Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House

Autumn is officially here, and as you can see above, Mommy is ready for it with another very nice arrangement on and around the front porch.  We just got the mums - and for free, actually.  The scarecrow is about one year old thus far, and was doing well enough to endure another year outside, and all the other decorations we've had for some time now, including some that Ye-Ye made a while ago.

Ye-Ye and Nana spent a good part of the day working on the back yard, and now we have a garden area again, complete with soil.  Daddy went to Home Depot to get that, and was somewhat tempted to pick up a lawn decoration there.  This was probably a good thing that he didn't get the nearly ten foot tall inflatable sand worm from the movie "Beetlejuice."  But he was tempted!

One seasonal thing we saw online was a description of an old record first sold at Disneyland in 1964. The cover looked familiar to us, and sure enough, we actually have a copy of this record.

It's called "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds from the Haunted House."  This record we have is a reissue from I think 1973.  But the contents are the same, as is the cover - outside of an orange background instead of the original white.  We always thought this was odd, because there's actually no picture or mention of the real haunted mansion at the Magic Kingdom or Disneyland, but our recent looking into this revealed that this record was released long before the actual attractions were opened.  Back growing up, Ba-Ba used to play this, along with many other dads, to create a spooky atmosphere.  He also had a record of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," which to this day is one of the favorites for Mommy.

Anyway, suddenly there's a bit more appreciation for this record, which we'll listen to in just a bit.  For the time being, it was fun looking through old records just to see if we could find it.  We found a few other records along the way, and sure enough, we'll be listening to the record player a bit more.  And of course, we'll be playing that new record Daddy got last year, the soundtrack to "The Nightmare Before Christmas."  It's such an awesome birthday present, with pictures of the characters on the record.

Madison had school today, and piano tonight.  It's official:  she's playing "Tightrope" for the piano recital in November, as it is written by an American composer.  This season for us upcoming is going to be very busy, given the news from Florida with Ba-Ba.  Therefore it makes sense to do something easier, and in this case already done before, for Madison.  She'll practice this song a lot, I'm sure.  But it won't be as stressful as learning a completely new song.

We watched "Hotel Transylvania" tonight, this with the idea of watching part two tomorrow night.  We had time for reading, and we prayed for Ba-Ba, and we're praying for our nation right now.  Yet again, one side of the political spectrum is so focused on taking down the other that it seems they don't do anything else at all.  For three years now, that's all they've seemed to have done, focus on destroying the other side.  It wears down at the soul, which I suppose is the point.  Daddy doesn't listen to the news that much anymore, and it would be good for the soul not to listen to it that much in the year coming.  It's going to be vicious again.  One politician in particular pointed out that they were trying to take down the people in the other political party, because we need to stop being so "divisive." Does that even make sense?  As if what these people are doing is not divisive.  It's annoying.

We have these grand ideas of people debating political ideas, arguing noble points about freedom and rights and helping one another.  And instead our government officials seem to be focused on simply tearing one another down in order to stay in power so they can continue getting money.  Again, it's better to not turn on the television, radio, or computers so much.  The weather outside is beautiful and it's a lovely day - think on these things instead.  Sure, we need to do our patriotic duty.  Vote, and speak up.  But I think it is not my thing anymore to wear it to the point that it wears upon me.  That's why the car speakers have been playing an assortment of fall music, with banjos and dulcimers and even a few spooky soundtracks.  It's much preferable to hearing the nonsense of some of our political leaders.  Seriously, rather than listen to certain people, I would rather hear "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted Mansion."  It's actually less scary!