Holy Halloween

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty much over Halloween this year. There are some things I love about the holiday and some that I loathe. I got an email earlier today from my friend Susannah asking: “Who ever thought of Halloween??” According to my 8-year-old son, it was the pilgrims. I don’t think so. 

Top 5 things I love about Halloween:

1. Candy. I’ve already admitted that I’m a junky.
2. Watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
3. Tasteful décor. Let’s face it, no one does it better than Martha.
4. Roadies (yummy dark & stormies tonight -- thanks Natalie!) while you're cruising the streets with your kids.
5. When your child picks who they want to be months in advance and doesn’t change his/her mind. And, you have the costume together in September.

Top 5 things I loathe about Halloween:

1. Running out of candy and having to turn away ambitious trick-or-treaters.
2. Freshly carved pumpkins that burn because you used the wrong kind of candle or didn’t keep an eye on them. True story.
3. When your child doesn’t know what he wants to be and announces the day before that he wants to be a zombie with Thriller like zombie makeup he saw on YouTube.
4. Scrubbing off zombie makeup at 9:00 pm.
5. Teenagers who are clearly too old to trick-or-treat, especially sans costumes.

Poll: how old is too old to trick-or-treat? Please weigh in on comments section.

Just one more peeve: when did people start trick-or-treating by car? Last year we had some parents who drove their kids house to house down our street. Ridiculous!

For those of you who are health conscious, here are some abbreviated tips I received from my gym today followed by my commentary:

Tips on battling the bulge during this crazy candy season:

• Don't buy your favorite candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters.  Too late.
• Out of sight, out of mind. Once the holiday passes, don't keep the candy sitting out. Yeah right.
• Keep count. If there were ever a day to keep a food journal, Halloween is that day! No way Jose.
• Don't drastically cut calories earlier in the day in an attempt to counteract any excessive candy eating later on. Never even crossed my mind.

Tonight we are going to a party at our new neighbor's house (welcome Jen and Greg!), so I’m leaving a bowl of candy on our doorstep. Back in my youth, that was considered a jackpot. Maybe kids today are more considerate. We shall see.

Sign my son helped me make posted on our front door at 5:43 pm.

The Matchbook Girl

Of all the e-mags out on the blogosphere today, matchbook is hands down my fav. From the editors:

Our monthly issues cover past and present fashion, decor, the arts, travel and culture. Brimming with intriguing interviews, stately homes, captivating memoirs and swoon-worthy fashion spreads, matchbook seeks to inspire women around the globe to design a life they adore. From lipstick to letterpress, gelato to grosgrain, and Paris to Peru, consider us your field guide to a charmed life.

So what's not to like, right? You'll find inside each issue a list of what a matchbook girl does. Although I generally consider myself a matchbook girl, some months I totally nail it, while others I'm not even close. For October I qualify for just 3 of 8 of the criteria.

This matchbook girl...

• dreams she can dance like Ginger Rogers (a stretch)
• lines her front stoop with freshly carved pumpkins (2 to be exact)
• has a weakness for candy corn

Eating candy corn is something I'm definitely guilty of.

Check out the list in this month's issue. Are you a matchbook girl or a matchbook a wannabe?

                                                                                      October 2012 Issue

Happy Halloween!

Mopheads

Welcome to my new blog! "Mopheads" comes from the name of the floral design business I ran out of my home briefly before children. The name "mopheads" was already taken in the blogosphere, so I had to settle for bluemopheads. I'll be covering things I adore (besides my family, of course): decor, gardening, floral design, good flicks and books I'm reading, as well as an occasional rant. Enjoy and please leave comments.


What is a mophead you ask? It is the nickname for Hydrangea macrophylla -- the big bloomed hydrangea show stopper that is immensely popular with gardeners and florists alike. Hydrangeas are such the rage in the south that the American Hydrangea Society was founded right here in Atlanta by the adorable hydrangea enthusiast Penny McHenry. The gorgeous "penny mac" hydrangea is named after her. I had the privilege of hearing her speak before she passed away several years ago. You can find pretty much any variety of hydrangea at Wilkerson Mill Gardens, which is 25 minutes southwest of downtown Atlanta. The gardens are open by appointment only for the rest of the year. Not that many people are gardening right now anyway.

My dream is to someday open a flower shop here in Decatur just as soon as I find a partner and produce that business plan my husband keeps asking me about.

Lately, I've been keeping myself busy eating a lot of Halloween candy and reading "Wild." Get it, read it and then come back with your comments. I promise you will never take a good pedicure for granted again.