{ Carving Pumpkins - Blogtober 2018 }

It's the last day of October, my word, how did we get here so fast?

The morning started cold and wet and stayed that way all day long.  It was just the most perfect Autumn Day, yet.

{ Happy Halloween - Scary stories }

It is October 31, 2017.  Halloween!!!!

I would love to come in and say that we've carved pumpkins, hung decorations, have picked out our costumes and so forth, but the truth is that, we haven't.

My children are grown, they no longer pay any attention and so, neither do we.  I won't say I don't miss it, I do, I miss the kids being excited, the anticipation of going around getting candy, dressing up and having a blast.  I miss those days.

But times have changed and so we no longer get to do these things, which makes me feel extremely nostalgic.

As I sat this morning thinking about my own childhood and missing it so much, I remembered one of the houses we used to live in.  This house was THE one house that made me a believer in ghosts and the paranormal.

I know a lot of people think it's all a lie, there's no such things and so on, but unfortunately I've had my fair share of experiences and sightings that really affected me for the rest of my life.  They've stayed with me and I think in a way are the reason I enjoy anything supernatural.

So since I'm not doing anything Halloween specific this year, I thought that today would be the perfect day to do something a little different.  I've mentioned some of my experiences with ghosts, quite a few years ago in a different blog post, but I figured that I would tell you all some spooky stories today, more specifically about this house that really started it all.

167 Church Street in Turffontein, Johannesburg, South Africa.

There were so many things that happened to me and to some other family members in that house, and I hope I don't leave anything out, but if you're interested in some spookiness this Halloween and find this kind of stuff interesting, then I suggest you grab a cup of coffee or tea, and sit back.

I'm going to start by showing you the house, and keep in mind it looked very different back then, this was 30 something years ago, but I'm showing you what it looks like now, which is just appalling.

Those two metal gates were not there, the smaller one which was the entrance to the house, was a wrought iron gate, and the one in the driveway (orange gate on the left), was not there at all, it was open. 

The house was pretty big, there was a bedroom for my parents, one for my grandparents, one for my greatgrandma, one for me and one for my 3 brothers.  It had a fireplace, two enclosed patios, a dining room and a big living room etc.

Now before my greatgrandma had her own bedroom, she shared mine with me, and that is when I had my very first experience which completely freaked me out and started this whole journey of turning me into a believer.

When you walked into the bedroom, my bed was on the left, hers was on the right up against the window.  Here's an example of the layout:

It wasn't too long after we moved into the house, couple months maybe.

I woke up in the middle of the night, I din't know why but just did.  I remember looking around the room in the dark and then I noticed someone standing at the window, by the curtains, just looking out.

It was my greatgrandma, she was wearing her white nightgown and had her crochet shawl around her shoulders.  I remember thinking "what is she doing?  did she hear something or see something out there?".  She was standing still, just facing the window and staring out.  I found it strange but wasn't really thinking anything other than it being weird, and just as I was about to call her and ask her what she was looking at, I had this thought come over me that told me to look at her bed.  I don't know why, I can't explain it, but I looked from her figure at the window to her bed and there in bed, she lay, sleeping soundly, snoring away.

I was so scared, I kept staring at her in bed and in that moment questioning what I was seeing, almost debating in my mind or trying to make sense, and as I looked over to the window again...POOF!!!  Nothing.

There was no one standing there. 

I pulled the sheets over my head, and lay there until I fell back asleep.  The next morning I asked her if she was up the night before and she was so confused.  She didn't get up, she didn't look out the window and she had no clue what I was talking about.

That was enough to set me on edge, but little did I know that was just the beginning of my experiences in that horrid house.

Another time, I went to take a shower and while I was waiting for the water to warm up, I felt two hands on my back push me, and it wasn't just a little shove, it was quite a hard push enough that I caught myself on the sink right before my head hit the mirror.  It was so scary that I ran out screaming.

A few months after that, I woke up in the middle of the night to see hands right above my throat as if wanting to choke me, I couldn't see anything other than just darkness and these white hands moving closer and closer.  I tried to scream and couldn't make a sound.  It was terrifying and by the time I got a scream out, they vanished.  I remember running out of my room and jumping into bed with my greatgrandmother.  I refused to sleep in my room for the longest time.

