Monthly Archives: October 2021

21 days of horror 2021!

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I think we had our best year yet with 21 Days of Horror, achieving 19 out of 21 targeted films. Without further ado, here are our picks for notable watches, with the full list at the end of the post. A note on our categories: we have a Best of Season, a Worst of Season, and an additional category of Rewatchable. A Rewatchable is a film that for us becomes a classic that we can go back to year after year.

Sara’s Picks:

Best of Season: Terror Train, 1980. Unusually, the first film we watched also ended up being my favorite for the season. It’s not strictly a Halloween film, as it takes place over New Year’s; a fraternity books a picturesque old sleeper train for an overnight masquerade party. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, it’s a standard ‘revenge’ plot, but gets many extra points from me for cool costumes, an aura of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, and magician David Copperfield in a peculiar guest role.

Worst of Season: Chopping Mall, 1986. Brandon disagrees but in my opinion this film was wretched. A small group of kids (with a random young married couple thrown in to buy beer) decide to have a sex party in a mall furniture store after hours. Meanwhile, a lightning storm scrambles the wiring of the experimental robot security team. Transformed into rogue killing machines, the murderous wheelie bins slowly scoot around the mall stalking and zorching the sex crazed teens. The virginal nerd kids slowly and ineffectively dispatch the completely not scary robots and live to hold hands for another day.

Rewatchables: Halloween, 1978 and American Werewolf in London, 1981

Brandon’s Picks:

Best of Season: Sleepaway Camp, 1983. 80 minutes of terrible movie, but the twist at the end of the 81st minute makes this one very memorable.

Worst of Season: The Mutilator, 1984. Released as Fall Break, a terrific example of dumb choices made by people under duress.

Rewatchable: American Werewolf in London, 1981

  • Terror Train, 1980; Sara’s Best of Season
  • Halloween II, 1981
  • April Fool, 1986; an ensemble cast featuring Biff from Back to the Future.
  • Fright Night, 1985; an excellent turn by Roddy McDowell, some great supporting performances but these do NOT include Marci from Married with Children.
  • Sleepaway Camp, 1983
  • Train to Busan, 2016
  • Graduation Day, 1981
  • Chopping Mall, 1986; Sara’s Worst of Season
  • The Evil, 1978; unremarkable except for a few good 1970’s outfits. Brandon: “Richard Crenna. C’mon, man… Not a bad premise, and somewhat atmospheric, but it started to feel like a TV movie after awhile.”
  • Halloween, 1978; Sara’s Rewatchable
  • Friday the 13th, 1980; who doesn’t remember Kevin Bacon? Altogether a surprisingly solid horror film and may also attain a Rewatchable category from Sara.
  • The Fog, 1980; another surprisingly good movie that had subtle yet undeniable tips of the atmospheric hat to The Birds, even though the plots were not similar.
  • Curtains, 1983; a small budget cult classic with an incomprehensible plot starring several very similar-looking late 1970’s-looking actresses with fluffy hair and aggressively tweezed eyebrows; a lyrical ice skating scene and a really good scary mask.
  • Silent Night, Deadly Night, 1984; this was a strong runner-up for Sara’s Best of Season. Really excellent. Points taken off for the fact that it’s actually a twisted Christmas movie. Brandon: “This has been on my list for well over 30 years. Not bad, and the toys of the era as seen in the toy store where the movie is set offered some wonderful nostalgia.”
  • American Werewolf in London, 1981; Brandon and Sara’s Rewatchable
  • The Mutilator, 1984
  • The VIllage, 2004
  • Hellraiser, 1987; really stands up. Dense plot and a lot of backstory. Brandon: “I probably could not have watched this as a teenager, afraid of the flying fish hooks, but a lot of this plays now as camp. Overall, the most sophisticated story of this genre.”
  • Dead & Buried, 1981; this is another honorable mention as a really strong small budget film starring James Farentino as a sheriff in a small town and the only one who doesn’t know that everyone else is a zombie.

