Scariest pumpkin ever.

One of the links over there to the left is to Jorge Garcia's blog. I like Lost, it's a good show, but Jorge is hilarious. He's one of those people who you feel like you would like them if you met them in person. But, I digress. He has, posted on his site right now the scariest pumpkin carving that I've ever seen. Pumpkins, no matter how you carve them, aren't in general scary. But, he's taken my favorite painting to be scared of (not look at, goodness no, I can't look at it for that long, or it will get me) and carved it into a pumpkin.

That painting (click the link above to see it, but beware) is called Saturn Devouring His Son. I remember the first time I saw it. It was in art appreciation class and I had to turn my head away. It's a brutal topic, but it isn't the blood that ever got to me. It was and will always be the eyes. Goya captured so perfectly utter madness. A place past all rationality and beyond anything most of us have ever seen or experienced. There's desperation there too, the look of a being that is terrified by its own actions but is powerless to stop it.

It's the scariest painting I've ever seen. And I like my art disturbing.

ANYWAY, head on over to Dispatches From The Island and check it out.

Secrets that you keep

Here's an interesting tidbit. I talk in my sleep. I'll even answer Jason when he asks me something sometimes. Here's something that you might know, especially if you've been reading my twitter (called little bitties, over to the left there). I saw Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog in it's entirety the other night. It was wonderful. This leads me to what my hubby told me this morning:

Jason: Did you roll over last night, and look at me and say "balls"? You know, like from Dr Horrible?

Me: Ummm, no.

Jason: Yes you did! And when I asked you about it later, you admitted it!

Me: Really??

Jason: Yeah!!

At this point I started laughing so hard, I nearly cried. I guess I'm dreaming about Dr Horrible now.

P.s. if you get the title, you win a gold star.

R

Sorry so absent this week...

Fiction on Friday Chapter 5 part 2

Bel turned her head as she heard a quick lapping of water. There, in the water, the calm sea was broken by a shape. Was it a rock? No, she’d heard it move. She strained her eyes to look closer but it was gone in a heartbeat. Ripples marked the place where it had been.

It had been roundish, and wet, and really that’s all she could have said, other than she got the distinct feeling that it had been watching her, and something still was. She sat down on the sand and watched until the sun rose.

As it crested the horizon then sun dazzled the water into a field of sparkles. Bel felt a little hopeful. She was still sure that her boat was on its way. By the time the sun left the horizon, she was beginning to feel a familiar grumbling in her stomach. I’m just going to wait, she thought. I’m sure they’ll have granola bars or something on the boat.

As the sun rose in the sky, it began to shine harsh rays down on the beach. Bel’s olive skin didn’t burn easily, but just to be safe, she decided to sit in the shade until the boat came. Wait! What if the boat can’t see me back here? She wondered, and emerged back out into the sun once more.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, the grumbling in Bel’s stomach had grown to a full on growl. There was no denying it any longer, she was starving. What do people eat on an island, she thought. Coconuts. She was going to find some coconuts, and then she wouldn’t be hungry anymore. Then, she thought, the boat would come.

Stud Earrings

So, I've been surfing the Bloggy Giveaway. I was going to give something away, but time went too fast and I was unprepared when it started, but I'm totally entering this contest. How cute are the fries?

R!!!!!

Patoka Lake!

We went camping this weekend! Crazy you say? Too cold you say? HA! We laugh in the face of cold, we dance on the grave of rainy. Maybe we are a little crazy. BUT we went anyway. We packed up and headed down to Patoka Lake on Thursday. On the way Jason surprised me and we stopped at Oliver Winery. It was beautiful! I got to sample much and my favorite by far was the mulled hard cider. It was so good, I got Jason to try some and even he liked it. I also likes a white wine that started with a T , and sounded French. No matter what I type as my guess of the name, I’ll be wrong, and I know it. So, yeah. We ended up getting a bottle of the hard cider, some mulling spices, and a bottle of blackberry wine that would make a great sauce. Mmmmmm. Then we drove on and on and on until we realized that AAA had no idea where we were really going and relied on maps. We should have just skipped the AAA. No offense AAA, but you have been out-done with google maps, easily.

This is our actual campsite:

Finally, we arrived at the right place, and found that we had the entire campsite to ourselves. We promptly picked the best site, it was on the lake and beautiful, and set everything up. I’d say, before bed, it was the nicest night weather wise we had there. It was warm enough, we had a little fire with the wood we could find nearby and we were so full from lunch we didn’t eat any dinner. We didn’t have to pay to get into the park, there was no-one at the gate. We probably didn’t even really have to pay for camping, but we put in our little envelope. When we went to deposit that envelope, we saw two deer. One was at the gatehouse to the campgrounds. The other was a little farther down the road, and when it saw us, it froze. Like, well, a deer in the headlights. Jason Turned the lights off, and it took off, but the front feet ran in place for a few paces before the back feet figured out that it was time to go too. They were both pretty.

