BIG EYES are watching you
It’s Halloween again! All that candy in the store has my eyes BIG and wide with anticipation. Of course, I’m trying to abstain. You’ve heard the phrase “my eyes are bigger than my stomach.” That’s not how I lived my life if you remember how I celebrated my birthday. I have discovered that my big eyes affect so many areas of my life. Which is why the purging is so hard. I have big eyes for candy, cookies, great meals, and especially hobbies. Everything I see I want to try. I go overboard on quilting, sewing of all manner of things, decorative painting, crafting, ribbon, hand, and machine embroidery, plus read till my big eyes fall out and write as much as I can squeeze in not to mention gardening.
Witchy Poo comes every year
Franky never dies
When I see the decorations on homes, I see some that do it up BIG and others are basic minimalists. I’m working toward minimalism now. I decorated a little inside but not at all outside.
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- Bones all over a neighbors yard
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- They did what they could for Halloween
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- Minimal always works too
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- Met the new neighbor while they were putting up decor for Halloween
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- That’s how I feel about chocolate
I see less well, breathe less well and have so much less energy for the fun things. Even chocolate! Oh, no! Sometimes I’m not as present here as I would like to be but I’m not ready to give up the GHOST yet.
No ghosting out. My heart is in this.
Head is ghoulish
It’s the eighth anniversary of my blog. Why would anyone start a blog on Halloween while her adult children were dressing in costume and decorating the outside of the house? Maybe I was feeling particularly ghoulish that day. I know I couldn’t help so I decided to take on a BIG challenge. So far, so good. I’ve learned a lot and made so many wonderful friends here.
Real looking and scary
We are having perfect weather for kids to trick or treat here. It’s colder than a witch’s nose but dry and clear. Since my daughter is living with me this year and dressed in costume for work, we will open the door to the little goblin’s that brave the cold dark night.
Our family witch
What are your plans for scaring the little munchkins out of their wits this year or are you going have big eyes and eating all the candy yourself? Happy Halloween to all. Boo!
Go A Head. Have a piece
From my heart to yours,
Marlene Herself
insearchofitall 
Comments on: "Big Eyes" (66)
I have some similar issues. But, winding up as a carver, winding up as a videographer, and a few other things have all been as a result of being an enthusiastic adopter of things I found interesting. Just think about all those folks who sing one note all their lives; how boring.
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Thanks for stopping by, Lou. You are 100% correct about living with only one note. I’ve never been bored either. My bookshelves are as eclectic. Have a great Halloween.
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I like what you said. I seem to be like you and Marlene I keep trying things all the time. And it’s FUN!
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I”m interested in EVERYTHING. There is just so much I can get done with the time I have left so I’m making harder choices. ;( I’m glad I’m not alone out here, Linda. 🙂
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I know darn age is making us make harder choices
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I love the description of yourself as someone with big eyes. Big ambitions, too! I’m definitely a minimalist in seasonal decorating, generally opting for a natural approach that can be recycled or composted. We buy and carve real pumpkins and then leave them in the garden for a while for the squirrels to eat. When they’re good and mushy they go in the compost bin. Alas, our weather is wretched today and the little ghouls will be quite soaked, as will their parents. Happy Halloween, Marlene. Hey, maybe that’s why you started your blog on October 31st. Halloween rhymes with Marlene!
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I don’t buy what has to be trashed either. Our stuff comes out year after year. We are lazy this year. More like too many other things going on and I’m getting too old for all the work. I’m afraid we’d be feeding mice rather than squirrels here. Sorry about the rain but thanks for stopping by, Susanne
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It’s been fun to look at all the decor on my walks, and you’re right Marlene, many people go way over the top on what they do. My little group of apartments has no kids and is situated in such a way that no one comes past so I don’t have candy around. A good thing for me!
I hope you have a good night, and keep your hands out of the candy bowl 😉
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Thank you, Deb. I need the scolding to keep out of the candy. My daughter will take what’s left to work for the office. There aren’t many kids around usually but it usually rains on Halloween. Most years I just turn off all the lights and watch a movie. Have a great night and thanks for the visit.
