The Last-Minute Endeavor of Carving Pumpkins

Welcome back, fans.

So Kris and I totally dropped the ball this year as parents.  We totally put off the carving of pumpkins until the very last minute, and even then we didn't even bother with purchasing pumpkins to carve ourselves - we just settled on picking up two for the girls at Aldi and called it good.  After our huge costume party on Saturday, and Halloween itself approaching in a couple days - not to mention how swamped we've all been with school and work and all sorts of extracurricular bullshit - we just didn't have time for it this year.

Abby recreates the Halloween where she open-mouthed a pumpkin.

Anyway, we finally got around to carving pumpkins with the girls today.  The day before the girls gutted them out, and then the actual carving part happened tonight.  It took two days because we only had, like, half-hour windows at night in which to do this.  Alayna has fallen way behind in school, and has consequently been spending hours a night catching up on homework and classwork she didn't get done in class, and we told her she couldn't carve pumpkins until she finished it all up.

I suppose that makes us shitty parents, but. . . so does a whole bunch of other stuff.  And CPS still hasn't come to take our kids away yet, so I guess we have that going for us.

So yeah.  Here's some photographic evidence of this year's Halloween parenting fail.

Enjoy.

Hammin' it up for the camera.

The gutting process begins.  This was the majority of Evening #1 right here - the bulk of the carving wouldn't get done until Evening #2.

Definitely not the kids' favorite. . .

The Dog was super into this process, though.  Who the hell knows why.

Seriously. . .

Meanwhile, down in the basement, Alayna continues to slug away at her missing Social Studies homework.  Note the lack of pumpkin carving going on here.

After awhile, though, we decided that she had had enough schoolwork for the night, and made her go upstairs and take a shower before she, too, got to start carving a pumpkin.

Abby's is a 'mummy.'  No joke.

What's with all the lines?

Kris' advice goes unheeded.  No surprises there.

There's a running theme in these pictures, folks.

Here we are at Evening #2, picking up where we left off the previous night.  Alayna chose to make a 'devil' pumpkin this year, and so I helped her draw out a quick design that was simple enough for her to carve.

Whoever invented emojis must be just swimming in money at this point in time. . .

Abby's sorta-Mummy pumpkin.  Or not.

The finished products, all lit up and ready to roll for Halloween. . .

Alayna turned her pumpkin around so it could cast a creepy, demonic visage across the wall of our Dining Room.  Because she, like her father, has a dark, twisted sense of humor.

Oh, look.  More weird kid faces.

So yeah.  There's our half-ass attempt at being involved parents.

- Brian

The Justice Squadron

Greetings citizens,

As a white, middle-class American male, I'm no stranger to hardships.  I have fruit trees that need pruning, craft beers to sort through, and an abundance of pink plastic garbage cluttering up my house.  It's a daily struggle to weed my way through such trials and tribulation, and the last thing some poor schmuck like me needs in his life is a summons.

A summons, dear readers, for Jury Duty.

Yeah, I got summoned once again.  Summoned back to the Justice Squadron:

One of the greatest seasons of the Simpsons. . .

And this time, unlike two years ago when I was last summoned to the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance, there was no way getting out of it:  I was Juror No. 283, and they were summoning jurors 1 - 513.  I was screwed.

Hey, where did this guy go?

Now, as you may or may not recall, I happen to work full time.  I'm a history teacher at a public school, that's how we roll.  This summons of mine consequently fell on a weekday (a Wednesday), and this meant I had to get the time off of work in order to perform my sacred, civic duty.  This ended up not being a problem, though, as my employer - the government - is somewhat cool with me missing work for jury duties.

Hooray for me.

Being a resident of Orange County, I had to drive into downtown Orlando to the Courthouse. . . which sucked.  Driving down I-4 into the downtown area during morning rush hour traffic is like trying to evade the bulls of Pamploma in a wheelchair.  Drivers down here in Central Florida might as well be a gaggle of liquored-up chimps as far as I'm concerned - none of them can drive for crap.

And they all listen to shitty music.  But let's not fly off on that tangent, shall we. . .

Orange County Courthouse

Anyway, the Orlando Courthouse (at right) is a pretty impressive municipal building, for those of you who aren't familiar with it.  The Ninth Circuit Court has definitely done it's homework, and the room they set aside for jurors is pretty bitchin' (judicial term).  Plenty of vending machines, chairs, coaches, TVs, tables, what-have-you. 

They even have a computer lab and office center, and free Wi-Fi. . . which meant Yours Truly got to bring along his laptop to work on lesson planning and grading screw around on the Internet.

My trusty sidearm. . .

I showed up around 7:10am, and immediately staked out a coach next to a wall outlet so I could work on my laptop throughout the day.  First and foremost, however, I wanted to finish up George R. R. Martin's saga A Song of Ice and Fire on my Kindle.

