The Killers Are Coming!

Oh happy happy day on so many level, beginning with the post-election high hopes and ending with 107.7 The End's Deck the Hall Ball bash which I totally forgot about... now that I have satellite radio and never listen to regular radio anymore. Sigh.

So it turns out The Killers are coming and I didn't even know it. Talk about a sheltered life. So I'm taking Holy Son as a belated 12th b-day present - he doesn't know it yet - and Shiny Toy Guns and Death Cab for Cutie will be playing, as well.

Can't wait. It'll be the 25th anniversary year of when I used to hang out at concerts like this...I know what you're thinking...that was back when you were young, Holy. Yup. Still am. I'll have the concert tee to prove it, too!

In other Schmidt happenings, we have a new office desk suite. It took a year of shopping for me to find the color I was happy with to match the dark mahogany stain of our office futon arms. In the meantime, we were using Holy Hub's small kiddie desk from when he was 7. Kinda small and the drawers had this funky 60s smell - you know, the kinda odor that old furniture likes to give off. And it was just getting, well, old.

Craziness. The new stuff is not a perfect match nor is it swanky by any stretch - the furniture is a tad darker but it'll have to do. Best thing about this furniture is not the quality - it's mdf or some other such high quality pressboard - it's that it's made for small home offices and it's no-tool building. Everything snaps together. Kinda nifty. Not that Holy Hub thought so. Putting office furniture together and untangling computer cords was not on his priority list on election night, which comes two nights before he flies back to Edmonton on his whirlwind Keep on Trucking weekend (he's bringing his Dad's pick-up back across the border). But thankfully, it was a tool free and painless experience and he's a light packer.

Anyhoo, onwards, upwards. We've successfully torn down Halloween. I still have to get pictures posted. The power switch on our stand-alone computer decided to call it quits just as we were moving it around a bit. So it'll be awhile before I get pics posted. Holy Daughter looked priceless as Snoopy the Red Baron. I heart eBay...we picked up three great Snoopy masks in October online. I'm thinking of getting into ditching some stuff on Craigslist and eBay in the next few months.

In other news, we're all banding together in the house to support Holy Son on his Mr. Schmidt Goes to Washington project, which will be his option week trip next spring. He's very excited and I kind of am, too, because I now have 5 months of one-word command behavior modification. It works wonders. All I have to do is raise my right eyebrow - which is more dramatic now that I've had them waxed a tad thinner - and then I affect a poker-face stare and mention, "Washington..." and he bucks right up. It's beautiful.

We've asked that he try to raise $700 on his own through babysitting, chores, odd jobs around the neighborhood, money in lieu of birthday and Xmas gifts, etc. And he needs to earn his American Heritage, Citizenship of the Nation and Family Life merit badges for Boy Scouts as part of going to DC, as well. He's very excited. Who can blame him? The trip looks like a gas. We've discovered there aren't too many 12 years old who would take a trip to the other side of the nation without their parents. Luckily for him and us, Holy Son is already an intrepid traveler from these recent summers trekking off to boy scout camp without us.

And we're gearing up for Nutcracker season soon. Holy Daughter has a big part as a Snow Princess and Holy Son may be enjoying his last stint as the nephew, Nutcracker and prince. It's been a great run for him. He's grown out of three boots these past 3 years and is now working on size 10.5. I've threatened to stop feeding him now that he's 5 ft. 5 and a half, but so far, I'm not having a lot of luck with that.

Last but not least, my weekly Artist's Way group has morphed into a rather tight-knit creative circle. We're a great mix of newbie and seasoned artists. It's been a fair amount of work coming up with creative in-class assignments, but also a lot of fun. Last week we shared our creative collages. I did not create a new one from spring but I'm happy to see that my Obama image has since manifested into more than just a dream. As has my Art Club image. That's the cool thing about making creative dream posters. If you build it - the images, that is; they really can and do come true.

Anyhoo, I'm hard at work amassing a collection of 50,000 written words this month so on that note, I must make like Snoopy and type away.

OCTaves

It's been one of those weeks. The best of times, the worst of times. Not getting much done but not beating myself up too terribly about it either.

It's already Thursday as the crow flies - speaking of which, I had a crow almost fly right into my windshield this morning heading the wrong way. Aren't I supposed to be chasing him? Very ominous. I'm watching my back.

We had a crow fly right into an open window of our living room back in 1988. That was creepy because it wasn't like it was all that easy to just all of a sudden be flying along the north end of Halifax harbour like that and then suddenly, end up as a crash-landed wingnut on our floor. He must have already been nose diving. I remember wondering at the time if it was some kind of foreboding sign about our upcoming nuptials later that summer. I made sure no pictures were accidentally or even purposely knocked over and soon forgot about it.