There are so many stories involved with this house.  It got to the point where a lot of us were having experiences and started hating the house, but my dad absolutely loved the house and never understood what the problem was.

Anyway, I've been sharing these stories over on my Instagram stories as well, so if you want to hear them go on over and take a look.  I'll be sharing more tomorrow :)

I'm only sharing the experiences I've had and in no way am I telling you that you should believe in ghosts or what I have to say, I'll leave that up to your own discretion.

But it's a little hard to not be a believer after going through some of these things.

Getting ready for Halloween!!!

So I have some photos to show you, just a few decorations I put up.  I didn't put up anything big outside like we did previous years, not just because the kids are bigger now and not much into that, but we're also out in the country, and really, aside from the field mice and the owls, who is going to see it???

I did want to make it a little more Halloweeny in here but keep it simple and quick to remove since we're literally on top of the day.

Hung this little sign on our front door, not that anyone will see it, but we will and that counts too right?



Have had these 3 for such a long time, they usually go up in my kitchen but I have zero space in this new one, so I hung them up in the family room.


Family room window, strung some orange lights around the big window, added some black fabric and sat this skeleton on the bench.

He's not too thrilled to be there and has taken quite a few tumbles already, currently he is laying on the ground face up and I'm too tired to go mess with him again, so I'll leave it for tomorrow.



Here's the window in the living room, also strung lights, added the same kind of black meshy fabric and then added those two skeletons facing the window, and a black mouse.  *shiver*



This ghostie has survived a lot, he has been with us since Arizona and has been in dust storms, then through snow and rain storms in Idaho and now here he is, still going, looking a little ratty but I can't bear to part with him.

I didn't know how to hang him up because somewhere along the line, he lost his string, so I kind of propped him on my lamp.  Ha!!!



These were literally thrown into the corner of my entry way, for lack of an idea on where to place them.  Oh well, there he lays.....



And that is is, not much but enough to give the house a cute little holiday feeling.

Nick does not want to dress up this year, I'm not even sure if he wants to trick or treat at all.  Jasmine on the other hand picked out a costume and still wants to trick or treat hahaha

I'm not sure if she will be in the mood for it as things have kind of come up since yesterday.   She has been dating a very sweet boy for the past year and almost a half, but things are a little rough right now and they've decided to take a small break.  She is heartbroken of course, and oh my word, I am not prepared for this stuff at all.

Friends, I've been through it, obviously, we all know how it feels at 16, everything you go through is felt so much more deeper and stronger.  As a woman I understand what she's feeling, and it's not even a real break up, it's a little break, but still......as a mom though, Lord help me.

It's so hard not to get involved and you want to find out how they're feeling and want to know what's going exactly, and for them to talk to you and tell you, but she's not ready, and I'm stepping back and allowing her to just deal with it on her own, knowing full well that dad and I are here if she needs us.

It's not a fun thing to go through or to watch your child go through.  I have a very good relationship with her boyfriend, he calls me mom and comes to me for advice on a lot of things or if he needs to vent about something and needs a shoulder.  I've come to think of him as a son and love him as one, which makes all of this so much harder.

Ultimately my daughter is my priority, but I do care about him through this too, so I'm trying to be there for both, giving them space, listening when they want to talk without judging or telling them what to do or not to do.

This is one of the parts of being a parent that is so hard.  I kind of want to run to my own parents and be like "what do I do?  you take over I don't want to do this".  Seriously!!!

I'm sorry friends, this is turning into a pretty long post, very reminiscent of my old blog posts where I would babble about everything and anything, but the truth is that I think of you all as close friends and I know that many of you have gone through this with your own kids, or are going through it now and sometimes it helps to just let it out.

I kind of feel like I haven't caught a break the past few months, it really is one thing after another and it's getting to the point where I'm starting to laugh through this because it's that ridiculous.  Good grief, life needs to back off our family for a bit.

Anyway, yeah, so they're taking a break, they both love each other very much but it's a long distance relationship and it's rough and they're young and all of that and a bag of chips, and here we are.