And that’s a wrap until next year. I hope your Halloweens are delightfully creepy and atmospheric and your pillowcases are full of candy and your masks still allow you to see oncoming traffic and any lurking masked figures around hedges. Be well and Happy Samhain!

halloween socks 2021!

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Last year, I was madly casting off and stitching the toes up on Halloween, this year I finished my Halloween socks a full week early!

These are the Hermione’s Everyday Socks pattern by Erica Lueder, knit on Casual Fashion Queen’s plush merino sock in the Spider’s Lullaby colorway (with just some black Patons for toes and cuffs).

The only bummer is that I usually use a 2.0 mm for my socks and this time – following the pattern exactly because they are my first pair of magic loop socks – I used a 2.25. They’re too big for me. I can wear them with another pair of socks underneath but I need a 2.0 Chiao Goo red lace needle for future magic loop projects. These are modeled by my daughter whose feet are bigger than mine.

Happy knitting!

never enough time

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Friday flew by in a welter of activity, and I ran from my home office to the car to the middle school to the high school football field and then home again without missing a beat. The kiddo had school Halloween festivities and then a performance with the high school marching band at that night’s game and it went off without a hitch! Brandon and I were in the stands with a family friend and the other marching band & Scout as well as neighborhood parents and we were a proud cheering section.

The rest of the weekend was dedicated to meal planning and shopping, laundry, carving pumpkins and watching Charlie Brown. Brandon made an amazing beef tenderloin on Sunday and I crashed by 9. It’s another busy week ahead and I’m not mentally ready for it.

Life is good but there’s never enough time for all of the things that I want to do.

I hope you are all well and healthy and safe. Happy Monday.

friday five

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Capping off another work week with a sigh of relief and hoping you are all well – here’s an October Friday Five.

Puzzle season has commenced…

1. 21 Days of Horror – longer term readers will know that every October I delve deeply into the world of horror films. It started out as 31 days, but I couldn’t do 31 horror films and keep a healthy mental balance (and most years we don’t hit 21 either)! On Halloween I will recap the season and unveil our favorite. If you know us, we aren’t big on zombies or torture or overt gore, and tend to lean towards the late ‘70’s and 1980’s genres. Brandon also really enjoys Hammer horror from the ‘60’s. Join us on Halloween for our final pick.

2. Halloween trip to Glenlore Trails with the Girl Scouts. The weather was perfect – cool enough for a jacket but exceptionally mild with a big moon. The Scouts ran off on their own for the roughly 1-mile walk. The displays weren’t scary – mostly lights and projected images – but it was all intended to be family-friendly and it was a nice night to walk in a spooky woods.

3. A real live trip to a movie theater! We saw James Bond “No Time to Die” at our local and had dinner out mid-week. The movie was good but way too long in my opinion. I can watch Daniel Craig forever and a day but I am of the firm belief that we need to get back to the days of 90 minute films (this one was 2.5 hours). We had the theater to ourselves so the teenager was on her phone most of the time ha.

4. The hummingbird feeder is down, washed, and stored, and the seed feeders are up. (I save suet for colder days later in the season.) And yesterday we saw our first dark-eyed Junco, which we also call ‘snowbirds’. They are regular visitors in the snowy months and not around much at all in warm ones, so this is a sign that despite the balmy autumn, winter won’t be delayed indefinitely.

5. I know that I run the risk of jinx but it’s been so nice to have everyone healthy here. I am not taking it for granted. I’ve been back to tracking my food via Weight Watchers, trying to eat well and make overall good choices. Lots of evening kombucha and I’m glad the weather is cool enough for hot tea again. If you like a sweet dessert tea that will give you a post-dinner or pre-bedtime treat, I highly recommend this:

Tonight I’ll be at a football game to watch my kiddo’s middle school band perform a pre-game with the high school band. This is very exciting for me, as I loved band in high school and never miss an opportunity to remind people that I was actually BAND PRESIDENT (#geek). The rest of the weekend – who knows? Lots of relaxing and a couple of runs for sure. I hope you enjoy it and recharge your batteries for the big lead-up to Halloween. Be well – xo.

more rain, more tests, a bit of sun and vlogtober

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The sun came out on Saturday and it was a joy. It feels like it’s been raining for a week straight – nothing dries out and lawns are full of fairy rings of strange mushrooms. I’m a bit concerned that I’m just not ready for the long dark days in winter to come, since these ceaseless days of damp have really gotten to me this week (along with everything else on our plates at the moment). Running and being outside is a necessity, but in our village it is perilous because of the slipperiness of wet leaves and the occasional ankle-turning black walnut hidden therein…I tried to soak up the golden rays and took advantage of the beautiful day to pad out our Halloween decorating scheme.

