“Orange” is the word on this Manic Monday. Mo gives us a word, and we are supposed to be inspired to write. It doesn’t always work! My first thought is of some orange trucks that we have around Denton, Texas, I’ve already told you about Frenchy’s Brand.

That leaves me with “Halloween” as my only connection to orange (other than my hair). But orange is the color of the season. “Halloween” means jack-o-lantern pumpkins, which are orange (unless you use a “ghost pumpkin.”

crazy costumes (and I love to play “dress-up!”)

How can you not love a holiday centered around dressing in silly costumes, telling shivery ghost stories, and hitting up strangers for candy? When my children were small, we went all out for decorating on Halloween. Yes, we carved pumpkins, and used an old sheet to make a ghost to hang by the door.

We also went out in the woods and cut a branch from a dead tree to make our “Spooky Old Tree.” This was back in 1986 or so, and having a Halloween Tree was an unusual thing. We hung white Christmas lights in the branches and draped the tree with rubber snakes and plastic spiders. My boys liked to take a lollipop and wrap a Kleenex over it, fixed with a rubber band on the stick. A ghost. They used a black marker to put eyes and a spooky mouth on the Kleenex. I still had one of those “ghosts” they had made last year; it was 19 years old but I still hung it in the tree. Sadly, one of five fe-lions at my house discovered it and destroyed it. With cats, nothing is sacred.

Nowadays, I don’t go out to cut branches, because I found a tree at the craft store.

It’s not as dramatic as the big one, but it works on the mantle.

It’s spookier in the dark.

I don’t get to celebrate Halloween much, because it’s “prime time” for a storyteller. I’ll be out at other people’s parties entertaining their guests with ghost tales. What will you be doing?

Technorati Tags: Manic Monday, Halloween, ghost, Halloween Tree

It’s Manic Monday, in more ways than one around here. Mo at It’s A Blog Eat Blog World gives us a word prompt each week, and those of us who participate use that to inspire a post. The word for today is “kit.” This weekend, I’ve been working on some afghan “kits” for Share A Square, but you’ll have to scroll down for that (I hope you will, because I need help now!). My first thought when I read the word, was the site that dominates the Denton, TX skyline.





My little town is the home of the Morrison Milling Company (now owned by C.H. Guenther & Son) which brings you Corn Kits and frozen Jimmy Dean Sausages. Exciting, isn’t it? Well, ok, maybe it’s not. But, if you need cornbread in a hurry, Corn Kits will do (although it doesn’t taste as good as the cornbread Mamaw made). As for the frozen sausages? You can skip them, they aren’t a thrill. Eat the cardboard box around them; that’s almost as tasty.

The building itself isn’t all that lovely, but years ago the neon signs worked, and at night it was fun to see them blinking red letters. The letters kept “dying,” so sometimes the sign read with strange words. I guess the company that now owns them decided that the expense of repairing the sign wasn’t worth the effort.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
HELP!!!
The kits that are obsessing me right now are for afghans for Share A Square. I’m tearing my hair out. If you are unfamiliar with the project, I’m working with folks all over the country and the world to put together 140 afghans for children with cancer at Camp Sanguinity. Each afghan has 48 crocheted or knitted squares sent by different volunteers.
Folks send me a 6 inch afghan square with a name tag in the center.

Volunteers put a rim of black Red Heart yarn around the edge.

I put them in stacks according to who made them, so that when it’s time to put together an afghan I pull a square from 48 different stacks.

Then we work to stitch those into afghans to give the children next summer.

Here’s the snag I have hit:
I have several people who want to put together afghans, but

I can’t put together enough afghans!

Although we have received more than half of the squares we need to make 140 afghans, many people have sent large batches. Other folks were only able to send a few squares. I appreciate ALL of the squares, even if you can only send one! Right now, I desperately need squares from about 30 different people, so I can put together more afghan kits (if you have already sent more than 70 squares, don’t panic!).

My goal is to have 70 afghans made (or in the process of being made) by the end of November. No one wants to spend December crocheting afghans. I want us all to enjoy the holiday season.

I will be traveling for work most of November!

That means, that I’ve got to get this done ASAP. I need your help!

Right now, 33 afghans are either finished or in the works. That means that I need to package up 37 more kits. I only have enough squares to finish 5 kits (with 5 more kits that have 30 squares or so).

• Tell people about the program and ask them to crochet a few squares. Some of you have already mentioned it in a post, but reminders never hurt. I’d appreciate it.
• If you can crochet or knit, please send me four or five squares as soon as you can.
• If you have been crocheting for the program, please, DON’T hoard the squares. I’d much rather you send me squares in a small steady stream (like Rick does) than have you send me 140 squares two months from now. Only one of your squares goes on each afghan.

