Once upon a time I was doing an engagement photo shoot. We were walking around this little “faux” town that is near where I live. We were dodging another photographer so that we didn’t photobomb them and they didn’t photobomb us (although I’m not so sure they were being so decent).
There was a dog that ran up to us eating a dead chicken. Yuck! It stunk! So we were avoiding the dog and the dead chicken too, just so we didn’t have nasty things in the photos.
Then we walked over to the chicken coop. The chickens were okay with us and we were pondering using a building right beside them. Then………
The turkeys came.
At first we were talking to the turkeys, then they started gobbling at us and coming at us. We all wound up on the other side of a rock fence. We found a new way around the rock fence and they were still coming at us so we moved on.
And that is the story of how I was chased by a turkey.
Maybe not so scary, but we weren’t sure what the turkey’s might do to us in the moment.
I can now cross off being chased by a turkey on my life’s list as well as being flocked by a goose. I’m on a roll! By the way, Did I ever tell you I was flocked by a goose?
It’s so funny sometimes to watch what riles people up on facebook. Right now it’s the whole Thanksgiving comes before Christmas ordeal. Okay, here’s a surreal thought… there’s only 7 more Monday’s until Christmas. YIKES! I am a person who sings Christmas songs year round. In fact, last week I was listening to Christmas music before Halloween to keep myself calm the day of Comps. And one year we had our Christmas tree up 3 weeks before Thanksgiving. Why? Well… we try to decorate our Christmas tree with Tbug around. That year, that was the only weekend other than the weekend before Christmas that worked out. Who wants to put a tree up for just a week? It’s a lot of work, plus… all the Christmas decorations are awesome so… 3 weeks before Thanksgiving it was. My tree doesn’t come down until February most years anyway….
Anyway… that’s not the point of today’s post. Today’s post is talking about Halloween in November. ha! I may just have my days mixed up… or the fact that Halloween is the last day of October, hubby’s birthday is the 1st day of November, we had a weekend in there plus yada yada yada…. (=I wanted to participate in the 10 things to Smile about October) so here we are, the 4th day of November and finally talking Halloween.
Apparently I’m wordy today! I’m also picture happy. But what’s new there? Out of 85 pictures, I narrowed it down to 24. Who doesn’t like pictures. Don’t ask my mom… she doesn’t like to have her picture taken anyway.
Last year we weren’t able to carve pumpkins with Tbug. Don’t worry, we still carved pumpkins with her… what I mean is… we did her pumpkin one weekend and then hubby and I did our pumpkins a different weekend. When she’s there only so often, you work with what you can! She actually was working on carving on dry land so that the next day she could carve underwater. But that was last year… This year she was able to carve with us on the same day! We did wait until Halloween, but we all carved together.
There are a couple pictures of Tbug and me and we’re in the same stance at the same time. It’s funny.
Hi. So I’m a little late to this game, but that’s okay. The month of October was an extremely STRESSFUL month for me. If you remember I wouldn’t shut up about Comps. Now I’m waiting for the results. Let’s get started with 10 Things to Smile About October…
10. The day of Comps (Oct 29) I had a break down. I started crying in the library. The stress got to me. So i turned on Christmas music and listened to it all day because, who can be unhappy or stressed out when Christmas music is playing? Yes, that was my thinking and it worked. I only had that one break down. We could also listen to music while we were taking comps. I had my Christmas music on reserve.
Wow, November 1st is pretty awesome as of yesterday. First and foremost, hubby turned 33. Yup, 33 years ago yesterday his momma brought him into this world. And knowing him, she probably had her hands full at times. I know I sure do… whew :).
When we woke up yesterday morning, and remember yesterday morning we hit standard time so we gained an hour, hubby looked at me and said he was hungry. I told him I had the stuff to make pancakes or waffles, which did he want. He chose waffles. And here is the only picture I took of breakfast…. (homemade Vanilla that I sent a picture of to Karen asking her a question….)
From there we headed to my parents. Mom and dad’s fireplace was messed up and Hubby said he could fix it for them. We also did his birthday presents. No pictures, we did it in a hurry. And the most wrapping he got was in plastic bags. Yeah we went all out. Hey I mentioned yesterday that one of his presents is still in the trunk of my car.
