Second post today, because Bella is a shark:




Shark will launch for snacks.

Three more pictures of the pit bullshark:

Shark slurp!


Tall shark!


Shark on a leash!

Hope your Halloween is going wonderfully!

Happy Halloween! :D

Our big Halloween season event was last weekend. We went to "Spirits and Spirits," an event at Four Mile House. (This is the same place that had the lantern festival we went to back in September.)

Spirits and Spirits was an adult-only event with some spirit tastings, drag shows, a fashion show, a vendor marketplace, tours of the historic farmhouse including Victorian-era mourning customs, and the chance to attend an optional seance. I did get us tickets for the seance.

It was a lot of fun!

We got there right around opening time, and wandered around for a few minutes. We went to get something to drink, and then wanted to go to the first timeslot for the drag show... but unfortunately they had to cancel the first time. But it meant we were right there for the first fashion show slot, so we did get to see that, which was quite cool!



The fashion show was put on by Bête Noire, a local designer who mostly does super fancy gothy stuff.

Always love models walking to some Sisters of Mercy.

Five more pictures:

Liked the candles and coffin decor.


I was particularly fond of the floating candles.

My phone was not terribly cooperative with taking pictures of anything moving, so my pictures from the fashion show mostly didn't turn out well, but here are a few more:






This model was the best. She was so energetic and fun to watch.

After that we had to head to our seance session, since those were timed entries. (They actually did not check our tickets, even though all the sessions were sold out, ha.)



The seance was held in the attic of the farmhouse.

It was led by a couple members of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society.

They talked a bit about Victorian seances, and the spiritualism of the era. We had some tarot cards, runestones, as well as some objects (like an ax, and a creepy doll). There were a couple ouija boards, a pendulum, etc.


Trying to use a ouija board.

Just a couple more pics from the seance:

Another ouija board.

The ouija boards did not get much in the way of any response, or the ones they got weren't very clear.

The pendulum was about the same; the only 'response' we got was a "maybe," ha.

They had someone do a phone recording to check for an EVP, and that was somewhat interesting: There was noise in the background that sounded a bit like an argument, though nothing was clear enough to hear. While there was some background noise from the tours happening downstairs, it didn't sound at all like that. So that was at least a bit interesting!

But no conclusive ghosts, haha.

We hung out and chatted for a bit, bought a couple books.

Then we went downstairs and sort of took ourselves on a tour of the house. We didn't start at the beginning, but just sort of wandered at random. They did have interpreters in most of the rooms to talk about the house specifically or customs of the era in general.


The parlor, and talking about Victorian mourning customs in particular. (Mourning attire, mourning periods, memento mori, covering mirrors, etc.)

Six more pictures:

I liked this little couch.


Some stuff!


Cool old stove. (I genuinely don't know what the white streak is. Maybe the kitchen is haunted!)

Most of the wallpaper and such is reproduction, but they have a few sections of original wallpaper under protective covering. (Allegedly including some fine arsenic green!)




(Eek, it's me.) Or no, I should say: ~but there was no one there when I took the picture~ It's a ghost!


Last picture of fancy wallpaper.

We also went on the little "haunted hayride" around part of the property. It was quick, and went through a couple little setpieces with fake headstones or zombies and such, but it was fun! There was also a shooting star, which I think was the highlight for everyone, haha.

We wandered over to some of the animal pens, and the goats came out and started bleating at us.


So we petted some goats for a few minutes.

Sadly, we never ended up getting to see the drag show. There were three timeslots, but the first was cancelled, the second was during our seance timeslot, and the third was packed.

We did get apple cider churros, which were delicious.

This was a really fun evening. I wish I hadn't had to go back to work the next day, but it was still mostly the kick-off to my time off from work. If they do a similar event next year, I hope we get the chance to go again.

We've been lucky enough this year to have a quite pleasant long fall. Last week we wanted to enjoy the nice day, and so we went over to Hudson Gardens. It's an easy walk, and always pretty.


Some very nice fall colors!

