Halloween: Resurrection

It’s the end of an era. Kinda. I now present the final recap of the final movie in the Halloween franchise (I’m not counting the two very recent Rob Zombie remakes which I may or may not watch at a later time when I am feeling especially courageous.)

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So here’s the skinny. We open on a psychiatric hospital where Jamie Lee Curtis is being kept. Because she’s crazy now. What made her crazy? asks the brand new nurse, conveniently allowing the older, more experienced nurse to provide us with some very helpful exposition. Because Michael Myers is a sneakity-sneak, says the older nurse. As if it wasn’t enough that he tried to kill her…a lot, we find out that in the last movie, when he tracked her down at the private boarding school in California and got decapitated, he didn’t actually get decapitated. He dressed up a paramedic in the Michael Myers’ clothes and then Jamie Lee Curtis killed the paramedic. So now she’s crazy because she feels guilty. Oh, except not. She’s not crazy. She’s PRETENDING to be crazy and hiding all of the psychiatric drugs the doctors prescribe in her Raggedy Ann Doll. How did poor Raggedy Ann get dragged into this? Then Michael Myers shows up (I find this to be a charmingly ironic reference to the original film in which Michael breaks out of a psychiatric hospital…except now he’s breaking in. Life’s funny.) And then he literally walks through the big secure door into Jamie Lee Curtis’ cell but it’s cool because Jamie Lee has been waiting for this and she has a trap ready and she almost kills him but then she feels an uh-oh-what-if-this-is-another-paramedic-in-disguise-feeling so she tries to take off his mask but then he kills her. And that is the end of Laurie Strode. But only the beginning of the movie. So I guess everything is cool now, right? He’s finally killed his sister. But then Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks decide to produce a reality tv show (Pure fiction. Can you imagine if Tyra Banks actually did this for a living?) and stream it on the internet. The show puts a bunch of attractive college-age people like that one guy from American Pie and some other vaguely familiar late 90’s/early 2000’s type actors in a house overnight. But it’s not just any house. It’s Michael Myers’ childhood home. Naturally. What not even Busta Rhymes could predict, however, is that Michael himself has been living in a weird dungeon cavern tunnel area below this house since he killed Jamie Lee. So that’s neat. Michael gets pretty annoyed because all of these people are wandering around his house with cameras on and being fake-scared for the tv audiences and so he’s like, well, fine, I guess I can kill you or something. So then all of them die gruesome horrible deaths. Except Busta Rhymes and this one girl Sarah who is obviously the smart one of the group. They live mostly thanks to this cute befuddled geek who has been using the super cool screen name Deckard to talk to Sarah online for like months or something. Anyway, he uses his internet powers (mostly, watching stuff on the internet) so that he can do whatever the 2002 version of texting is to her phone/texting device thing (I don’t exactly understand how they’re communicating but whatever). Busta Rhymes electrocutes Michael Myers and then they take his body to the morgue. He’s totally dead now. Except then his eyes open and the coroner screams. Credits.

I’m feeling a little sad that this series is over but I’m about to start watching the Friday the 13th movies so stay tuned for more slasher movie magic.

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

love, elizabeth

I Pumpkin Halloween

I have nothing profound to say today so here instead are some adorable baby pumpkins. I have just one more Halloween recap to share with you…it should be up this afternoon.

In other news, Kyle is flying back from Colorado this morning! He’s been out west visiting his family and celebrating his sister’s engagement (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!). I am feeling fairly giddy about picking him up from the airport. I know it’s only been 4 days but it feels like 4 weeks. I am but a shell of a woman without him. I swear, for most of the weekend, I couldn’t remember what day it was. Not good.

Anyway, Happy Halloween! I like this holiday, mostly the pumpkin part and the scary movie part. And now that it’s almost over…I guess we need to start thinking about Thanksgiving? I want to listen to Christmas music but I am forcing myself to wait until after my last day of candidacy exams (November 19th). Then it’s ON. Normally I try to hold out until Black Friday but after 18 hours of comps, I feel I will have earned a little Frosty the Snowman.

So how are you celebrating Halloween? Are you dressing up this year?

love, elizabeth

Halloween H20: The One With All the Famous People

We are so close. Have you missed any recaps? You can catch up here or by clicking on the tab at the top of the page.