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Boooo! Hey Marlene-a-go-go, Happy Blog-a-versary! Not decorating outside either. I’m not a big fan on the stretchy spider webs outside, they’re traps for unsuspecting birdies. I am dressing for work though because I work tonight. So Mr B will have to hand out treats alone. It’s a big job since we get over 200 kids. We’re on a street that seems very popular. Have fun dear xK
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Wow! Over 200 kids! I’ll be lucky to get 2 dozen here. My daughter dresses for work too. I agree about the spider web stuff. We are so far down in Sleep Hollow, very few dare make the trek. 😉 Have a ghostly time tonight. Hugs M
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Happy anniversary, Marlene. Not to sound like a scrooge, but I’m not really a fan of Halloween. Maybe it’s because the world is a little scarier than it was when I was a kid. The thought of opening the door after dark to someone wearing a mask just doesn’t sound like a good idea. Maybe I’ve worked with the police department too long. 🙂
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I’m with you 100%, Jill. I only gave out candy the year my son was here and this is a pretty closed community. I’m so far off a main road that only the people who live here bring their kids by. My kids always loved Halloween and we have always lived in close neighborhoods where things were calm. I keep the glass screen locked until I see who is there. When my son worked and trained with the LA County Sheriff’s dept, he got more cynical as well. I doubt we will have more than a dozen or two kids and the rest goes to work with my daughter.. Sigh.;(
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Congrats on your 8th blog anniversary!
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Thank you, Becky.
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Happy blogging anniversary, Marlene! And happy Halloween! I’ve never been a big fan of this occasion and after answering the door here in our neighborhood for years to 250+ trick-or-treaters we don’t participate any longer. Now there are loads of minivans driving loads of kids door to door and there are quite a few adults insisting on their candy (they have their own bags!) as well! It’s okay to pass the torch to those who enjoy it and judging by the decorations in the neighborhood there will be no shortage of treats for all the kids! 🎃
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I wouldn’t answer the door either when they bus them in like that. I want only the neighborhood kids and there are only a few. So we will turn our lights out early and my daughter will take the rest to the office. Those guys make short work of it. I’m not a great fan of the day but I love any opportunity to have some fun and pull out what I’ve made. I have a Halloween panel quilt hanging in the sewing room window. I’m not into scary, more the cute stuff. Hope you are feeling better. Enjoy your dark night. 😉 Hugs.
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There seems to have been very little Halloween traffic in our neighborhood this year. Maybe they went to the mall where it’s warmer. Your decorations are cute!! I’m not into the scary stuff either. I’m so glad I called off the get-together. This cold just hit me like a speeding truck and went straight into my respiratory system. I hope I can shake it by Monday to not miss the last painting class! 🙋
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Happy Halloween, Marlene! We plan to hand out some candy, and then eat the leftovers! If we really feel ghoulish we might watch The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown 🎃
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You make me laugh, Missy. I’ll probably watch an episode of The Good Witch from Hallmark. I saved them up for tonight. I’d like to eat the leftovers too but it will be better for my daughter to take it to work. She scores points and I don’t gain 40 pounds. 😉 Thanks for the visit.
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I hear you. We don’t need to eat them either!
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Happy Blogoversary! And Halloween. I am not going looking for any candy! I have to go to the gym to work off what I already ate! lol
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Thank you for stopping by. I’m going in the back way to get to my comments as my e-mail has just taken a dive on me. I walked up the hills this morning so I can have a piece or two. Who could imagine 8 years of nothing worthwhile to say. ;))
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P.S. I’m going to need access to those lovely teacups! lol
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Happy Blogversary, Marlene!!! We’re having a wet, windy, very cold, snowy Halloween here and I don’t think there will be very many out this afternoon or evening as the weather is really nasty. We broke a 96 year old record for amount of snow on this date and for yesterday too. I suspect our hill will be impassible before it stops snowing.
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Thank you for stopping by, Aquila. I don’t know where you are but I’m glad I’m not there. It’s cold enough for me here. There aren’t many kids out here either. That’s ok. Stay dry and warm.
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Happy blog anniversary! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and life adventures, it’s a joy to read your posts.
I’m sad about you’re poor health.
Hugs ❤
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Don’t be sad, Judith. It was a wild and very interesting run. No regrets. I’m going to party all the way to the other side and then pick a new adventure. It’s natures way of saying “wrap it up”. Priorities are crucial now.
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Congratulations on your eight years of blogging! That’s quite an accomplishment. Although Halloween is a night for ghosts and ghouls, this post is all about your joie de vivre. I really enjoyed it!
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Thank you so much, Liz. I’m surprised to be here still after 8 years. 😉 Life is a balancing act. a little ghoulish and a little joie. 🙂 Hope you are having a fun Halloween.
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I LOVE Halloween and I love that you started your blog on this day! It snowed this evening and the wind was so strong, we got no one.
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My adult children love Halloween too. I didn’t grow up with it but did it for the kids when they were growing up. Very different lives. It was also the day my father passed so with his accerbic sense of humor, it seemed fitting. I was too ill at the time to do much else so it makes sense that if you can’t get out, you bring new friends home, I’ve made so many over the last 8 years, I just can’t quit. Sorry to hear about the snow and wind. Our good weather didn’t help. Only a dozen kids came all the way down our hill and a car brought them. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by, Wendi.
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I remember being too ill many Halloweens and my husband had to take the kids out……..I was sad to miss it but so grateful they were able to get out and have fun! 🙂
Hope today is treating you well.
