

Draw for fun. Not because I need something for etsy, or STJ.

Spend more than three minutes a day on body maintenance. Hmmm....maybe even shave my legs! WOOT!

Hang a piece of artwork in my home. I own a lot of lovely art I have collected from many talented people. All of it is stored in my bedroom. Waiting.

Visit my mom and talk to her in person. I talk to her on the phone every day, but in person is probably NICER.

Frame some of the five million pictures I have of my kids and sprinkle them around the house.

Design my Christmas card. This hasn't happened yet, but I am ever hopeful.

Visit everyone on my blog list and comment. I miss doing that. It's a two-way street. I can't expect people to visit me and comment and not vice versa. Bad Pam.

The rest of the list is important, of course. Doctor's appointments, projects to finish, jobs, writing, painting, sewing, kid stuff, yada yada. I just think the loop needs an injection of new material now and then.

These are some pieces I am working on. There are lots of dolls coming up. I have to say, working on them is pure fun. That should be number one on the list. Have fun. Hope you sneak some fun into your loop, too. :)

Shifting gears...

It was a lovely Halloween night. The air was warm and it was misting lightly. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds when it could, and every now and then a rain drop landed perfectly in one of my luminaries, extinguishing the flame. It was the kind of night that made me wish I was a kid again. The older kids headed off to Halloween parties. The oldest stayed at college and failed to clue Mom in on his plans. Ah, sweet independence! Lucas and his two friends ran in a little soldier pack, gathering way more candy than any 12 year old boys need to eat. When he came home, his pants legs were soaking wet from cutting through yards to get to the next neighborhood. I watched him spread his loot on the table to sort it (offering me all the candies he didn't like :). It occurred to me that I was very grateful that he'd had this night. I know he will always remember it.

So now it's time to shift gears and think about November. On the radio this morning, someone informed me that it was time for me to get my holiday shopping started. Really? I guess so. But it's hard to think about Christmas when November has barely started. When Halloween is still in the air...and inside my house, too.

Happy Halloween!

Aren't these lovely vintage Halloween postcards? I just love the feel of these antique cards. I found these on about.com.

I can feel the neighborhood Halloween buzz building. Today we are going over to our local Halloween Mega-store, not to buy, really - but to get in the spirit of things. Lucas is very excited about Halloween night, and is plotting his trick-or-treating strategy with a neighbor.

All the houses have at least a pumpkin on the front porch. By Saturday night, some will have a lot more than that. Driving home yesterday, I saw several stuffed ghoulish figures reclining in front yards.

So a Happy Halloween to everyone. Even if you don't celebrate Halloween, or All Saints/All Souls Day, or Day of the Dead - it's a great time to marvel at the changing season. It's a mysterious time of year. Go outside and look up at the moon. Maybe howl for a little bit. Then go inside and have some chocolate. It's all good. :)

And now for something really scary...

BOO!!!!

It's me! With about 40 pounds of white make-up from Walmart on my face. I've already embarrassed myself on flickr, so why not here as well? This is really all junkerjane's fault - she's running a "Dress Up for Halloween or Die" program. Well, so I HAD to, right? Dang peer pressure! haha!

But there are some really good things about dressing up for Halloween and taking pictures. I thought I should list a few:

1. Your wrinkles become assets! Finally!

2. Nothing is more entertaining than upsetting your teenagers by daring to have fun as a parent. It completely unnerves them.

3. You remember how much you looked forward to dressing up on Halloween. It wasn't just about the candy (although, let's be honest, that was a BIG part of it), but it was about becoming someone or something else. I remembered going to school, and weeks before Halloween, talking with my friends about what they were going to "be" for Halloween.

4. There is no such thing as too much make-up. Layer it on, baby! You could never have gotten away with this in high school!

5. Your dog doesn't recognize you. This is a good thing to know. Especially when one of your dogs is a German Shepherd mix. Nice doggie...

6. If I looked like this and wore my crummy sweats to the grocery store, I could run into all sorts of people and not care. I'd be completely incognito. Until the nice men in the white coats showed up.

7. You realize how much you love low lighting. I am considering changing the wattage in the entire house to candlelight levels. Everything just looks better. Even scary dead ladies.

8. I can paste these pics on the back pages of my kids' baby books. Now that will be a surprise for them in a few years!

9. It's fun to get out of your skin and into someone else's, even if it is just for a couple of hours.

Happy Halloween!!! Eat lots of candy, please. It helps me to feel less guilty while I am doing it.

Giveaway winners and some Halloween decorations...

BOO!!! and Hello!!!

My able assistant has pulled the names from the cauldron! No, it wasn't Lucas, he was busy gaming and couldn't be bothered helping his mom pull names from the cauldron, but it was Caity - home from college for the weekend.


She was trying to do her math homework, but I shoved the cauldron at her several times, and she picked the following winners:


First prize (dear BOO!) goes to Renee!

Second prize (good old Marty) goes to Sally!

Third prize (the wizened Captain!) goes to Lulu at the Pink Turtle!

And fourth prize (the charming Constance Pettigrew) goes to Georgina!

Thank you all so much for entering. If you didn't win, blame Caity! No, don't, she was very fair, she didn't even look at the cauldron while she was picking.

Be not discouraged! I will have another giveaway closer to Thanksgiving (and not stuffed turkeys, I promise, maybe dolls, or monsters - or you can tell me what you'd like me to give away!).

Happy Halloween!