Category: Neighborhood

Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour

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How cool is this Halloween decorating contest? I love stuff like this! I was perusing all the local towns’ park districts’ websites last weekend when I stumbled upon it.

Tonight we printed out the tour guide, loaded the kids up in the car, and toured some homes. I have to say, however, that it would have been nice if the tour gave directions from house to house instead of from the same “starting point” to each house. It made finding many of the houses difficult and even though we were out for over two hours I know we didn’t see all 27 participants.

We did see some real cool stuff, however. My favorite houses had people dressed up following you around to creep you out or sitting really still so you were convinced they were dummies and then making sudden movements to make you jump.

I am tempted to put each address into MapQuest and plotting a route so we can do the entire tour before Halloween. I want to get more photos!

Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour on Flickr

If you’re looking for some decorated homes in your own area, I also came across this site called GooGhoul where you put in your zip code to locate Halloween related events nearby.

Chili Cook-Off

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Today was our town’s 1st Annual Chili Cook-Off. The flyer listed the fees for chili tasting at $3 for adults and $1 for kids yet when we asked where we had to pay, the guy looked at us like we were nuts. So we went around to all the booths and tasted everyone’s chili for free. Even the police and fire departments had entries. Neither were particularly tasty, however. I’m glad we didn’t have to pay for the tasting since I wasn’t impressed with any of the entries. They weren’t bad, just nothing that made me go “wow”.

We ended up voting for the first one we tried for the People’s Choice award. There were “official” judges there too. I’m not really sure when the winners will be announced, or how. Our town isn’t that great with communication; in fact nowhere in the flyer did it ever say where the cook off was being held; we just figured it out. And their website kinda blows. My guess is they decided to forgo the fee to generate more interest since there wasn’t a huge turnout. I appreciate the effort, however. It’s nice to attend community events.

After our “light brunch” we did some running around. One of the places we stopped at was Borders books. We don’t go there often but I had a coupon and a gift card so I got the new Pinback album for only $0.86. :)

We also stopped at Petsmart to get Peanut some new treats since her old ones expired. And since I’m back to being able to eat carbs (there goes the weight I lost), we ate lunch at Noodles & Company.

I got the cutest Christmas tree ornament from Pier One next door too. I really hate that Christmas stuff is already out at the stores so I almost didn’t get it simply out of principle but I liked it too much to pass up. They have the most gorgeous ornament wreath too so I’m considering ordering a Pier One card from my Discover cashback so I can go back and get that too.

After more errands we came home and I cleaned our front door and storm door. It’s so clear now you might walk through it and not notice the glass. ;) I figured it was the least I could do after my wonderful husband cleaned the house, did the dishes, and did laundry on his day off yesterday.

My excitement for the week

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Late last night as I came out of the master bathroom, I noticed flashing lights coming from the girl’s bedroom. Upon investigation I saw that there was a police car across the street. There was also a red convertible in front of it, so I assumed they had gotten pulled over for speeding. An ambulance pulled up shortly thereafter, however, and a guy who had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the squad car (not a police officer), was led to the the back of the ambulance by two paramedics. Some people milling about went with them and another guy got into the red convertible and drove off. So I’m not sure what really happened. The squad and ambulance sat there for another five minutes before leaving. Too bad they don’t keep the police blotter up to date in this town because my curiosity has been piqued.

Elusive critters

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Nature is out in full force right now. I saw two different animals in the past 24 hours that I can’t recall spotting in quite a long time.

Yesterday it was a fawn walking by the side of the road when we were on the way back from the movie theatre. It was so small and cute! And hopefully not future roadkill.

This morning it was a coyote crossing the street on the way into work.

I wish I could have gotten pictures of both, but I didn’t have my camera on me. Plus who had time? I was lucky to see either one at all!

Stinky

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It sure would be nice if we could get some fresh air in the house without cigarette smoke as a bonus. The neighbors on each side smoke. I don’t get it, if there’s more non-smokers than smokers, how come the smokers always live next door to us? Man, I can’t wait to move! I know it’s years away from now, but I long for the day we have no neighbors within smelling distance, surrounded by nothing but nature. I’ll take the early morning birds chirping incessantly to the smell of cigarette smoke any day.