Poppin' the Pumpkin-Carving Cherry

I had a pretty normal childhood. Growing up, fall made me so happy. Mainly because of crunchy leaves, warm colored sweaters, the fact that I could now buy my Starbucks drinks HOT and celebrate the first day of the season with a pumpkin spice, homecomings, Powderpuff, my birthday, and Halloween.

Halloween. I can't help but laugh a little because I go back to the scene in Mean Girls where Cady Herron voices what this day really means for a girl: the only time of year we can be as slutty as we want to be and get away with it. I suggested to Terri that we go as a bottle of Adderol and a blue exam booklet (Study Combo, anyone?) and she laughed. And then wrinkled her nose and went, "But it's not super seeeeexy." Oh, how we chuckled. But really. There you go. Never my style, but so true when you think about it.

I had the 'typical Halloween' when I was younger: trick-or-treating with my friends, while my dad alternated between yelling at me to thank the person giving me candy and muttering about the fact that children begging for sweets qualified as a holiday (although he'd become much cheerier when I saved all of my Almond Joys for him), creating costumes, and basically being in a sugar coma the next day. However, there was one tradition that I'd completely skipped...until yesterday.

Carving a pumpkin.

Yup.

I'd never carved a pumpkin before!! While a part of me shrugs and says it's okay, another part of me is all, "SERIOUSLY? WHY didn't I ever carve a pumpkin?! That's not begging for sweets! Secretly in the pit of my mind, I KNOW I've always wanted to knife a scary, jagged shape into a harmless pumpkin! That's it. I officially come from a broken home." All was remedied last night when our two neighbors, Nicole and Christopher, asked us if we wanted to partake in pumpkin carving. Before they even finished asking the question, I excitedly said, "Yes!"

I'd had a migraine for the past three days. But this did not stop me. In fact, I sort of figured that maybe if I took out my anger at having a migraine on a pumpkin, I'd feel better. Twisted logic? Maybe. Did it work? Trick, yeahhh!

And so, I present to you, Culver Boulevard Apartment's pumpkin:

If you look closely, you will see that we carved a haunted house with little windows into our pumpkin. The graphic book said that this was the hardest and I think me, Terri, and Brian were all feeling super competitive. Regardless, I think it is beautiful :) And it was so much fun! I had to scoop out the pumpkin first (and scared Terri when I pretended to throw some at her) and then help cut. Granted, I got a little nervous when it was my turn to carve some of the big pieces. I was so afraid I was going to mess it up and make a really ugly gash or something...but when drinking cider, listening to fun music, and laughing about how one's roommate acts like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory (Brian), you remember to breathe and just enjoy!

And so, though I feel like this was a long time coming, I wouldn't have wanted to pop my pumpkin carving cherry with any other pair of roommates!