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So remember way back in Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers when we learn that Jamie Lee Curtis aka Laurie Strode died in a car accident? Well, guess what, you guys…Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t die in a car accident. No. She faked her own death and went into hiding. 20 years later, she is living under an assumed name, Keri Tate, and also she’s a principal at an isolated boarding school. She teaches classes in literature (nice continuity from the original film) and, totally coincidentally, her students are reading Frankenstein and have really keen literary insights like, “Everyone the doctor loves is dead so he can finally confront his monster face to face.” Jamie Lee Curtis is understandably a traumatized wreck after being almost murdered by her brother for two whole movies (or one very long Halloween night depending on how you look at it) so even though her son, Josh Hartnett, is going all Little Mermaid on her: “I’m 17 years old! Stop trying to control me! I need to live my own life! I need to be free to go camping with my friends at Yellowstone National Park or wherever! Excuse me whilst I make out with my girlfriend, future Oscar-winner, Michelle Williams!” Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis’ old nurse gets her house broken into and the neighbor boy, future dreamboat Joseph Gordon-Levitt, tries to be helpful but is killed with a hockey skate to the face. This is the 7th movie in the franchise. Michael Myers ain’t messing around. So Michael kills the nurse and pretty much everyone else that gets in his way and steals the Laurie Strode file which obviously explains how he can find her after all this time. Does anyone else feel like this movie is trying too hard to actually provide a feasible explanation for Michael Myers’ abilities? You seriously do not have to worry about this, Director Steve Miner. I don’t know if you saw Halloween III, sir, but in it, the bad guy steals Stonehenge and sets it up inside his toy factory so he can take over the world. Just saying. Side issue: there is a fairly creepy scene where Michael steals a woman’s car keys and her car while she and her daughter are in the rest room, reminding me why I never stop at deserted rest stops NO MATTER HOW BADLY I HAVE TO PEE. YOU CAN TOTALLY GET MURDERED THAT WAY. Meanwhile…LL Cool J is apparently the entire campus security system for this boarding school. But that’s just his day job because he actually really wants to be a screenwriter. He spends the first half of the movie on the phone with his special lady reading the sexy thriller screenplay he wrote. Hey, we’ve all got a dream. But obviously LL Cool J is very distracted and isn’t paying a whole lot of attention to his security guard duties. Again, the film feels it necessary to explain how Michael Myers is able to calmly stroll in through the front gates without being noticed. I’d really hate it if I felt like this film was straining credibility. And it’s about this point when Jamie Lee Curtis decides to tell the guidance counselor, who is also her boyfriend, about how her name isn’t really Keri Tate and how her brother is actually a crazed serial killer who goes cuckoo on Halloween and her boyfriend is like, “Hahaha, JLC, you are soooooooo funny!” And Jamie Lee is like, “I’m not even a little joking.” He is really, really surprised. So then Michael shows up and, as he is wont to do, he kills some teenagers that get trapped in a dumb waiter (because their school is old and creepy and this is a Halloween movie, remember?). Scary piano music, blood, stabbing – it’s a whole big thing. Josh Hartnett is suddenly like, “Uh-oh, my nut-job Mom was totally right!” and he and Michelle Williams go screaming across campus and almost get murdered because Michelle can’t figure out which key on her enormous key ring unlocks the dorm. But then Jamie Lee Curtis and the guidance counselor save them and Michael sees Jamie and it is ON. Because now she is sooooooooooo going confront her monster face to face. So she makes all the surviving people, like her son and Michelle Williams, get in the car and drive away and then she starts screaming, “MICHAELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!” super loud. Which seems a touch unnecessary since Michael always knows where people are but whatever. He chases her around and then falls out of a window and he’s dead. And the police are like, “Well, I’m glad that’s finally over,” and then Jamie Lee Curtis steals an ax and the coroner’s van and is like, “No one move!” and she drives off with Michael’s dead body. Except, of course, it’s not his dead body. It’s his totally alive body and he is trying to get out of the body bag and so Jamie Lee crashes the van and Michael gets pinned between the van and a tree and he reaches out his hand to his sister and she starts to reach back and for one glimmering second you think, is this what it’s all come down to? A touching moment of redemption between evil serial killer brother and functioning alcoholic sister? But then Jamie Lee Curtis whacks off Michael’s head with the ax. Credits.

Okay, for the reals…he has to be dead now right? How is there another movie? Still to come…the final film in the Halloween franchise (minus the two Rob Zombie remakes I am going to watch at a later date). Halloween: Resurrection. Stay tuned.

love, elizabeth

Girl Confessions!

Time for another post on all things pop culture or otherwise too silly to get their own post. Sooo much to talk about today…

1. Lady-bachelorhood. Kyle’s flying back west for a few days to see our family in Colorado. Cons: I have to walk the dog by myself in the cold, almost-November weather. Half the bed will be totally empty. There will be no one to insist that I come to bed at 3 am when I’m still studying. Who will watch scary movies with me so that I can pretend they’re funny and not scary? Pros: I can listen to whatever terrible 90’s dance pop I feel like without any background sighs/snorts/derisive laughter from el-husbando. Like this. Or this. Zero guilt if I eat string cheese and Wheat-Thins for dinner every night.