One thing I want to make very clear though, I do NOT agree with people saying that just because someone is young they don't know what they're doing, their relationship shouldn't be taken seriously, or their feelings are not valid.  Just DON'T!!!!  I don't care how young someone is, to them their feelings are real, the love they feel is real, the heartache is real and the hurt is very much real.

All this to say that......I'M NOT READY TO DO THIS!!!  Can't we just go back to those days where she was 6 and crying over a lost shoe???

One thing I've learned though, is to never take a single moment as parents for granted.  Those times we complained about them being toddlers and needing us for everything and how we couldn't wait until they did things on their own????  Blink of an eye and they're teenagers.

Now I could sit and complain about this all, and as much as I don't want to deal with it and don't feel ready for any of this, I am gladly going to embrace it and ride it out, because I know I'm going to blink and they'll be in college and then getting married and having kids and I'll miss all of it, including these rough teenage years.



Alright, after that, I need a cookie, and I have a huge batch of these delicious chunky Andes Mint Chocolate Chip cookies in my kitchen.  Yeah, I'm putting away 1 or 2 before bed, which is right about now.

I'm tired, life has been draining lately, both hubby and I were saying this morning how we feel like we just can't catch up on sleep.  We wake up every morning just as tired as the night before.  It sucks!!!

Ok, cookies, then bed.  Goodnight all, oh and if you have any expert advice on how to make it through these teenage years, broken hearts, feeling like the world is ending etc etc.....feel free to leave them below, I would very much appreciate them :)

A Happy Halloween it was!

Hello friends, how was your Halloween?

We spent a very good one, had dinner together as a family then took the kids trick or treating, and ended the night with us 4 adults going for a drink at a local bar that always hosts a Halloween party.

It was so much fun, a live band, almost everyone wearing costumes and lots of laughs and dancing, surely a good way to end the night.

Here are some photos from yesterday....

They had way too much fun.  We had a bunny, a cat, a winter soldier and a clown.  The creepiest was that clown mask, it really freaked me out.  LOL

Today we spent the day in Boise, we have Tiffany's birthday coming up on the 19th of this month and had to go do some shopping.

It was a nice day, but it poured rain and poured and poured.  I don't think I've seen it rain this hard in a long time and I love it, but running around from store to store in that mess, is well....a mess.

But, we still enjoyed it, managed to have a lot of fun and are happy to be home now where it's nice a warm.  By the way, the rain is still coming down hard outside.

I've had my shower, I've got my warm jammies on and I'm now sitting on my bed catching up on vlogs and working on my menu plan and grocery list for tomorrow.

I can't believe that tomorrow is already Sunday, what the heck?

Well, I'm going to get on with my planning, it's getting late and I want to get this finished so I can get to bed.  Is there anything better than sleeping while hearing the rain falling outside?

Have a wonderful Saturday night and a continuation of a good weekend.

Blessings to you all,
Sandra

PSAT testing!

Good morning friends, how are you all doing this beautiful Wednesday?

It is actually cloudy here and 55 degrees, we're supposed to get some showers this afternoon and I do hope they come down as I love a good rain shower.

I am currently sitting in Boise as Jasmine takes her PSAT's.  Her PSAT's, I can't believe she is doing this right now, I feel like just yesterday I was picking her up from Kindergarten.  Why does time fly so fast?

I tried to take a few photos with my tablet, so they're not the best quality, but just to show you where I am at the moment.  I have my Nicholas with me, we all had to be up at 6am this morning, and no one got good sleep last night so we're red eyed and tired and just ready to go home and relax.

It's not like I can even go for a drive anywhere, as I don't have my car.   It's Wednesday which means Curt has classes this morning, so he dropped us off at the testing site and headed to BSU, he'll come pick us up after his last class which will be only after 1pm.

Yes, it's going to be a very long day for the kids and I.

And did I mention that I'm tired?  So very very tired and a little on the cranky side, though you wouldn't know it if you crossed me this morning, as I have my smile plastered on my face.  I figure if I smile it will slowly chip away at the crankiness and maybe not make me focus on the exhaustion?  We'll see if that works.

Alright, let me show you real quick where I am at....

