The Haunted House

Since I was away from my blog most of last year, I did not get to share Halloween with you guys!  The first week of October Aubrey and I went to one of the top Haunted Attractions in the USA - The 13th Gate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Our hotel was right in front of the Haunted House so we went to their newest attraction - Necropolis 13 the very next night!!!  ---and let me tell you -- they REALLY were scary!  On the way home, we had brunch at a "real live" haunted house.  The whole haunted weekend inspired us to decorate our home for Halloween!

We started the day we got home and built, crafted, and tinkered until October 30th!  We had a blast building our haunted yard and stayed up many nights until 2am working on our masterpiece! We spent many nights standing out in the middle of the street in front of our house thinking of ways to make it even better!

Here are a few photos:

Our niece, McKenzie, helped us just about every afternoon as soon as she got her homework done!

We used lots of our vintage finds and plastic body parts from Dollar Tree

We made "bleeding candles" by painting red candles white!

Our first bit of decor were the crazy people in our living room windows!

We lit the fire by using orange Christmas tree lights! We spray painted the tips of the sticks black to make them appear charred!

This was the "candy table" - this photo was taken before work on Halloween morning -- way before the candy was added.

The made scientist lab on our porch was complete with a real Jacob's Ladder and bubbling sound effects!

A smoke machine in the cauldron (plastic flower pot we painted black!) completed the look of a real fire!

Boarding up the windows made our house really look abandoned.

I was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and had a Big Bad Wolf stop by to Trick or Treat!

   These are just a few of the photos --- there was a haunted living room with a chair that Aubrey rigged up to rock by itself, a chicken wire ghost that hung on the side of the yard, lots and lots of tombstones, sound effects and mood lighting!  I will be sure to share the rest of the photos soon!

Babies?!

  Once upon a time my life was all about my blog and my blog was all about my life!  I felt like I personally knew all of my blog friends and I really thought of you as real friends.  Then, I stopped blogging.  Mostly because I was so drained and unhappy at my previous job.  I just had no desire to share my days because they sucked.  They really sucked.

  I was away for so long that when I came back the whole "Blogger" system was different. I still to this day have no idea where my "favorite blog list" is and I can not figure out how to read your blogs unless I look them up one at a time.

  I was going back through my old posts tonight and reading some of your comments and clicking on your faces only to find out that 2 of you have had babies!! BABIES!!  and I didn't even know you were expecting!! 

WHAT???!!!!

I am going to get back on top of this. I will conquer Blogger and get back in touch. I have missed you guys!!

Estate Sale Saturday!

 Once again, there is just no place like home when it comes to finding great things at estate sales.  We went to one this morning and even though the newspaper ad didn't sound all that promising, we found a few really great things!

     Even though I love all things rusty, crusty, metal, and industrial I am trying to be more open minded when I go to these sales and trying to buy things that are still may taste but not all masculine and industrial. With that in mind - I was happy to find today's sale with cute chippy furniture.

     We got this cute lemon yellow table and chair set:

It looks off white in this photo but it is a pretty lemon yellow IRL

We got to small tables - one turquoise and one green:

 

Besides a little estate shopping, I am still working on redecorating my living room and kitchen. Here is a look at the bits and pieces we have together so far:

Antique surveyor instruments that were given to us, vintage typewriter my Mom gave Aubrey way before typewriters were a fad, a vintage Smokey Bear educational poster I got for $1.00, and the shelf we made out of a roadside find and old pallets.

Curtains from West Elm, old street sign I got from another vendor at work, suitcases from estate sales, old globes from estates sales, green crate from antique show in Arkansas

I found this vintage bentwood light fixture in a greenhouse at an estate sale and paid $5.00 for it!

The lockers are from the antique show in Arkansas. The chair was one of my first "finds" years ago when I worked at the restaurant. The sign was one I painted myself.

LOVE my "Skating Rink" sign!! This is the one I barely fit in the truck on the ride home from Arkansas and the reason I could not change lanes for 3 hours straight!

I was sick of the "great room" feel of our living room/kitchen so the lockers are a great divider.

 Still looking for artwork to go above the sofa but I know when I see the right thing I will know it!

This Week:

On Thursday, we started dressing in our "Valentine" outfits at work.  Our Valentine outfit includes any shade of white, red, pink, or purple we want to wear, our pink work smocks, fuzzy pink leg warmers, pink fishnet gloves, and headbands with springy hearts on them. Today, someone told me I brightened her day - so mission accomplished on our silly outfits.

  Here it is:

Okay, moving on. Today, I got to rub a baby alligator. Yep!  His back was rough - like an alligator boot.  Imagine that. His tummy was cold and soft - kinda felt like a boiled egg.

Here he is:

Besides that, I went to a party with my boss and a coworker last night. It was a wine tasting that included more flavors of vodka than wine, I think. Boy are there a TON of drinks out there!  I had one tiny one (like the size of a shot glass but it was not a shot) that tasted like pink lemonade...then another that tasted like wedding cake!  Then, I started getting more "giggly" than usual so put the brakes on that. I have NO tolerance.... and didn't want to get all one-eyed with my boss.

