YIPPEEEEEE!!!  lol  I have one more thing done for our party.  And a pretty big one at that. 

Weather permitting, we are having a hayride with our party this year.  We live outside of a small town with a creek that runs behind our property and a farmer's field and then a woods.  We will go along the creek, past the field to the woods and back..haven't gotten permission to use the woods and it's far enough away that not sure I'm going to try it this year - maybe another year.  Anyways, of course we needed some haunts on the hayride but I couldn't think how I would do that.  A light bulb moment finally occurred in my head last night and I thought of my brother in law.  He used to really get into halloween but in recent years it's hard to get him motivated about anything.  But I decided to ask him the next time I saw him and all he could do was tell me no.

Well he just happened to stop in to visit today so I hit him up about it.  lol  He's going to do it and get his son in law, step grandson, and our nephew to help him.  Between them, they will take care of it for me. 

Of course I will be talking with him much more about it and figure out what sort of props, etc he needs back there.  I probably already have enough costumes for all of them to wear that are black robes, etc not to be seen in the dark.  If he needs more people, he will get them and we'll work out whatever kind of props in the next couple of weeks. 

I'm on my way to Halloween 08!  It's starting to come together and I'm thrilled over having this part done cause I knew I'd never have the time to deal with that part and that the five of us doing the party won't have time to do the scares, etc...so having Jeff be willing is great...plus he's done this before several years ago at other parties so has some experience to back him up with too.

A very good day in my Halloween world! 

Tags: Party Haunt Hayride

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It's now 82 days til Halloween and 69 days til my Halloween party.  Even though Halloween is on a Friday night this year, I'm having my party on October 18th because that is the weekend my friends and family can all attend and don't have to be in all the neighboring towns for TOT night.

Halloween has gone to the front and center of my thoughts and plans in recent weeks and now that we are into the cooler nights of August here and some signs of fall are appearing, it's starting to feel more like the time of year to get busy to me.  My head is spinning with all the ideas I've learned from so many here and other places on the net this year.  There are so many things I want to do and try this year that I don't know that it's really possible to do them all...but I'm sure gonna give it a shot to get done as many of them as I can.    I've been cruising the stores when I have time to look for Halloween in them...so far Big Lots & Dollar Tree have Halloween out and I've managed to get a few things in both stores. 

Wednesday I just couldn't stand it and just HAD to start setting up at least a little of Halloween.  I am working on my family room first and have a little at my fireplace mantel/hearth done now and will continue working inside as my schedule permits me to do it. 

Just walking through the room and seeing the lit up foam jack o lanterns with the skellies around them makes my day - but of course makes me want to do more of it too.  lol 

I think I had a fairly good start last year for it being the first year and plan to make a lot of changes and additions for this year.  For one thing, I didn't have much lighting for my props, etc last year and that is a priority for this year to enhance the scenes with.  I learned that the black lights I bought were crap and weren't effective and am getting the "real deal" this year so that alone will help...plus some red/blue/green lighting in various places as well.  We are building a fog chiller this year as well as getting a different fogger AND a timer for it...learned those lessons the hard way last year too. 

I'm also working on my party invitation and have several different drafts completed and now have to figure out which one I like best and then make modifications to that. 

I do still have a few major NON Halloween projects to complete as well and they are seeming like such a burden right now since it isn't what I WANT to be doing.  But I'll trudge through them and get them done anyways I'm sure. 

I do need though to try to get a clearer picture in my head of exactly what I want this year and how to go about it and I'm thinking this blog will help me organize my thoughts and ideas so will most likely be writing a lot here in the upcoming weeks. 

I had an idea last night for my kids game area...which is a new area for me to delve into too.  I'm thinking I'll take a cheapie trellis I bought in the Dollar General and never used and spray it with GITD spray, add skellies, spiders, and whatever other stuff I can come up with and make a sign to attach that says "GHOUL GAMES" and post it in the area of the games and add black lights around it.  This seems like an easy and inexpensive project to easily designate the area for the kids games and set it off too.  At least for now that's my idea but it's subject to change if something else comes to me - or someone suggests something better. 