2. I hate myself for claiming romantic feelings for inanimate objects when I have a perfectly good husband for that but…I’m having romantic feelings for these boots.

I can’t help it. I’ve been saving the gift card from my birthday (thank you, Mama!) for the arrival of adorable snow boots…and here they are. And they’re 60% off. I’m so glad this love will not go unrequited. I’ll let you know when they arrive. Be forewarned, Ohio winter. I come shod in cuteness.

3a. Omg, can we PLEASE talk about Nashville? Please tell me I am not the only person who is obsessed with this show! So gooooooooooood…I came for the Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), I stayed for the soapy plot points, the original songs, and for Maisy and Lennon Stella. If you don’t have cable, do not fear. The Nashville is available on the Hulu. And no one even paid me to say that.

3b. So let’s talk about Maisy and Lennon and why they’re the best thing ever. First of all, watch their adorable covers of I Won’t Give Up and Call Your Girlfriend. I would love them at any age but it’s amazing to me that they’re only 12 and 8. Here’s a clip of the sisters on Nashville. I dare you to not be utterly charmed.

4. This new obsession with horror movie franchises. Guys…it turns out that I love cheesy slasher films.Trust me, I’m just as surprised as you are. Now that I’m almost done reviewing all 10 of the Halloween films, I’m plotting my next series. On my hit list: Friday the 13th (there are 12 of these movies…so I guess this is going to be a long-term commitment), Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Children of the Corn, and Leprechaun (I am particularly looking forward to Leprechaun 4: In Space). Did I miss any big horror franchise that you’d like to see recapped?

5. My newsprint copy of the LUSH catalogue just arrived, triggering some kind of Pavlovian Christmas response inside of me. If you didn’t know, I wrap everything I give in LUSH newsprint. I’m sure that’s not why they send me the catalogue but…yeah. Get your free copy here.

love, elizabeth

Halloween VI: The Curse of the Irish, I mean…Michael Myers

Halloween is mere days away and we’re on the home stretch! Be sure to check out the recaps for Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

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I’m actually not entirely sure what happened in this movie. When last we left Haddonfield, New Jersey, Michael Myers had escaped from jail. It’s 7-ish years later and this is the one where the screenwriter tries to explain/justify all the hijinks of the first five movies. Haddonfield is now like that town in Footloose except Halloween is banned and not dancing and there’s no John Lithgow (which is really too bad for everyone involved). We open on an…abandoned hospital/warehouse? where the teenage niece of Michael Myers, Jamie, is giving birth…(btw, we never get a straight answer about the baby daddy but whatever). Then the baby is taken away from her so that it can be sacrificed or cursed by Druids…or something. In case you’ve been reading all of these recaps and wondering a) why Michael Myers has made family-murder his life’s work or b) how Michael Myers continues to live and breathe after being shot, stabbed, drowned, beaten, burned up in multiple fires/explosions, and buried alive, it’s very simple: Michael Myers was born under a weird celestial convergence, the sign of Thorn (an ancient demon curse). And because we all know the Irish are to blame for everything…we find out that on Samhain, the Druids would pick a family line to sacrifice in order to save everyone else. Duh! Jamie manages to take her baby and escape from the robe-wearing cult people and then Michael shows up because he has scary-good timing and also because we have a lot of ground to cover so we need to get to the killing. Jamie manages to flee to the (like everything else in Haddonfield) deserted bus station and call…a radio station? The radio deejay has spent the majority of his time on the air making tasteless Michael Myers jokes until Jamie calls and is all like, “I need help! Michael Myers is back! Dr. Loomis, are you out there?” And honestly…if it was ANY OTHER PERSON ON THE PLANET, I would be like, “Jamie, sweetheart, you are living in a dream world if you think that an old psychiatrist is sitting at home on Halloween listening to shock jock radio just in case you call in” but this is Dr. Loomis and his crazy knows no bounds. Then Michael Myers arrives and Jamie hides her baby in a cabinet in the ladies’ room (a perfectly reasonable place to hide a baby, in my opinion) and he chases her to a barn where he kills her on a corn thresher but not before she’s all, “You can’t have my baby, Michael.” Michael really, really doesn’t like it when people tell him what’s what so he goes on another killing rampage while he searches for the newborn. Meanwhile, Tommy Doyle is all grown-up. You don’t remember Tommy Doyle probably because I probably didn’t mention him but Tommy Doyle was the kid that Jamie Lee Curtis babysits in the first movie. He’s a teenager by Halloween IV and now he’s…Paul Rudd. Paul Rudd/Tommy Doyle is basically a first-degree paranoid nut who lives in an attic and spies on the neighborhood, listening to the police scanner and recording everything. He’s pretty interested in killing Michael Myers and has been waiting all this time for Michael’s return (sheesh, at least SOMEONE besides Dr. Loomis gets it!) Also meanwhile (did I mention there are a lot of side stories in this movie?), Kara and her son have moved back in with her parents. This is bad times because Kara’s dad is extremely abusive, like…Lifetime channel movie abusive, and he spends most of the film slapping Kara around and calling her son a bastard until he gets killed by Michael (I shed no tears). Oh, did I forget to mention Kara’s family’s last name? It’s Strode. As in Laurie Strode. As in…the family that adopted Laurie Myers after her family was massacred by Michael. What a crazy random happenstance. Tommy finds the baby in the cabinet at the bus station and names it Steven and then he and the retired Dr. Loomis spend the rest of the movie trying to save Kara and her son and the baby from Michael who chases them to another creepy abandoned hospital (I feel like Haddonfield needs to stop building these) where we find out that this other doctor has been doing experiments on pregnant women to somehow implant and control the Druid curse in order to harness its power. And stuff. He and some other doctors are doing some secret medical experiments involving genetic mutation and fetuses or something but then Michael kills all of them. So that’s cool. Then Tommy beats Michael Myers with a lead pipe. And just when you think all the main characters are totally going to survive this, Dr. Loomis is like, “Uh, yeah, I have some stuff to take care of…in the creepy hospital…with the serial killer. Okay, bye.” Dr. Loomis shouting. Credits.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. It’s coming.

