Hello my darlings! Today is Tuesday, it is ten days before Halloween, and it is Celebration Of The Mind Day!  Your mind is an amazing thing, and I hope you’re taking care of it. This week has been a true example of a plot climax. It started off rather slow, built up to a peak, and then had a little bit of a dip back to baseline.

Uncustomary Art Weekly Happiness | Pumpkin Carving Party

Thursday evening was a pumpkin carving party. Everyone worked together to create masterpieces on those giant orange symbols of Autumn. I had actually painted my pumpkin white before I got there, and spent my time doodling on it in colored Sharpies. In general, the men didn’t want to carve, but they were all gung-ho about gutting them! So the ladies passed our pumpkins down to the beards and waited for our clean canvases to be delivered back to us so we could poke and carve words, images, and nonsense into the pumpkins.

Even though I laughed so hard that night I got a headache, my favorite part was at the end. We had lined the pumpkins up along the shed, all illuminated, so we could admire them all at once. There were raccoons, spooky houses, and inside jokes staring back at us. We stood around to laugh and marvel, and then it was time to clean up. We blew out the candles and each grabbed a pumpkin to walk into the shed. It would have taken one person forever (and a lot of muscle!), but there were a bunch of us quietly walking single file style, holding pumpkins our friends had made beautiful just hours before, to get the job done in less than two minutes. It was this beautiful and calm sense of teamwork, and I loved it.

Uncustomary Art Weekly Happiness | Bunny Head Costume

On Friday, I had the best date ever with Joe. We went to a new haunted house that’s in an old movie theater. It was super scary. Saturday, I went to a party where almost everyone was dressed up. I took photos, ate hot dogs, danced, laughed, played games, and had a blast. I’m really glad I was able to go.

Extra Sparkle weird conversations with 42-year-old men at bars who just got back from a Tibetan Monastery in Canada  when old people say things like “toilet tissue”  having my first slow motion driving experience (that thankfully didn’t lead to a tragedy)  e-mails from Caylee’s T that said “Ja”  my favorite day of the year: October 17th  making the waiter at Silver Diner laugh when I tried to pronounce “oaxaca”, and ended up just saying “wakha wakha”  the difference in feeling when I saw a masked man at the haunted house and then him unmasked and then maked again (read: terrified, inquisitive, indifferent)  Joe meeting Bug  being called “my girl”  the feeling when stopped traffic finally starts moving again  Lance in drag on John’s shoulders, flashing the live band in a backyard  amazing costumes, including a bunny rabbit (see above)  extremely delicious egg rolls  horrifying flight attendant stories  very rich sipping chocolate  mini witch hat hair clips from the dollar store  dyeing my hair back dark (I’ll put a spell on you)  meeting Tom for the first time  puppies in costumes  how into Gotham I am  making goody bags  the best gift from Charlotte I’ve ever received (stay tuned)  wearing a white faux fur coat without irony  making memes of my friend a la Ryan Gosling  unexplainable tags on cars that say “Hot Guy”

Uncustomary Art Weekly Happiness | Hot Guy Car Tag

Be sure to check out how I spent my Sunday, join the giveaway Michelle and I are offering via our Peacock Brigade, and take a peek into my day in a voyeuristic fashion. A reminder you can get yourself some ad space on my sidebar for $7 a month and you can get yourself a free exclusive list of 200 things to do when you’re bored by signing up for my newsletter (sidebar).

What’s on your happiness list this week?