It’s Halloween Week! Besides Christmas (and probably Spring Break), it’s quite possibly my favorite week of the year.
It’s also the week of my third annual (and second on the front porch) Spooktacular! As such, I spent a good portion of the weekend making the preliminary preparations for having lots of people sitting on my front lawn for a couple of hours or so.
Among the myriad tasks I completed (such as some long overdue weed eating, and applying more ant bait to the lawn), I engaged in my favorite Halloween season ritual: carving a Jack O’Lantern! I picked up a couple of massive pumpkins from Sam’s Club for $7 each, and this one made for particularly attractive gourd. Just look at its perfectly jaunty, stout stem!
I’ve also been working on getting the front porch put together. It’s starting to look pretty good. I’ve purchased some more tea light candles, which should soon help illuminate all of the pumpkins—real, ceramic, and red Georgia clay (pictured below)—spookily.
Even my dog has gotten in on the fun, although she is mainly just waiting for food and pets to come her way. While snapping my front porch pictures the other night, she couldn’t help but keep an eye out for me.
There’s still much to be done, but I think I put a good dent into the major stuff. With another virtual learning day on Monday, I was able to knock out some other chores around the house. There’s also practicing the music that we’ll play—easy to lose sight of in the midst of all of this autumnal cleaning, but probably the most important part!
For now, though, I’ve just got to make the place presentable—and get all the loose dog toys and bits of dog food stored and swept away. Murphy can help with that.
—TPP