Happy Halloween!

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a lovely day! Here's a pretty darn funny for you today. Please enjoy! And Happy Halloween!

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Woo hoo, 5K!

This past Saturday was the "1st Annual Stonewall Long Haul 5K." It was also my first 5K! Tyler has done these a lot in the past but not so much recently, so it was sort of getting back in the habit for him. Even though I walked like 94% of the way, I was definitely sore Sunday! Walking approximately 3 miles is harder than you think if you practically never exercise! But I think we'll do these a lot more often now because we had a lot of fun!

Oh, Lucille

So, I found this Halloween card the other day amongst a bunch of corny ones that said stuff like "Hope your Halloween is BOO-rific!" This was truly a gem. It was so hard not to laugh out loud in the middle of Barnes and Noble. Definitely my kind of humor...

Oh, I love it! The inside reads "Hope your Halloween is a real picnic." Happy day, everyone! Hope you at least got a little giggle from Lucille's misfortune. :)

Tyler Tuesdays (One day late due to government holiday)

This post if for my mother, my wonderful sweet mother.

I'm not sure this is how most families are, but growing up, there was one food item each child distinctly remembers having ALL the time. My brother Scott claimed he ate nothing but chicken growing up, and now doesn't care for it. My sister Jennifer makes herself believe she grew up on tuna.
Patrick and I- roast beef. Every week, sometimes multiple times a week, we had roast beef. It wasn't so bad when Mom would make mashed potatoes and gravy, but we didn't even have that after a decade or so.

Flash forward three years, and I have iron-deficiency anemia. Combined with the somewhat lousy weather we've had lately, I knew what we (Sarah and I) had to do: fire up the slow cooker and plop in a roast beef.

Mom- I love roast beef. I'm sorry for griping all the way through high school about it. Sarah insisted we throw in carrots and onions, so we did that too. Also delicious. But I'm not afraid to admit- Sarah's mashed potatoes finished the meal off quite nicely.

It really was a lovely meal; we had roast beef, onions, carrots, mashed potatoes, and water. It felt like a throwback to '99. Even better- we started eating at 5:30. Honestly, it's the most like-a-family meal we've had since getting married. And it was fantastic.

Feeling Crafty

So, lately I've been feeling very crafty. I guess it's the change of season... I dunno. But I had been looking on Etsy (yes, etsy again...) for some cool Halloween/fall decor, and it just inspired me to make my own!

So, first I decided to make a Happy

Halloween plaque because I couldn't find the one I already had... this is what came of it. I designed the text, etc. in photoshop, then burned and distressed the print, Mod Podged it onto masonite, and embellished with black and bronze fabric paint. Finally, I added wire, so I could hang it on our door. All of this was totally spontaneous, by the way... so I'm pleased with how it actually turned out! I feel like it looks

better in person though. Dumb on-camera flash...

Next, I wanted to attempt these paper flowers I had seen. I made them Halloween-themed, of course. They were a lot of fun! I only made three Halloween ones, though I might make more later. I put them in my awesome orange cat wine bottle (Thank you, World Market!). Maybe our bird salt and pepper shakers aren't really Halloweenish, but it looks like the cat is about to eat them... that's scary, right?

Finally, when we put the plaque and a spider web up on our door, I decided to make a spider for the web (duh, right?). Sooo, this is what I ended up with. Spontaneous mishmash of purple and orange magazine clippings, more wire, two beads for eyes, and more fabric paint. Cute lil' bugger. Yay for arts and crafts!

Tyler Tuesdays

(I know this is Wednesday, but I think if I post this before the work day begins, it still counts)

Sunday while cooking supper and cleaning the kitchen, Sarah had Disney and Pixar's Cars on. It's a great movie, probably in the top three for Pixar. So much thought and detail went in to making every creature a car. Personal favorite- the lightening bugs in the form of small VW Bugs. Genius.

From that movie, Sarah and I took two different feelings. Sarah's were adorable, as the first thing she said after the movie is how interesting it is the feeling of watching these movies with our children. So in five years, we'll let you know if watching Cars with the kids is fun.

My feelings were in response to Bonnie Hunt's character, Sally Carrera. She got fed up with the big city lifestyle and drove until she broke down, which happened to be in a small town full of love. Part of why this affected me was because of a great song we worshiped with at church. I don't remember the lyrics (because I'm not capable. Ask Sarah, she'll tell you the only song I know completely is Happy Birthday.), but they basically say "Lord, I'm in this city, and I'm here for you." I feel many times the desire to have that mentality. I want a connection to a city that makes me want to devote my life to serving God through the city. I don't know what city this will be, or if we'll ever live there. I just know this city exist, and God will take me there when it is time.

Fall Excitement

Okay, so another reason I love the fall is that it so fresh and new, it gets me excited about new things (ie-the scarves from yesterday's post). I'm so excited about new movies (and television) for this fall! I've already tried out a ton of new TV shows that I love! (FlashForward is cuh-razy good... Trauma totally lives up to its name... Modern Family is cracking me up!) What I'm so looking forward to right now, though is Spike Jonze's adaptation of the classic book, Where the Wild Things Are. It comes out two weeks from now, and I can't wait! I always loved that book. It's just so magical. I think the illustrations really did it for me though, which is part of why I think this film will be awesome. I am amazed at how familiar the characters are in three-dimensional form! The first time I saw the trailer (in the theater--it was awesome) it took me about twenty seconds to figure out what it was.

Everybody watch the trailer! The awesome Arcade Fire song (Wake Up) really makes it!