Happy Halloween!!

I’ve been so in the Halloween spirit all month prepping for today!

I carved a pumpkin

Got an awesome costume together with minimal effort.

Made Halloween decorations from scratch:

Credit: Erin

Had some extra burlap….obv

Stole Halloween decorations from bars:

Watched the best movie ever.

Bought some candy for the trick-or-treaters that probably won’t come. Do NYC kids trick-or-treat?

And ate a fun-size Snickers bar for breakfast today. I am ready.

It’s almost time!

Halloween is tomorrow, and I’ve already watched Hocus Pocus so I’m in full spirit. But if you STILL don’t have a costume because you’re boring, you can do what I did and reuse an old idea – but with a new vision.

I love my pumpkin costume, but I’ve already worn it twice, so this year I decided to change it up a little by attaching strobe lights to my body.

The essential for this costume is obvi my pumpkin-top head band – best thing I’ve ever made.

Then I stocked up on light-up necklaces from CVS…

…Got some safety pins and a friend who wasn’t afraid to pin lights to my boobs

And voila! Epilepsy pumpkin was born:

Sorry I’m Fly

Halloween came a little early for my ladies and me last weekend. So if you still haven’t found a costume, here’s some inspiration from Ally.

All you need is a Forever 21, a TJ Maxx, a street vendor, a vision and all of this can be yours:

The final product:

What exactly is she dressed as? Whatever you want her to be….

Ghetto Harry Potter

Ode to Sandy on her birthday

There’s this girl I hate. She ruined my life (and Halloween) exactly one year ago today. This is her story.

First we got the news that she was coming

And since I AM THE NEWS, I was summoned to work 18-hour days while everyone got a week’s vacation…

Stolen from Alyssa

But the great rains were coming

East River

East River

So I had to evacuate my home and become a refugee in Williamsburg where Sandy didn’t even bother to go because she’s such a betch. All the way to Brooklyn on a week night, no way.

But we were running out of supplies and had resorted to eating disgusting pies. And since the bridges and tunnels closed, and the subways flooded, we were forced to walk home on Halloween day to restock.

Crossing the bridge

Lower Manhattan was not a pretty sight

Lower East Side has Indian food!

Stuy Town, USA

But we came out of it eventually

Post-Sandy rainbow

Thanks to our leaders

Mitt Romney jokes were so in at the time

And we got a nice rent abatement. So happy birthday, Sandy. Thanks for the memories.

Halloween tips from your friendly HR team!

I regrettably do not belong to the Society for Human Resource Management, but lucky I have a man on the inside. That man is HR professional extraordinaire, Ally.

Thanks to her membership to this exclusive underground society, I’ve been granted access to this important piece of literature: “Can the ‘Naughty Nurse’ and Modern Workplace Coexist?”

In preparation for Halloween falling on a week day, I’d like to break down some of the main points:

HR managers and employer attorneys offer the following advice to companies that want to create policies for Halloween costumes and parties:

1. “Provide examples of inappropriate costumes for the workplace, such as costumes that exaggerate body parts, those that reveal too much of the body, men and women dressed as the opposite sex, terrorist get-ups, or ethnic, religious or race-based costumes.”

Here are some examples of BAD costumes according to SHRM:

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2. “Caution employees of hospitals or other health care organizations that images of ghosts, graves, skeletons and blood don’t go over well in health care settings.”

The “naughty nurse” could be confusing in a hospital setting.

I am unsure which one of these is my real nurse

This is offensive to the guy who actually looks like this

3. “Request that workers avoid donning political costumes that could be offensive.”

 

4. Be careful with topical costumes, and don’t chase people. “Wearing a ‘pink slip’ over clothing and chase co-workers around might not be funny given the current unemployment rate.”

5. And the trick to getting Halloween off:

“If Halloween offends some workers, offer to let them work at home or take the day off.”

