The other night, about 1:30 AM, I heard a loud crash and breaking glass. I jumped up, ran into the hallway and yelled out in my deepest, baddest voice, "WHO'S THERE!!". I was also carrying my weapon with me. I looked down, and I was holding onto my pillow in a very menacing way. I hate it for the fool who dares endure the wrath of the pillow. Turns out my Christmas tree had fallen over, and a few of the ornaments broke in the process, but I now know what I would do in a fight. :)

Merry Christmas.

Dan.

When he's not out fighting crime with his pillow, Dan Askins is a Realtor with Fore Properties.

I've been carving pumpkins since I was a wee child on my father's knee. Back in the day, my father would grab his trusty black marker and butcher's knife to create his masterpiece. It was a childhood memory that has become a family tradition for me.

So each year (even those before kids), I have faithful handpicked the perfect pumpkin for carving. This year was no exception. Even without my husband home, I was not about to let Halloween pass us by. The girls and I picked out four pumpkins at a local farm and set out to carve them on Sunday.

This is a task that I have done every year for as long as I can remember so why would this year be any different? Well, for starters, the girls where more interested in the final product then the work to get there. So after cleaning out the pumpkins and making a mess of guts and seeds all over the garage, they bailed on me to go ride their scooters.

My sister and I were left with four pumpkins to carve. We decided to start on the largest two which turned out be too thick for our store bought carving tools. After a little cursing (on my part) and elbow grease, we finished them without any kids in sight to marvel at our beautiful creations. At this point, I had know desire to carve two more pumpkins but because they were already cleaned out I had to do something with them.

So I did what any "good" mom would do - I took a lesson from Martha Stewart and pulled out the power tools. I grabbed my husband's brand new Firestorm Drill (he's not here so who's going to complain) and three bits of various sizes. For the next 20 minutes, I worked out all my anger issues on two pumpkins. When I was done, I had two "holy" pumpkins that would have made the Queen of Domestication proud.

Tonight, our pumpkins - all four of them. graced the front porch with all of our other Halloween paraphernalia (talking head, skeleton, eyeballs, tons of lights, etc.) and the two pimpkins with holes were the talk of the neighborhood. Who knew that power tools and Halloween where the perfect match. Thanks Martha, I owe you one! 

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