Jacques is the hanging skeleton for the porch- Gus is the pumpkin head. In Miss L’s world Gus has the voice of a Bronx cab driver and Jacques is a former French aristocrat.

Brandon and I both got Covid tests on Saturday as well and they are both negative! So Miss L came home from her dad’s. And then it rained again.

The rest of the weekend was spent reading and crafting. I am burning along on my Halloween socks and also my little Halloween cross-stitch. This is totally due to the joyous thing on YouTube known as “Vlogtober” in which vloggers vlog every day in October (perhaps that was self explanatory…). A couple of my favorites are participating – Tales from Cuckoo Land and This Little Wonderful Life – so I’ve had a lot of peaceful time with them and my projects.

And that was the weekend. I am hoping for a more normal week ahead but it will be a busy one, with doctors appointments (optometrist and general physical), a Girl Scout activity next weekend and Miss L’s big orthodontist appointment. As well as the usual work from home and normal upkeep of home and family. Onward friends.

grey damp days.

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It’s felt like a week of Groundhog Days. Every day dawns grey, damp, and unseasonably sticky-warm. Brandon’s been home, bored and very tired, so we have coffee together and then if I’m not going for an early run, I shower, dress, and log on in my home office (which is also currently my bedroom during Brandon’s Covid isolation period). I’m spending a lot of time in that little back bedroom.

A couple of mornings I’ve run before work which helps break things up.

We have lunch and the afternoons are back in the home office while he naps. Around 530 I start dinner, we watch a scary movie for 21 Days of Horror (more on that later this month) and then tea and bed.

To get up the next day and do it all over again.

It would be nice to see the sun or have some things to do outside the house. Maybe next week. Brandon is feeling a bit better every day and I’m still healthy and displaying no symptoms. We’ll both get tested at some point this weekend and hopefully two negatives will mean a return to some semblance of normalcy around here.

breakthrough

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Last week was a week. Can I just tell you? We were all sick with what we originally thought was a seasonal cold or flu, probably brought home from school. Our immune systems are untested and fragile after a year and a half in a masked bubble, and the illness cut a swathe. I ended up on the couch and unable to work (or do much of anything else) for two days, my kiddo ended up in Urgent Care and on antibiotics for a sinus / ear infection, and my partner in Urgent Care with…breakthrough Covid.

Luckily, he is vaxxed and the doc says that has helped his case be quite mild. His major symptoms are fatigue and a mild loss of smell. He’s on the mend, isolating for the requisite 10 days, quite lonely and bored already as we’ve divided up the house (and kept Miss L at her dad’s house) but it is what it is. I have tested negative, and have no new symptoms. We are very grateful that a year and a half into the pandemic, this is our first household experience with Covid and that all in all it is mild. We are so lucky to have had the vaccine and access to quick, reliable healthcare.

I’m on the upswing health wise and am trying to keep the routine in the house, the refrigerator and oven full of good, nutritious, and comforting foods, and catch up on work missed from my own two days down and out.

All in all things could be much worse!

(Of course this viewpoint has only emerged AFTER my initial storm of panic, anxiety, alarm and guilt – now I can be philosophical and sound like I am rolling with it and have it under control, which, I can assure you, I very much DON’T! But I’m also a proponent of ‘fake it til you make it’ and maybe also a bit of ‘if you build it, they will come’ with a dash of ‘you must imagine your life and then it happens’.)

Keep calm and carry on. I hope you are all in good health and spirits. xo

I was even too sick to knit!!