I like when Monarch butterflies appear on my shoulder, for they signal rebirth, change and metamorphosis. But crows are just all around bad news. There's an old dittie about crows that goes like this - one is for bad news, two is for mirth, three is a wedding, four for a birth, five is for riches, six is a thief, seven a journey, eight is for grief, nine is a secret, ten is for sorrow, eleven is love, and twelve is joy on the morrow.

I saw one but I'll keep my eyes out for more - I'll take mirth or weddings any day over bad news.

And then just a few minutes ago, I heard the distinct sound of someone's voice ring out to me from upstairs. I'm home alone but I wondered if perhaps I might have left the garage and house doors open such that a neighbor was poking her head in. I went upstairs but the doors were locked and there was no one there. OK, very creepy.

I heard the song Psycho Killer on the radio earlier this morning. Which reminds me, I'm completely digging this heated leather seat and satellite retro radio thing in my mornings now. It so makes the commute to the old neighborhood almost worth it. But anyhoo, welcome to my brain. It's a pinball machine at times. So I heard this song and I thought to myself, yes, that's kinda like my anthem lately. Psycho Killer.

You know that fine line between genius and insanity? As Oscar Levant quipped, I think I've erased it. I vacillate between wanting to kill something and create something each and every day lately. I'm never quite sure which way the pendulum will swing.

Seriously though, I do have this kind of Frankensteinian energy but nowhere to direct it. I've been like the madwoman in the attic, feverishly concocting creativity modules for our weekly Artist's Way class. It's been very enlightening. I can't wait for our week on Abundance. I'm going to resurrect that old game, Masterpiece - do you remember that game? Even though I knew nothing of art history, I loved that game. Except I always ended up with forgeries, which really sucked wind.

I'm going to have the participants create a work of art of their choosing the week prior to class, and then unbeknownst to them, I'm going to auction the works off to the highest bidder in the group - whoever is feeling the most generous with her Monopoly money. Everyone will assign their own arbitrary value on the back of their artwork prior to class and then we'll debrief after the game and deconstruct the process. What was liberating and conversely, what felt uncomfortable? Did we bid on our own work? Why or why not?

I think there will be some interesting stuff come up around the issues of worth and self-worth, vis-a-vis our creations. I already know what I'm making. I'm going to nab this glass head from Pier 1 Imports, tart the face up a bit, maybe glue some earrings and hair on and maybe affix a brain inside and I dunno - we'll see.
But anyways, I am a walking, talking creativity bibliography lately. In fact, if you're looking for a book on creativity and you live in my area, don't bother checking the local library: I have them all. Who knew there were so many books on the topic? Who knew? I have another blog, Quinndskmo, where one fine day I hope to get around to posting the myriad creativity and writing bibliographies I've been amassing.

October is always a bit of a creative and festive month in the Schmidthaus. Canadian Thanksgiving is sneaking up way too early this month - we've invited our neighbors over for a feast Sunday afternoon. They lost their middle-aged son just this past spring so it's been a tough year for them. He died of a sudden heart attack. They were very close - he would come over for dinner like clockwork once a week. The kids really like them - Holy Daughter is forever running treats over to their dog and visiting and just generally annoying them with her presence.

And then we head into birthday party planning for Holy Daughter. She wants to have a spooky Halloween party - no princesses and cute fairies - it's all ghosts, goblins and ghouls. As it turns out, she's mostly inviting boys. We'll set up a cemetery in the backyard (perfect solution for our dirt pit of a yard) and send the kids on a bone hunt. And we'll do an indoor scavenger hunt. One year, I vow not to go overboard. But not this year.

And then there's Halloween itself. Holy Son wants to fly below the radar this year - 7th grade now, so he's cool, right? I may see if I can talk him into doing Mr. Candyman again - make it an annual tradition - except this time, we'll get him a bona fide, stylin' suit. He unloaded about 10 lbs. of candy off his suit jacket last year...and met most of the girls in his school as a result.

But Holy Daughter is going for the gusty - she has to top last year's costume, when she dressed as a potted flower. This year, she wants to dress as Snoopy, the Red Baron. We have the aviator gear and scarf but we need to figure out the Snoopy head. Go big or stay home - that's my Halloween motto. Case in point, check out my camel costume - my best Halloween costume ever - courtesy of my Birth Mom and Grandma Ring Around the Rosie. I totally had it going on that year. Holy Hub dressed as an Arab sheik (pre-9/11 when you could still be politically incorrect), and other friends of ours dressed as a harem girl and an Indian swami. Suffice to say, we garnered a lot of attention.

Can't wait 'til I'm old enough to start going out for Halloween again. I miss the Halloween hooplah.

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet...

So here's the Candyman in all his sugary glory - I fully expect he will come home stripped bare of all his jawbreakers, suckers, tootsie rolls and gum.

