Beware! How AM~Erica Spent this Ides of March

So anyway...

As we get this round of celebrations rolling, we had an ultimate Ultimate Pi Day yesterday (reminder HERE). And that's just the beginning...

These next several days are full of holidays!!

Today...though dark, is the infamous Ides of March.

Caesar didn't heed his warning in 44 B.C., on this day, and was stabbed in the back...and several other places...by people he thought were friends.

My family uses this day to kick off our salad season! Not accurate in feasting, but we do enjoy stabbing a fork into a good Chicken Caesar Salad. Wrong? Maybe...but we find it fitting.

With some crazy scheduling that has been entering into our lives this year, we are scaling our feasting back a bit & including apple slices, cubed cheese, and some Italian Bread.

I had hoped to work in an Orange Julius at some point...but it looks like we cannot do it this time. So hoping to makeup for that one tomorrow.

Oh! And as we all probably know by now, I must dress for the occasion! Amm-i-rite?

Yes...this is pretty much my staple Ides of March top. And I got this new headband for $5 that is the perfect topper!! So, I tried to look ready. I just stayed away from government buildings & such.

And now that this weird holiday is coming to a close, I look forward to St. Patrick's Day in a couple of days! One of my favorites!

Stay tuned...

God Bless, AM~Erica

AM~Erica Takes a Slice of Ultimate Pi Day

So anyway...

Today is kind of amazing.

Fo realz, yo!

It's pretty ultimate!

Today we begin a whole new round of celebrating! And even though this one involves maths & stuffs...I still found a way to celebrate.

Today is a day that can be celebrated in the States since we have our date format set up weird. Because of our format of [month/day/year] (instead of the rest of the world that has it set up [day/month/year]), we are able to celebrate March 14th. For most of the rest of the world, it is 14/3/15. Here, in the U.S., we have it set up as 3/14/15. People! In all that confusing mess I just went thru...I'm trying to say that we can use 3/14 as Pi Day!

Are you still with me?? OK...well, today is not just Pi Day...but we are in 2015, so today is ULTIMATE Pi Day!! With Pi being 3.141592653, on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53, we have achieved Ultimate Pi! BOOM!!
*CONFETTI CANNON*

Well, since I'm not so big on the mathical smarticle parts of being smart, I would find another way! Like...going to Planet Comicon!! FINALLY!!

The whole family went, and even though Teen Boy threw something together in very short time (like right before we left), only Teen Girl & I dressed full-on for the occasion. The boys donned geeky t-shirts, but the girl & I had costumes!! I'm sure many of you are surprised by this. *cough-cough*
(My other costume stuff I've done HERE)

Remember when I unveiled my STEAMPUNK CHARACTER, Lady T'luluh Poulpe', at our church's trunk-or-treat promo table? Well, that's the direction I went! But this time, I got much more of what I'd hoped for T'luluh to look like!

Long auburn hair with blonde & brown dreadlocks & braids, all in one wig, gave my character the perfect cephalopod-type edge I'd hoped to achieve. Plus, I needed a sidekick with 8 arms. So, I adopted one from Amazon & named him Carlow McKcraic'n!

OK, part of the steampunk world has a draw to octopi. Between that & C'thulhu...it was a perfect match to work with! So, everything from my character's name, to her look, to her sidekick, even her sidekick's name, all has a tie in with c'thulhu/kraken references. Also, a couple of years ago, I discovered the magic of Brian Kensinger's Tea Girls, as well as his best known characters, Victoria & Otto (check his stuff out HERE). That's what sparked the inspiration for an tentacle-involved steampunk character. She is still a work in progress, but I was SO excited with how T'luluh & Carlow worked for Comicon!!

And? Some people GOT it! I was so excited when a guy got really excited about the c'thulhu reference...then later a kid (he was maybe about 8 or 9) yelled from quite a distance away, "C'THULHU! I LOVE C'THULUH!" It was AWESOME!!

And so many other steampunk folks there, too!!

I didn't even get all of them! However, I did find this guy right here:

Yes. This guy was an amazing Captain Jack Sparrow!! And, not only did he love the women, but he really wanted to use Carlow for his pic with Teen Girl (who went as Ariel):

He even asked if she sang & made her sing for him:

He was trying to be Ursula while she sang. He was hilarious, on-point, and awesome!!

We did have a lot of fun today:

There was so much to see!! Our only disappointment was how much it was to get pictures/autographs with the celebrity guests there...and the greatest disappointment of that was that Cary Elwes camped out behind a curtain. Ugh. So we saw the back of his head thru a slit between two curtains. Did see a few other celebrity guests from afar: Michael Rooker, Meng-Na Wen, Karen Gillian...to name a few.