We were glad we had put the rain fly on the night before because in the middle of Thursday night, it started to pour. A lot. I had fixed the tent where it had ripped before, but that didn’t stop a seam with a pocket from dripping on our heads, and water getting in a gap in the door zipper. We survived however, and after it stopped pouring in the morning, we made a trip to the “camp store” to get wood. They were closed for the season. Blech. So we went to the visitor’s center, and they told us to go to the gas station just outside the park. Well, we have a ton of wood at home and hadn’t brought any because of the emerald ash borer. If we’d known that this was going to be the way it turned out we would have just brought wood with us.

The visitor’s center was interesting. I don’t usually like taxidermy. It’s just creepy in general. But all of the stuff there had been very carefully and seemingly tenderly done. It all looked extremely lifelike. It was interesting, plus from 8-4 every day there was a modern restroom contrary to the pit toilets at the campground. We got wood, got back to the campsite, and almost instantly after I got the fire going again, the skies opened up and soaked us again. We gave up, went back into the tent and went to sleep. We woke up because something was burning our faces. Wait, it was the sun!!!!! YAY

The rest of the day was beautiful. Jason and I each caught a large mouth bass. That night we had hot dogs and marshmallows, which was very different from the way we usually cook when we’re camping, but still good.

It sprinkled just a little that night and was amazingly clear the next morning. Jason went out on the Tube and had a good time. I fixed us some delicious breakfast and I started a book, which I’ll review when I’m done. For lunch we made pita pizzas on the propane grill, and they were great too! A downy woodpecker came and hung out with us for a while, and made us think that it must really hurt to be a woodpecker. Once again, we weren’t hungry for dinner, so we had some roasted nuts and marshmallows. Mmmmmm. The first batch got a little too done, but the second turned out just right. They were spicy, and tasted like chex mix without the chex.

The STARS! They were amazing. There were so many that I couldn’t really see constellations. It was really nice to look at them and the lake even reflected some. It was really amazing.

The next morning we got up and packed up and headed home. We booked a hotel for first anniversary too, I’ll tell more about that soon too. The par was HUGE and we saw some cool stuff. Lots of reason to go back!!!

I've been gone so looooong but.

I'll be back very soon so:

I'm it!

Charlotte over at Owl Love to Stamp has tagged me!


The rules...
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

1. I'm a Lost addict. I know *bad pun ahead* many of us have "lost" our way, but I really enjoy it still. Over there, on the left side of this stuff? The link "Dispatches from the Island" is Hurley's blog. Okay not really Hurley's but it's Jeorge Garcia's.

2. This is hard.

3. Contrary to poor Charlotte, I love scary movies. But, not as much strictly gory movies. I want to be SCARED, not grossed out. My favorites of all time are The Exorcist and The Shining (yeah, Stanley Kubrick version, I adore his insanity). A few more recent favorites have been Descent, The Ring, and The Orphanage. I'll watch bad ones until I'm blue in the face though too. One of my favorite bad ones is called American Gothic. In Jr High and High School my best friend and I would rent terrible scary movies almost every weekend.

4. I'm a renaissance woman looking for a few good hobbies. Among the stuff I've been trying recently is cooking, knitting, sewing, gardening, carpentry assistant, and writing. I'm not really great at most of these, but I'm trying to learn. My strongest so far are cooking and maybe gardening.

5. An addendum to that, I can't bake. I like cooking because I can make it up. I can mess around with a recipe and still have it turn out well. I've never "cooked" anything I really didn't like. I'm always criticizing, thinking what I'll do the next time, but it's not ruined, or inedible or bad, just not as good as I know it can be. My baking history, however, is riddled with abject failure. I've tried to make sugar cookies and ended up with one big gross, uncooked pancake. You've seen the failbread. Last night I tried to bake a cake and added four times as much milk as I was supposed to. It actually turned out edible. Shocking.

6. I have a bachelor's degree in English. I know you wouldn't know it from the sloppy typing spelling and grammar here. I think it's like a teacher once said (she was complaining about my sloppy handwriting) my hand(s) can't keep up with my brain. It's coming out faster than I can get it written down. Blargh.

7. It's very hot in the library today. The air circulation system is broken and it's just awful.

Who shall I tag? I can't tag Charlotte, she tagged me! I think I'll Tag,

Blog of DOOM!
Fishing Around
Wasting Time
I Don't Know Squat
Country Girl On the Chesapeake Bay
Supposed Newlywed Bliss
Momstravaganza!

None of these people have ever done anything like this as far as I can remember, but then again, neither had I! So even if they don't post, check them out, I do.

New background

What do you think? Too hard to read? Should I go back? Edit and keep the background? Do tell.