Halloween Fever

Ghosts, goblins, and ghouls, oh my! Halloween is here and those that know me well know that it's my favorite holiday. This year, my costume is going to be the mother of a zombie baby (yes, I know it's odd). Yesterday, I went to the Spirit Halloween store and bought myself the awesomest zombie kid ever. His name is Sammy Shivers (for the record, it was pre-named) and if you press a button, he shakes. He's probably always cold, poor thing! Either that or he has epilepsy baaaad.
So, to keep Sammy warm, I made him a bed in my baby crib. I put a few toys for him in there, but I'm afraid I have no food for him. I was going to get him some finger food (haha, get it?), but I didn't have enough money since I donated to the darn children's hospital. I thought it would be rude if I didn't give them anything. However, the Halloween store is awesome. They had neat animatronic horrors dotting the place. My favorite one was an animatronic Regan from "The Exorcist." Her head does a 360 and she looks really creepy. -Shudder- Imagine having her in my room. Sammy Shivers is bad enough and I have to cover his eyes at night since all he does is stare at me hungrily from across the room...
After the Halloween store, I went to this pumpkin patch with some activities like corn and hay-bale mazes. I didn't buy a pumpkin, but I will later. I'm not sure what I'll carve on it yet. Maybe an alien or a vampire Micky Mouse or something. Yes, I am also going trick-or-treating even though I'm probably too old for it. I don't care though, I'm seventeen so I'm still a minor. I will even have my pumpkin bag with my name on it.
I will also be going to a professional haunted house or two. I'll be going to 13th Street Manor (it's sister house, Primitive Fear, is REALLY scary) with a few of my friends and my brother. I am so not going in front, uh-uh. I'll also be going to a haunted corn maze and possibly the Zoo Boo.
I'm officially obsessed with Halloween and proud to be! It rocks! So readers, what will you do for Halloween?

Paige's TBR Mountain

My Mountain:

1. Chaos Walking books by Patrick Ness
· The Knife of Never Letting Go
· The Ask and the Answer
· Monsters of Men
2. Significantly Other by R.C. Lewis
3. Fireweaver by R.C. Lewis
4. Shiver books by Maggie Stiefvater
· Linger
· Forever
5. Darkest Powers books by Kelly Armstrong
· The Awakening
· The Reckoning
6. Unwind by Neal Shusterman (sp?)
7. Plague by Michael Grant
8. Across the Universe by Beth Revis
9. Sarah’s Key by (I Forgot)
10. My finished novel: The Dead and Dying Embers!

The Deadline: Jan 1st, 2012
The Reward: A Totally Awesome Day

Yep, I am starting my own, personal read-a-thon with fourteen books to read and one of them written by me. I'll use NanoWriMo to motivate me to finish my book. Seventeen chapters finished so far! -Pat, pat-
I just have to finish the two books I'm currently reading: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and The Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon. You think I can reach the finish line? I hope I do because I want that Totally Awesome Day (that will, of course, involve chocolate).
I encourage my blog readers (if I have any) to make your own TBR list! Come on! Do the read-a-thon with me! May the best reader win.

Ready, set, read!

Road Trip!

I just got back from a road trip to North Carolina to drop off Pancho at his new job. It was fun and not so fun at times. Driving scared me to death...as always. During the whole trip we went through the following states: Texas, Olkahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and of course, North Carolina (which by the way, is my favorite state).

In Texas, we stayed in Amarillo, which is where my grandfather was born. Amarillo isn't much though, just a city with about 50,000 people or more. Later we stopped in Russelville, Arkansas and there it's amazing if you live there and have one tooth...Sorry, just a mean joke that targets people in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Because in those places, family trees aren't trees, just poles. Sorry, another mean joke that probably isn't true.

Going through Tennessee, we stopped in Memphis to see Graceland, the home of the King! Boy, I'll tell you, my life is complete now that I've been to Graceland. I could just die happy thank you, thank you very much. :-P After hanging out at Elvis's home, we headed to Nashville, the home of my favorite kind of music-country. I wanted to see the Grand Ole' Opry, but it was closed! Whaa!

After Tennessee, we drove to Raleigh-Durham to go on a tour of Duke, a college I want to go to. Pancho and I were staying at the Hilton hotel and I had my Diet Coke and he his scotch. We wanted a brownie for dessert so Pancho was asking me the sign for it. I showed him and he thought that was the sign for beer. I said no and I showed him.
"And this is bitch right?" He asks and signs. I chuckle.
"Yes," I answer.
"Bitch Beer would be a good name for a beer, right?" I shake my head.
"Oh yes," I say. "But it needs a logo."
"What would it be?"
"Hmmm...I say a woman with a big chest, a dog, and they both have attitude," I suggest, doing a snapping motion. We just laugh and laugh about that. The waitress laughs at us too.
"I also think Queer Beer is a good name," Pancho tells me. "But it's not the label, it's the shape of the bottle." I'll leave that to your imaginations. Sorry if any younger readers were disturbed.

Duke is a BEAUTIFUL school. I so would not mind going there. I have to turn in my college applications. That gun is getting closer and closer to my temple...

After Duke we go to New Bern, where Pancho will be working and living. It's a nice place, I'm soooo jealous that he gets to live there when I'm stuck in boring, brown, New Mexico.

The part that sucked was that I got carsick a lot for some reason. I don't normally get carsick, but I did this time. Uggg...I also think I had some sort of seizure episode because on the last day, I was sooooo out of it. I even came up with a sort of metaphor for the way I felt.

You enter "The Dreamland" on a wooden pier enveloped by fog. You can only see a few feet in front of you and then it's just white like a cloud. You can tell that it's dusk, but there's no sign of the sun anywhere, just the approaching darkness. You reach the end of the pier and you're standing in front of a placid sound. There is no wind and the surface of the water is still as glass. Movements feel slowed like you're moving underwater, but you can breath easily. When fingertips brush skin it feels soft as velvet. Thoughts form, but they're jumbled until you see the letters forming in the water before you. Letters slowly float in the water to form thoughts as sentences. When you squint through the fog to read them, they drift away shortly after you read them and they don't come back. Remembering things is hard in "The Dreamland." It's beautiful, mysterious, and deep, but a feeling of dread and apprehension is near. No matter how much you want to though, you cannot leave "The Dreamland," it has to leave you.

You might understand how I felt or you might not. The metaphor can be a little unclear. It was not fun though. It affected my driving, when I had to recall, I couldn't, and I got lost easily. Pancho was constantly yelling at me.
"I just told you where we were going! Do you not remember our last conversation?" He bellows. I zone out ahead and don't reply for a long time.
"I don't remember," I tell him.

So that part wasn't fun. I even walked into the wrong hotel. Pancho was frantically searching each hotel in the neighborhood until he found me in the Holiday Inn when I should have been at the Hampton. Eesh.

I'm back safe and sound though! Goodbye and enjoy this picture of me with a New Bern bear.