Hope all of you who are getting snowed in stay warm and safe!!

Silver Linings

My new favorite book:

Loved it! Loved it! Loved it!  I am not sure how the movie can be better but I have heard great things!  I just hope they didn't change one single thing about "The Asian Invasion" because that was my favorite part!

I have read lots of books so far this year and this one is on top as far as making me smile and turn pages quickly.

Got my booth all moved to it's new location right at the corner of the back aisle and the left aisle. LOVE it!

Still need to add some things to the back wall but love the move so far. It is a wee bit smaller booth but it has shelves so I feel like I have actually gained room.

It's 10:30pm which oddly enough is past my bedtime now. Weird, I know. But I wake up at 6:00 to go to the gym now so I have plenty of time to shower, have breakfast, get dressed and still get to work early. It is funny how loving your job can solve the problem of not being able to get out of bed in the morning.

Speaking of jobs -- my old job is going out of business!!  Strange how I drove away from there 9 months ago and it just felt so right.  Now, I know why things happened the way they did. I would have been jobless again if I had stayed there. Dodged a bullet.  Now I am happy with a new promotion instead of sad and jobless.

Ding! Ding! Round 3

   By now you all know that Aubrey is a nice guy but a nice guy that doesn't take any "crap" off of anybody. Would you believe me if I said we don't look for trouble...it looks for us?  Honestly - we are pretty calm people. Most of the time.

   The last story I told you about Aub losing his temper was a few months ago when I was shopping for a new car and the dealership tried to sell us a lemon...

   Then, there was "the shoe incident" when we were at "The World's Longest Yard Sale"  which I didn't even blog about because I thought it was TOO SOON and I didn't want to blow our cover...maybe it is still too soon to share that story but I will one day. Of course our Alabama friends know all the details because they heard the first hand account over breakfast at "The Cracker Barrel."

Today, there was a "small" incident at an estate sale. So small that I didn't even know it was happening until it had happened.

  Long story short-

   We got up early and drove about 30 minutes to an estate sale.

    The sale didn't have much for sale. What was for sale was a little pricey and nothing that I really wanted anyway.

   The things I did want, were not for sale.

   Aubrey found something he wanted. It wasn't something for us to resale - just something for one of his projects. This thing had no price and the guy told him $10.00.  Aubrey was honest with the guy and told him that it was worth more than $10.00, he offered him $20.00.  (Which I would never do - but as you know by now - I am cheap.)

   Anyway, I picked out a few things, it took a while to get prices because it was a little unorganized (things inside were priced - things outside were only priced if you asked about them) I made my little pile and was ready to pay and go.

   In the meantime, Aubrey - being the nice guy he is- helped the estate sale guy pull a freaking wrought iron trellis out of the ground and load it onto an older woman's truck...as well as three pieces of a HEAVY solid concrete birdbath, and a very, very big "t-shaped" metal thing that had gourds hanging from it -- all loaded onto the lady's truck.

   Finally, we were ready to go. We paid $95 for all our finds and I waited in the driveway while Aubrey backed the truck up. We loaded our things. I got in the truck and was just waiting to go.  Apparently, I was totally "checked out" of the situation. Honestly, I was looking at this little bag of candy Aubrey had purchased that morning and I was wondering if I could find some baby wipes or something to wipe my hands with so I could have a piece without getting "estate sale grime" in my mouth.

   Aubrey is super friendly and likes to talk so I figured he was just out there talking...not that I was even thinking THAT much about it.  I was just thinking about the candy at that point.

  Then, he opened the door to get in and I just heard:  "....$#%@ and the next time you have a #$!%^ estate sale...."   That is honestly all I heard. I looked up and I HAD to have a stunned look on my face because I had no idea what was happening!  I said: "Babe, what is going on!?  What happened?!"  He said the guy who owned the stuff (that is ALWAYS a disaster when the home owners are present at their sale!)  came out and was questioning everything we purchased and how much we paid for everything and the straw that broke the camel's back -- IF we paid for it!!  He wanted to SEE the money and know WHO we paid!!!  So pretty much he was accusing us of stealing! 

  Accused us of stealing after Aubrey spent at least 45 minutes helping other people at the sale and after he offered to pay MORE than what he was asked to pay for something because he wanted to be fair!  What in the world?! 

  Ugh. First someone "steals" from my pile at one sale and now someone thinks we are stealing!  Estate sales may become more of a contact sport.

Moving On Up

   Some great news- I got a promotion!  My bosses made me the manager of the shop last week!  I am super excited though I am keeping it a little mute.  I didn't want any of my co-workers getting mad at me since I am technically still "the new girl" so I just didn't tell any of them.  I am the smooth sailing type of manager I guess....

Wonder how long that will last.