love, elizabeth

October-ly

It’s almost the end of October. How did that happen so fast?? But not so fast, winter!! I have another few weeks before I have to actually remember that you exist. Right? I do, right? My exams are now just 3 weeks away. I’m starting to look forward to it a little bit. Kyle’s heading to Colorado this weekend to visit his family since we won’t be able to spend the holidays with them. I’m going to miss him but I’m also a teensy bit excited to be a lady bachelor for a few nights. I’m expecting it to be heavy on the cheap wine and N’SYNC solo-dance party.

love, elizabeth

a puppy playing in leaves…need I say more?

Apparently Madigan’s definition of “enjoying the fall color” is snacking on leaves. And then gacking them up all over the living room carpet. Nice, Madigan. Real classy.

love, elizabeth

Days of fall fly faster

The fall colors have been incredible in Ohio this year and so Kyle and I snuck away to eat lunch at the park and play in the leaves. I’m really glad I didn’t forget my camera because the light was so great.

I needed a little bit of sunshine this week. ESPECIALLY because…according to the forecaster…we may be seeing our first SNOW next weekend. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.

Madigan was such a funny fuzzball the whole time we were there and I took so many pictures of her that I’m going to give her her own post.

Are you getting to spend any time out of doors before the real cold hits?

love, elizabeth

This is for a girl

This is just a note for a girl who does brave things;

She does them all the time.

A girl who smiles with her eyes

And laughs big, even at bad jokes.

For a girl who is super-hero-viking-warrior-strong.

You know the worst thing about being strong?

People forget that sometimes she doesn’t feel like being strong or tough or a super-hero-viking-warrior.

This is for that girl.

This is just a note I wrote for a girl who does brave things.

She makes me brave, too.

If you could blog a note to someone you love today, who would it be?
love, elizabeth

The best and worst thing about being married

 

There is nothing like a late-night phone call to remind you that life is fragile, time is short, and no one but God knows the future.

The other night, in the middle of a small family crisis, I was reminded of that thing that is so hard to explain about marriage. Sitting on the floor next to Kyle as he made frantic phone calls to various family members, watching his forehead wrinkle in worry, his calloused fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, his mouth pursed in a hard line, I thought, “This is what is so hard about being married. You aren’t just sharing a house, a bank account, a last name…you’re taking on every fear, every crisis, every unknown as if it was yours at birth.” There’s something frightening about that and comforting, too.

“I’m scared,” I whispered in Kyle’s ear.

He nodded.

I squeezed his hand. “I’m here,” I said. “I’ll be here no matter what, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Somehow marriage doubles our fears and halves them at the same time.

A couple weeks ago, Kyle took me to dinner and I poured out my stresses on him. “I’m worried about this exam,” I told him. “I have so much to read and it feels like the time is slipping away and I’m not doing enough.”

“Just remember you’re not all alone,” he said. “I’m right here.”

