Anything you can do, I can do better

Ok, that's not really what I was thinking when I signed up for NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, or something of the sort. But The Prettiest Denny's Waitress somehow manages to do it. So I thought I'd give it a whirl. I mean hell, it's Nov. 1st and I've already posted 3 messages. I'll just add it to my picture-a-day mentality.

Reading his post yesterday about Halloween and how he was going to start again, inspired me. That and I wanted to talk more about Halloween costumes.

Last night, I sat on the front porch of my grandmother's house - a house I love, over 100 years old, big, but not too big; just this past year she had a shower installed in the upstairs bathroom - before the only shower had been in the unfinished basement; and she raised her 10 children here. My job was to give 1 piece of candy to every trick-or-treater. The town had agreed that 6-7:30 would be the time. So I sat, on a relatively warm night, reading and handing out candy to a small yoda, a dalmation, a few princesses, etc. And you know what, only a handful, small handful, of costumes were homemade! Almost everyone was store bought.

I remember being a ballerina, a hobo, a witch all from items we had around the house. One year I made myself a pumpkin wearing an orange sweatshirt and green tights. But somehow all these adults have bought into the idea that the costume must be purchased. If your kid is under 4, they don't care. Besides, they shouldn't have an opinion.

I was talking with my great-aunt yesterday about how it seems like American's are forgetting how to survive within their own means. I grew up with my mom cooking, but we were not necessarily frugal. It was only when I moved out that I taught myself to can food, to knit. And I'm not going to pretend like I do those things because I have to (hell, look at my last post to know that I am certainly still with the rest of America at Tar-geh), I choose to. I don't wish that I was born in the late 1800s, but I do want to live a simple life. And I want people, especially in small town Ohio or even more so in American suburbia, to remember it can still be done.