This summer I also purchased a bar for my patio and plan to have skellies sitting at each bar stool and a skellie bartender.  I'm not sure yet of if I'll clothe them or not and exactly how I want to set this up...I just know it's something I'm going to do and need to figure out the details of yet.    This will also be a new scene in the yard haunt and will be on the patio, which will be covered with canopy awning which is wrapped in black plastic and will have black lights in it, drop down spiders and skellies, and not sure what else yet. 

That's a couple of the things in my head for this year and a ton more as well.  lol 

It's nice to have an outlet to put this all in cause my family doesn't want to think about Halloween til at least mid Sept and they would prefer not to until the end of Sept...I need more time than that to figure out the things I want and how to do them, etc.  The way I see it, a mediocre (sp) haunt can happen in three weeks, a good one can MAYBE happen in six weeks, but a GREAT one takes months of planning and organizing and working on it...and I want to get to great eventually but for now I am willing to settle for BETTER each year.

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I'm soooo impressed!  WOW!  I was frustrated and disgusted and feeling like the world's dumbest person and posted it....and along came so many of you to jump in and help - and really fast too!  I can't begin to tell you all how much I appreciated it and how awed I am by the level of helpfulness here. 

When I grow up, I want to be like all of you here.  You are so talented, creative and knowledgeable and yet you are willing to share and help total strangers when they are feeling low.

This "space" beats "myspace" a million times over.  Thank you thank you thank you.

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Ok, I've been here a few days now and have been fiddling around with learning to navigate this site.  I'm not computer illiterate and generally figure things out rather quickly.  However, I'm sure not getting it through the thick old noggin here!   And when you are used to figuring out things kinda fast and now nothing is sinking in, it maxes out my frustration level.  GRRRRRRR

I have a myspace account and maybe that's the problem cause this obviously doesn't work like that does.  But so far nothing I've tried works for me to change the background of my page, add a countdown timer, etc etc etc.  It's a boring looking page cause I can't figure out how to make it any better.  I'm reaching a high frustration level now...

I managed to upload a few pics but the only way I could do it was to go into my PSP program and change the pixel size, which then of course messes with the quality/clarity of the pic as well.  I resized down, down down and it still said it was the incorrect size to upload!  The only way it would accept it was when I resized the pixel size and I'm sure not happy with that!  So I quit doing that.

I tried uploading from my photo storage site, fotki, and if that works, I haven't figured it out yet.  It sat there for twenty minutes saying it was uploading with nothing happening til I got ticked and closed the whole thing out.  From Fotki, I tried uploading from the html code, from the img code and from the direct link to image code...all gave me the same thing that it was uploading and just continued to appear it was uploading for fifteen to twenty minutes with nothing actually getting there til I got angry and closed the whole thing out and walked away from it again.

I tried adding a graphic to a comment on one of my friend's pages and that ended up being ENORMOUS so obviously I don't know what the *&!# I'm doing there or how to change that. 

I've asked a few times how to change the background and have been directed to where to change that...which I already figured out but nothing I do in that changes anything at all! I add things there and click save or whatever it says and nothing changes...yep, I know that it might not happen immediately but when it hasn't happened hours later and after a couple of restarts, I obviously didn't get it right.  

In myspace I just go to my profile, then edit profile, then add the codes for the background...nothing here that I can find to do that and the page to change it does nothing and quite frankly appears to me to only allow you to change the colors of the various modules...who cares what color it is...I want a different background!  GRRRRR   

I'm really not used to feeling like an idiot and it's not a feeling I'm enjoying, to say the least. 

I don't like things that make me take forever to figure them out cause I already have too many other things to do that I'm months behind on and can't catch up....on my way to do a few of those things now and maybe some sort of accomplishment will make my mood better than it is at this moment.