See?  Not the best of quality, actually quite awful taken with the tablet, but it will do just to give you an idea.

Thankfully this testing location is quite nice and has a few areas where we can sit and wait on the students.   I still remember 2 years ago back in Arizona when we went for the State testing and they had no place for the parents to wait, no wifi, no chairs, nothing.  It was quite horrible.

Anyway, Nicholas and I are hanging out here, on super comfy chairs, with our laptops.  I'm taking this time to catch up on emails and other computer work, and my Nic is working on his school lessons for today.  He is so tired, he has nodded off on the chair a couple times, poor thing.

We still have about a hour to a hour and a half left of testing, and I wouldn't be surprised if I fell asleep here shortly hahahah

Right, now that I have that out of the way, I thought I would show you my pictures of the Halloween decorations we put up, I thought I had taken pictures of everything but I didn't.  I have no clue why, but here are a few, and some other random pics thrown in from my day to day.

Jasmine decorated this bush, and I know I'm a horrible mother but when she happily shouted out "Mom, please take a picture of my bush", I started laughing, and may have snorted a bit.  She didn't find it too funny cause all I got was a "WOW mom, really?"  LOL

My trusty bats have come out again.  I don't know what it is about these, I think they're such a simple decoration but so cute for Halloween.  I need to cut more out because I want to place them all around the living room walls.

This cutey underneath holds my candy corn and other Halloween Candy.  I think it's adorable.  I found it a thrift store, I think it was actually Goodwill back in Arizona, and he was only $2 so I couldn't leave him behind.

See, not many decorations, I really must take photos of everything else, I'll probably do that later tonight.

Saturday we went by the farmer's market, they are going to be shutting down for the year very soon, so I wanted to go one last time, and I lucked out as the sweet Mennonite lady was selling some beautiful beets.

Aren't they gorgeous?  And they were only $1.

Funny thing is that when I was growing up, I hated Beets, I always used to think they tasted like dirt.  My stepmother on the other hand, loved them and would try to serve it to us many times, but we would turn our noses up.

As I've gotten older I've started liking them, and I would say probably the last 2 years I've suddenly grown to love them, I mean I could eat them all day long and even snack on them during the day.

I boiled them, cut them up and pickled them.  Yum!

The greens and stalks, I fried up with bacon and garlic, little bit of olive oil.  It is so delicious.

So there you go, a few Halloween pictures and some other random, like this one of the Fire Hydrant....I don't know why other than the fact that I think it's pretty?

Right, back to waiting for Miss Jasmine to be done with her PSAT testing, and hoping that time flies so my husband can come pick us up and we can head home. I am so ready for a nap at this point.

See you all tomorrow, hope you have a fantastic rest of Wednesday!

Sick of Candy....

Look I love Halloween just for the whole dressing up and Trick or Treating, but honestly, after a day or two I'm so sick of the candy all over the house.

It's not only a temptation for the kids AND me but it's so bad for you, I just wanna dump it all. Maybe I should? Do you think my kids would notice if they woke up tomorrow and the huge bucket of yumminess is just POOF? *snicker*

Anyway, so Saturday we had a lot of fun, we went trick or treating which was an adventure all it's own considering Mr Nicholas was a Werewolf and couldn't see through his mask Hahahahahahah

I've never seen a kid trip over so many things, he was getting so frustrated and kept saying "For Pete's sake, I can't see in this mask" LOL

Here's some pictures and fair warning, Jasmine's Reaper was pretty scary, even for me.

Nicholas as a werewolf, he looked so cute but from behind it was like watching a little Mufasa running around LOL

I got in on it too, nice little witch that I was *hahaha*

My girl wanted to be the Reaper...I don't know why, but goodness, she was scary looking.

I tell you, she scared a couple of adults and teenagers LOL

And here's Curt, the big daddy Werewolf, he scared quite a few little kids too

It was fun, but I think I already said that, it was all great and good and dandy until we were about an hour into it, then I realized that just because I want to look good in a costume, next time I say I'm wearing boots, someone slap me upside the head.

I am still in pain today, especially on my left foot LOL

But I do have to say, I think what made it worse is what we did on Sunday morning.

