Trick or Tree

I mentioned earlier in the month about the Hallowe'en tree. Well, my lovely little Spudguns! here it is. In all it's horror. And I mean that in the sense that I have no business trying to decorate anything.
Just one of those cheap little foot and a half things, bought at the dollar store. 

For someone who collects a lot of dren to do with Hallowe'en and vampires, I actually didn't have enough items to do the tree. I ended up having to raid my scrapbooking kits for some do dads and ribbon.
  
The fangs and spider web are glow in the dark, and the tree topper...which was the hardest to figure out, is a broach.
I actually tried to "make" some ornaments by printing out a couple of shots of the Addams Family and Dracula and gluing them onto some wooden bat cut outs. Only, they didn't work out as well as planned, so I only did two.

And now I know why my family would wait to do the tree when I was asleep or at school; I am missing the Martha Stewart gene. 

So here's my promise to myself...collect better dren so that come October, you can do a better tree for Hallowe'en/the holidays.

In my purse, next to the mojo bag

Spudguns!  you've heard me say before how Raymond T. McNally and Forrest J. Ackerman are heroes of mine, and you've heard me talking about how I'm making a prop vampire hunter's kit for my collection. Right.

I didn't realize I'd end up needing to make props for a prop.  But that seems to be what's happened. Which is totally fine, cause everyone needs a hobby right?  And unless you've got a few thousand dollars just lazing around to give a professional prop maker; you've got to but the leg work in yourself for a ...prop.
So what started off as a small "weekend project" of making a "center piece" for my vampire collection, (this photo shows half my vampire book collection. Not even a tip of the iceberg of my whole vampire collection which include movies, soundtracks, posters etc. I'm literally going to have a wall of bookcases just for my vamp stuff before I'm done this project) has turned into a bunch of little projects. And you know that old saying  measure twice cut once...yeah totally remember to do that.  See, there was my first mistake.  I had wanted a prop that would sit on the top of my one bookcase in a corner I was decorating in a theme. Ends up, the tool kit I bought was too large. It's going to need a table all it's own. But I'm determined to have a vampire hunter's kit damn it!
Which is what got me on the Supernatural marathon binge I've been on the last month.  Most of those vampire hunter's kits you see in movies or online are designed to have been a few hundred years old; and that originally was my plan. To make it look ancient and beat up. But, the case I found is aluminum, shinny and very modern. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to destroy it. So, that led me to watching other vampire movies, that had "slayer kits" like how Buffy always uses just her purse/backpack, or the Frog brothers from Lost Boys, used water guns, or how Supernatural used the car as a portable hunter's kit.  See where I'm going with this.

So while I'm collecting bottles for "holy water" and salt and garlic bits, crosses, a mallet, and carving wooden stakes (which is a task in itself) I decided I wanted to add a hunter's journal/watcher's journal to the mix.
So I picked this up at the book store the other week. Which, if you're a fan of the show you know the "novel" is a tie-in to the main prop. I've just started reading it, and it ends up is more a prequel to the first few seasons then it really is a "guide" book.  And I have to say, for something that's listed as fiction, the novel is jammed with real items connected to hoodoo, shamanism, wicca, and the occult in general. It's actually got some better information on a few topics then some of the non-fiction witchcraft books I own.

As I said, it's a novel more so then a season by season guide book. (I just found out there is another picture book of the seasons monsters which is what I should have gotten as well) with a scattering of "pictures" to tie the whole thing together.
But it's what I'm basing my one prop on. Now, my ability to draw is better than stick figures, it's not on the level of graphic novels or anything, so I doubt I'll have many of those in the little book. I do plan to however, have snapshots of some of the other "props" so the hunter's journal ends up looking more like a scrapbook/diary then anything else.

Still with me...spiffy. I know long post today, hope you've had a coffee.

So here's a semi-half arse thought out plan. I'm going to create some "hunter's adventures" for the prop hunter's journal-that is for the prop vampire hunter's kit.  Follow. And I'm going to post some of them here. Like a bunch of chapters or something.

Told you it was only semi-thought out. 

Directions, thoughts and season two of Supernatural

October season was hectic. I threw myself into projects, some that worked, some that failed and some that just never got finished.
The year is winding down, which is being felt the most in the form of the cooking group I'm part of. (I'll come back at the end of next month with the actual list of blog post links for the year's recap of food posts I did for the group over on my movie blog.  As we have one more next month)
I bought a tree. A short, half foot high plastic wired thing at the dollar store, with the intentions of decorating it for Hallowe'en.  Yes, you read that right, not an x-mas tree. Well, it is an x-mas tree in theory because that's the only time they sell them. But it's going to be done in pure Addams Family fashion, and become my Hallowe'en tree. This will actually make it my second one. I had one that got thrown out during my move.