I HATE IT, and I’m going home

Here’s some extra reading if you want to be SUPER informed:

Allowing Halloween Costumes at Work Can Be Tricky

Halloween Celebrations Can Lead to Scary Situations 

Happy October!

I’m too lazy and busy to actually write anything original, so look back on my old Halloween posts and get a costume idea now so you don’t have to settle for dressing up as Miley Cyrus at the VMAs with the rest of America.

Worst Halloween ever

Last minute Halloween

Childhood Gems

Other worst Halloween ever

Peter Pan

Spice Girls

Pumpkin

Happy non-Halloween for the second year in a row

The gods out there apparently hate Halloween and all that is fun because for the second year in a row nature has killed it. I feel bad for the little kids who won’t be able to trick-or-treat yet again, but I mostly feel bad for me. I was looking forward to wearing my awesome costume one more time this year and experiencing NYC Halloween. But instead I’m dressed as a refugee in Williamsburg (which by the way was left unscathed). That’s okay, at least I get to look forward to the 14-hour days I’ve been working! Maybe next year we’ll get some wild fires and go really crazy in 2013.

Love,

Debbie Downer

Natasha will not see the light of day again this Halloween:

Last minute Halloween

It’s almost Halloween weekend, and I already have my costume picked out, but I thought I’d share out a couple gems of ideas that were thrown around this year and ultimately didn’t make the cut. Both are ideal for a trio, and you can get everything you need at trashy stores in the mall or probably around your house. (Also, don’t forget about the art of wear-and-return…do you really think I still own silver go-go dancer boots?)

For the woman unafraid to dress like a dude –

Uncle Jesse, Danny Tanner and Uncle Joey:

Let’s break these down one-by-one:

Uncle Jesse should be pretty simple as long as you can get the mullet just right. All you need is a leather jacket, a white t-shirt (maybe write Jesse and the Rippers on it), some old ripped faded 90s jeans and some sort of boot.

There’s quite an assortment of “leather” jackets at Forever21, but they are a little pricey. This is where the wear-and-return comes in:

Forever21

For the jeans, I would advise checking your mom’s closet or even a guy’s closet. But if that’s not an option, you can always count on Kohls! Just rip them up a little.

Kohl’s (obvi)

Accessory: Motorcycle helmet, guitar or Lori Loughlin.

Kohl’s

Danny Tanner isn’t too hard either – just pull your hair back in a bun and wear a collared shirt, baggy argyle sweater, pleated khakis and dress shoes or nasty running sneakers.

Kohl’s to the rescue again! Just make sure you get a man color and a really big size.

You can do one-stop shopping and get your khakis there too. I know this outfit will not be a wear-and-return.

Kohl’s again

Accessory: Baby Olsen twin.

Uncle Joey might be a little trickier because it may need to involve a trip to the Good Will, which is hit or miss. What you need is a nice center piece for the outfit – a hoodless 90s sweatshirt with a cartoon character on it. Something like this is good:

Probably a steal on eBay (good investment)

Or you could get a nice short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt.

The rest is jeans like uncle Jesse’s (but not ripped), ugly sneakers and a polo shirt peeking out from under the sweatshirt. This outfit also requires a mullet of course.

Accessory: a beaver hand puppet or Alanis Morissette.

For the true betch – Clueless Girls:

I’m just going to focus on Cher for this one, but the other girls are pretty similar.

The yellow outfit is classic, so I tried to fashion something similar out of items you can find at the mall:

Forever21

Charlotte Russe

American Apparel

Target

Or if you find this beauty at your local Forever 21, that could work too.

Forever21

After that you just need white knee socks and to scour your old bedroom for a tiny backpack, an old cell phone and a fluffy pen to chew on. “Anything you can do to draw attention to your mouth is good.”

