Halloween is my Busiest Month of the Year

In 2012, I started the month of Halloween out with a bang.  The first weekend of the month I was invited to present at the ISATA conference which is the Idaho Speech Arts Teachers Association.  I had presented to them the year before and was invited back.  The conference was in Sun Valley, Idaho and I presented how to make "Magical Tomes". 

I did it as a "cooking show" style of presentation where I had several books in various stages of completion and performed the next step on them so they could see the entire process and I didn't have to wait for dry time.

Crafting a book at Sun Valley, Idaho

One of the finished books from the conference

When we were done with the conference, my wife and brother and I visited Craters of the Moon National Monument since it was on the way home.  It's only natural.  I have always been a geology groupie.

Spatter cones at Craters of the Moon

The next week I spent in Washington DC and Virginia with a couple of colleagues, doing research for an upcoming play.  We were going to do an original play called "First Freedom", but the playwright was too possessive of the script and wouldn't allow adaptations we wanted to make to evolve the show beyond it's current form.  We viewed it as a workshop piece, he viewed it as a finished piece.  We are doing "She Stoops to Conquer" in that slot instead.  The research wasn't in vain, as both shows take place in the same time period, albeit one in England and the other in America.

Historic Williamsburg, Virginia

Cool shadows in Washington DC

While we were at the National Archives I happened to see a "Green Man" in the bark of a tree.

The Green Man

I obsessed about the Green Man on the way home and decided to make a book cover about him.  I did this the next week after I returned home.

The Green Man Book

I returned home just in time to host my annual Zombie Walk

Thriller at the Zombie Walk

Brrraaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnsssssssssss

We gave out Zombie Awards that I had made.  They were zombified Barbies, Kens and GI Joes attached to some old fence wood.

Award for the Best Thriller Zombie

The next week we opened a show called "Bielzy and Gottfried" which I had been the scene designer for.

Scene design for Bielzy and Gottfried

The Devil, entering from the Hellmouth in Bielzy and Gottfried

Then I opened the Halloween Concert, for which I have no pictures, sadly.  We did it as "A Halloween Carol".  You can fill in the rest.  I was the costume coordinator and the properties master for that show.

The Saturday before Halloween, I assisted my wife in hosting our annual Halloween party.  We rent a ballroom in town and decorate it for Halloween, then we dance, talk and eat.  What else is there to do at a party?

Our friend Laurent at the Halloween party

Throughout the month of Halloween, in-between all the other things I was doing, I finished my wife's Witches Kitchen set which was set up inside our home for the trick or treaters.

Witches Kitchen set

The Hot Chick in costume on the Witches Kitchen set

Like I say, Halloween is the busiest month of the year.