Keeping Up With the Joneses

We have noticed since our first walk to the Farmer's Market that the neighborhood here really gets into Halloween.

More and more decorations are going up all the time.

Most of the decorations are very simplistic but effective. Ghosts are a common theme

as is the spider webbing that people love to spread all over there yards.

People here don't mind if an effective decoration means digging up their front lawn.

Getting places takes a lot longer since I'm often on foot because I want to just stop and look at all the decorations.

One day, the Seahawks were playing so you would see lots of 12th Man flags amongst the Halloween decorations.

The decorations are not just in people's yards. Sometimes you must look upwards.

Oh, hello there, Mr. Skeleton.

If you look closely, he's waving to his friend across the street.

I'm not sure if putting skeletons on telephone poles is exactly legal but it's Halloween after all and it's not just one pole. Looks like a witch made a crash landing right into a utility pole and another skeleton is trying to help her out.

My favorite is the candy tube. These people wanted to make handing out candy a challenge, I guess. Simply opening the front door is... well, boring.

Now Bruce and I are trying to figure out what we ought to do to our house for Halloween? I had my usual scarecrow and some pumpkins out. Boring. I do like the use of black flamingos

or clever signs -"Come in, We're DEAD."

The scariest place I've seen is a rather simple concept...cornstalks

with skeletons on top.

For whatever reason, cornstalks are scary here, unlike in Idaho. They placed them all around the house, which, by the way, is an old farm house. Perfect.

I felt like it was right out of the movie Children of the Corn. It just looked really scary to me! It won first prize in my book.

We are trying to keep up with everybody so we had to go into our attic where we had boxes marked "spook house" from when Lauren had a Halloween party in junior high school. We had lots of interesting Halloween decorations from that. We haven't gotten them out since then so now we're looking at them with a new light. Trying to keep up with the Joneses is not easy. Whatever we end up with for decorations, it won't compare to our neighbors down the street at the end of the block. They are putting on a show for Halloween and even have their own website for it.

The previous year's themes have been takes on Pirates of the Caribbean, Toy Story, Rock 'n Roll, Harry Potter, James Bond - I just love a skeleton James Bond! All the shows are on their website and are quite hilarious. I can't wait to go watch it this year!

The good news is that our neighborhood mansion has sold.

It would be an awesome place at Halloween...(which is why I'm mentioning it)

We will have to watch to see if the new owners will keep up with the Halloween spirit of the neighborhood next year. Just think of the things you could do if you owned this property.

Will the new mansion owners keep up with the Joneses? We shall see. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do before Saturday.

Meatloaf by Mark Bittman

Once again, I turned on the television yesterday and saw that Mark Bittman was on the Today show and was making his version of meatloaf . This must be meatloaf season. It was surprisingly similar to the Pioneer Woman's version who was also recently on. I was a little surprised of his version because Mark Bittman is into healthy eating and has lost a lot of weight and improved his health by changing his diet which he writes about in his book, Food Matters . His meatloaf recipe also included bacon and cheese! I must be doing something wrong. The thing to remember, which he writes about in his book, is that you can eat healthy without going extreme or changing your whole life. If you don't know who Mark Bittman is, he is a food writer and a four star chef with multiple cookbooks who loves to eat but changed his food philosophy to improve his health. He tells his story in Food Matters and provides a plan for responsible eating that covers a no-nonsense rundown on

Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free. But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one. My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends. We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop. She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots. We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.) The views are always quite lovely, too. Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception. I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, there was a big party go

Waking Up in Vegas

and just like that...we were Waking Up in Vegas. Just like the Katy Perry song. We went to her 78th performance which was her second-to-last Las Vegas residency show entitled "Play". That was perfect for us because we went to Vegas simply to play. Her concert was a great finale for us because it was high energy and full of silliness, just the way Katy Perry is. And we were feeling it after three nights in Las Vegas. "Get up, and shake the gutter off your clothes now, That's what you get for waking up in Vegas". Here's what she said about her show: "I created this show after the birth of my daughter, Daisy Dove. When I met her, it was like all the love I was ever searching for finally showed up. This show is for everyone’s inner child and for the hope that maybe if we could all see life through the eyes of a child, we would be free. Because never forget, love is and will always be the key,” she said. We went to Vegas spur of the moment because Br

Sylvia's Scenario

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