The bottom of your JanSport

Halloween Party

I was minding my own business when Ally sent me a sideshow slideshow of fashion mistakes choices from last night’s Met Gala. I don’t know if people were confused as to what the occasion was, but they all seemed to break out their finest designer Halloween costumes. Let’s break it down into categories. (Photo credits: HuffPost)

Some ladies decided it best not to stray from the classics:

Here’s Vera Wang as a skeleton

Vera Wang

As any girl knows, Halloween is an excuse to dress as slutty as possible without being judged. Here’s Ana Rubik as a sexy mummy

Holy slit, Ana Rubik

It’s not a Halloween party without a witch; unfortunately nobody dressed as one. But luckily Mary-Kate Olson decided to drop by after her defense against the dark arts class at NYU.

Mary-Kate Olson

Next, a couple women went a really unique route and dressed up as textiles:

Here’s Sarah Jessica Parker as a table cloth…

SJP

And Gwyneth Paltrow as a small scrap of satin

Gwyneth Paltrow

(It’s actually kind of cute from the side – minus that heinous bronze clutch)

We also saw a couple ladies dressed as famous personalities:

Like Kirstin Dunst’s creative interpretation of what Nancy Reagan might have looked like had she been First Lady during the Great Depression

Kirsten Dunst

And Sandra Lee showed her great sense of humor by showing up as herself

Sandra Lee

Now I’ll move onto the misc. category, which includes a vast array of really unique and creative costume ideas:

A record store

Chloe Sevigny

An Olympic swimmer (gold medal, of course)

Karolina Kurkova

A naked peacock

Beyonce

Geisha robot? (Perhaps she was inspired by her futuristic role in Hunger Games)

Elizabeth Banks

Leighton Meester really stumped me. I don’t know if this is supposed to be some sort of fowl – a swan maybe. Or did she just go as spray tan?

Leighton Meester

Now I want to give props to the one dress that I thought was really beautiful. I’d like to steal Camilla Belle’s Ralph Lauren dress and wear it to bed every night.

Camilla Belle

(Not) Feeling Halloweenie (part 4)

- Happy Halloween, kids -

Happy Halloween! Or for everyone fortunate enough to live in upper Fairfield County – Happy snow day. To the horror of the neighborhood children, Halloween has been canceled. An official trick-or-treating ban is in place! All children who wish to collect candy without being electrocuted by live wires in the streets are to report to the mall for the lamest trick-or-treating experience ever. Who wants to trick-or-treat at Sears?

After this weekend, it’s safe to say that snow storms in October have made my top 5 most hated things ever. Nature is a smart lady – she snows in the winter after all the leaves have fallen. But she’s been pissed off this year, so she played a Halloween trick on us and dumped 15 inches of snow on top of lush trees, and guess what. They fell. They fell on top of power lines and houses and they blocked streets and canceled Halloween parties. And the plows decided to take the day off. Cool.

- News Times -

Of course who was out and about in the middle of all of this? My family – driving to a wedding in the middle of a blizzard and almost dying. After 4 excruciating hours of skidding and waiting in traffic, we finally made it to the wedding, which was being powered by a generator. If it were me, I would have balled up in a corner and refused to get married that day, but not this bride. After off-roading in her limo and getting stuck in a ditch for an hour and a half, her reaction was “At least it’s not raining. Rain would have been much worse.” That could not be more false, but I admire her optimism. Anyway, the wedding went on smoothly.

- Trecking home -

- How I feel after walking through a foot of snow in a dress -

Two life-threatening car rides later and a half-night’s sleep on a couch and I was back home to the gorgeous site of fallen trees and branches, broken power lines and a house with no electricity or heat. So, excuse me for being a Deb. but I am not feeling very Halloweenie on this Halloween. I have been deprived of a shower and proper use of my costume.

- Main Street Danbury (News Times) -

My idea was to share some fun Halloween costumes from my Catholic school days, but seeing as I could not feel my toes last night let alone search through photo albums and scan pictures, that plan has been foiled.

Instead I did this with my sister:

- The sis. making a little garage barbeque hot chocolate -