First off, I want to wish my loving husband a very happy Birthday. Funny story, my car is broke, not really but kind of. It’s at the shop. I left one of his birthday presents in my trunk. Woops. Guess he’ll have something to look forward to :). Now on with the Project 365 Take 2.
31/365 – Priscilla, I’m coming for you
Signed, The Pie
Tbug and I were driving down the road one day. She’s constantly telling me this that and everything else. It’s a joke with my dad that it is payback for the years I spent talking his leg off about everything under the sun.
Anyway we drove past a corn field and she proceeded to tell me something that my Mother in law told her. Now I was not involved in the conversation where my mother in law is concerned, I just got the story relayed to me by Tbug. But supposedly my MIL said that a farmer plants the outside rows of corn for people to come by and take as they please.
I’m pretty sure I had to pick my jaw up off the ground. Then proceeded to tell Tbug that is not the case. Farmers aren’t out to give away free food. They are out to make food for consumers that is good quality to feed the masses. That farmer also makes a living off his crop, whether it be a crop of corn, soybeans (pictured above), dairy or cattle.
Growing up my dad and I made chili all the time for dinner. Now one thing about my dad’s chili is sometimes it got so spicy that I couldn’t stand to take one bite. So I say that I don’t like Chili but I really think it is most people put beans in Chili and I only like green beans and I don’t care for chili so spicy you can’t eat it. You get rid of those 2 things and truthfully I do like chili. I don’t mind a little spice, but so spicy one bite sets your lips on fire, ugh!
This year we attended (and helped with) the 3rd annual Chili Cookoff to raise money for children who might not have a Christmas otherwise. It’s such a worthy cause! The first year Hubby and Tbug entered. Last year Tbug entered and won. This year she asked grandpa (my dad) if he’d help her with chili again. She had to defend her title. At the last minute I decided I wanted to try my chances at making Chili as well.
The day of the Chili cookoff came. Hubby and I went over to help with the last minute things.
One of the exciting things this year was a bounce house. Let’s just say, I had to take my turn at playing in the bounce house :). Hubs and Jared pulled in just as I was going down the slide. I’m pretty sure hubby was proud to call me his wife. ha!
The trees have started changing colors here in Southeast Kansas. Wait, what? Southeast Kansas, but don’t I live in Southwest Missouri. Why yes, yes I do! But I drive over to Kansas for school and that is where I happen to be sitting currently. Waiting to take a quiz as a matter of fact. 50 points. Wish me luck! Yesterday cooled off. I do believe Fall might be here. Abug and I went to my mom’s house so that I could study and mom could help by watching Abug (Thank you mom, you’re so awesome!). They were going to the store and I asked my mom if she knew what they were going to have for dinner. She said no and I showed her this recipe I found for Chicken Parmesan Soup. We thought that sounded good so she got the stuff and I made it before I left her house to go home. We split it up and that was enough for both of our families to have dinner. And boy was it good!
Wow, today got away from me. I spent most of my day learning about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Quite an interesting story, not gonna lie! What’s even more interesting is people don’t want it taught in schools because of some of the language. It is considered racist… written by a guy who was pretty much anti-slavery. Interesting in deed!
Anyway last weekend was the annual Underwater Pumpkin Carving. Since getting certified in 2013, hubby has participated and Tbug has participated but I never had. Writing a scuba blog I figured it was about time that I try too, right? Only fair!
I was a bit nervous about the water temperature since the morning started out in the upper 40’s… but I thought, what the heck. I still think I want to do a New Year’s Day dive just once too. I couldn’t the first year we were certified because they don’t let you dive while pregnant and the second year I chickened out. Maybe this is the year, but enough on that… we’re talking about carving pumpkins underwater!
We beat Deb and Grady there. When we left the house I asked hubs why so early. He told me that this is one of those moments you say yes hunny and just go with it. I said whatever and went to sleep in the front seat of the car. :).
When Deb and Grady got there we started helping them unload the truck/trailer. That’s when they realized they forgot some things. I asked what they needed, got the list and Memaw, Abug and I headed back to Seligman to the new Walmart store. So nice that it is so close, but I’d have gone farther if needed.
