NorCal Scares: Direworld

Every year, I swear I'm going to get out to a haunted attraction. This year, it may actually happen! 

Direworld is fairly close to me, and now? It features Stewie, who has completely gone pro this year!

It started with a somewhat alarmed phone call in late September from the storage space where I'd been keeping him.

"Umm, hello. Ma'am? There are strange noises coming from your storage space. And something that may be fingers is poking out from underneath the roll-up door. I can't get anyone to check it out. They're too scared. Just what have you been keeping in there?!"

Hard to explain about a giant pumpkin-headed scarecrow with a life of his own...

So I drove over to have a chat with Stewie about scaring the normals.

I could hear him grumbling from outside the door as I put my key in the padlock. It was a bit muffled...

"Mfrl. Grummmmmble. Grr. Rumble. Grumble grrf."

I suppressed a smile. My creation was just so cute when he was just waking up for the season.

I rolled up the door. He stood there, spiders fleeing the inside of his head in terror. 

"Grumble? Grumble!"

"Hey, Big Guy! Happy Autumn!"

There was an awkward pause. Then he told me that while he loved his yard and scaring the kids there, that he wanted to go back and play in the big leagues. Scaring hundreds, being on the local news, having his picture taken, going out for beers with the cast and crew afterwards...

How could I say no? At a certain point, the kids grow up and need to spread their wings.

We'll miss him. We're hoping to get pictures soon, maybe a postcard here and there to let us know how he's doing...

I'm so proud!

Garage of Doom Revisited

I was reading over a post that Grim put up a few days ago. The one about cleaning before creating? That's exactly what's been going on in The Garage of Doom for the last few months. (See initial post here. The one that had obviously been written while I had been smoking wacky tobacky, since I should have realized there was no way I could get it organized in just one day!)

So here's the list of things that have gone out the door to Goodwill or other places:

1. Six boxes of books.
2. One double-wide filing cabinet.
3. One 50 gallon fish tank (hopelessly scratched by the movers, and we have no space to put it anyway.)
4. Two bags of clothing.
5. One set of baby gates for the dogs.
6. Soft case for guitar.
7. Dead Shop Vac.
8. Second-hand ten-speed bike that I bought for the gears but neither of us could actually take apart to pirate the gears, because it wasn't going to budge, nohow!

I'm sure there's more. I just can't think of it right now.

Anyway, I have a space to work when it starts warming up. We got some Adirondack chairs and a table for Christmas which are still in boxes, but those boxes will be unpacked after the rain stops.

After pics: Before pics:




























One of the things I've learned over the years is that if you want new things to come into your life, you must take stock and clear out the old stuff you don't need anymore. Clear the space. Claim your space. You'll be surprised what neat stuff will flow into your life when there's room for it!