Every joy is doubled; every pain is, too. And still, it makes me feel braver as we sit here on the floor by the couch, our shoulders and heads bent towards each other, waiting to hear good news, or bad news, or any news, at all. The best part and the worst part about being married is sitting here, holding your hand in the dark.

love, elizabeth

Halloween IV and V: Michael Myers Is the Worst Boyfriend Ever

At this point, you know the drill. No prison can hold him, no man can kill him. “I prayed that he would burn in hell but I knew, in my heart, that hell would have not him.” Apparently, Michael Myers is also too evil for hell. You can also read the recaps for Halloween I, Halloween II, or Halloween III: Season of the Witch. IF YOU DARE…

*SPOILER WARNING

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Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers

Aaaaaaaaaaand after a short entre-acte involving…Stonehenge…(???)…we’re back to Michael Myers who is all unconscious from being burned alive in the hospital 10 years earlier. I really feel like we can blame the majority of this movie on the chatty paramedics who are all like, “Lalala, let’s have an exposition party in the ambulance with the unconscious Mike Myers!” so they spend a bunch of time talking about how Michael’s sister (Jamie Lee Curtis, if you’ll recall) died in a car accident (OMGGGGGGGGGG) and her daughter Jamie Junior is now in foster care. And this news is apparently so jolting that it wakes Michael Myers from his fire-coma and he is way overdue for bloodshed so he kills the paramedics and crashes the ambulance. Jamie Jr. keeps seeing visions of Michael Myers so she’s pretty freaked out. But peer pressure knows no bounds so when all of the other kids are like, “haha, jamie’s a scaredy cat! also her uncle is a serial killer, nanananabooboo,” Jamie decides she has to go trick-or-treating like the other kids and must, inexplicably, wear a clown costume identical to the one Michael Myers wore 20 years previous. Meanwhile, Jamie’s foster sister is like, “Crap, having an adopted sister is totally cramping my style, how am I supposed to get smoochy with my boyfriend?” But it doesn’t really matter because her boyfriend is a super sleaze who is making it with the sheriff’s daughter (so, of course, they’re both going to die). Actually, pretty much everyone dies in this movie, except Jamie Jr. and the doctor. Did I forget to mention the doctor is back? Well, he is, and once again, he spends most of the movie running around town with his gigantic pistol and yelling at the incompetent law enforcement. You know…the ushe. Michael Myers ends up crashing his car into an abandoned mine. But then Jamie decides she needs to touch his hand…because I know whenever my uncle chases me all over town on Halloween trying to stab me, that’s what I do…and OMG, SHE IS NOW PSYCHICALLY POSSESSED BY MICHAEL MYERS. Then she tries to stab her foster mother with scissors. The end…and Michael Myers is definitely dead this time. For real. ….

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Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers

So after Halloween IV, the little girl is super traumatized over the whole my uncle-is-a-serial-killer thing so they put her in a hospital for disturbed children (they apparently have one of those in Haddonfield, New Jersey). So while she’s busy being psychically connected to Michael Myers, Michael is busy waking up from his like…eighteenth coma. And because of Jamie’s creepy powers, she can now predict who Michael is going to kill next because she can see inside his mind and…stuff. I don’t know, they don’t really explain this very well. This movie has one of my all-time favorite Michael Myers moments of the entire franchise so far in which he shows up in a sleek black sports car, pretending to be the slutty babysitter’s dirtbag boyfriend (who he has already dismembered) and she gets in the car and starts yelling at him about how he’s a terrible boyfriend. And for some reason he doesn’t kill her. Then when she yells at him to stop at the gas station so she can buy cigarettes…he does. Michael, are you losing your killer instinct? Oh yeah, and the crazy doctor is back and has decided to use Jamie Jr. (who is like 8 years old, by the way) as BAIT FOR THE SERIAL KILLER. So they hang out in Michael’s childhood home and the doctor’s like, “Hey Jamie, brush your hair like Michael’s sister was doing when he, you know, MURDERED HER” and Jamie Jr. is like “Omg, this doctor is crazy and I feel that there is an inordinate amount of pressure on me to help catch a murderer but whatever.” And then Michael shows up and stuff goes down. And Jamie Jr. runs up to the attic where Michael has apparently been sleeping…in a coffin…and, like any sane eight year old, she lays down in it. And then Michael comes upstairs and just as he’s about to stab her, she says, “Uncle?” AND THEN SHE TAKES OFF HIS MASK and we see a single tear on his cheek. And they have a tender half of a second before Michael is like OMG NO I AM EVIL!!! And then the doctor beats him with a stick. And the police take him into custody. And he is totally locked up forever…until like five minutes later when Jamie somehow ends up at the police station that has…exploded…and Michael’s cell is empty. Credits. For real.

Next up…Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers.

love, elizabeth

Constructive Criticism and other kinds of spam

I don’t know how this bitty blog has done it, exactly, but we have hit the spam jackpot. I made the decision a few months ago to disable the word verification option for the blog but that means that my inbox is flooded with spam comments from Anonymous. Anonymous kind of has a one track mind. Its primary focus is geared around my seeming need for cheap Viagra. I really like feel like Anonymous has a pulse on its key demographic, by the way.

