Boo! October's Gone Bye-Bye

This is Otter's "Tortured Soul Jack-O-Lantern" that she created last night. It's not the same pumpkin that she got at the pumpkin patch a couple of weeks ago. That pumpkin turned out to be rotted all the way through, which was a very unpleasant surprise when I cut into it, so we made a last minute run to Wallyworld and since they were all $3.00 we got a larger one. Then we ran home and got to carving. Otter absolutely hates to have to stick her hand inside one of those things, but I made her do some of it anyway. Then we compromised. She hates is so much that she was willing to clean the toilet instead! The blood is white karo syrup with red food coloring.

If you look at the side of the pumpkin picture, you can see the front storm door. This is what was watching Otter place the pumpkin! Maggie was not happy that she wasn't allowed out, she thought that she should be able to help. Poor poochie!

We did not have very many kids at all this year. We usually have a boatload, but I think we had under 10 last night. We still have quite a bit of candy left over, Bill will take a lot of it to work on Monday where it will magically disappear. I'm also taking some to work to refill the candy jars that we have, but they don't get opened very often. If we had not had much candy, we would have been overrun with kids. Next year, we might just skip it entirely and not even participate.

Books! I need to post my October book list. Here goes:

1. Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule. This is about the several decade hunt for a serial killer in the Seattle area. It is a very disturbing book, it is well-written as all of Mrs. Rule's books are but it is a very frank picture of the dangerous that girls face "out on the streets". And they are not usually out there by choice, they are frequently very young and being taken advantage of by pimps. They don't deserve what happened to them. Otter started reading it, but it scared her so she quit until she's a little bit older.

2. On The Way Home by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I've read it before, so it's probably been on the list before. And probably will be again.

3. Trick or Treat, a Peanuts Halloween.

4. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy.

5. Create a Bewitched Falloween by Kas Rogers. No, that is not a misspelling - Falloween. Craft stuff, not too much I'll ever do.

6. Gifts to Make, Better Homes and Gardens. Some ideas.

7. Gifts for the Family. A few more ideas.

8. Change of Heart by Phillip Gulley. Part of the Harmony series, cute but not as good as the earlier books.

9. Lost Pet Chronicles by Kat Albrecht and Jana Murphy. A true story of a woman who trained her search and rescue dogs to also look for lost pets.

10. A Woman After God's Own Hearty by Elizabeth George. Wifehood from a Biblical perspective. It was not very well written and I felt like the author was kind of hypocritical in the examples she gave from her own life.

11. Georgia Cooking for Oklahoma Kitchens by Trisha Yearwood. Hope Garth has good life insurance, because a heart attack just might be in his future!

12. Chalked Up, Inside Elite Gymnastics Merciless Coaching by Jennifer Sey. What happens when you combine unattentive parents with extreme overzealous coaches and a very young girl: eating disorders, stress that would kill an adult and severe injuries. Otter took gymnastics for a couple of years to help with the scoliosis, it did help but I saw quite a few girls at the gym that in all probability did have eating disorders. The coaches seemed to be decent, but Otter was not in the competitive class and it might have been a whole different thing.

About 13, 14 and 15: Otter has her teenage fangirl obsession. And I have mine.

13. Batman Chronicles Vol. 5.

14. Batman Detective by Paul Dini.

15. Secrets of the Batcave.

16. Turbulent Souls, a Catholic Son's Return to his Jewish Family by Stephen J. Dubner. Interesting, but not very well written.

17. Sarah by Jerry Eicher. About an Amish girl.

18. Sarah's Son by Jerry Eicher. Sequel to # 17. Not the best written books, I don't know if I'll read anything else by him or not.

19. Texas Off the Beaten Path by June Naylor. Texas, of course I enjoyed it!

20. Cheech & Chong - Unauthorized Biography. Since this was written by Tommy Chong, I'm not sure about the unauthorized part! It was interesting, and let's just say that Chong wasn't really acting when he was onscreen!

21. Blue Sky July by Nia Wyn. This was written in poetry form, which I really didn't care for. It was a good book, a true story about a child born with severe physical problems and his parents were basically told to abandon him to an institution because he would never be normal. Except that he was, he only had a physical disability but his mind is normal. Fortunately, his parents ignored the advice.

22. Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale, Jr. You might have seen the movie made from this book a few years ago. It's a true story. The movie didn't cover all that much that actually happened, otherwise it would have been many hours long. Also, there were a few things changed for the movie but in general it was pretty close. He was a very sucessful forger and con man, all before he was even out of his teens! He lives in the general area of Oklahoma that I live in, he's a friend of one of my bosses and I've met him. You would never have even the slightest idea of what he did, he's turned his life around 100% and works as a consultant so that businesses won't be hit by someone like he used to be.

Ok, that's it for now.