I love my little purple tree. I just need to hunt down more hippo ornaments LOL

 Blurry but rainy!  It came down hard enough to bend my roses sideways!

Other things of randomness.

I finished a DMC pattern called Mystic Hand. It was supposed to be done in sparkly floss but I just used regular floss. I guess I could have used some of the metallics but I wanted to see how it looked and I think I like it.

Also realized it had been too long since I had done a nice Paint by Numbers so I grabbed that nice flowery one! *happy happy*  I also found that really fun Gypsy Witch fortune telling pack of cards. It is really fun - and some of the meanings crack me up! 

​I had more to say but I can't stop sneezing.  Not sure if it's a cold or just really bad awful allergies but whatever it is - it's annoying.  (what a terrible way to end a blog post)

  So - I bought a lamp.... I was very excited about this lamp - it had lots of settings including a "natural daylight" setting so I could do arty things in the evening.

But it was not meant to be my lamp.

​I am sad.

I have never been a huge Thanksgiving fan.  And yet people still gather in annoyingly loud family groups to drive me nuts.  Yes, I take it personally LOL

My neighbors for instance seem to think that small children and dogs can only hear you if you YELL AT THEM IN A REALLLLLY LOUD VOICE over and over again.  I know their dogs and kids names because they keep yelling them over and over really loudly, not in anger, but I think to ... amuse them?  ZOEEYYYYYYY ZOEEYYYYYY - ZOOOOOEEYYYYYYYY   (not amused)

I wish they'd just shut their front door. *sigh*

Time to turn on some loud metal music and stick a speaker out my window.  I am like a total Thanksgiving Grinch - and I don't apologize in the slightest.

Also, it rained last night.  I usually LOVE it when it rains. All that lovely petrichor. But I  forgot to put a towel on the AC unit outside my window. Which means the raindrops hitting it are LOUD and go PINGPINGPINGPING  and I was too tired at 1 AM to go out and rectify the matter.  So basically, this day was already losing happy points very early on.  Redeeming qualities are slim to none right now.

So, if you celebrate, enjoy the day. I hope your neighbors aren't as annoying as mine.

  Well, second most annoying.  The first is that whole Spring Forward where I LOSE an hour. That is painful. This one is bad for the oh hey it's dark at 4 PM thing.

I love the extra hour of sleep I get tomorrow. I mean, anything that keeps me from having to get up and go to the grocery store is a good thing, but still.

I am really hoping that at some point we can all NOT have to keep fiddling with the clocks twice a year.

Unless the zombie apocalypse comes and we all go back to being farmers and  getting up at dawn to run from things, then there really is no point to this. Other than to make a lot of people cranky.


​Spot on:

  My neighbors had this guy out - I had to get a selfie because it cracked me up. I also did a double take as a car drove past me, Michael Myers was driving.  I decided I should probably go back inside and lock the doors.

There were not a lot of littles trick or treating this year. I heard maybe 3?  Sad. I loved all that fun stuff when I was a little. I still love it now although I can't eat that much candy like I used to. So Much Sugar.

Another neighbor had a Pennywise the Clown figure on their front walk. He was holding a red balloon. It was terrifying.  Come to think of it, that may be why there were hardly any littles...

​I'll stick to Aliens, thank you.

While I was inside hiding from Michael Myers, I decided to watch a show I'd downloaded called Expedition Unknown Search for The Afterlife.  It was hosted by Josh Gates who I just adore from the show Destination Truth - which I watched since it first started years ago.  I like getting to know people by watching them on TV through the years, it's kinda like you know them, sort of, you know?

I have seen Josh do all sorts of crazy, nutty and dangerous things but I have never seen him so completely rattled and emotional as I did on this show.  I was getting emotional as well, I cried 3 times in the first episode alone, (there are 4 total)   He basically goes on a search to see what various peoples/religious beliefs/professional doctors, think happens after we die.

One of the things that got me was him speaking with Dr. Sam Parnia of AWARE, which studies NDE's.
This fascinated me, check out the site.  What he said on the show was that people who are clinically dead, remained aware of audio stimuli for up to 3-5 minutes after they were dead.  Concluding that our spirit/soul/consciousness is not annihilated after we die. (there is much more but that was the total mike drop on the show)

Josh then goes on to speak with several people who had NDE and you could see it visible touched him deeply.  He also travels to see a body cremated on a ghat in New Delhi and is asked to participate in the ceremony which is a huge honor.  He learns of the Muslim beliefs in the afterlife and is given a message from Chip Coffey about a family member who had recently passed.

​He then takes some Ayahuasca and the experience seems incredibly intense.  I would be way too scared to try it but it was interesting to see him go through it and hear his thoughts.  After that he ends the show searching for ghosts.... on The Queen Mary!  Which I posted about yesterday before I even knew he went there. (Post)  

I love that he chose the Propeller Box to dive into and listen for purported audio evidence. Even as a kid that room weirded me out badly. There is a photo of it in that post.  Josh met up with some Ghost Hunters - it was awesome to see that and they caught some interesting stuff.

All in all it was a great 4 series special and I am so glad I watched it.  They touched upon science, transhumanism, cryonics, Buddhism and more.  What it comes down to is belief and also, not getting so caught up in the afterlife that you forget to live and love in this life.

If you get a chance to watch the show, do so, I think it really opens the mind up to seeing what else is out there even if you don't believe.