Halloween - Office Style

How cool is it that Halloween is on a Friday night this year?
Remember when you were a kid, all dressed up, usually too hot or too cold depending on the weather and your costume? Crashing from a sugar coma at around 9:30 p.m., clutching your "better" candy bars to keep them away from your siblings or your mother?

I love Halloween.

I loved it more as a young mom, with the toddlers or the school aged kids all excited, dressed up and ready to trick or treat, my biggest worry was who was going to hand out candy at our house while I walked around the block with the kids.

We used to decorate our house big time. Started out small, with some cardboard skeleton and Frankenstein figures I used to tape to the door in the kitchen. My small children excited by the decor, but scared to go into the kitchen after dinner, because "Skelly or Frankie" would get them. Ah, those were the days. As my kids grew, so did the decorations. We carved pumpkins, natch, but one year we used 2" thick Styrofoam insulation sheets to create life-sized tombstones and made a really cool graveyard in our front yard - Complete with piled leaves to appear as if someone was buried fresh under the mound. We re-used it, year after year, and come one hallowed night, years later, my teen-aged son and a friend hid under the leaves jumping out to scare the smaller kids right out of the yard. Booooo! More candy for us.

Now, without the kids I have a hard time getting into the fun. But I try, oh, yes I have. The first year, sans kids at home, I really decorated the outside of our new home. Had skulls placed over our landscape lights and my husband created a large spider's web over the front porch. Rats lined up on our railing, and I got some dry ice from our lab at work and made a "brew" in a black cauldron on the front porch. When trick or treating began, I played this Halloween tape of scary sounds (complete with a woman moaning, but we won't get into that...) The kids in our neighborhood were too young to enjoy it, too scared to approach the porch for the huge bowls of candy I had bought to pass out. I gained ten pounds eating that candy.

Now this year, I'm too tired from working and getting caught up from my trip to even decorate. My co-workers are planning a pot luck luncheon and planning on dressing up for the day at the medical center. I hadn't planned on it this year. I've been taunted by them all week. The staff knows what a ghoul I usually am, planning my costume, decorating the office. I'm too pooped. Finally today, I decided to go to the local store to see what I could find to make a last minute costume, and to participate even marginally.

I walked out with a tiny bag - and a terrific idea. This is what I bought. I normally wear a suit to work. This year, I'll be a man. Perfect.
Hope I can still snag a Three Musketeers Bar or two.

I *Heart* you Blog Buddies, Come Back, Come Back...

I'm Baack! Did you all miss me? (note to self: ask others to guest post on blog while you are gone next time...come on, you have friends in blog places, it'll be fun)

Well, I'm home from said business trip to Orlando. I've been so busy and so tired trying to catch up that I've not had time to stop and share a thought or two on my lonely blog.
First things first.

Hey! What happened to the trees in Northwest Indiana? While I was gone a measley week, all the leaves turned, and some trees are already bare now. Too fast, and today, I might add, I'll need a winter coat!

Second. Orlando is still hot and muggy in August. Screw Disney World, give me an air conditioned room anywhere! It's not the state, nor time of year for menopausal women in a 60% polyester suit. Whoo boy, got some major meltdown there! I had to attend a briefing on proper Disney protocol (taken from excerpts of Disney University - it's what's known as an in-service type of class that all Disney workers attend to teach them the "Disney speak" and other customer service related skills ) Such as calling employees "cast members", and the areas that guests can see are "on stage" but those they cannot see are "back stage", etc.

Now, I'm back to work, my own work piled high on my desk, a new employee to train, full swing into cold/flu season. I'm declared Biz-zee until Christmas.

I missed you all too - so my post will be brief, so I might read what others are up to. Promise I'll write more soon.

Fun Fact Friday - TGIF edition

Ta Ta for now folks, soon I'm off to Orlando for a work related va-ca to Disney for my company's newest edition to the Health and Wellness arena. It's not a total vacation. It's work related. I wish I had thought to arrange guest bloggers for you, my dear readers - but I've been so very very busy lately that I've not had time to read much less type away myself.

So, that's the only fact.

I'm glad it's Friday-take care, be well and see you soon as I return on the 20th! ( I know, I know, I'll have lost all my readers by then, but you are all true blue, right?)

Itchy and bitchy

See those lovely falling leaves we caught below? We then pressed them into wax paper in a book with blank pages that the Little Miss is going to use to display her "leaf collection". We had so much fun on that quiet Sunday afternoon.

Now I'm itching. And bitching. I can't sleep, my neck and forehead and face has blotchy swollen patches.

It's the poison ivy itch. And it's spreading.

It's why I named the blog "Runs with scissors". If I could trip I would, and my granddaughter luckily has escaped the doomed rash.
Sorry, I better go disinfect my keyboard and you ad better too!

Mix of Summer and Fall

This weekend past, I spent the day with my six year old buddy, my granddaughter the Little Miss. She and I share alot of common interests, which makes spending our moments together great fun. Of course, she probably just likes some "gramma time", and those common interests are six year old fun no matter WHO she's spending the time with. But anyway, we took what we like to call an adventure. That's where we take a lunch and go to a nearby park and hike, take photos and just adventure around.

This time, I gave her my old digital camera to use, and I was able to mess with my new one. (Did I mention that I want to marry my new camera?)

Pause for an ode to camera.

So, here are just a few, a pictorial review of the first of many fall days. We dodged both mosquitos and the falling Sugar Maple leaves.

The Old Mill, present in the park where most of our "adventures" take place.

My little photographer, zooming in on flora that caught her eye. Notice happy meal box in the background, yeah, that was lunch, we were not littering, just using the box for our leaf collection.

I was playing with some light, in the darkness under a gazebo.

We gathered some leaves, ones that caught her eye, and pressed them between waxed paper when we got back home. Won't these photo's be a nice addition to her leaf collection and memory book? I know they were a great addition to mine!