Halloween Part 1.

We get very into decorations here, and with a halloween party planned, we had extra incentive. Plus with Lauren staying with us, we had extra talent!

We hung a sheet in our kitchen over some of the more happy domestic stuff, and put a strobe light behind it. This was the message that was revealed in subliminal message-type flashes. By Lauren.

The halloween cut out from a few years ago adapted to our new apartment's window.

Our witchy drink display: dry ice in the cauldron punch and bottles of wine with spooky labels.

Nathan and Lauren's baby: a dead body filled with delectable dips! PLUS, RED WINE CAME OUT OF THE NECK! Yes. They put a bag (from boxed wine) in the chest with the spout sticking out from our headless victim. Like blood. Muahaha.

During our halloween party, someone was like, where do you get all these creepy decorations? And I was like, well...most of this stuff was just already in my house. Like these silhouettes I cut of me and Nathan and this deer skull. Those are year-round baby. Just add spider webs.

collection of natural curiosities. also mostly just things I had lying around.

One of the built-ins I re-arranged for halloween, including rats, books, bugs, an antique lightbulb, flame-less candles, pumpkins, crows, and my great grandma's sewing machine.

Brain cupcakes. Got this idea from Martha.

I made Andy's bread and Nathan made his goat cheese-garlic spread. Also we sliced honey-crisp apples and served them with caramel dip.

I printed off lots of creepy Victorian photographs and had them displayed all around the house in place of our usual photos. Postmortem photography was very popular during this time, which produced many, many creepy images of dead people dressed up as if they were alive with their family. At the time it was simply because getting a portrait commissioned was expensive compared to sitting for a photograph, and so it was supposed to be a keepsake to remember the loved one by. But now it is just hella creepy.

The bookshelf is also re-arranged with flameless candles, specimens in jars, bones, teeth, and custom book covers lauren made for the occasion. 

Our gin and tonic laboratory!

And under black light. I filled those test-tubes with highlighters that I broke open and mixed with water.  It looked great, but was super messy. The green, yellow, and pink glowed best. Also that glowing bottle on the left is tonic--the quinine has natural black light glowing tendencies! 

The fridge

Another shot of the table--I shaved a beet and put it in a apothecary jar, and also put a cabbage in green-dyed water in another (although you can see that better in the picture of the food above)

Lauren also added ghosts she cut out of vellum to some of our architectural photos

Masks and blood on the family portraits

One of the many books lauren re-covered for the occasion.

some day-time close ups.

Recent Happenings!

Our friends Stephanie and James got married! Congratulations guys! We couldn't be there for the wedding in MI, but there was a small park reception for Washingtonians, and came bearing gifts wrapped in money. Real dollar bills, yo.

The happy couple

Meanwhile, I have been crazy busy doing lots of dance stuff, hanging out with Lauren, who has just moved in with us until her lease starts in November, and working at the Plum Bistro of course.

Here's what else I've been doing: planning my epic HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA which is only now a few days away! And I have LOTS to do. But last week I made these "cabinet of curiosities" jars:

some plant themed ones

Some bird themed ones

Some bug themed ones.

I will, of course, take pictures of the final decorations. This is just a SNEAK PEAK into how excellent this all will be.

On a less excellent note: Nathan got in a bike accident last week. Someone cut in front of him and he skidded out to avoid the collision. He quite sore, but otherwise he and his bike seem to be OK. Nathan's iphone, however, fared less well:

And the iphone-shaped bruise where the iphone was in his pocket:

and after a few days:

The colors only continue to get prettier. 

Anyways, when you are driving be sure to look out for bicyclists like my nathan please!

OK, I'm off to trader joes to get party supplies, and then back to my crazy week. I perform Sunday and Monday and still have some preparations for that, and to top it off I'm fighting a cold. I'm kind of looking forward to November...

Plum Food Truck

The restaurant I work for is trying to start a food truck. They made a video that I'm in as part of the fundraising. Here is the video, and the link to the kickstarter campaign is below it. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to share since I'm in the video, and it's informational about the the place where I work.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plum/seattles-first-vegan-food-truck-by-plum-bistro

Colorado!

Left early on monday morning to meet mom in Colorado for a 5-day get away. I got to see the sunrise behind Rainier on the light rail ride to the airport:

 We met in Denver, and drove the beautiful four miles up to Snowmass.

 We stopped for lunch in the darling little town of Idaho Springs. We got great italian food and they even had a gluten free menu for mom.

We shopped in a few of the little stores--one, called the Wild Grape had these glasses we loved, but we don't know what this kind of glass is called.

We hiked a bit to view the Maroon Bells--the most photographed mountains in the world. We contributed. The aspens have peaked, but we still saw some great color.

The view from the trail.

I'm all thumbs.

 Then we went for lunch at this bookstore/cafe we love in Aspen. It's in an old house an they have a lovely deck for dining.

Went on another hike down valley the next day. Followed a river along and was quite nice. I can't remember the name of it.

At one point the wind gusted very strong and sent a barrage of aspen leaves zooming through this clearing. It was like watching a yellow snow storm.

 We stopped in the adorable and tiny historic town of Redstone for an ice cream by the river.

 So many cute houses--and many of them were for sale. It made me sad to see people moving away from this lovely place.

Now I'm back in Seattle, and busy busy. Went to the Symphony with Stephanie last night and had a lovely time. The weather is great. Lauren arrives in a few days, and I had my audition this morning. We'll see how it goes.

Top on our minds right now is that our precious little kitty is sick and cannot even keep down water. We will probably have to take her to the vet tomorrow, but they are not open on the weekend. We are very worried about her getting dehydrated.