ha HA!

that's not to say "haha" like the dude i used to date placed at the end of every single text message he ever sent me {hello red flag}.

it's ha HA! like yes! or sucka! or haHA i won the company chili cook-off again this year! twice!

second place winner for the vegetarian chili i made at the request of my vegetarian office mate.

thank you teri, for your recipe. on blind faith, i went for it and it worked!

and first place for holly's mom's white chicken chili. another first time recipe i totally lucked out on.

{the recipe is currently scribbled on the back of a receipt.... and all over the front, too.  it's long.  with lots of direction.  i'll post it soon.  it's award winning, after all!}

 

do you see the street signs back there?  the yellow caution school zone sign my co-workers made me that literally translates to "i love drunk dads with multiple small children"?  that was a gift from my co-workers after an unfortunate dating situation with a shell of an eligible bachelor who was secretly a drunk with two small children.

these are the perks of working with transportation engineers.

 

 

 

my win is laughable to me. like, it's a joke at this point, right? every year i make chili.... for the sake of there being enough to go around. and every year when they ask what my chili is called, i tell them it doesn't need a name because it doesn't need to be judged. 

but no one listens.

and this year i have two trophies to show for it.

and now i'm going to stop talking about it for fear of boasting.

let's talk costumes.

i had a meeting with a city manager this afternoon.

that limited the wildness of my costuming.

this might be the first halloween in 15 years that i didn't sport fake eyelashes and red lips. 

but i did skate by with a homemade t-shirt in the likes of a wide-ruled piece of paper.

tutorial here.

it was easy, it was harmless, it wasn't gawk-worthy while visiting someone else's office, and it was comfortable. 

that's more than i can say about every other halloween costume i've ever worn.

 

these are my people.

beth the witch + mo the iron chef.

hardy har har.

happy halloween friends!

i'm running away to a co-workers house to avoid my own! call me the bah-humbug neighbor, but i've never passed out candy in all the years i've lived in my house!

mo.

Hi Aubry and her peeps.

When Jen asked if I had a day that I preferred to write, I chose Halloween with the intention of telling everyone how awesome Aubry’s costume was this year, how she won the chili contest yet again this year and how she made the best Halloween treats for our office potluck; because, as you all are aware, pretty much anything Aubry attempts, she aces and causes everyone to stop and awe. Pretty much an easy bet that will be the case today. Jen granted my wish to write on Halloween and then asked that I turn in my submission the day before. Fail! So much for a ready-made, easy-peasy submission. She will have to blog about that another day.

Aubry and I have been co-workers for over six years now. She’s been there for me as I went through a painful divorce and has both clapped with delight and listened in horror as I’ve revealed my latest dating stories. She’s admonished me to share these funny and horrifying stories with the world either in a book or a blog. I’m afraid that I’ve disappointed her by not complying. There is a good amount I could tell:

1. About the guy with the awful name (Aubry warned me about dating a guy with that name.
I should have listened.) that after getting serious and starting to make wedding plans, I
discovered that I was one of many, and that he had been together for almost two years with
his “real” gf and almost fiancé.

2. About the guy who I thought was a nice upstanding LDS guy, after several dates I discovered
that he had been married at least five times. He didn’t know the number off the top of his head and had to name them one by one to determine how many times he had actually been married.
Not only that, but one of his marriages was polyandrous (his wife had more than one husband).
I found this out not after a few dates, but after several, when he mentioned that he was going
out of town to get a divorce from his then, current wife. I had made the mistake of assuming
that the man was single.

3. About the newly single widower who was quite a bit older than me but wanted to practice
dating with me. I took this guy and picked a new dating wardrobe, down to new, not old man,
eyeglass frames. I know everyone in the office was afraid I was going to fall for this father of
12 who sent flowers weekly, bought me gifts, wrote beautiful sentiments on cards that had
pictures of kittens wearing crowns, took me to visit the grave of his dead wife and asked me
to mentor his 16 year old daughter who desperately needed a mother figure in her life. The
hardest part of that relationship was when he asked if I could teach him how to kiss. I reluctantly
agreed to see what he had to offer. The 57 year old man kissed like a 12 year old! I was blunt
with the guy. “I feel sorry for your dead wife,” I told him.

4. About the guy who, on every date, brought me presents. Not fun presents that I wanted, but
mostly garish jewelry that I can’t even get anyone to wear for Halloween.

All of those and many more dating experiences weren’t in vain. I’ve met a wonderful man that I now
call my husband. Aubry was there to save me from sending out less than wonderful announcements
and at the 11th hour re-created the whole thing in a flash. She’s the one that I call when I’m at the store because I’m supposed to make a spice cake and they don’t have any. “What can I do?” She of course has the answer. She’s the one who has provided me many party planning ideas and tells me when I’m wearing an “outfit” and also lets me know that it’s not always a bad thing so I don’t feel like a fashion misfit.

We are both November babies and have, on occasion, celebrated our birthdays together while at work.

Happy birthday to us!

