Trick or Treat

For me the real joy of Halloween is not gruesome, scary decorations.  I stopped at a Halloween store last weekend for one little item and could not believe the amount of gory and grotesque...and animated decorations.

For me the joy has always been in the dressing up as a child or getting the little ones all dressed up as some other character, adding layers under said costume, taking photos and then armed with flashlight and trick-or-treat bag....stumbling through the leaf strewn yards and up the steps of a lighted porch  filled with pumpkins. "Trick-or-Treat"...and then the pay off...chocolate!!  Any endeavor that ends in chocolate has to have some value.

When tired little legs and heavy bags were evident, we would trudge home and struggle to get the costumes off before the candy eating commenced.  I will never forget the year Alyssa discovered candy.  I had tried to keep candy from her when she was little...trying to be a good mother.  The Halloween when she was 2, we arrived home from trick-or-treating and she settled at the top of our raised ranch stairs as I was trying to get Cara out of her costume and me out of mine...and she started eating her candy.  I looked over when she was on her 3rd or 4th piece. She just sat there on the floor...half in her costume, half out... quietly eating candy with this expression of discovery and pure joy on her face, as if to say "where have you been all my life?"  But that isn't what is fun about getting back home from trick or treating.  We loved when the doorbell would ring...and we would get to see all the adorable little ones and get to give out the candy.

No shrieks and screams of terror at our house...  Just cute, often themed, character costumes, pumpkins and of course candy.  Those are my memories of Halloween.  I don't really get trick or treaters anymore.   I have no little ones to take trick-or-treating these days.   I kind of miss it.  Although, it is quite a bit cheaper.

But I have my memories of costumes and characters from days gone by that are sweeter than that chocolate.

"Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold."

~ Judith Olney

Wicked

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Broadway show Wicked.   I thought I would pay tribute to Wicked....and the Wizard of Oz, while honoring Halloweens gone by.  . In this house we are huge fans of both.  I have seen Wicked twice...and just like the Wizard of Oz...could see it over and over!!

"So I'll be back for good one day

To make my life and make my way

But for today we'll wander and enjoy

One short day in the Emerald City

One short day to have a lifetime of fun"

~ Stephen Schwartz

Grown up

Tonight is one of those nights....I am exhausted and spent...and didn't know what I would post here.  I have been texting Cara on and off all night.  I have been laughing at some of the things she comes out with....her reactions to things....and just smiling at her spirit and the things that make her Cara.   I went in search of a picture to post and I found this one...  No matter how old she gets, no matter how independent, no matter how far from home....I will always think of her as my sweet little girl.  It seems fitting, that this photo was taken on our first visit to NYC...and now she goes there twice a week.  Life is full of changes.  Life is always evolving, but it is somehow so comforting, to see Cara....all grown up...and yet still so very much her own unique self.  My little girl still...even though she's all grown up.

"And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you.....

I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)"

~ e.e. cummings

The real ones after alll...

Each day at work we receive a little bulletin...and we anxiously look at the weather and the quote of the day. You may have figured out by now that I love quotes.  I really liked today's quote...which got me thinking about the simple things in life...that truly are the real ones after all...

I think we all tend to over complicate things.  There is lots of planning, organization, extravagant events, spending and travel.   I am not saying that is all bad....because I would so enjoy the opportunity of being a little extravagant.  But when you come right down to it...the simple things...that do not require much money....are the real things....the ones that matter.  A smile shared, A laugh, an outstretched hand, an unexpected little kindness, an understanding look, a call from an old friend, an invitation, time spent together...   All these little acts of love are really the glue that hold us all together...that make everything else have meaning and make sense.

As we look toward November...I am starting to think about all of the many blessings in my life....there are so many.   But the true blessings are the simple things in life....the little moments...which are so much more than they may appear and give true meaning to the larger things happening around us.  Yesterday, my daughter and our friend and I dressed up for Halloween.  The costumes were great, the photos were....great(?)...but what really made the experience what it was...were all those little things.  The love, the friendship, the laughter, the jokes, the conversations, the anticipation, the excitement.....all shared between us...it was those little things that made it into such a big thing...so memorable for us all.