If you can help in any way, please do. Next summer, there are going to be some smiling faces at Camp Sanguinity Cancer Camp. I know you want to be a part of it.

Y’all have a Happy Monday!

Technorati Tags: Manic Monday, Share A Square, Denton, TX, Morrison Milling Company, Corn Kits, afghans, cancer, Camp Sanguinity

I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but when I was young I totally bought into the idea that I should look like a supermodel. The magazines at the checkout stand in the grocery store told me how I was supposed to look, and even told me how to achieve that look. All I had to do to be beautiful was to shell out the money to buy the magazines, and then fork over more money for beauty products that they recommended. Then, I could look like my idol: Cheryl Tiegs.

Oh, yes, I wanted to look like Cheryl Tiegs, because I knew all the men thought she was hot. They loved her honey blond hair, her teeth as white as freshly fallen snow, her sun-kissed skin and unblemished face. Of course, they were also fond of her long legs, her wasp thin waist and her “capacious bosoms.” I wanted to look like that, too, so I bought those magazines and the beauty products.

Now, I did the best I could with what I had, but we have to consider the raw material I had to work with here. My Momma would not let me bleach my hair, my Daddy wouldn’t buy me a set of boobs. My teeth were covered with metal braces, so “white” didn’t matter. The best I could do was not get spinach caught in my teeth. When the sun kisses me, I get so many freckles that I look like a connect-the-dots puzzle. The only thing I could work on was the unblemished face.

Though fortunately I did not have acne, we all know that in our teenage years a simple pimple on our face looks to us like Mount Everest. Mine looked more like Mount Rushmore, and I swear you could see Abe Lincoln’s face on them. There’s no telling how much money I Momma spent on products that were supposed to clear my complexion.

Momma always told me to use Noxzema, that strange smelling white cream in the blue jar. For Heaven’s sake, my grandmother used Noxzema, and I didn’t want to look like her! When she bought it for me, I dumped it out and told her I had used it up. Finally one day, I talked Momma into buying me some Bactine Skin Cream. It smelled as bad as Noxzema, but after you put it on and washed it off, your skin felt all tingly. You just knew it had to be working. I was satisfied that I was doing everything possible to make myself into Cheryl Tiegs.

I had a date one weekend, and I really wanted to impress him. I spent hours on my beauty regime. After washing my hair and rolling it on orange juice cans (so I could achieve that smooth, straight look the models had), I decided to use my Bactine Skin Cream for a facial mask, and I slapped it on my face as thick as butter on bread. I carefully avoided my eyes, because I knew I was supposed to do that.

Then, I sat down under the hair dryer and manicured my fingernails. As I sat there, I noticed that my face was really tingling, in fact it was starting to sting. “That just means the Bactine is working its magic,” I thought to myself. After about thirty minutes under the hairdryer, my face was smarting something fierce, so I rushed to the sink to rinse my face.

When I looked in the mirror, I got quite a shock. Where the white Bactine Skin Cream had been, my face was now bright red! I was burned to a crisp! Frantically, I washed my face again, hoping that the red would wash away. Nope. It didn’t work; my face was still burned.

Belatedly, I grabbed the jar of Bactine Skin Cream and read the instructions: “Do not leave on for more than 15 minutes…Do not use near heat.” Well, duh.

I ran to my Momma, hoping she would have an easy fix. Her “fix” was to take me straight to the emergency room where we discovered I had a second degree burn on my face. Momma and the doctors both asked me what I had been using on my face. I didn’t want to appear stupid, so I said, “Noxzema.”

“Are you sure?” they asked. I stuck to my story, and they just shook their heads in wonder. Noxzema, you see, was originally developed as a remedy for sunburn!

Needless to say, I didn’t go out on the date that night. I couldn’t wear makeup for weeks, and Momma wouldn’t let me stay home from school. I was a laughing stock at school, and called “Raccoon Eyes,” because of the white rim around my eyes, for months afterward. The only good news out of the whole deal was that Momma wouldn’t buy Noxzema after that.

You know, Cheryl just recently turned 60, and is now touting a new beauty product. The advertising says:
“Ageless Woman” by Cheryl Tiegs Helps One Age Like an Ex-Supermodel…If Ever there was a Case for Hope in a Bottle, This Would be it.

Maybe I should go buy…nah.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

It’s Manic Monday over at Mo’s It’s A Blog Eat Blog World. Each week, Mo gives us a “theme word,” and we write a post from that. The word this week is “crisp,” and although I barely used it, that was the word prompt for this post.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Go vote for your favorite Dear Abby letter. You can cast a vote each day!

Technorati Tags: beauty products, Cheryl Tiegs, Bactine Skin Cream, Noxzema, Manic Monday, Dear Abby