Frog on the Pumpkin

LOL! Who am I kidding....I miss things all the time. Including this article that was in our local paper, Oregon City News, around Halloween. I remember doing the interview, and that was about it. Gone, didn't even remember to pick up a copy......trust me, in October it is like a whirl wind at the graveyard! If the cats were not so vocal in the morning, I would probably forget to feed them :D Photo Dick Trtek So I got an email from a friend today that said. "Your responses sound so rehearsed, compared to Jeff. Almost like you were in marketing or something." "What are you talking about?" I say. "That article." "What...great what did I do now?" "It is from October....here is a copy.  And your welcome. Next time pay attention!" Hum....compliment? Maybe. Kidding?  Likely. Knowing this person, just having a bit of fun at my expense. I read it and went, sh*t..... I do sound like that? Wow, I think I was mistaking an i...

in Scotland.  Which after traveling a good part of the UK - I still have to say is my favorite.  I am still moving to Edinburgh (or very close) if I win the lottery (which since I never play, is unlikely) or become silly rich. Anyway, after a few days in Edinburgh we went to West Kilbride to stay at Law Castle.  I know I shared some of the pictures of the cemetery, but here are some additional pictures of more detail.  This is also a two part set, more to display tomorrow. Enjoy your virtual graveyard tour!

Well, at least that is what I am expecting from the upcoming Hautncast this Friday :D So, on that note, I want to announce the winner of the drawing for a free subscription to Hauntcast.......Dawn!  Woohoo!! Can you just send me the email address you want this registered to and I will get it over to Chris.

Here are more pictures from St. Mary's cemetery in Penzance, Cornwall.

in Penzance .  We went on a walk one morning....and you know how it is you just happen upon a graveyard.....actually in small towns in the UK, that IS what happens.  Some of those towns have more dead people than living, I am sure of it. :) So, we happened upon  St. Mary's church cemetery on a cold (very) Autumn day. This was an interesting graveyard.....I have a lot more pictures to share.  Be back soon.

I am always looking for a way to tie-in Halloween to just about anything. I think it makes me feel better about the fact that there are skulls all sorts for spooky stuff all over the house 365 days a year. Who am I kidding...I know I am nuts. So you might have heard that we were over in the UK last month. And they are very into Christmas over there.....all kinds of fun. I was in Bath right before we left and it is always a pretty city, but with the lovely snow on the hills and the lights and shops decorated, it was positively heavenly. Made you feel warm and fuzzy. And you all know that I can only handle so much of that.  I needed something orange and black and dark and spooky..... Then like magic, I read a magazine article and found something that just warmed my little Halloween heart. Did you know that from 1971 through 1978 and in 2005, the BBC ran a Christmas Eve special they called a " Ghost Story for Christmas " I kid you not; I am so...

That drive husband crazy are our Christmas cards :) I have been making our cards by hand for probably 15 years. Each one a different idea. It usually involves a story and then an item to go with it. Example, I did a "History of the Christmas Tree" and included a small tree that was hand decorated. That means creating the card with the story, finding the supplies for and decorating trees and putting them in small boxes and shipping them out. We send out at least 50 cards each year! You can now appreciate why this drives him crazy (that and the poor guy is married to me!) Anyway.....here is a picture of this year's card. It is a ghost story called "The Ash Tree". A ghost story at Christmas? There is a reason.....I will explain in my next post. Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

if you have really procrastinated for that haunter in your life, what better thing to get them than the gift of Hauntcon.  That is right you can purchase Hauntcon admission for a Christmas gift .....who would not want that....of course you have to get there, get a hotel, find a costume for the party....but you have five more months to work that out :D They even have this cool gift certificate that you can print out!  Sweeet!! Anyway, perfect Holiday or birthday gift.....check it out. Merry Christmas!

my Dorie cat for Christmas :) Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

brains in the box above the sippy cups. Is that not what everyone does? Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

to say thanks to our friends that put up our Calvin and Hobbs Christmas display for us while we were on vacation.  We usually do it the weekend after Thanksgiving and husband was a little bummed that we could not do that this year. Imagine our surprise when we came home to see this in our yard. Frog Queen (and husband) has the best friends!! Funny story on this one.  Some of the friends that help us with the Halloween display say they knew our house (long before they knew us) based on this display that we do at Christmas time.  (They did not even know we did anything for Halloween.) It is funny, if someone does not know us as the "Halloween" house they often know us as the "Calvin & Hobbs" house :D

(the tag on the gift even said "from the elders of the internet" - coolest gift ever!) I "got it" at a party last weekend.  I was a white elephant and I knew I needed to have it.....so I stole it from my friend....who is still talking to me, thank goodness. If none of this makes sense to you, and if you visit this blog often, I rarely make sense so you should not be surprised :D This is a reference from a brilliant UK show called " IT Crowd " - it is probably my favorite scene of the whole series - you have to watch it, it is hysterical.  BTW - good news for those of you that have seen the show.  We saw an episode of season five while we were in the UK!!! Hoping it comes out on DVD soon! Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Shellhawk!!!!  Sorry everyone else :(  I wish I had enough glasses to give all of you one! Merry Christmas!

to win a Tiffany wine glass.....in one of those lovely blue boxes :)  Be sure to visit this post  to enter!

As I do :) I snapped this picture out the back door at work where we leave our dry cleaning bags to be picked up....so now we know, times are hard for Santa too, he also has commute to Vancouver, WA from the North Pole to work here to make ends meet :D I wonder if he drives his sleigh here! I know there is a ladder to get on the roof around somewhere! :D Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Jeremy over at the iZombie blog (the guy that did the cool treatment to my blog header) posted this question on the Horror Blog Alliance blog . What are some of the things in the last year that were the best in horror? It can be a film, music, celebrities, food, blog, that spider crawling on your arm... as long as it happened in 2010. So you all get the idea, now start telling . I posted my answers......I bet you all can guess what scared me in 2010. :D

how can I make this post be at all related to Halloween and not just me posting yet another silly UK comedian link.  It is a kinda dark song ...........that is about all I got. (Yeah, that is weak....) If the comedian thing bores you, I apologize.  You can skip this post. :D  I promise in the future to only post these on my Frog Queen Follies blog , so after this one, back to blogging as usual. I am a big fan of Bill Bailey - ever since I saw in him in  Black Books .  Got his latest DVD, it is very funny.  I was going to post something from that, but I thought I would post this first, this is from his Part Troll show - which is brilliant by the way.

if that old building in the UK that I walked through I had to pause for a minute because I literally spent months and I am guessing at least 100 hours looking through the web for old abandoned dark rides.  In doing that I had to look through hundereds of pictures of abandoned amusement parks.  Almost felt like I had been there? So reminded me that I wanted to take a look to see if anything new was out there.  Right away I found pictures from Joyland Amusement Park in Oklahoma.  The part closed in 2004, opened a for a bit in 2006, but it is now abandoned. As always these pictures are intersting and sad at the same time. Here are some pictures of what is left of the Whacky Shack - the dark ride in the park...or what is left of it. Click here for more information on the park.