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Happy bloggiversary, Marlene!! I think it was a brilliant idea to start your blog on Halloween – that way you’ll always know when to celebrate both occassions. 😄 I’m always perplexed when WordPress notifies me of my anniversary (sometime in August I think?) and forgot to write a post about it. 😄
I hope you had a lovely Halloween! Like you I always get out the same decorations though this year I didn’t had time – which was okay since no kids showed up!😂 So I’ll have my share of candy and the rest will go to my students next week – their stomachs are definitely larger than their eyes! 😄
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Halloween is a memorable day in many ways, Sarah. My dad died on Halloween 20 years ago. I always think of him on that day. We had a dozen kids maybe. I won’t get candy next year and my daughter took it to the office this morning. If it’s here, I’ll eat it. 😦 Next year you’ll post about your anniversary, right?? 🙂 Thanks for the visit.
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I’m sorry for the late reply, Marlene!
I didn’t know that about your dad, of course Halloween will always be a memorable day for you then. Did you celebrate Halloween when you were a child with your family?
Here in Germany it has only become fashionable in recent years. Normally we celebrate Fasching/carnival in February where we also like to dress up. 😀 I used to be a witch, a vampire and a princess – classic choices really. 😉 I’ll give most of the candy to my students this week – but I’ll keep some for me too. 😉
Yes, I plan to write about my anniversary next year – it will be 5 years then!!
Wishing you a lovely week!
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We almost never celebrated Halloween and my mother said Fasching was for grownups so we were left home with a sitter. Me. 😉 I would take my younger siblings on a rare occasion. We had an odd upbringing. 😉
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Happy Blog Anniversary! I got a message to say it was my 7th Blog anniversary. That surprises me more than all the ghosts and ghouls of Halloween. It looks like everyone in your area had a bit of fun with Halloween. It’s not really a big thing in our neighborhood. I noticed a few houses with some decorations, but this year there were no kids or teenagers out trick or treating.
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Congrats on 7 years!! Some do, many just don’t. I hung a Halloween quilt in my sewing room window and call it good. 😉 I think all the kids are finding other things to do to stay safe. Can’t blame them. Thanks for the visit.
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I am a bah humbug when it comes to Halloween ! Fortunately they do not allow any trick or treating within our community instead children come up to the exterior gate to receive their treats. Congratulations on eight years of blogging!
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Thanks so much for visiting, Jan. We only had barely a dozen kids all at one time and that was it. We are a mixed neighborhood so there are children here, just not many. Can you believe 8 years? When you don’t get out much, you have to bring the friends home. 😉
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Happy blogiversary! Hope you had fun! Today I took my Halloween decorations down, but left the stuff that would work with my Pilgrims!
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Thank you, Luanne. We had a nice quiet evening playing silly Halloween music for ourselves. Very few children came. My daughter will help me get what we have up, put away this weekend. Won’t take long. 🙂 Here’s to another year of blogging. Thanks for stopping by. My Pilgrim lost his mate somewhere. ;(
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Aw, too bad little Pilgrim! My cats went after mine, so I had to put them up high. They went after my witch’s broom, too, but I covered the straw with a felt covering ;).
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I unfortunately do not have cats but I think she may have decided that I was moving too often and wanted to put down roots and get away from Mr. Pilgrim. 🙂 Things get lost when you move a lot. ;( I’m sure your cats are quite entertaining and worth the sacrifice.
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I heard that Mr. Pilgrim can be pretty annoying.
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The whole festival passed me by this year. One house further up the street had a few cobwebs, the neighbour children weren’t out, and we were in bed early for the Husband’s early start to day shift (3am). Can’t say I’m sorry, my tradition is that it’s a day to remember my beloved dead, and I hate the quantities of plastic rubbish it generates. There, having come over all Scrooge about it, I’m sorry that our world is not a good place for little children to do some harmless dressing-up and colllecting vast amounts of sugar!
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Yay to the Scrooges. 😉 I’ve never been fond of Halloween but indulge it on occasion. My decorations are things I’ve made so no plastic and no tossing.. Odd you should mention remembering your dead that day. My dad died on Oct 31, 1999. It’s not the same anymore. Can’t say I miss him but I do think of him every year. 3 a.m. is no time for anyone to get up for work. I hate when they make people change work hours. So hard on the body. No chance he can retire soon? I think I want everyone to be able to be retired. 😉 Going to work is just hard.
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3am for a start time is tough, but it’s four days out of 12. If it was every day, it would be easier. No sign of retirement for a good 10 years, I’d say… But he does have long service leave coming up next year, so we’ve got extra time off to make longer trips, which is great 🙂
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Great decorations! Hope you had a lovely Halloween. I am trying to cut back on the candy myself and I think I did quite well
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Thank you, Maja. I like to decorate but I sent the candy away with my daughter the next morning and her co-workers ate it all. 🙂 if it’s there, I can’t resist. ;( Glad you can.