Rebuilding a life when you're at the crossroads of things...movies make it seem so easy. Dude, it's not. From little things like the holiday tree, to having to buy a few new coffee mugs because the old ones got chipped and broken, to just figuring out your place in the grande scheme of it all. Not easy.
I look around and see so many who have either gathered their dreams and made them physical, or who are just drifting through but yet still seem to have roots. You know what I mean?

And you're wondering at this point, what does the tv show Supernatural have to do with it all?  Well, besides the fact that I just got my hands on seasons one and two,  it is like the perfect metaphor for this, well life.  You've got these two guys who have just had their lives turned upside down, learning they are not as different from some people as they always thought, but yet not fitting in anywhere. Always finding the need to hide the core of their purpose, just...yeah this sounds like a stretch even for me with my gift for yammering.  Okay, so try again...two dudes one car all those crossroads.

Did I mention one of my projects is a vampire hunter's kit?  Dude, I'm working on a vampire hunter's kit, meant to be a center piece for my vampire collection. So doesn't fit on the table I bought it for. Too large. But, that's another post for another time.

Happy Hallowe'en

Just wanted to fly in here my little bat-droppings and wish everyone a happy Hallowe'en.

And if you've missed my 13 Days of Hallowe'en on my movie blog, I have been mixing up the treats with posts both that are Hallowe'en recipes and movies. Days 1-12 are up, with Day 13 coming tonight.  There's even pie.

The balance of it

The world is constantly reminding us to balance our lives. How many articles over the last 3 decades have been devoted to living our lives more balanced? Hell, whole books on the topic have been written.
But when was the last time you saw something that just talked about why we more often then not end up out of balance and embraced it?

There are parts of our personalities that many of us lean into more then others, creating this unbalanced nature. Times in our lives when we either do things because we become obsessed for short periods of time, or because we're looking for some sort of missing link in our lives.

That spinning out of control world-wind feeling. And yes, for many it will end up showing itself in physical or emotional ways when we get too far one direction or the other, causing us to actually realize that we're out of balance. And then there are a few who never seem to realize the connection. Why they're sick or depressed etc.

Why am I talking about this now?  Because I'm currently out of whack. Yep, I said it. My life is so far off kilter right now that I don't know what way is up.
And I ended up throwing myself into a series of crafting/blogging projects because of it. And of course as always when I do this, they were a complete and utter mess. Just ended up being total dren. I ended up having to redo them anyways.  I got stressed out, which for me always ends up in migraine headaches and body aches, paired with nightmares.

I admit, I get really really competitive this time of year. Other people it's x-mas that throws them into psycho mode, but me it's October season. (yes here October is a season all it's own not a month) I end up feeling like I have to prove myself on a bunch of different levels with the horror stuff and the domestic baking and the happy family Thanksgiving...(remember Canadian Thanksgiving is before Hallowe'en) and here's me falling apart at the end of September. Two weeks sooner then normal too I might add.

For the past month, I've barely blogged. Took such a step back from writing in general in anticipation of October's projects that I actually have started to feel guilty. Blogger's guilt. I don't feel guilt about anything, so why is it this time around something like not posting for a few weeks has me in a near panic?
That would be the out of balance part. So here's me, writing something to start the shift back to a more centered self. And in hopes at lest part of this horrible pounding migraine relaxes an inch.

One of the reasons my city sucks

For a city that has a lot, and I mean a lot of handicapped people, my city isn't really all that designed to be handicapped friendly.

I just watched a guy in a wheelchair, sit for almost three minutes trapped in one of those push-it-yourself- enter/exit carousels.  This was at the grocery. I ended up dropping my basket, going out the one end, coming back through the far door and helping him. God knows how long he would have sat there before anyone bothered to help otherwise.

Little pissed off.  The staff were staring right at him too. Just chatting it up ignoring him and their actual jobs.

As someone who's spent over half my life dealing with canes/crutches/wheelchairs myself, I can tell you how frealing frustrating it is to be needing something/get somewhere in this city when you're alone and end up finding yourself unable to do whatever it was because the place you need to go isn't equipped for someone with a handicap.
It's enough to cause you to break down and cry at times. In public.

The city council and the like talk all the time about how wonderful our health care staff are...that's fine and good, but there is a honest shortage of home care workers. 

I've ranted enough for today.

now I'm heartbroken

I was feeling nostalgic and went to look at some old videos my friends and I had made, which were on one of our old websites, only to find they are missing. When I went to the old photobucket account, it says the account is empty.
What the hell???  I know they were uploaded in 2006 but still...

Anyways, those videos are lost forever as are the photos from that time frame in my life. In an odd strange way, I guess it's the universe's way of telling me it's beyond time to get over that point in my life. Those people as much as I loved them, have long since moved on in their lives.

This is what happens when you don't pay attention to those you care about, you find yourself in front of a blank account.  The love gone, the memories wiped clean and yourself scratching your head.