We grabbed the kids and headed to the Track on base, at first I thought the kids would get bored and not enjoy it but I was surprised, not only did they have a lot of fun they begged to go back and do this every weekend, so that is what we're doing.

As a family, we have vouched to hit the track every Saturday and Sunday morning and run/walk/jog, whatever....just get some exercise.

So there you have it, you're all caught up on what is going on here, other than the fact that I have a sick Nicholas at home, and no, it's not H1N1, it's just a cold. I took him in this morning just to be sure and everything is fine so he's headed back to school in the morning. Yippee!!

Now I'm off to eat dinner, you ladies just go on over to Full Bellies and see what we had tonight, it will knock your socks off, or is it blow your socks off? I can't believe I don't remember LOL

Lookie, here's a little hint....YUMMY!

It's been a long day......

Hi there, come on in and sit with me for a few minutes, I promise I won't take up too much of your time, I am kind of in a hurry because in 15 minutes the Ghost Adventures Live show begins.....7 hours long. Yippee!

But feel free to grab a donut, I just made those and they are DELISH.

I'm sitting here on my bed with my laptop on my lap and I just finished prettying up my blog, what do you think? Do you like it?

Can you believe we are the end of October and almost at the end of another year? Goodness it doesn't even seem true.


Everyone here is looking forward to Halloween tomorrow and the kids are super excited because daddy is going to be home to take them trick or treating, something that being military hasn't happened in at least 4 years.

The house is decorated, the pumpkins are carved and now all that is needed is to buy the candy to hand out. We all have costumes, yes my friends even me, I'm a witch, though I don't know how that came about since I'm the sweetest person you could ever find *snicker*

I also have to get groceries tomorrow morning, I should have gone today but my car is not running, again. I'm so frustrated with that vehicle and I'm hoping my wonderful husband can figure out what is wrong with it this weekend.

Later tomorrow I'll be back with more to chat about and some pictures too, I'm sure you're dying to see me in my outfit LOL

Until then I leave you with this image of the project I'll be working on tomorrow afternoon....tell me these are not the cutest crocheted birdies? The amazing Lucy at Attic 24 ROCKS!

Oooh my show is about to start and I still have to dry my hair, gotta run.

Are you watching scary shows too for Halloween or is that something you don't particularly like? How about telling me what you do for Halloween, your costume this year, or traditions?

Candy, Costumes, Children and a Crazy question!

What a night we had. It started with the fact that Curt is working swing shift and his work had given an hour to come home and take the kids trick or treating. Well, this is the military and we already know not to ever expect plans to be set in stone, 99% of the time, they change....and last night was no different, after waiting until around 7:30pm, we found out that he wouldn't be able to come home because one of the jets was broken.

The kids were extremely disappointed but I explained that daddy wanted to be home with them too and he was sad that he couldn't and that I would take them trick or treating alone. Before we set out, we handed out candy and it was a blast watching the cute costumes and the little kids. You could tell which ones were doing it for the first time because they had the whole confused, amused, scared, excited emotions written on their faces. There were the ones that walked right by you to the candy bucket and helped themselves, even though you were standing there with the candy in your hand LOL

Then there was the little boy who refused to come up to us, he kept saying that I was scaring him. "That lady is scary"..... and here's the kicker....I wasn't even dressed up as anything. *shakes head* How's THAT for a self esteem booster LOL

Go ahead and laugh, my husband and kids did.

And not 30 minutes later I had another little boy, about 6 or 7, ask me what I was supposed to be. Again people, I did NOT dress up. I was in jeans, tank top and flip flops. So I answered "I'm a frazzled mommy". He seemed to accept that explanation and moved on. Honestly, I wonder if it was the lighting or what, but something was making me scary to the kids LOL

I took the kids around for about an hour and half and by that time they were both tired and ready to come home. Again another Halloween comes and goes, such a huge build up, so much anticipation for weeks and months on end and within a few hours it's over and done with. Is it bad that I've already removed my decorations? I'm like that, I don't leave stuff up for a while, as soon as the holiday is over everything comes down LOL

Here's some pictures, not many, taking photographs at night is frustrating and not to mention blinding to those around, nothing like a dark street and then a bright flash in your face.