Love, Mo.

goodbye october....

hello MOVEMBER!!!

yes sir!!  it's that time of the year again!  awesome mustaches welcome!!  let's see what you've got boys!

my baby

on saturday i talked to my mom on the phone and while we were chatting, cow jumped up on her lap for a little cuddle.  anyway, i wanted to say hi to my baby so my mom held the phone up to him and i was talking when suddenly, he started to PURR!!!  i could hear him on the phone!!  it was SO sweet!!  and then i cried.  cause i miss him a lot.  a lot.  a lot!!

but who's counting??

three days till we're off for a week.
two days left with the students.
one day of parent teacher interviews.
six days till qatar.


seven and a half weeks till christmas vacation. 

a new installment

this weekend i went to idea and bought a darkening blind for my room.  and today our caretaker put it up for me!!  i'm so excited!!  i LOVE a dark room!!  here's hoping for some wonderful sleep ahead!!

happy halloween!!!

it's my favourite day of the year!!!  i hope you had a wonderful halloween and made up for the lack of halloween spirit in my school and in kuwait.  i missed it this year :( anyway, hope you had a SPOOKtacular day!  eat a mini chocolate bar and some licorice for me!

Miss Argentina costume tutorial

Miss Argentina: "If I knew then what I know now... I wouldn't have had my little accident."

I always appreciate tips when searching online for extra information, or 'How to' tutorials on costumes. So I've decided to do the same and write a tutorial on the popular receptionist of the afterlife from the movie Beetlejuice, Miss Argentina..!! -- which just happened to be my halloween costume this year.

I've wanted to do this costume for years now. There are actually a lot of great characters you can do from Beetlejuice. I've always loved the married Beetlejuice and Lydia as a couple costume and would love to do this idea for me and Jarred sometime in the future.

The two things I dreaded the most for the Miss Argentina costume was the neck cape thingy, and having to heavily paint my skin.

For the skin color I completely lucked out and happened to accidently stumble upon some body paints from the craft store Michaels. Tulip Body Art temporary face and body paint are more intended for body art, where you apply them with a brush and do the fancy designs, like when kids get the fun face paintings done at fairs or carnivals and such. When I saw that they had the perfect teal color I bought a package to try out on my skin and sure enough it was perfect. The paint itself, and especially using it as full coverage was a little tricky to work with. I found the best way to apply this was to use a damp face towel and to dip that into the paint and rub that throughout the skin.

Tulip Body Art paint: www.ilovetocreate.com/tulip-body-art 

The thing I loved best was the fast drying aspect. The color didn't rub off, hardly, unlike a lot of the halloween makeup products out there. Overall for full body painting I give this product a thumbs up. 

Also, I should mention that the above photo with the close up on the hand was taken at the end of the night, with ZERO touch-ups. Plus, I used a package and a half to cover my arms, chest, back, neck and face.

*UPDATE: November 7, 2011. I just wanted to report back on how well this product washed off and if there was any staining. It took a week and two days for this body paint to fully wash all off. I don't mind though, as I'll sacrifice having blue skin for a week for a good halloween costume, haha. No really though, the important areas washed off well -- which is the face and hands. Everything else can be covered under clothes until it comes off. The main areas that I had staining were all around the upper arms, shoulders -- front and back areas, and around the armpits. But I'm sure the product can react differently on different types of skin. Overall I was very impressed and would use this again.

The dress and 'red cape thingy'. The dress I purchased from Sears. It was on sale and I got it for only $40, what you easily pay for a lot of halloween costumes. Only this was better cause it's actually a dress and not a halloween costume. If you know how to sew you can make the dress too. I don't know how to sew, soooooooo, buying a dress was my only choice. I searched for party / prom dresses, and Sears had the best prices, and of-course the perfect dress.

The red cape: I just used a halloween gothic head dress that I purchased for our Tim Burton shoot.

My sister Al modelling the red head dress. xoxo.

The Miss Argentina sash. I went to the fabric store and bought wide ribbon, and used the iron-on transfer paper for the letters.

I bought a red curly wig with bangs and pinned it up -- a useful tip I got online!  :)

I found the exact same shade in tights for my legs, which also I really lucked out on.

The props. I find when doing a character costume it's good to pay attention to the small details, such as the Handbook for the Recently Deceased guide book. I bought a halloween prop for a priest costume, what's to look like a bible and when you open it up it carries a flask with two small shot glasses inside. I painted the 'book' with brown craft paint and printed the book cover template (that I found online), which I then glued onto the cover.

I printed some of the flyers, which I also found online, and 'aged' one -- which I carried in my book / clutch purse, along with my camera.  :)

And that's it. This costume was fun, and I especially liked it when people 100% knew who I was and squealed in delight.

Here are some Miss Argentina costumes / photoshoots I found online that are amazing:

And look -- a Miss Argentina doll that someone crafted..!! So cool!

I'm going to end this note with photos on some of the great Beetlejuice, and Tim Burton costumes you can do -- and all such great ideas!

Edward Scissorhands and Kim

Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas

(and another costume that I've always wanted to do!)

Beetlejuice's Lydia Deetz -- the cartoon version

Married Lydia Deetz

Delia Deetz

Corpse Bride Emily

Mars Attacks!

Or you could do a group costume and do a Tim Burton theme -- for halloween, or for a theme party. What a fun idea!

And here's probably the CUTEST kid costume I think I've ever seen...

Oh my... that's seriously way too cute.

And, that's it. For now. It's halloween tomorrow -- happy haunting everyone!  :)

xoxoxo...