Outnumbered Two to One

It seems like every year I forget what a chore pumpkin carving is. Seriously. I do it for the kids mostly. It’s an activity that solidifies Halloween for them, scooping pumpkin guts, going at the thing with those wee carving knives, lighting it up and watching it eventually rot and collapse on itself. It’s a good time. Or not.

Whatever.

Today I needed a jack-o-lantern, it was getting down to the wire and my five year old was hounding me for a pumpkin, which I kept promising to get. Well, little did I know that for the most part pumpkins are scarce the day before Halloween. None at Target, none at BJs, none at the Lowe’s. I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and luckily hit the jackpot.

Pumpkins galore in a big bin, swarming with fruit flies and on sale for two bucks a piece. They weren’t the traditional roundish orange pumpkins I’m used to. There were all manner of colored gourds, predominantly Cinderella, which look like the pumpkin turned coach from the fairytale. I opted for something called a Jarrahdale, a gray green tinged pumpkin that looked pretty interesting at first glance. At $2 a pop, I couldn’t beat it.

I brought it home, where it sat on my dinner table until all homework assignments were complete. Around 5 we set to the task of carving into the hapless gourd using a scary faced stencil my son had picked out.

Let me just say, this sucker did not go down without a fight. My piddly novelty carving knives were no match for the rind on this piece of fruit vegetable fruit. I was sweating, people. Literally. By the time I finally wrestled off the lid it took me 20 minutes to cut out, I wanted to cry. The tough dense flesh was more than two inches thick and I still had to carve out a face on the thing. The only good thing about it was that it smelled like melons instead of gross gone over pumpkin, which is what I was expecting.

An hour and a half later I managed to get through it. I gave my biceps a thorough workout and managed not to lop off any of my fingers in the process. Take a look.

Also today,Lydia from On the Verge tagged me with this wicked little trinket:

There are rules associated with it, primarily tagging everyone else in the blogosphere all in the name of good Halloween fun. I am supposed to drop little boo bombs on as many fellow bloggers as I can, but today, I don’t have the energy. That pumpkin took a lot out of me and since tomorrow is Halloween and slated to be a busy day on the mom front, I don’t want to let this one lapse. So, new rules, if you’ve come by and seen this adorable little image, consider yourself tagged, er booed, not like boo throwing tomatoes boo, more like boo, aren’t I scary, please don’t wet your pants boo. So pass it on, spread the boo, without the hoo and partake in the no cal Halloween merriment.

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Check out more Halloweenielicious Posts at Sprite’s Keeper: The Spin Cycle

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