But it was an amazing experience to spend Pi Day with thousands of other weird peeps. The overall respect & appreciativeness of other's effort in costuming & and overall love for the geekiness out there in so many forms. It felt like home amongst those of us weirdos. And it was wonderful!

After all of that excitement, of course we had to focus on eating for the occasion! So...PIE!

That's right. We ordered some Minsky's Pizza pies & enjoyed a small Moon Pie for dessert! PERFECT!!

Does it help that we had pizza & dessert that were round for Pi Day?

I hope you all found a way to celebrate the Ultimate Pi Day, which happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday (fitting).

Now, I'm hoping to clean this up so I can get it posted at 9:26 this evening.

More celebrations coming this week...

Stay tuned...(tomorrow is the Ides of March...beware)

God Bless, AM~Erica

AM~Erica's Record Halloween

So anyway...

My favorite holiday is finally here!!

Yep...it's Halloween, folks! And I was so ready!!

If you remember when I helped with TRUNK-OR-TREAT THE OTHER NIGHT, I usually use it to unveil my Halloween costume. And it was a beautiful time that night.

Well, it was time for the big night!!

After a crazy-busy day of cable issues, needing to go to the store, needing to bring Teen Girl home from college for the weekend (she loved handing out candy last year & wanted to be back to help out again), getting dinner into the family, plus trick-or-treaters...I'm sitting here blogging in my jammies, enjoying some Antioxidant-Fortified Jesus Water (trying Apothem Dark, in case you wanted to know), and thinking about the magical night we have had.

I did serve Beastly Boo Hash (recipe HERE) for dinner, and then it was off to prep the decorations & our costumes for the night...

First was the the Beastly Boo Hash in the lazy cooker. My hubby & I were so excited for it! Apparently the kids got whiney about it. Well...BUMMER! Cuz it was SO good!!

After dinner, the pumpkin luminaries made their way to the walk way for this cold night of trick-or-treating...

I was really pleased with how the luminaries turned out, along with the front porch set up. Even though we had extra luminaries to work with...apparently we didn't have enough candles. So need to remember that for next year. But still glad we got luminaries all the way to the end of the driveway...


And we were getting on our own costumes, too!

Between Captain America, a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, and Boo (with "Kitty"), they looked great??

Then my hubby & I wanted to do our thing again, too...

And as sinister as my hubby looked...

...he had a plan...

Yeah...he was greeting trick-or-treaters peeking from above in a sinister fashion...and some did freak out...

The scene was set with our backdrop & I put a makeshift, semi-oferena altar behind me to go along with my sugar skull Day of the Dead outfit.

As I opened the door to hand out candy, Teen Girl was there to take the tally of numbers!

It started a little slow. But in 2 & a half hours...we got an amazing amount!!

Last year, I was so EXCITED BY THE NUMBERS...but this year, I did my own dance!! We had a total of...

*DRUM ROLL*

95!!!!

Oh man, oh man!! I was ecstatic!!

Plus, if you remember from the trunk-or-treat event when a sweet Mexican family came back to my car for a pic...well, it happened again! A sweet (different) Mexican family had to take my pic with the kiddos! It was so amazing!! Plus another family wanted my pic later that night, too! It was crazy!!

And Teen Girl got so many compliments on her adorable costume. I think Hubby kind of freaked people out...which kind of delighted him!

Oh...and out of the 95 trick-or-treaters...not a single Elsa, Anna or Olaf came to our door! Can you believe it?? We did see some creative costumes, and some that didn't try so hard...but it's always worth it to see kiddos (even the really big ones...like the same one who came last year as maskless Spiderman) want to join in the fun.

Then the boys wanted us to go check out a few decorations if we could. So, we shut down around 9:00 (good thing...I was pretty much out of candy), took in our luminaries, and we went to see if a couple houses were still done up from when Teen Boy escorted Lil Guy trick-or-treating. One house was still done up!! Another was in the middle of striking their set (that one's for the theater kids out there ), and the other had already closed up shop for the night.

We came back home to chill out. We originally wanted a fire in the fireplace & a Halloween movie, but it was late & we have an early morning!

That reminds me...I need to head to bed!

So despite the fact we had no wifi for most of today, which meant not being able to record the Halloween episodes of the Live with Kelly & Michael, along with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, it turned out pretty darn well!

Hope everyone had an amazing Halloween! I'm still on cloud 9 from the numbers!! Maybe I can break 100 next year?? We shall see...
And I may have plans on treats for next year, too! Like joining the Teal Pumpkin Project, and maybe even some dog treats...like for the sweet boxer who came to our door!

Until then...Happy Halloween!!

Stay tuned...(more crazy-business is coming)

God Bless, AM~Erica