Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

When the salad tongs go missing, and the craft alarm rings, grab a pumpkin, a fistful of candy, and hitch up your Halloween pants. The full moon is rising, Vincent Price is whispering in your ear, and the Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks Team has lost its collective mind. Someone else in the house, besides me,… Continue reading Spooky Craft Alert on All-Hallows Eve

Pumpkin paranoia, which results from the relentless gaze of Halloween gourds that are scattered about the house, is real. At least, it is to me. Just the other day, I was standing at the top of the staircase, and I felt something push me from behind. Luckily, I didn’t fall, but when I turned around,… Continue reading Pumpkin Patch Cookies

Getting smacked in the face with ghosts and other haunted things is something I don’t think anyone needs to pay for. Seeking out expensive haunted tours and potentially life-threatening hayrides, this time of year, is unnecessary. Just go outside and let your imagination run wild. That’s what I do, anyway, and that’s why I’m half… Continue reading DIY Ghost Stories Number Four: The Spooky Woods in the Neighborhood

Ring the doorbell at the Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks household, and you’ll get some kind of menacingly invasive claw thrust at you, with a Milky Way hanging off the end. Do you take the treat? Where has it been? I can only imagine the confusion. If “scared as hell” is not your idea of 2020… Continue reading Craft Alert: The Grassman Trick or Treat Claw

Plagued with a case of aggressive nesting, the local superstore executives have overturned every department where I shop in order to give birth to something I no longer recognize: Aisles 1-15. I used to know where they were and what they contained, but not anymore. Now, I drift about aimlessly, my paper list waving in… Continue reading Pumpkin Soup to the Rescue

High-pitched noises, followed by a smoky plastic-smelling haze, were the ominous signs that the vacuum cleaner was trying to kill the decorative throw rug in the living room. After all of these years, it looked like the vacuum cleaner might win, especially if I instructed Alex (who was vacuuming at the time) to just keep… Continue reading Destructive Devices: The Vacuum Cleaner

To jazz up my work jammies, so that I can take them from “a high-powered day in the home office” to an “evening of glamor on the sofa,” I’ve added a bit of tasteful bling from the Fred Meyer superstore’s third-grade girls’ craft department. Tucked away on pink shelves, next to unicorns and play kitchens,… Continue reading Craft Alert: Fall “Must-Have” Jewelry

At lunch time, the chuckwagon rips through the house on runaway horses, leaving an aftermath of precarious towers of microwavable dishes, cutlery, and some kind of sauce.  This sort of damage only takes about 15 minutes to create. (Even Charles Goodnight, the inventor of the chuckwagon would be appalled, and if you look at this… Continue reading Hot Lunch

A crayfish crawled out of the neighborhood stream—its little crustacean arms spread wide, its claws flared, its mouth wide open—and it looked like it was saying, “Let me in your house! I’m fun; I promise!” A neighbor snapped a picture of the whole spectacle and slapped it onto the neighborhood Facebook page. When I first… Continue reading Looking for Crustaceans

Restaurant restlessness and “where’s-my-margarita-already-it’s-my-birthday” whining can be effectively shut down with birthday-themed activity booklets. I created such a booklet just in time for a “Here’s Something Nifty: Nate turns 50” family birthday party at a Mexican restaurant.   I didn’t want any incidents to erupt if there was a long pause between the time that we… Continue reading Birthday-Themed Activity Booklet