Pumpkin Carving - Pomeranian Style

For the last few years I've been challenging myself to carve a pumpkin or two.  And each year I push myself to do a little bit harder design than the year before. Last year it was a couple designs I got in a stencil book from Target.  This year the idea popped into my head to do a Pomeranian design, in honor of our two poms. So, I searched online and managed to find a template here at the Better Homes and Gardens site. They also have a bunch of other dog breeds if you want to craft a pumpkin after your own fuzzy friend.

So, I picked up a pumpkin. Often times that's difficult, especially when you get them from a grocery store.  You have to decide which pumpkins are the best and dig through a few less than worthy pumpkins to find that perfect one with a nice shiny side for carving.

Gutted out the pumpkin, roasted the pumpkin seeds for a delicious snack, then the carving began.

Gooey guts, seeds, pumpkin and my knife of choice.

Perhaps the hardest part was fixing a flat piece of paper onto a round pumpkin. With a mile's worth of masking tape and a lot of patience (and maybe a few curses) I managed to get it to lay fairly flat on the pumpkin. Then I took a floral pin and poked the design into the pumpkin. Honestly, that was tedious and frustrating.  

Then you begin carving. The template called for just skimming off the skin of the pumpkin in some places, which is actually easier than carving all the way through. Since the template was a little smooshed in places I found myself improvising in some places where the pin pricks were not lined up right, or were not visible enough.

Then, after 2 and a half hours, a sore arm, stopping now and then to help my dad put up dry wall, the task was complete.  With only the knife seen in the above pictures, I had a pumpkin with a cute little Pomeranian face. So, if you have a sick need to torture yourself by carving elaborate designs into pumpkins, just to post them on a Facebook and rot on your porch within a couple weeks, go check out those dog stencils. It will be kind of a blast.

Completed design.

Our poms, Beans and Zeke with the Pom pumpkin.

Glowing cheerfully on the porch.

My cat, Weasley, wondering why I torture him with photo shoots.

My Fascination with Ghosts

I was trying to come up with an idea for a blog post when I saw my local news channel posted on Facebook about a recent survey. The survey showed 1/3 of people believe in ghosts. That's pretty impressive. Especially since it seems the majority of people you talk to deny any such belief.  So, the combination of that survey, my earlier brainstorming for short horror stories and the fact that it's getting close to Halloween, I decided to blog about ghosts.

Do I believe in them?  I'm on the fence.  I have a fascination with the idea of ghosts' existence, but I've never had a true experience myself.  I've recently tried to have my own experience, by visiting haunted locations, just to test my own limits. I don't think I'll ever truly believe unless an apparition appears in front of me and there are other people around who see it too.  So, not likely.

I still find entertainment in listening to people's personal ghost stories, watching shows like Ghost Hunters occasionally, and finding a good horror movie dealing with the paranormal. This last summer my sister and I went on a ghost hunt at the Stanley Hotel, the hotel famed for inspiring Stephen King's The Shining.  We also went on a ghost tour there a year ago, December, and stayed on the haunted 4th floor.  All these visits did was prove to us that imagination can run away with you.  People on the tour would turn the tiniest thing into a full blown paranormal experience.  Oh, I felt a chill!  Couldn't be because it's the middle of winter and there's snow on the ground.  That voice box just said the word muffin, and muffin was the name of my dog when I was 4 and I also ate a muffin this morning, it's obviously having a connection with me.  Then that enthusiasm catches on and other people start to get jumpy, feeling like they had experiences too.

The Stanley Hotel, December 2012

Even though the Stanley did not provide us with the proof we wanted, I'm still searching and I want to visit more haunted locations to investigate the unknown.  My sister called me asking me to look up haunted places here in Washington for when she visits this December.  So, our new hobby of amateur ghost hunting will continue.  I don't know how I would feel if something happened that I could not disprove, but I'd like to one day find out.

Do you believe in ghosts?  Have you had a paranormal experience you're willing to share?