As seen on HBO's Game of Thrones

I had started reading the acclaimed series in June, and had quickly hacked away at the first four books in a manner of weeks (yes, that's how I spent my summer vacation - reading that series whilst smoking a pipe and tanning in the sun. . . jolly good time, that.) Alas, the last book - A Dance with Dragons - had taken me nearly three months to read. . . more or less because I can never find time to read with a full-time job bitching and whining for my immediate attention.

(stupid job. . .)

Back to the 'Duty:  they began calling pools of jurors around 8:30, following a short (and pretty self-explanatory) orientation film.  Usually jurors were rounded up twenty or thirty at a time, then a half hour or an hour would pass before they called another pool forward.  After a couple hours, I had managed to finish off the series (and now I get to wait around impatiently for Martin to finish writing the 6th book - damn it), and killed a little time on the Internet (writing, shopping, reading the news, screwing around, etc.) before they allowed us an hour or so for lunch. 

Pretty much.

When we reconvened to the juror pool room (or whatever the hell it's called), we sat around for a few more hours while several more pools of jurors were called forward.  By 2:30pm, I had yet to be called.  Not that I was complaining - so far I had been a pretty big fan of jury duty.  I was being paid by the State of Florida and the school district to sit around and read books, write, and mess around on my laptop.  I'm cool with that.

Then, around 2:45pm, I was finally summoned to deliver justice onto my peers.  The hammer was about to striketh down, and Yours Truly was more than ready to deliver his civic roundhouse to the countless faces of evil.

Murder your child? Don't worry about it!

But, as luck would have it, my judicial kicks were never truly in need.  As we prepared to enter one of the courtrooms, the officials notified us that our services were no longer required:  the parties inside had settled once they had received word that jurors were prepared to enter the courtroom to try the case (or whatever it is we do).

So, by 3pm, I was on my way home.  After a grueling day of sitting around on my ass in a municipal building, staring at a computer screen, I was looking forward to a relaxing evening of sitting around on my ass in the comfort of my own living room, staring at a TV screen.

Slainté,

- Juror 283

The Houghs' 200th Episode: Holiday Blast-Off

Happy African American Friday, y'all!

Black Friday has gotten out of control, and people are becoming nothing more than masses of greedy sheep after Thanksgiving.  Accordingly, we didn't participate at all this year.  We didn't buy a damn thing on Black Friday, and I won't bother wasting time talking about it now. 

So, today morale was low in the realm of the Houghs.  Puking kid lying around the house, half-decorated Christmas tree.  You know the drill.  Not fun.

Well, the morale dropped even further when I decided to hook up Alayna's Fisher Price iXL and upload some new Christmas music and more pictures.  I'll spare you the nerdish details of this six hour ordeal (as only those savvy in computer-speak would appreciate and/or understand what I'm talking about), but it involved utilizing two different computers, multiple AA batteries, and a hell of a lot of cords.  In the end, the music was uploaded, the pictures were added, I added two new games for her, but lost three of the originals... and now face the task of resyncing the damn thing again (probably next month, when we go up to Dad's in Michigan) when I have access to another PC (I can no longer install it on any computer I own, since the software was updated and now the sync process is impossible).

I love the iXL, but the sync process is absolute shit.

By the time I threw in the towel, it was practically time for Kris to go to work.  The Cannonball was still pretty sick, so she only took Abby with her this afternoon.  Having failed in my attempt to update her iXL, I let her use my laptop to watch some movies in her bedroom . . .

. . . when she wasn't puking, of course.

Anyway, after an afternoon and evening spent lounging around, drinking water, and watching Pixar, the kid started to actually feel better.  The Hough Family Thanksgiving Curse had apparently subsided, its damage done.

By the time Kris and Abby got back from Sunchild, she was actually up and running around and in good spirits again.  So much so, in fact, that we decided that we'd attempt to finish what we had started the night before: throwing up the damn Christmas Tree.

Check it out:

Once we decided to finish decorating the tree, I dragged Alayna out to Target and we picked up $20 worth of cheaper, non-breakable Christmas ornaments to hang along the lower half of the tree (where inquisitive fingers frequently roam).

Jingle Bells:  Durable, shakable, fun to rip off the tree

Alayna hanging up a Mickey ornament she got last year from Papa and Nana

My old school Grover ornament I painted when I was in elementary school.  Yes, is still hangs on my tree.  Because Grover is awesome.

Abby having a snack.

Believe it or not, that's a Christmas movie on in the background. . .

We got this set of tacky, pink glass ornaments from my folks one year as a joke gift. . . and they somehow turned into a HUGE favorite with the kids.  Go figure.

Candy canes.  They are crack for children.

Alayna figured the candy canes were best hung clustered.

The Cannonball checks out Kris' old Angel tree-topper - something that we've discussed replacing with a light-up star for the past, oh, seven years or so. . .

Ornament exchange - I got a six-piece set of wooden Gye Nyames .

. . . and I got Kris a Dunkin' Donuts ornament 'cause, well, the chick loves the hell out of that place.

Christmas Decorating - complete

In closing, behold this year's Hough Family Christmas Card.  Print it out, slap it on your fridge, and add a touch of sexy yule to your holiday season:

(You're welcome.)

- Brian