And sometimes Anonymous sends me short messages like this: “Here's a the cheapest down jacket sales.Come on.
canada goose parka”

…No, YOU come on.

Sometimes, though…Anonymous gets personal:

“I think everything said was actually very reasonable.
But, what about this? suppose you added a little content?
I am not saying your information is not good, but what if you added something that
grabbed folk's attention? I mean "Computer says, cough, cough" is a little boring. You should peek at Yahoo's
home page and see how they create article headlines to get viewers to
click. You might try adding a video or a related pic or two to get readers interested about everything've written. In my opinion, it might make your posts a little livelier. Here’s a link to my site: cheaplaptops.fakewebsite.net”

Dude. Not cool. If you’re going to troll my website, at least have the decency to suck up to me like the valium peddlers and the Nigerian princes who want me to claim my inheritance! Come on. Canada goose parka!

What’s your favorite kind of spam?

love, elizabeth

Girl Confessions

1. You guys, sometimes I study. And sometimes…I watch adorable things like this on the internet. I feel like Zac Efron and Elmo need their own YouTube channel.

Am I wrong?

2. I am on the Instagram now so if you’d like to be Instagram buddies, look me up and stuff. I mostly take pictures like this.

Want to be a part of it?

3. This is like the coziest song for a cold autumn night. Light some candles, put on a cardigan and press play.

 

4. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday but I am sooooooooo not okay with it being just on the other side of a month from now. Nope.

5. Sometimes on my way to work, I pretend I’m auditioning for The Voice. I have it all planned out. I would sing a really unique, indie-style cover of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and Adam Levine would be like, “I think you’re such a unique artist and I really love that song” and then Blake Shelton would be all, “That wouldn’t happen to be a COUNTRY song, would it? Cause I know a little a somethin’ about country music.” And then I would tell them both that I was so honored that they pushed their buttons for me but that I have to go with Cee Lo Green because I feel like he really gets my quirky musical sensibilities. Great story, right?

6. I have really missed blogging but I am finally feeling it again. So glad to be inspired. In honor of that inspiration, I did a little blog re-design. What do you think?

Your turn. Confession for the week?

love, elizabeth

Fall Swap

So excited to be linking up with Kristin over at Vignettes today! Kristin has been hosting an awesome fall swap this month and today we finally get to show off all of the fall goodies our swap buddies sent us! My package from Emily over at Husband and Wife was totally amazing. I was so touched by the amount of thought she put into this box. I will never stop being amazed at how much you can connect with someone you’ve only met through the internet. She went out of her way to send me thoughtful, unique fall surprises and I loved everything.

Emily sent me a pumpkin carving kit which is PERFECT because we just bought our pumpkins for Halloween and I am planning a carving night here in the next weekend or so. Also, who knew they made pumpkin-patch Pop Rocks? And how did Emily know that I love Pop Rocks??

She also sent me this cozy yellow scarf which I have been wearing to class a lot since it’s just starting to get cold here in Ohio. Which is why I am extra, super-duper excited about this cook book! I love making soup but I sometimes get stuck making the same two or three recipes over and over so I’m totally jazzed about learning to make something new. I’ll definitely post a recipe/review once I’ve tried something out!

In case you didn’t already know, Emily is also amazingly talented and creative. Look at these beautiful cards she made! I love personalized stationery and I am already using it. Emily, you’re probably way too busy these days to start a business but I would totally buy these cards if I saw them in a store. Just saying…

And she tucked in this beautiful candle that smells like someone bottled everything I love about fall into a tin and mailed it to me. So good.

Emily, it was an absolute joy to swap fall boxes with you and, if you want to, I will totally send you a box again next year!

Kristin, you are awesome for hosting this – it was a wonderful experience.

If you haven’t had a chance to meet Emily or Kristin, I encourage you to go visit them now! What fall treats are you loving right now?

love, elizabeth

Blog Birthday

Tomorrow this blog is turning two years old and in honor of that, I thought I’d share some of my favorite posts from the last year. Love you guys.

Love Letters

The Junk Mail Christmas Tree

The Day My Blog Became a Woman

Breakfast is an Occasion

Dropping the Ball

How to Pack a Suitcase

poetry found in laundry room

We are Travelers Together

How to be a rom-com heroine

the formation of giant star clusters or how Elizabeth got a peaceful feeling

Coffee

elizabeth

The Halloween Project: Halloween III

This is our third day into the project (check out recaps of Halloween and Halloween II) and we’re about to recap Halloween III: Season of the Witch. It doesn’t get more nuanced or complex than this. I spoke to a resident film buff named Brock who told me that originally, the plan was for each Halloween film to have a different theme/story but that Michael Myers was so popular, he became the recurring villain. Season of the Witch is the only departure from the Mike Myers saga. So. excited. Hold onto your face masks, this gets complicated.*