I love duct tape - it's a Halloween essential. I think the only time I ever sewed a costume was when I needed to attach a bodacious set of black breasts complete with large baby bottle nipples to my Zulu warrioress bra back in the day. And along the same vein, when I needed to attach copious baby bottle nipples to my pink long john pig costume. Which I still have. I love pairing the pig costume with our London bobby cop mask but it doesn't always go over well in polite company.

Halloween is here ~ my all-time, fave-ola holiday event. I'm dressing up as a monkey lab assistant for my daughter's mad science lab classroom party this morning and tonight, when I tag along 500 feet behind my kids on the opposite side of the street (strict instructions from my son), I will either dress up as an organ grinder monkey - or lady Zorro. Not sure yet. Rumour has it there are a few party stop houses in the neighborhood that serve mulled wine to the parents. Whoo-hoo, I'm there with bells on.

This will be a first trick or treat night with the daylight savings time adjustment. Having the extra hour of daylight in this spooky, dark new neighborhood of ours will be awesome. But to add some glow to this dark and scary night, we're going to make some mountain dew glow bottles ~ check it out. Assuming our house doesn't blow up in the process, I'll blog later and weigh in on how it turned out.

Hope your day is spooktacular.

Infestation, Germination & Celebration

Here's a shot of the Callobius spider I trapped a couple of weeks ago. How's that for spooktacular? We have no fewer than four different kinds of giant house spiders vying for real estate in the nooks and crannies of our basement. All appear to be harmless, or so my arachnid net sleuthing tells me, but still. I'm getting tired of sleeping with one eye open.

And this is a shot of the plant cell model Holy Son (and I) constructed last week for his Science class. It's made from floam and has a green tortilla membrane and all the other plant cell parts made from gummy worms, bubble gum tape, green jello, fruit by the foot, radiatori pasta, yogos, pecans, jello, giant jawbreaker and a foam golf ball. I've already forgotten all the plant cell components, except the golgi apparatus. I always liked saying that - golgi apparatus. Anytime I would see a Bulgolgi restaurant, I would always thing of golgi apparatus.

And finally, the big day came and went - Holy Daughter's Crazy 8 birthday party. It was fun but tiring. It was a cross between a backwards party and a Mad Hatter Tea Party and a games theme party. I couldn't decide. We were originally going to host it on a Wednesday and do a Wacky Wednesday party but ended up doing it on her actual birthday. All the kids showed up dressed silly - although I think I had them all beat. I was so strange looking, my daughter gave me a look of horror and said, "Mom, you're not going to wear that hat, are you?!" I asked her why and she replied, "because it's embarrassing!" And I said, "Perfect!" Nothing makes this mom's day better than em bare assing her kids. In fact, my ultimate parenting dream would be to embarrass my kids on national TV with an elaborate prank on Hi-Jinks. That would be sweet.

Anyways, we began the party with gift opening (which she loved) and then moved on to eating cake, then lunch, then freeze dancing so the kids could get their wigglies out. Then we assigned them into three teams of 3 and sent them from station to station to play croquet outside, bowling down our hallway and Twister. We then took them outside to whack the pinata hanging from the basketball net and finally, sent them marching up the street on a Crazy 8 Brigade Parade with assorted pots, pans, chopsticks, plastic bowls and utensils, whistles and New Year's noisemakers. And then we ended it with giving her eight birthday bumps, a pinch to grow an inch and a slap to grow fat - another fine Canadian tradition we've exported.

I was originally going to bake a triple layer checkerboard cake and had it all set to decorate with a checkerboard pattern of chocolate squares, together with dark and white hershey kisses for the game pieces. But ever the procrastinator, I ran out of time. So I pushed two round cakes together, had her brother decorate it with Smarties to resemble the circles of the 8 (Canadian m&m style chocolates, not the US pill candies), and that was that. Just as well, given the sum total of 12 seconds that the kids ever seem to even pay attention to the cake, except to devour it.
And finally, here's a shot of our crazy 8 year old dressed for Halloween. She's going as a flower in a pot, but couldn't resist posing in the pot for an Anne Geddes moment. Holy Hub cut the bottom out of this plastic pot, so we just need to drill holes in the sides, affix some rope to go over her shoulders like straps, so that the flower pot will hang right over her hips. Holy Son is dressing as the Candyman. Pictures tomorrow at 11. I duct taped about 600 pieces of candy to an old denim dress coat of mine. It weighs a good six or seven lbs. So together with a bright shirt and a tall striped velvet hat, his ensemble will be complete. He's looking forward to being the ultimate chick magnet tomorrow at school. Rumour has it from a reliable source (the mother of his closest friend at school) that he already has 17 girls - ranging from grades 6 to 12 - chasing him. He's 10 years old. Oy veh. We're in trouble - ack!. Speaking of ack, I'm off to go buy liquid food color to make gak. Don't ask.