Friday, November 9, 2012

Halloween Happenings in and around Manitou

So I just love the little town of Manitou Springs.  Such a sense of whimsy in this place.  They held coffin races on the 26th of October.  Teams of 4, dressed as anything they wished, pushed a coffin of their own making (containing a live person dress as Emma Crawford) down Manitou's main drag.  The crowds were huge and the races hard to see.  Some coffins were very fast while other couldn't be pushed in a straight line.  I think the wheel fell off of one entry.  Anyhow, the town was full of great costumes and lots of merriment.  Here are some pictures of some of the odder things I saw that day.
This scary fellow came to the races

What a costume


My sister with a coffin
Everybody was driving one of these - too cool

This coffin team got second

Another coffin team

Monday, October 22, 2012

Emma Rides Again

Emma Crawford Festival


This weekend I plan to take my out of town guests to the coffin races. Since 1994, the community of Manitou Springs has memorialized Emma Crawford by holding coffin races.

Emma came to Manitou Springs for the miracle mineral springs in 1889. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which back then was a death sentence. Unfortunately, she lost her battle on December 4, 1891, at the age of 19. Her dying wish was to be buried on top of Red Mountain. Her fiance, William Hildebrand (a civil engineer on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway), and eleven other men carried her body up the 7,200 ft. slope. In 1929, after years of stormy weather, her remains washed down the side of the mountain. Only her casket handles, a nameplate and a few bones were found. Some say she haunts Red Mountain.

Emma was buried some years later in Manitou Springs Cemetery in an unmarked grave. A grave marker was erected in 2004 by Historic Manitou Springs, Inc. to honor her life.

Now, the townspeople honor her every year in late October with The Emma Crawford Festival.

The 18th Annual Coffin Race and Parade takes place on October 27th, 2012, from 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm.





Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Halloween gifts from some fine friends

I was recently given two Halloween gifts.  I have to say that I am not in much of a halloween spirit this year as I am still trying to organize from my move.  But these gifts got me excited about fall. The first was a lovely bracelet from dear Michele  and the second a pair of votive holders from my Brother in law Chris. Thank you both!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Leaving my happy houston haunt

Well it almost time to say goodbye to my home of 10 years and move to another.  It is a bittersweet parting as I leave many great friends behind.  I have had some great times in Texas, have weathered a few hurricanes and a few floods, have raised a child here, and have almost spent as much of my life in the lone star state as anywhere else.

With that, I would like to pay tribute to some of my favorite things about Texas.

1. Friends - I have great friends here - friends who party and dress up and party somemore. They are a great group and if I look for the rest of my days, I won't be able to replace them. With that said here they are in some pictures


 





2. My Garden - Yes I will  miss my big backyard even though it is a ton of work.  It is beautiful and we spent many a pleasant winter evening out there around the fire pit watching for birds and listening to KPFT.  Adios all my beautiful flowers.  I hope the family who bought the house has a clue.











3. The Birds
If you love birds, Texas has them.  If you love birding, you can see more birds here than perhaps anywhere else in the US.





Finally, I love St. Arnolds Brewery, the winter weather, my riding instructor and the vintage HEB


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

World's Scariest Foods

Months of Silence and then two posts in fifteen minutes.  Actually, I have been sitting on this for a awhile. Anyone fancy some maggot infested cheese?  How about some worm eggs cooked into a creamy soup?  Or perhaps my favorite the fried Spider. Yum! Yum!  I wonder where I can get some of these for my next Halloween Shindig? 

http://www.delish.com/food-fun/scary-food

Long time no post

Hello Friends and fellow bloggers!  I have been frightfully remiss on keeping up with your blogs and with mine lately.  Truth is I am moving.  So spring has been a whirlwind of cleaning a house, repairing a house, listing a house, buying another house, negotiating a contract on a house and packing a house.  Needless to say, my blog has been Lady M's sadly neglected parlor with nothing spooky going on.  Hopefully, since this will all be done by the end of August, I might be able to put my head into Halloween at least for the fall.

Anyhow, took some cool pictures at Fraziers back in March.  We popped in on our way to Washington on the Brazos and enjoyed the wide variety of creepy sculpture sold there.  If you ever get to Texas it is off of Hwy 290 in Hemstead Tx.








Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Lady M's haunted giveaway

Hi folks-

I am trying to clear stuff out of my house and have something I would like to re-home.  They are two Harry Potter signs painted by me.  One is for the Hogshead Pub and the other for Dervish and Bangs.  I painted them for a Harry Potter party ages ago, but as all the kids are grown and gone away, I cannot see using them again. They are supposed to be in the style of old English pub signs, painted the same on both sides so you can hang them perpendicular to the wall. If you live anywhere near the Houston metro area and would like them, they are yours.  Otherwise, they might be kind of pricey to shipped.  We'll have to discuss that. Here are some pictures:

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Now that's what I call a shoe

Look at these wacky shoes.  Wouldn't they be great at Halloween or really anytime you wanted to freak out half the population of the US?  I only hope tarantulas did not have to die to make them.   Maybe it is alive cause I see bugs in there - perhaps that's dinner.
You can view more insane shoes at http://www.splendora.com/shoe_must_be_insane/tarantula_lucite_heel#content-jump

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

I hope you like balls

Happy Valentines Day Everyone.  I honor of you all, I have made cake balls to share.  This is an extremely easy recipe.  Bake a box red velvet cake.  When the cake is cool, crumble it up.  Add a can of cream cheese frosting.  Roll into little balls.  Put them in the fridge for a few hours.  Then roll them in melted chocolate and set them on wax paper.  What could be easier?