In Colorado, most of our fall color is shades of gold (which I do love!) but it's a little novel to have things more in the orange and red tones.


I was delighted that there were still a lot of roses blooming. And I'm always happy with bees.


More of the gold colors. Lovely!


There were some neat crayfish. The one that's on the right was HUGE. Freshwater lobster. (And I was pleased with the reflection of the leaves.)

Thirteen more pictures (flowers, frogs...):

Frog! :D (I was hoping there would still be a few frogs out, and was happy that there were.)

Surprisingly, the roses were still extremely happy! We've had a couple frosts by now, so I'd expected the roses would be gone. They were actually looking better now than they were earlier in the summer. They weathered the season change better than the Japanese beetles, ha.


Always love the candy-stripe flowers.


Bee!


Very perfect red rose.


Bee on the approach.


A blanket flower.


Moth! :D


More fall color!


I do really like the orange.

We stopped at the cafe for a snack. I got a smoothie instead of coffee, and it was so good. Pear, peach, apricot. Delicious.


This is once again "Magic of the Jack o' Lanterns" season, where they have a bunch of displays of carved (foam) pumpkins. They're neat, but they are identical to last year. (Plus there was a windstorm the day before, and a bunch had fallen and hadn't yet been picked back up...)


Squirrel!

While we saw quite a few crayfish, there were relatively few (not none, but few) frogs throughout most of the gardens, so we went back to the first pond to visit the first batch of frogs again, haha.


:D


Three frogs! (One in the upper right, one in the lower left, and one above that.)

Another lovely day that I'm glad we got to enjoy.

This week, fancy books and skull from Sunset Road (part of their "Haunted Library" set.) Also a spiderweb from a set I bought at the Butterfly Pavilion a couple years ago.

This was a good week. Feeling sick for much of the mid-week wasn't great, but at least it seemed to resolve quickly. We went to Hudson Gardens, which was beautiful and a perfect day to be out. Work was fine. On Saturday we went to "Spirits and Spirits," which was our big Halloween thing for the year. It was a lot of fun, and I'm really glad we decided to do it. I wish I hadn't had to go back to work for one more day afterwards, but alas.

Goals for the week:

• We did attend Spirits and Spirits
• I picked up my ballot
• I read What Moves the Dead
• I worked on my book reviews
• I did not work on my reading page
• I did not make that stupid phone call
• I continued my October Devotional
• I did collect new branches for the katydids
• I started Queen Demon
• I wrote up the intro for the Alice Isn't Dead/Sparrow Hill Road crossover

For my October Devotional:

• 19 - I collected branches for the katydids
• 20 - Definitely appreciated some beautiful fall colors; got a pumpkin latte; bought fancy bread for French toast
• 21 - Went on a really nice walk at Hudson Gardens; splurged on some Halloween pins for myself
• 22 - Alex made another zucchini cake
• 23 - I did some plant care; got sweet potato fries
• 24 - We went and got pumpkin milkshakes (again)
• 25 - We went to Spirits and Spirits

Tracked habits:

• Work - 4.5/7 - took a half day on Saturday
• Household Maintenance - 5/7
• Physical Activity - 3/7
• Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 1/7 - over 500 words
• Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
• Meta Work - 3/7
• Personal Writing - 6/7
• Other Creative Things - 2/7
• Reading - 6/7 - I read What Moves the Dead and started Queen Demon; I also read a bit of Bloodhunt Academy, and kept up with Re: Dracula/Dracula Daily
• Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday we had some explore videos in the background and watched a book review; Monday I listened to music and later had stuff in the background; Tuesday I listened to music and later we watched Drive Back, which was better than anticipated; Wednesday we watched the documentary Audrey + Daisy; Thursday we watched Abbott Elementary, then had 20/20 and explore videos in the background; Friday we watched Great British Bake Off, and a paranormal livestream; Saturday had some stuff on in the background.
• Video Games - 0/7
• Social Interaction - 6/7

Total words written: 803 on the fic intro