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It's been a really busy year for us this year but I've still managed to spend as much time searching for Halloween info, thinking about props, changes for this year, etc etc etc. as I'm able to steal the time from here and there.  And now that the end of summer is upon us and there are signs of fall all around me again, I'm getting really excited about Halloween '08. 

For one thing, I have more support on the homefront this year than I did last year and that is going to help considerably.  When I told my hubby in June of '07 that I wanted to do a big halloween party that year, he was not excited in any way and told me I needed to "wait til around August or so to decide about it."  HUH?  Are you crazy?  I can't wait that long!  I have to start planning, organizing, thinking it through, etc etc etc.  So I just looked at him and said, "Honey, you'll adjust to this idea by August but you can plan on it happening in October for sure."  LOL  Well, I drug him along for the ride all the way to the night of the party.  He helped where he had to and when he felt obligated to do this or that and he encouraged our son in law to NOT help me much either.  But when the party was over and everyone left, he said, "That was great!  Let's do it again next year!"  LOL  I said, "Aren't  you the guy who didn't want to do this?"  He replied with "yeah but I had no idea how much fun it would be."  So I made him promise me right then he'd be more helpful this year and he is definitely doing that....which makes me even more excited about the whole thing - if that's even possible.  lol 

My biggest problem is that there are five of us who "host" this party and to do all that I want to have done during the time of the party, I need about triple that many people.  lol  I can't afford to hire actors or crew etc for this event so it has to be done solely by us.  Having ME as the "brains" behind it all is a little scarey in itself!    I have NO mechanical ability and am not as creative as would be helpful to me - but I am good at organizing and planning!  Apparently I learn best by trial and error - which means I'll have to host this party a longggggg time in order to learn how to overcome all the obstacles and get things to work efficiently on the night of the event.  lol 

My family has been doing halloween parties for MANY years now.  In fact, I'm the FOURTH generation in my family now to have an annual Halloween party.  However, things have definitely changed since my great grandparents had theirs!  lol  My great grandparents and my grandparents both had the "traditional" type of halloween costume party...the kind with costumes, games, apple bobbing, etc.  When my Aunt took it over many years ago, hers remained similar but without the games...she added a fortune teller, lots of lighting, and a hog roast to her party.  When she decided to not do it anymore, I gave her a couple of years to change her mind and continue...she didn't and I took it over last year.  My party though is more on as many "creepy" decorations and props as I can accumulate and find places for, without making it TOO scarey for the kids who attend too.  But I don't do "cute" and got enough screams last year to satisfy me for the year.  lol 

I really wish I could get more of my family members involved in helping with stuff during it all though so that I could do more and have more time during it as well...however my family is too much like me and they like to "control" as much as I do so if you give them one thing to do, the next thing you know, they have brought in every little cutesy decoration Wal Mart has and nothing is as I want it.....I need to be able to control their controlling to achieve the results I want.  LOL LOL  But if enthusiasm counts for anything, I've got plenty of that! 

Trying to balance my time among my many committments, two part time jobs, family, home, etc etc etc though doesn't leave me as much time for this as I'd like either.  Good thing I'm a night owl and stay up late to work on as much as possible. 

Anyways, if my excitement isn't evident yet, then let me repeat myself again here....can't wait, can't wait for Halloween '08!

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Well, I just now joined so am still learning how to navigate this site...hopefully I have the blog part right and if not, maybe I'll have to figure out how and where to delete it.  :>)

I'm really excited about being here since I've heard so much about this site but never 'got around to" actually joining til
now.

I'm a novice when it comes to haunting so I doubt anybody here will learn much from me but I'm sure I'll learn a ton from all of you.  So I'll guess I'll probably be both Dumb AND Dumber for a while.  lol

Looking forward to getting to know people here and learn lots of cool things for our haunt.

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