Monday, February 6, 2012

Faces on trees

Well hello to anyone who is reading.  Sorry I have not been blogging lately.  Finding the Halloween spririt in January is proving harder than I thought.  But I am enjoying watching all my fellow bloggers build props - it's pretty cool.  The other day however, I hung a tree face in the garden.


  It was a present from Lord M and as I was hanging it, I thought I wonder if anyone makes a spooky tree face.  So I did a little internet research and this is what I found.  Lots of spooky tree faces - some cheap some pricey, and some even talk.  Plus, there is a great tutorial at www.stolloween.com/?page_id=74 on making your own tree face out of paper mache. Hmm - I wonder if I put my mind to it, what kind of tree face I could make?

This guy talks.  He's available at Sears for $29.99
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/search_10153_12605?keyword=talking+tree+face+halloween

Poison oak is a Toscano product for $19.95
 http://search3.designtoscano.com/?D=poison+oak&N=0&Dk=0&Ntt=poison+oak
 
This one is available through Amazon for only 2.85 - such a deal.
 http://www.amazon.com/Screaming-Tree-Face-Halloween-Decoration/dp/B00589VOEO
 
available from Gardenfun.com for 19.95
http://www.gardenfun.com/nsearch.html?query=angry+tree+face

Friday, January 20, 2012

I haven't played tag since I was 10

I would like to thank BeWitchy for giving me something to Blog about.  I've been blog challenged lately trying to think of Halloween stuff in January so I appreciate her thinking of me. So I have been tagged and here is how it goes.  First I must post the rules:

1. Post these rules.
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post.
4. Create 3 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
5. Go to their blog and tell them that you have tagged them.
6. No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ blah blah blah, you legitimately have to tag 3 people!

So now I must post eleven random things about me.  Hmmm - this could be hard.

1.  Well if you can't guess from my blog, I love horses.  I have been riding for thirty years.  However, I still take a lot of lessons and need a lot of help because I can never be too balanced, soft and light for a horse.  I love everything about them - the way they smell, the way they feel and especially the velvet on the ends of their noses.




2.   I have alway liked weird underground music.  Before there was an internet, I used to go to record stores and search the albums for imports and weird stuff.  It's interesting that the bands I listened to are major influences for new bands. I could have sworn I was the only one listening.  The internet has bought weird communities like that together, hasn't it?



3. When we were little, my sisters and brother and I, used to make little people out of our chewing gum.  Then we would set them in the middle of the street and wait for cars to come by and smash them.  We would all sit on the curb and cheer.  We also used to put pennies on the railroad tracks and wait for the train to come and smashed those.  My mother almost had a heart attack years later when I told her we played on the railroad tracks!  Those were the days!

4.  I have lived in Canada, Switzerland, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas.  I only have to move out west and I will have lived in the North, South, East and West plus the Midwest!


5.  I will eat anything - even bugs! The only food I really don't like is liver and that's just a texture thing - make it into pate' and yum! yum!

6.  I love to garden and live in a climate where it is a 12 month-a -year hobby so I am always planting,weeding, fertilizing and cultivating.  I was told once that I was the only woman in Texas with a compost pile but I know that is simply not true - Bewitchy is starting one any day!



7.  I had to sit jury duty for a murder trial a few year back - that was really a difficult thing to do.  It is  a lot a responsibility to hold someone's fate in your hands.

8.  I am useless with technology - it's all I can do to manage this blog.  Don't ask me to answer your smart phone cause it isn't happening.

9. I have the best husband in the world.  And the best daughter. And the best sisters and nieces and nephew.  In fact, most of my family is pretty kick ass.

10.  I have never been able to spell.



11. I do, however, always know what direction I am facing and what approximate time it is.


So here are the three question posed by Bewitchy when she gave me this daunting task.

1. What fictional character do you pull the most inspiration from and why?

Hmm -this is hard.  There are lots of fictional characters I love but inspiration is tricky.  But the character I would most like to mirror is Elinor Dashwood in Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility.  I just like the way she behaves herself through the most trying of circumstances.  I wish I had more self control and spent more time thinking about others.

2. If you could transform into any kind of animal for one night, what would it be and what would be on your agenda?

Well this is a no brainer.  I would absolutely be a horse.  I would love to think like a horse, see like a horse, communicate like a horse and react like a horse.  Interactions with humans would be essential - I would love to see how humans made me feel.  What actions I understand and what puzzle me.  It would be great to get inside the brain of a horse for the night.

3. What is a lesson (or saying) that has always held true to you?

This one comes from the Laura Ingalls Wilder book "These Happy Golden Years" and it goes "a body makes his/her own luck be it good or bad".  I really believe this.  I really think we have a profound influence on what we experience during our lives good or bad.  I have known people who I think have had the worst luck and yet they turn negatives to positives.  It's part having a good attitude, part hard work, and part how one treats the world. Bad decisions, however, almost alway lead to bad luck.

Now I have to think of questions.  This could take another hour.

1.  If you had one day in your life you could live again, what would it be? Would you change anything?
2.  Who are the five people you would most like to dine with - dead or alive?
3.  What is your favorite way to spend a totally free Saturday?

I am tagging the following bloggers - I apologize if you have been tagged previously.

Pam Morris from http://labyrinthcreations.blogspot.com/  because she is super nice and so talented

Dee from http://deespookyone.blogspot.com/ because she alway has interesting goth content

Merricat from http://merricatblackwood.blogspot.com/ because she has an amazing grasp of the history and culture of the macabre.