*SPOILER WARNING

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A crazy old dude with a Halloween mask is admitted to the hospital and treated for injuries before he is killed by evil zombie/robot men in suits. The doctor who treats him, Daniel Challis, has a moustache. This is how you know he will be a main character. Dr. Moustache already has lots of problems, mainly that he is an alcoholic and that his ex-wife hates him and doesn’t want him to see his kids. But when Dr. Moustache meets crazy old dude’s daughter, Ellie (we’ll just call her Barely Legal), he decides he doesn’t have enough on his plate, what with the whole being a doctor and having a moustache thing, and so he and Barely Legal decide to investigate the death of her father. This, they decide, is obviously related to the cheap Halloween mask he is wearing from some placed called the Silver Shamrock Novelty Company. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention…John Carpenter hates Irish people. Dr. Moustache and Barely Legal drive out to the factory town of Santa Mira and check into a kitschy motel where they proceed to have weirdly edited, oddly censored 80’s love scenes. In the end, it turns out that the factory is a cover for an old Irish witch-druid dude named Colonel Cochran, who is nothing like his fellow officer, Colonel Sanders. Somehow Cochran has stolen Stonehenge and installed it in his factory. You’ll never guess how he did it! No, really. You’ll never guess. He says that and then he never, ever explains himself. When all the children of the world turn on their televisions for the Silver Shamrock Corporation’s big broadcast event, they will put on their masks, which are somehow linked via computer chip to…Stonehenge…and this…makes their heads explode and spiders and snakes crawl out of their eye sockets (it’s like your mom said, tv will rot your brain). What is Colonel Cochran’s reason for this nefariousness? Does he need a reason? No, really. He wants to know and then no one is able to answer him so he’s like, “This is an ancient sacrificial blood rite on the holiday of Samhain” (because, as we learned in Halloween II, Samhain is the Irish tradition whereupon we kill children and/or sexy teenagers because that’s the Gaelic way! Kiss us, we’re Irish!) and Dr. Moustache is all like tormented and sad and also apparently has 49 minutes before the broadcast so he foot-smashes the television set and escapes into the air ducts and rescues Barely Legal and they dump mask devices on the robots and on Colonel Cochran and this makes all their heads explode. And then Barely Legal and Dr. Moustache drive away while cartoon orange flames light up the night sky (because the factory is now on fire, did I forget to mention that part?). But OMG HUUUUUUUUUGE TWIST, BARELY LEGAL HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A ROBOT BY THE LATE COLONEL COCHRAN AND SHE IS TRYING TO STRANGLE DR. MOUSTACHE! It’s cool, though, because he whacks off her head with a tire iron and gets back in his car but OMG, HE FORGOT THAT HER DISLOCATED ARM IS IN THE PASSENGER SEAT AND IT CAN STILL STRANGLE HIM SOMEHOW! So then he throws it. And it’s all okay. And then he goes to a gas station and somehow convinces the Head of All Television Everywhere that they can’t air the big Silver Shamrock Corporation Broadcast of Doom because it will kill all the children and they totally believe him and cancel the broadcast except OMG THEY TOTALLY FORGOT THE THIRD CHANNEL (THERE ARE ONLY THREE) AND THERE ARE CHILDREN AND THEY ARE WATCHING THIS AND DR. MOUSTACHE IS LIKE, TURN IT OFF YOU HAVE TO TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!! Bam. Credits.

Is your mind as blown as mine is right now? Gaelic Halloween spiders!!?! Side note: some internet research is telling me that the villain’s name is actual Conal Cochran, not Colonel Cochran but I, a) heard colonel not conal, and b) like my version better. Halloween IV…Thursday…be there….

love, elizabeth

The Halloween Project: Halloween II

Yesterday, I shared my 90-second recap of John Carpenter’s Halloween. It’s part of our Halloween project this October. We’re reviewing all the films in the Halloween franchise. Ready for the sequel? Dun, dun, dun.*

