Pumpkin Carving Contest

Holy Cow, where did this month go?!?

Well, being ever crafty and creative out here at the Costume Shop, last week we held a Pumpkin Carving Contest. We need you, faithful reader, to be the judge! Please use the comments section to make your first choice known.

We adopted the Martha Stewart School of Carving with real tools and unexpected methods. We hope your Halloween preparations are going along swimmingly. Although somewhat picked-over, we still have many fabulous costumes available for the weekend.

Pumpkin #1


Pumpkin #2


Pumpkin #3


Pumpkin #4


Pumpkin #5


Stop out for a session of Dress Up!

Winter Before Halloween?

In October of 1991 I sewed a Jester costume for my oldest son, two-and-a-half-year-old Arthur. I created the costume from an old red and blue quilt and jingle bells. Arthur insisted on doing his own make-up and smeared lipstick all over his face. I planned to stay home with the two-month-old baby Joren, while Dale took Arthur on his first ever Trick-or-Treat expedition around the 165th Street neighborhood in Vermillion Township in rural Hastings, Minnesota. The morning of October 31 it began to snow; heavy, wet, fat flakes of snow.

Poor Arthur had these baggy pants around his ankles, gathered at the top of his boots that I insisted he wore through the more than 4 inch accumulation that was blanketing the ground by late afternoon. He insisted that he still wanted to go for his first Trick-or-Treat trip and off he went with his father in the winter storm. It proved to be a legendary storm in a legendary year that would also produce a major blizzard at Thanksgiving time, too.

Since then I don't think Arthur has ever missed a Halloween opportunity for dressing up and playing Trick-or Treat, and he certainly loves snow, as do I.

So neither of us was particularly distressed when we woke to the bizarre contrast of looking out upon green leaves on the trees above a snowy blanket of white obscuring the still green grass of our fall lawn. It continued to snow and melt throughout the day. The pumpkins looked cute, frosted with wintry precipitation.

The Costume Shop is looking great. Mary and Danika worked hard yesterday cleaning and organizing. Mary returned the upstairs to an organized state while Danika and I sorted through accessories downstairs. And today Katie and Linda helped with new decorations to the exterior of the shop. We have bats, skeletons and other surprises waiting to welcome you on the Dress Me Up grounds.

I have begun construction of the first new costume of the year; yet another pirate costume, Capt. Morgan style. You're gonna love this rich red and gold creation. I'll keep you posted with updates as there is progress to report.

In the mean time it was fun to re-dress the Half-a-Witch in the pumpkin patch and to help Danika with a study-break session of Dress Up in which she demonstrated the efficacy of the beat-up old Batman costume.

"Holy Walnuts, Robin, what is that in your rubber codpiece?!"

Okay, never mind. I guess you had to be there.

We are ready to dress you up. Come on out and let us know what you have in mind.

Opening Days of 2009

DAY ONE
I am so sorry, faithful customers and costumers, for my failure to get the shop open as promised on Thursday, October 8. That very day my oldest son, Arthur, was helping me with some cleaning and lifting chores around the shop in anticipation of your arrival when I was attacked by a vengeful bush!

Well, it wasn't that dramatic until I started my caterwauling. . .

I was showing Arthur which offending branches of the over-grown bushes needed to be trimmed away from the Costume Porch. I turned my head to look at him to ask a questions and when I turned back toward the bushes a sharp twig on a leafless branch inserted itself behind my glasses and raked across my unsuspecting left eyeball.

It dropped me like a knock-out punch to a glass jaw. I didn't pass out, but I did make a scene. It felt like my eyeball had popped.

Fortunately Arthur is an EMT and never looses his cool, even when his mother is loosing hers. He got me into the house to flush my eye with luke warm water. By then my husband was home. Once calmed down I was able to put my glasses on and briefly check out the damage through my bifocal. The good news was that I could see it. The bad news is that I could see it - the big gouge in my cornea - nauseating, if you ask me. So at 5:21 in the afternoon I called the clinic to see if I needed to go to urgent care or the ER.

In exactly 52 minutes 37 seconds, plus two additional calls on my cell phone to make sure they were, indeed, answering calls in the order in which they were received, a very apologetic triage nurse got on the phone to answer my questions. She kept apologizing for the wait, and when she learned that I wasn't calling with Swine Flu suspicions, apparently the cause for the eternal wait, she actually said, "Oh, for Pete's sake!" Which prompted me to apologize saying that I felt really stupid for poking myself in the eye with a stick, and I wouldn't have called except it really hurt!

"Oh no no," she corrected, "you need to be seen. Eye injuries are painful and you need to come in. I'm just sorry it had to happen today. You should have called the eye clinic. They would have brought you in right away."

"I tried," I replied, "but they were already closed and routing calls to your desk."

Touche'. She directed me to ER and promised they would be expecting me. I dispatched Dale back to the Costume Shop to repair the water pipes and get the furnace running. Arthur drove me to town, roles reversed from many previous journeys with the two of us in the car headed for ER!

They numbed my eye (thanks be to God!), irrigated it, used dye to look at the abrasion, "Wow, Mom. You scraped it good!", squirted antibiotic ointment all over it and sent me home with a patch and instructions to use Ibuprofen and Tylenol 3 and see the eye doc in the morning if it didn't feel better.

DAY TWO
I didn't sleep well last night. In fact, I confess to more than one episode of crying like a baby. There were moments when I wished I was in labor and delivery rather than feeling like someone was twisting a rusty fork in my eyeball. It was bad. And I didn't look good this morning, nor did I feel good. I took more pain-killers at 5 am and finally got my best sleep between 5:30 and 10 am.

Oops. The Costume Shop was supposed to open at 10 today. Oh well. I dragged my sorry ass out to the shop and changed the outgoing message on the phone and put a pathetic note on the door:
CLOSED - due to family medical emergency. Will reopen on Saturday, October 10. Sorry for the inconvenience. Sigh.

Dale had already gone to work and Arthur had a class at noon. I needed a ride to the eye doctor by 11:30 am. No way I could drive myself, too many tears and extremely light sensitive.

My hero of the day, Barb, moth-balled her tomato juice manufacturing operation for the afternoon and came to my rescue. I protected her from walking into the potentially flu-infested clinic and sent her off on her own errands as I ventured into the clinic. I kept my hands in my pockets, gave the people wearing ominous blue masks a wide berth, and used my own pen to write my co-pay check. Blah blah blah . . . . .

After two doctors, $115 in co-pays, one pharmacist, and $32 in eye ointment, I rest assured that my eye will be fine. In fact they think it will be fine by Sunday, because eyes heal very quickly.

Yes, the shop will be open on Saturday, finally.

Thanks be to God. and Thanks be to Barb!

Anyone wanna play Dress Up for Halloween?