When we got back, Grady and Dan were gearing up with their dive students to go out and certify some new divers.
Deb stayed on land to get food ready and get paperwork done for the underwater pumpkin carving. On the menu, Chili, Spaghetti Red, Hot dogs. Karen and I took care of stirring the chili, making the noodles, etc, anything that involved the food so that Deb was free for paperwork. We had 2 gals that were from out of state, Alaska and California. They’d never heard of Spaghetti Red and said it must be a Midwest thing. By the way if you haven’t heard of that… it’s chili on spaghetti noodles.
The water has gone down some since all the rains this summer (not complaining) but it is still rather on the high side. We didn’t get to go to the normal dive side, we went off by where the camping area is. Grady also told me that there wasn’t a thermocline in the top 30 feet which is a good thing. I know my dive computer said 68 degrees when we started diving. It really wasn’t that bad. I know, right?!?!
Once Grady and Dan were done certifying students, they came up and got dressed in regular street clothes. Don’t you just love their dive socks?
All morning I walked around and people asked if I was going to carve a pumpkin. I kept responding with Hubby says I am. LOL. Dan and Tiffany went and camped elsewhere (our normal site is closed for the year). They had their camper on behind the truck so I went and changed in their camper. I forgot to take my dive boots up with me so I was walking around in my regular boots. I got a lot of funny looks, laughs, and head turns :). Whatever, I’m a country girl, it’s all good.
Now I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to get a pumpkin underwater, it’s not easy. They are extremely buoyant. Boomer thought he’d put his in a mesh bag with they said about 40lb of rocks. Didn’t work. His pumpkin came out of the bag and I hear it was a riot to watch from land.
I lucked out because they over weighted me so I could get my pumpkin down but it kept floating me to the surface so hubby had to take it down for me. I put it against my chest so that my over weight would take it down. No such luck. Hubby got it down for me though. Then he held it while I cut it open. Once the top came off we weighted it down with water and rocks. While I was carving I broke 2 knives. luckily we took 4 down with us. (You’ll know me underwater by my yellow sleeves although in the green murky water they don’t quite look yellow)
The joke back up on surface was that now that we’ve carved pumpkins we have to go get all the insides and get them out of the water. Yeah right, good luck with that!
Abug played soooooo hard up on surface. Memaw followed her around checking everything out and picking up acorns. She soooooooo wanted to get in the water and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to. Memaw couldn’t get her to sleep so finally Karen took her and walked away from the crowd and she went to sleep fairly quickly.
While Karen was putting her to sleep, I went and used their truck and a blanket to change back into my street clothes. Then we had to vote for whose pumpkin should win. This time I left my boots down with everyone else so I got to walk across the campsite area barefoot. Man I never had the right shoes at the right place.
So Mike won for Ugliest Pumpkin
Annie won for Best Effort
Tiffany was 3rd. And the blogger was fired for this out of focus picture.
Justin was 2nd.
And Dan was 1st.
Mine is pumpkin #2 (third on the top row)
and our 3rd, 2nd and 1st place winners. Dan and Tiffany are married so Justin wound up in a family sandwich :). haha.
Let me tell you, this wasn’t bad. Water was great, visibility was great. And it was a lot of fun! Back on land, my pumpkin lasted one day. There’s something about that lake water that ruins them. oh well… such is life I guess.
I’ve always said that my falls just go by in the blink of an eye. I guess there is so much going on, but add three holidays in there and wow! Last year I really wanted to take Abug to a pumpkin patch and wanted Tbug to be there. This year same thing, but knowing how my October was the rest of the month, and the fact that we’re over halfway through the month already, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, it was a quick last minute decision to go to the pumpkin patch this last weekend.
This year we decided to drive to Welch, Oklahoma and go to Annabelle’s Fun Farm. A friend of mine went last year, she has a little girl who is 7 months older than Abug and then a little boy who is a couple years older and it looked like they had fun there last year so that’s kind of one of the decisions in this choice.
There was a petting farm area with a pony (which Abug hated… she loves horses but wasn’t crazy about the pony), goats (didn’t care for), pigs (didn’t like), rabbits (scared of) and birds (chickens, peacocks, etc).