*SPOILER WARNING

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This movie picks up about 45 seconds after the first Halloween ended. The doctor runs out into the street to the sheriff’s car, shouting, “I shot him six times! And now he’s gone!” And this right here is basically the entire premise of the film. If you think Michael Myers is dead, you are wrong. So they take Jamie Lee Curtis, who is so traumatized that she spends the majority of this movie shivering and moaning and not doing a whole lot of talking, to what has to be the worst hospital in the entire United States. Haddonfield Memorial Hospital apparently shuts down at like 8 PM on Halloween and just leaves like one nurse in charge of all the babies while two paramedics and a drunk doctor run the emergency room. This means that Jamie Lee Curtis gets plenty of attention, especially from Jimmy, the sensitive “college boy” paramedic. He’s super different than his macho partner who likes to get cozy with nurses in the therapy steam in the hospital basement (this is apparently a really good way to get murdered, in case you were wondering, so…no sexy time in hospital basements unless you want Michael Myers to kill you). Speaking of M.M., everyone else in town, including the sheriff and the doctor, spend the majority of the movie freaking out about him maybe being not dead. They drive around a lot, looking for Michael. They find a word written in blood, “SAMHAIN” and then the doctor explains how the Irish invented Halloween and how evil doesn’t exist in goblins and ghosts but in our darkest selves. Meanwhile, Jamie Lee Curtis is having sedative-induced flashback dreams about this boy named Michael and then OMG WE FIND OUT THAT JAMIE LEE CURTIS IS TOTALLY MICHAEL’S OTHER SISTER AND THAT SHE WAS ADOPTED AFTER HER PARENTS WERE MURDERED!! The last third of the movie is mostly Michael calmly stalking Jamie Lee Curtis around the hospital. He keeps getting stabbed and shot and burned alive until right at the end when he’s totally dead and Jamie Lee Curtis is like, why is this hospital so dark and empty and why is the law enforcement so completely incompetent and how on earth did I get the only hospital gown in history that is NOT backless and embarrassing? Credits.

I feel like these movies are just going to get better and better. Halloween III coming tomorrow…

love, elizabeth

The Halloween Project

When Kyle and I spotted all the Halloween films on VHS at one of my favorite thrift stores, I decided to watch the entire series from start to finish.This led to one of our greatest date nights ever. I think we would probably be really annoying people to watch scary movies with because we spent the entire time doing a running commentary under the dialogue. So here’s my little Halloween project, 90-second summaries of every Halloween movie in the franchise. Aaaaaaaaaaaand go!*

*SPOILER WARNING

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On a rainy night, a nurse and a doctor drive to an insane asylum, as you do, to discover that the insane are no longer safely asylum-ed but are now wandering around. This is a huge uh-oh because the psychopathic Michael Myers was supposed to be locked up there. Michael Myers’ main issues seem to revolve around his overwhelming need to breathe heavily into his mask, stand outside of well-lit windows and murder all physically amorous teenagers in the approximate area. Meanwhile, it’s totes magotes Halloween and Jamie Lee Curtis is a hot, book-loving virgin who is too busy babysitting children and taking care of her incredibly stupid teenage friends (who spend the majority of their time having sex, planning to have sex, and making fun of every one who is not having sex) to even THINK about boys. The doctor shows up in town and is all like, “Omg, Sheriff! I have looked into the devil’s eyes!” And the sheriff is like, “Someone broke into the hardware store and stole some masks and some rope and some knives. Those kids and their crazy Halloween hijinks!”  And Michael Myers spends the majority of the day driving around town, creeping on Jamie Lee and randomly standing by clotheslines. Then it gets dark and Michael gets to murdering. His triggers are apparently female nudity and this song. Michael’s only weaknesses are being stabbed with knitting needles and girls who read books because somehow Jamie Lee continues to avoid getting dead AND continues to be a super responsible babysitter. And just when she’s about to be strangled for reals, the doctor shows up and shoots Michael Myers six. times. with his revolver that he apparently carries with him for his…psychiatric duties? And then Jamie Lee Curtis is all, “It really was the boogey man” and the doctor is like, “As a matter of fact, it was.” And then he goes to look out the window to stare at Michael Myers’ dead body and OMGMICHAELMYERSISTOTALLYNOTHEREANYMORE. Credits.

Stay tuned for the 90-second version of Halloween II…tomorrow.

Do you watch horror movies? Do you have a favorite?

love, elizabeth

oh, look. a blogger talking about picking apples…your mind is blown, I’m sure.

Saturday was one of those perfect days. We got to sleep in and when we woke up, without the aid of an alarm clock, there was an adorable ball of fuzz peeking out from under the covers. At Caribou, the barista put exactly the right amount of syrup in my pumpkin latte. The car radio played three good songs in a row and it was a perfect 68-70 degrees all day. The whole drive to Pataskala, we held hands and told jokes and ranted about the election and smiled at each other and it was a perfect day.

This is our fourth autumn in Ohio and, hands down, our favorite thing about Midwest autumns is apple-picking at Lynd’s Fruit Farm. You may remember the apple juggling from last year?

Awww, that smile…oh-em-gee, you guys…so in love with him.

Are those not the most beautiful vegetables you have ever SEEN? We even found cheese cauliflower, which is deceptively NOT cheesy but just cheese-colored.

So now that I have gloated in my perfect autumn bliss, tell me what you’re doing to celebrate October where you live!

love, elizabeth