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Oh I so love your celebrations in the USA, you really go to town.. Here its getting more and more popular but apart from the odd cobweb spray on shrubs and pumpkins on the doorsteps we have nothing like the house dressing you have over there..
So nice to see, and yes my own eyesight is being tested and my waist line is spreading lol.. 🙂 But we cannot purge all of the time Lol…
🙂
Wonderful to be catching back up again Marlene…
Hope your Hallows Eve was fun.. ❤
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Good to see you again too, Sue. Some here go all out, many ignore it completely. It depends on if they have children or are party people. I’m in the middle. Waistline? What is that? 🙂 Hugs your way.
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Big smiles lol 😀💕 enjoy your day. It’s misty here 7am right now but promises to brighten up later. So a good day for that hike with our granddaughter X 🤗😘
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Hehe…our Halloween was low-key this year. Some years we decorate, but we tend to be quite minimalistic – usually a pumpkin or two. lol.
Happy anniversary of your blog! I started mine three years ago in October. And I remember you saying in a post somewhere (and alluding to it here) there are moments when you wonder, “why?” Oh, I just love the people I’ve met and the opportunities to grow and glow. Hehe.
And you learn so much.
I wish you a wonderful week ahead, happy November, and sending you big hugs from North Carolina. 🤗🤗🤗
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Thanks for stopping by, Cynthia. I usually can’t reply from my blog but will probably have to copy and past to yours. It’s hard with your blog for some reason.
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Marlene, your big eyes are tied directly to your heart. That’s why you want to do it all. And that’s why you are so wonderful. Of course purging and minimizing are hard, but you are doing it. I love the Halloween decorations. Do you get many trick-or-treaters?
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Thank you so much, Jennie. Most of the Halloween decorations I painted myself. We barely had a dozen children here at the bottom of Sleepy Hollow. 😦
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I’m impressed, Marlene. You inspire me. We had zero children here on Halloween. We live on a rural main road with no sidewalks and little lighting. I think all the lit jack-o-lanterns in the world wouldn’t have drawn children to our house. Best to you!
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Hey there,
I couldn’t find a contact email for you but I came across this BEAUTIFUL embroidery and totally thought of you. 🙂 Hopefully I don’t end up “spamming” your comments with this link, but here you go: https://www.boredpanda.com/embroidery-artist-shimunia/?fbclid=IwAR12T4qMG_HpICa2Jcs8-MYAb7DvOzcNpZ57QGo4F-LZMFy6ikNxrYf9a2I&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic
It’s beautiful embroidery that looks like paint. 😉 I know you have an appreciation for pretty things and I thought of you as soon as I saw this article. Sending you lots of Sunday hugs!
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That looks like Brazilian Embroidery. Seamsright8@yahoo.com is my e-mail. I love it but too time consuming. Thanks for sharing it. I have so much trouble leaving comments on your site that sometimes, I just don’t. Getting too old to fight with technology. 😦
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Aw, haha. No worries. I’m glad our paths have crossed and when the stars align for you to leave a comment, it’ll be a blessing. When they don’t, know that I’m thinking of you. My site has always been like that: prone to comment difficulties. Even the wordpess folks don’t know how to fix it. So…I just work on the acceptance part and hope for the best. Lol.
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Glad you started the blog, whatever the reason!
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Thank you, Cynthia. I’m glad I did too.
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It’s funny that you started a blog on Halloween, and fun that you remembered your blog anniversary. I don’t remember mine. It was summertime. I was unemployed and looking for a job and bored. I’m grateful that both of us started blogging because that’s how we found each other. THanks for including all those photos of your neighborhood decorations, I just love Halloween and I love seeing how others decorate. H’s costume is so wonderful! That cape!
My Halloween was ridiculously long because that’s the day I flew home from Jordan. I boarded about 1:30 am on Halloween in Amman. Then, we flew “backwards” around the globe, so the time kept getting reset as we flew over time zones. I made two more connections, and 28 hours later landed in Portland, at 9 pm – still in Halloween! ha ha. So I had to miss celebrating my favourite holiday, but the up side is that it was the longest Halloween of my life. 🙂
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I think I remember you writing about the return on Halloween. I’m so far behind on reading and will probably continue to be behind till mid January. I see many of your posts. Just haven’t gotten there yet. WordPress sends me a reminder each year but it’s hard to forget. TS had it all set up for me so while they decorated, I typed. The first year was pretty lame and I was still very ill. I hope it’s become somewhat better to read. My kids LOVE Halloween too. Will chat soon. Thanks for the visit.
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