A Halloween Hodgepodge

Thanks so much to Joyce for the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then join us at From This Side of the Pond on Wednesday to link your answers OR feel free to answer in the comment section!

1. Is Halloween a big deal in your neighborhood? Was it something you celebrated as a child? With your own children? Do you like candy corn? 

Halloween is an "over-the-top" event in our neighborhood. We will have about 1200 trick or treaters - I think we probably have about 400-500 kids in our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is a "destination." We have a neighborhood pizza party for the kids in the late afternoon and then the trick or treating begins. We have a decorating contest for our houses. We never win but if there was a "most creative DIY" award . . .we should win it. My husband does a great job! Here is our house this year. Zoom in so you can see the skeletons and their accoutrements.

The community where our church is located (15 minutes away) has a huge Witches Ride on Sunday afternoon before Halloween. The women dress in elaborate costumes and spend the afternoon partying and then ride through the streets and throw candy to the children. I think 500 women participated in that one ride this year. All of the donations and sponsorships go to support the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB hospital. I think they all dressed as witches for the first year and NOW . . .NOW they have unbelievable and amazing costumes - they have groups dressed as "A Leage of Their Own" and they had a group of "Villians" and they had rainbow witches and fairy witches. They had a "Day of the Dead" group with painted faces. I "borrowed" this picture from my friend's facebook page -- she was one of the villians.

Yes, I trick or treated as a child wearing one of those costumes with the mask and the string around the back or dressed as something we could make up using the clothes in our house. Yes, my children trick or treated and yes, I love candy corn - especially with dry roasted peanuts - but these days, I'll just eat the nuts!

2. Are you a scaredy cat? About what? I like to think of myself as fearless . . .and then I laugh! Yesterday, I was pumping gas and a homeless man asked me on a date (seriously - long funny story) and a car driving down the road backfired twice and I jumped about a foot off the ground!

3. Last time you were somewhere that should have been busy but felt like a 'ghost town'? Back during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, several places felt like ghost towns! It would be so eerie to walk into a place and see three people when normally you would see 100's. 

4. Do you like chili and if so how do you like it? Beans or no beans? Meat or no meat? Beef or chicken? Spice or no spice? Favorite toppings? I love chili and as a matter of fact, I participated in a recipe swap on Tuesday of soups, stews, and chilis. A blog hop can be fun and I hope you will check it out here. I love beans and meat. I prefer ground chuck with lots of flavor but these days . . .I probably would use either 99% fat free ground turkey and 96/4 ground beef. I don't like it too spicy but I love for it to be flavorful - chili powder and cumin! If I put any toppings on at all, it would be a tad of grated cheese and a few crumbled saltine crackers. I would LOVE to eat it with fritos on top but Mark and I have learned that we CANNOT have fritos in our house because WE EAT THEM ALL!

5. Would you describe yourself as a night owl? What time of night qualifies? What are you doing while everyone else is asleep? Do you then 'sleep in'? Define 'sleeping in'. I am definitely not a night owl. We get up really early (5:00) and so we are in bed most nights by 9:30. For a while, Mark was going to bed at 9:00 and I was staying up to read (which I often do when we first go to bed) or write. Mark requires more sleep than I do. I laughed out loud when I read about sleeping in. The latest we have "slept in" in years is probably 6:30 . . .or at the latest 7:00 and that would be after a very late night like New Year's Eve!

6. Insert your own random thought here. I've been blogging about our trip to Ireland this week and I know the posts are long and wordy and have lots of photos but I am enjoying it so much. Shameless plug - please read a few of my days. I started here.

I hope you all have a safe and fun weekend! We aren't going to any parties or anything but I will enjoy seeing all of the trick or treaters on Sunday night!