The simple things....there is not much in this world, that I wouldn't trade to spend time...just spend time doing nothing with my kids....my loves.... at the beach.  Just us and the shore....and all that we are together...for me....that's what's real.

"I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all."

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

Come, we fly...

As I look at this photo two things immediately strike me: #1 Oh to be young again, #2 Note to self: black hair does not become you!

Earlier this fall, I witnessed Cara and her friend Kelly getting excited on facebook about Halloween and wanting to dress up as the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus.  As I was talking to Cara, I realized she was quite serious. They had a couple of problems...they needed to find one more person for the third sister, and they could dress up but had no where to go.   Cara and Kelly just graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh this spring and have both located in the metropolitan NY/NJ area.  Neither of them have met a whole lot of people...and didn't really have any Halloween event to go to.  I am a Mom who is always trying to offer help to my kids.  Before I knew what was happening, I was the third Sanderson sister and we were going to a costume event at our church.  Kelly and Cara were coming home for the weekend.

We have had a wonderful weekend, although I honestly feel like I have not stopped moving since Friday night.  We all watched Hocus Pocus last night to get in character...and have truly had a wonderful time together.  Our costumes were a hit....but what was almost more exciting for me...was watching how excited and how much fun the girls were having.  The girls are enroute back to their new homes and routines...and have left me with the duty of making sure I share these pictures before they get home.  So, I came up to the computer to share these pictures, and part of me is thinking of telling them that they accidentally got deleted...because, although the girls look fabulous...I look just plain scary.  If you know the movie Hocus Pocus, you know that all the Sanderson sisters are quirky....but I think my character is particularly so.....and so this is the result.  I think I need a "mirror mirror on the wall" that will tell me the truth: "Nancy - don't go out of the house looking like that".    Sometimes, I forget that I am not 22 anymore...and dressing up sounded like a good idea...and it was fun, before the pictures snapped me back to reality.

And in the end...what matters is not how ridiculous I look....but the fact that we had fun planning and anticipating....and we had fun being together....and of course there was candy involved...how can that not be fun?  And there are two young women, who are going back to start their week...in places that are still new and sometimes lonely...who are happy to have been "home" and who have recapured a bit of their childhood this weekend.  And there is a tired old mom, who misses them already!

Cara's choice of tonight's quote: "I put a spell on you" ~ Hocus Pocus, but I went a different route...

"No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart."

~ Robert A. Heinlein

In Training...

I have been through training tonight...professional development... for my role tomorrow as Mary Sanderson from Hocus Pocus.  I thought we were just dressing up, but apparently it is much more involved than that. So happy to have Cara and Kelly (umm...I mean.... my sisters...Winnie and Sarah)here.  Tomorrow should be fun..   The characters in this house have been spending the day getting into character.  This is very serious business!! Stay tuned tomorrow for photos of the big event!!

"Come little children, I'll take thee away; into a land of enchantment.

 Come little children, the time's come to play: here in my garden of magic."

~Sarah Sanderson, Hocus Pocus

The Halloween spirit

I'm not sure how it started, but when the kids were little we always used to dress up in themed costumes and go out trick or treating together!! Ahhh fun times!!  I am trying to remember...but I think this particular year, Alex was a baby and he and I stayed home..while Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma and the Big Bad Wolf did the trick or treating.

 I  never really practiced the custom of dressing up scary and gory...  That is just not part of who I am.  But we came up with some fun costumes over the years.  I am not much for scary movies, and truly don't understand people who love horror flicks, or write and produce them.  For me...Halloween will always be dressing up in fun costumes...and getting candy.  I will steer far away from the haunted houses and haunted hay rides.  Though I miss these days of little ones toddling out the door in anticipation of a sugar high, the spirit of the holiday seems to live on in my girls, who get ultra excited for all holidays...and are still planning to dress in costume this year!!

"There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch."

~ Robert Brault