Halloween is here and with it comes everything that goes into preparing for it. Decorations to be put up, costumes to be made, candy to be bought and don't forget the classic activity, carving the pumpkin. As a kid I loved Halloween. What's not to like? You get free candy, can scare the living heck out of your little siblings without getting into trouble and the free reign to use a kitchen knife to carve a vegetable you don't even have to eat . When you think about, pretty sure whoever created Halloween probably didn't have children. In fact, probably one of those Uncles we all have with a wicked sense of humour and an even bigger bottle of scotch is having a lot of fun sitting back and laughing at the rest of us!
With that said, if it isn't broke …don't fix it. So what do I do? I have candy. I have costumes and the decorations are up. Only one thing left to do….carve a pumpkin. I head to the local warehouse to pick up a few pumpkins. I go with the intention of bringing home six. After all I convince myself, every member of my family is going to want to carve their own. A very nice lady and I spent over ten minutes searching the bins for that "perfect" pumpkin. I can't find one, let alone six(pretty sure the nice lady left with the last perfect one) . I need a new plan of attack. The shopping carts are outside the store, with rain pouring down on them which leaves me one choice. Two arms to carry out with, two pumpkins it is . I decided we could split our family into two groups and have a pumpkin carving contest. Even better than my original idea. I've been listening all week to my daughter rave about this really "sick" (aka awesome) show "Halloween Wars" in which teams compete against each other to create the best costume, jack o' lantern etc. Not only are we going to carve pumpkins but I have incorporated a reality show theme now.
Convinced that my family is going to think I am the best mom ever, I share my idea with them when I get home. All I can say is that sometimes things just don't go as expected. Best not to get your hopes up. My husband gave me the usual " are you serious" look he wears so well and the kids started dropping faster than the flu virus spreads. Within just a few short minutes , it was me and my 7 year old left at the table . Determined to show the rest of the family what great fun we are going to have without them and the amazing pumpkins we are going to carve, I head to the website - Pinterest. Here I download a few carving ideas. Every mom knows this site. It is the go to for all the beautiful, creative crafts you will ever lay your eyes on. Martha Stewart worthy! This is not my first attempt at a Pinterest craft. The others left a little to be desired but for whatever reason I believe this time will be different. I find a few image ideas to I would like to carve and by images I mean pictures of carved pumpkins that resemble the work done at the Sistine Chapel, but hey, I got this.
My only teammate left, Cruz has one job to do. Remove the pumpkin "guts" with a spoon. That's where he started and that is where I lost him. He's a fairly typical boy, likes mud, bugs, boogers and anything categorized as disgusting but for some reason pumpkin guts is what causes him to draw the line! After five minutes of him gagging, I decided it's best not to call his bluff any longer and let him off the hook before he pukes. Apparently, pumpkin is disgusting and offensive (Both of which he said but can not spell)
So there I am, two pumpkins to carve and only one of me. It's ten at night and I have to work tomorrow. All I can think is thank goodness I didn't get six. I keep with the original Pinterest idea and decide that I could still impress my family and they will surely be disappointed once they see my awesome pumpkin. Well, I don't know about the rest of the world and their luck with Pinterest but mine …is another epic Pinterest fail. My pumpkin is ugly, real ugly. It does not look anything like the pumpkins on the website. Back in the day, before all this technology took over, you only had your neighbours' pumpkins to compare to. You could walk down the street and feel pretty good about yourself. Everyone else had the homemade, get er' done , kind of carved pumpkin. Now in ten minutes on the computer can be detrimental to any sort of self worth you had left. Pinterest should have a disclaimer on the site "Actual outcome may vary" and until it does I am creating a new site for all the versions of my Pinterest crafts . I will call it Pugly.
