Happy Halloween!

Oh, my goodness, it's finally here!  And it won't be here again until next year, so embrace the pumpkin spirit while you can :).  Tomorrow is my birthday, and Halloween has always had a special place in my heart, so even though it's Monday and I need to study for some big tests, I'm still very excited just to be thinking about ghosts, spooky movies, and bats.  And Allhallowtide and Dia de los muertos celebrations begin today, too.  I love the idea of candles, marigolds, and offerings in honor the dearly departed.  Do any of you have observe Allhallowtide or Dia de los muertos?

Corpse Bride, one of my favorite Halloween movies EVER.

Halloween is, of course, also a really fun time for costumes even if the fact that today's a Monday renders trick-or-treating a little less appealing.  Is anyone dressing up today?  Right now I look like the mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Denim shortalls + t-shirt + mouse ears = my costume.
It's a bit odd considering the fact that I can't drink milk and can't eat many kinds of cookies (not to mention that I find the mouse in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to be a little bit demanding, lol), but being different from who you are is one of the best parts of dressing up for Halloween.

This is who I am today, except with no cookie and no demands for milk.

 I hope everyone has a lovely (and slightly spooky) day today and a safe night!


<3 Frances (AKA Cookie Mouse)

Halloween is Almost Here

Today is sort of special, I suppose, in terms of upcoming holidays.  I mean, only October 24th is exactly one week from Halloween, one month from Thanksgiving, and two months from Christmas Eve, and I can't believe that the year is approaching its end so quickly.  Not that a weekend of writing college essays makes time fly by any means, of course . . . .
Homework aside, though, the fact that Halloween is almost here is a reason to be excited :).  There are so many sad things going on in the world right now, and it's really important to be aware of all them, but sometimes it's also important to think about positives. It's difficult to help others when you feel lost and upset yourself, so take a minute to relax, take a deep breath, and think of something that makes you happy.  Carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds, decorating your doorway, and picking a costume to wear around your apartment all weekend are some seasonal suggestions, but feel free to add more. 
For me, Halloween this year will be spent the way it usually is: at home with my mum, brother, the Great Pumpkin, and, of course, Corpse Bride. And given that I have a major test on Tuesday, I'll probably celebrate Halloween on Saturday so Monday can be a studying night. If you're looking to have a low-key Halloween, too, here are some fun ideas:

• Get your scary story on!  Edgar Allan Poe and Halloween go together like black-and-white stripes and knee highs.  Other great Halloween authors include Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley.
  
  
• Watch a movie (or lots of movies).  It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! always makes me feel so happy inside because it reminds me of being a little kid, but so do Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Edward Scissorhands is another fun Tim Burton pick.  If you're looking to actually get scared, though, try The Ring, The Woman in Black, Blair Witch Project, or 28 Days Later.  Warning: these films actually are really quite terrifying.
• Dress up!  Even if you're not Trick-or-Treating, throwing a costume (however makeshift it is) together is always recommended :).  

 Happy Monday!
<3 Frances

Halloweeen and Getting My Wisdom Teeth Out

I had my birthday, Halloween, and wisdom teeth surgery all within three days of each other, and I currently look a lot like a chipmunk.  Apparently, swelling is worst around a few days after the surgery operation, and for some reason one side of my face has decided to be particularly swollen despite the fact that I had teeth out on both sides.  Safe to say, it's not very fun, but it went well with my last-minute dormouse costume, LOL.  Halloween was spent inside with Charlie Brown and my mum and brother and pureed pumpkin.  A LOT of pureed pumpkin.

My Halloween inspiration (pic: telegraph.co.uk)

It's been difficult not getting to have "real"-feeling foods like a bowl of warm brown rice and broccoli (oh, how I miss that!), but my mum and I have been making the best of the blender.  My chosen birthday meal was "pudding" made of pumpkin puree, a banana, and a tablespoon of carob powder.  It actually tastes quite fun :).  I've also been having baby food.  Whoever decided to combine apple sauce and blueberries into a little container of mush is my hero.
Back to Halloween, though...when I was little, two of my all-time favorite movies were The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. My mum remembers hearing "This is Halloween," the intro theme from the former, playing in the background while she was working.  I realize now how creepy the song actually is, but I was super excited to see the DWTS dance cover of it.  The dance moves are as creepy and spidery as the lyrics! 


 

 

Happy November!

<3 Frances



Bat Week

Oh, my goodness--it's almost Halloween!  (Which means it's also almost my birthday and the day of my dental surgery.)  As someone who loves this holiday of changing leaves and cobwebs and spooky movies (Corpse Bride is a must-see), I'm incredibly excited for Saturday.  I won't be trick-or-treating this year (dental surgery recovery plus wandering around late at night is apparently a big no, LOL), and I don't know if anyone will come to my house looking for little pretzel bags, but that doesn't really matter because this post isn't about candy.  It's about bats!

This face is SO adorable!

The bat is one of nature's most misunderstood animals, and many species of bat are endangered now due to human activity and a horrible fungal infection called "white-nose syndrome."  Not only are they crucial members of the ecosystem (pollination, bug control, etc.), but they're also adorable, wonderful little animals that desperately need our help.  As they're associated with Halloween, I think now is the perfect time to raise awareness about their struggles to survive so that more people understand their situation.  For more information on bats and what you can do to help them (and the planet), visit www.batcon.org.  Happy Bat Week!

<3 Frances

Halloween

Happy Halloween!  And it's a Friday, which means that the entire coming weekend can be rightfully devoted to the spirit world, movie marathons, and bowls of much-needed pumpkin seeds (which are, by the way, freaking awesome). If you have trick-or-treaters coming to your house this year, be sure to also be on the lookout for UNICEF collection boxes--a few dollars could make a world of difference :).

I'm exhausted from the week and looking forward to being an introvert this Halloweekend.  One of the things I'm most excited about, actually, is Daylight Savings--one more hour of sleep, yay!  And it's also always fun to know November is here because that means fall and winter holidays are coming, so I can start playing Christmas music...even though it doesn't totally make sense given the bat and spiderweb decorations currently filing my living room.  #noshame


<3 Frances

Food for Thought

It's the last week of October.  Officially.  That means that, in five days, November--the month of pre-holiday anxieties, chunky sweaters, and the Macy's parade (!)--will be upon us.  But I guess I'm probably getting ahead of myself now because November is, despite its impending arrival, a good 120 hours away.  And Halloween is arriving before November does, anyway.
Oh, God.  Halloween.  I love Halloween a little bit more than I should.  And not because of the candy (which reminds me--only buy fair trade chocolate!).

Corpse Bride: a Halloween must and
one of the defining films of my unorthodox youth.

  In less seasonal news, Iris, Jill, and I were looking through poetry this weekend (because yes, we do that often!) and found a quote by Gibbons Ruark, a man who writes poems as awesome as his name. It's about the time that it takes to write a poem (or a story or anything, really), and it embodies how we feel about art in general:

"If a poet has finished a new poem and somebody asks him how long it took, he can legitimately (if facilely) recall his age and give that number of years as an answer.  Every durable poem must have the whole weight of a poet's years behind it."

Yeah.  Let that sink in a minute.  It sort of feels like their are tiny fireworks of accord going off in my chest right now because, suddenly, everything makes sense.

<3 Frances