Gargoyles and Gravestones

Our local tea shop is closed for a week while one of the owners, a very nice lady, has long over due back surgery. We're glad she's finally getting the medical help she needs but, selfishly, it leaves hubby and I without our weekly tea date. We had to settle for one of the local coffee shops. We hadn't been there in a while. I really enjoyed my meal but hubby complained it just didn't have the atmosphere we enjoy at the tea room.

I've been working on moving the last of the furniture to the places I expect it to stay for awhile. I was going to finish painting the dining room walls this afternoon but I decided I should do it right and finish removing the old baseboard heaters first. No sense painting around them and then later taking them off and having to try to match the paint. Besides, the furniture will fit against the walls better once the heaters are gone. By the time I got the electrical supplies I needed to cap off the old wires and found all the right tools, it was too late to follow through as the light was clouding over and fading. Since I have to turn off the electricity to remove the heaters, I'll have to start the electrical work tomorrow.

Instead I worked on unpacking boxes or moving them to places to sort through later. Crafting supplies went to the studio. Missed stacks of books got shelved. Garage sale boxes went to the back door to be moved the woodshed tomorrow. And so on. We can now walk from the living room to the dining room without having to walk AROUND the extra shelf (which went to the garage) and then AROUND the stack of boxes. Very exciting.

But not much time for blogging. I didn't do a Halloween theme yesterday, so I'll share a little Halloween vignette with you today. I haven't started decorating for real yet but I've set out these few new things I picked up recently.

A little graveyard atop our cable box. And a little gargoyle to protect our transmission.

The first photo is more how it looks in person, but here's another photo with a flash so you can see more detail.

We really like gargoyles in this household and have quite a few of them around the house all year round. Of course they look particularly at home during the Halloween season. One of my favorite children's books is a little known book by a well known author, God Bless the Gargoyles by Dave Pilkey.

If you haven't had school aged children in your life in the last ten years, you might not be familiar with Dav Pilkey. We stumbled upon his gargoyle book because William (and his parents) loved his popular, irreverent series of children's books, Captain Underpants. But don't expect more of his typical silliness. Instead, God Bless the Gargoyles is one of those "aww, man - sniff, wipe tear" stories. The illustrations are wonderful and the story is done in rhyme. Here's a little clip from it -

"so gargoyles were born, and they stood night and day,
keeping evil and terrible spirits away.

And ne'er was a creature so true and so loyal
as the watchful, courageous, and fearless gargoyle."

Oh, and let's not forget another favorite Pilkey title - The Hallo-weiner. It's the story of a youngster forced to wear an embarrassing Halloween costume his mother made for him. Although Pilkey's stories are published as children's books, you definitely don't need to be a child to enjoy them.