When she saw it

(her award) my sister said...."Hey, wait, I think that is actually a picture of me in Scotland." :D

She is right the picture that I used from my sister's "Least Likely to be Found" award is a picture of her and I outside of Stirling. I do have pictures of her at Loch Ness, but they were not the right angle for the picture.....and the ruins of Urquhart Castle (which is by far the coolest part of the loch.....unless of course, you believe in Nessy :D ) was in the background.......it was easier to photoshop out the background from a picture of a light brown heather covered glen. :)

Speaking of Scotland.....we are trying to swing a trip back there in November of next year (2010). The plan is to rent a castle, no, not this ones :) with about 10 friends.....anyone want to go? :D

The age old question

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I cannot post another LOL cat on my Frog on the Pumpkin blog, or I will lose Carl at ILHM, and I like Carl...I mean who doesn't? So here it is....had to share.

Frog queen follies

is directly connected to

Frog on the Pumpkin

That is the main blog. This blog is where I put all my long winded and not completely related tangents connected to posts on the Frog on the Pumpkin blog.

I am very good at compartmentalizing :D

Be kind

those are my words today.....because sometimes haunters (well, I guess people in general) can be unkind. I know it happens, things can get misunderstood, but can we be nice to each other for a while?

We are all haunters and work our butts off to put on the best show we can. And we should be proud of what we do. It is awesome.

We are all putting our heart and soul into what we do and it hurts when people say mean things about some one's display. I am talking about the Home Haunter Association Yard Haunt Awards. I was checking them all out the other day and it seems on a few of the comments on the videos were unhelpful and mean.

It is the second time in recent memory that I have read where haunters are attacking other haunters - it just makes me sad.

You have the right to your opinion, we all do, but I don't think that anyone would appreciate being ridiculed or told their display is "insert negative adjective here".

Do what you want, but I just want to take a moment to say, "be nice out there". We are all just doing this for the love of Halloween.

I am overly

sensitive. I think it is because in my day job, I have to deal with a lot of PR and worst case scenario situations.

So I am always aware that something in the yard might be offensive/inappropriate, etc. I am not too worried about it in general, I mean there are some people that find Halloween offensive, so to them anything I do is wrong. Not really worried about them, they will likely not visit the yard anyway.

But I am sensitive to hurting someones feelings or offend someone on a personal level.

So my initial reaction to filming the kids as ghosts was - no way. Someone who has lost a child is not going to find that very entertaining.

So I asked all our friends that had kids (and one I know who, unfortunately, had lost a child) and they all said I was being too sensitive.

I still was not convinced.

And....a week later, on the day we started filming.....still not liking the idea.

Until I saw the kids in the yard. They were having a great time and thought it was cool that they got to be ghosts like their parents. Yeah, this is going to work fine.

The first time it was shown in the yard and they were so excited.....I was glad I had come to terms with the whole project and thankful that husband and friends encouraged (okay, maybe pushed) me to let this be part of the yard.

I have learned a lesson about myself and my perception of the display. I was reminded that this is not to entertain myself and make me happy, and not just for the visitors.....but a creative outlet for many people.....even and now especially for the kids.

Funny thing is

I can guarantee you that most of the conversation through our anniversary dinner tonight will be about Halloween. Seriously, I cannot think of a day where Halloween is not come up at least once.

I think we might have a problem....is there a 12 step plan program for this? :D