How I Stopped Being a Grinch and Learned To Love Christmas

                                 

Hello there.  I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday.  I know I've been absent from the blog for pretty much the entire month of December.  There is a reason for that.

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Weekend Wrap-Up - New Christmas Trends and Thanksgiving at Home

Hello there my lovelies, and any male-folk that happen to stumble onto to my blog.  Last weekend was great.  Amiright?  Four days off and plentiful good food.  Much to be thankful for.

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Give Thanks - The #1 Thing I'm Most Thankful for This Year

I’m thankful for my sisters.

Five years ago, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, my dad passed away.  It wasn't tragic or even totally unexpected.  Our dad just succumbed to his ongoing health problems and passed due to natural causes.  At age 47.  Leaving three adult children and twin 6 year old girls.

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Cute & Simple DIYs for Friendsgiving

Source - The Sweetest Occasion

Hello friends.  How many of you participate in Friendsgiving, the practice of holding another Thanksgiving meal with just your friends? Sadly, I have never been to a Friendsgiving before but I think this year, I really like to host one at my house.

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Nerd Rant #5 - What is up with this season of Sleepy Hollow?

For those of you that are enjoying Sleepy Hollow, I just want to ask, "what is up with this season?'

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Weekend Wrap-Up - Cake, Dia de los Muertos, and oh yeah - Go Vote!

Hola Amigos! This past weekend was quite busy.

Friday - I raced home to pass out candy at my house, then put together a sorry looking witch costume, looked in the mirror, decided it was too cold outside, and flopped back down on the couch.  

No regrets. 

Saturday - I went to to the Untapped Festival in South Dallas to see Cake headline.  Sweater weather had finally hit Texas, so there was crazy long lines to get in, crazy long lines to sample beer and crazy long lines for food.  What wasn't crowded?  The stage.  

Dallas based, The Polyphonic Spree

ADd+ - Dallas Based Hip Hop Group

ADd+ Frontman Slim Gravy singing on top of the speakers like a bawse

Even the Rahr Brewery Ugly Pug Mascot got into ADd+'s set

Rouge Wave

Leon Bridges

Shovels and Rope

Cake does this thing where they like to give away a small tree to a member of the audience to plant it and send photos of how their progressing.  Cool concept, but John McCrea took a solid ten minutes having people guess what type of tree it was.  Not cool, when you were itching for them to play something from your middle school days.

The worst picture you've ever seen of Cake performing.  I was actually trying to take a video.

Sunday - My friend's birthday happened to coincide with Dia de los Muertos, so we had our faces painted and headed out to the Bishop Arts area for dinner and a game of pool.

Dia de los Muertos altar

Laser focus....

I'm terrible at hand eye coordination when I've have been drinking so...I took pictures.

What fall festivities have ya'll been up too?  Who here had an awesome Halloween?

Oh and..........................................................................................................................

Go Vote Artwork by Lisa Condon

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Birthday Getaway to The Windy City

Hello there.  I'm back up to full speed, after returning from a five day trip to Chicago with my best friend.  We both have our birthdays in October and were looking at some extra vacation time at our respective jobs.  We stayed with her family in Des Plaines, and took some day long trips to Lincoln Park, the Navy Pier and Evanston.

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State Fair of Texas - Return of the Fried Foods

Hello there!  Just before celebrating the one year anniversary of the blog, I went to the annual State Fair of Texas, one of the biggest, loudest, craziest state fairs in the country.  I actually went twice.  Once with my friends around dusk (pictured above) and just this last weekend, during the day with my family.

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SugarSkull Industries Turns One Year!

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Hola my friends!  I'm super proud to announce the one year anniversary of the blog!

We made it!!!!! Commence with the champagne bottles popping, cupcake baking, nacho making.....making out? All the ways people like to celebrate.

One year in, and I've learned a few things.

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Season of the Witch - Part Two

Happy Friday!!

Earlier in the week, I went through some of examples of strong, powerful women with magical powers in movies, books, TV and music.  I'm fascinated by the concept of witches as women with powers and abilities to use for good or bad.

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Season of the Witch

I have had a growing fascination with witches, lately.  Witches are almost always powerful women, embodied with supernatural abilities which they can use for good or bad.  The first witch I remember seeing was in the animated Disney movie, The Sword and the Stone.  Madame Mim, a short, tiny ugly old women nearly gets the drop on the wizard Merlin by acting crazy, cunning, and seductive, all in equal turns.

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Let's Decorate for Fall - Easy DIYs

I'm so excited for fall to arrive. Even though I'm on a 3 week restrictive diet (of which I may later blog about), I still can't wait to drown my face in Pumpkin Spice Lattes, fried State Fair festival food, and mugs of Oktoberfest hefeweizen beer.  However, despite my current limitations I can totally decorate for fall without any hesitation.

I don't know if any of you like to scour your local craft store for anything new and interesting like I do, but I have been seeing some cute alternatives to the traditional fall crafts.  Like using raw cotton plants in place of your usual fall foliage, and acorn inspired decor rather than your usual pumpkin theme.   Here are some super easy DIYs to decorate your home with warm, cozy, fall inspired decor.

Acorns

Acorns are the easiest, cheapest way to making your abode look in season.  Just grab a couple from the nearest oak tree, bake to remove any bugs, and adorn.  

I love this idea of removing the fruit, retaining the acorn cap and replacing with colored polymer clay balls.  The neutral of the acorn cap plays beautifully off the super bright clay colors which you can find at your local craft store.

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