So many times I put things off thinking that I'll get to them when I feel ready. I never use to be this way. Procrastination was not something that I have been known for until lately.
Here I sit in the eleventh hour with trick or treaters just hours away from my doorstep and still I have not finished carving the pumpkins. I use to enjoy the yearly task of carving pumpkins. In fact, when I still lived in Portland, I would pick up about 8-12 extra pumpkins and carve them for my parents, so that they could line their driveway with them on Halloween.
I now find carving pumpkins to be a not so enjoyable task. Perhaps, it was the enjoyment of having my children at home and sharing in the yearly festivities with them that made the task so much more enjoyable.
Every year the kids and I would go to the pumpkin patch and spend hours picking out the perfect pumpkins. We would then take a hayride and drink the freshly pressed hot apple cider that Wilhelm's Farm made every year and would serve to their customers. The barn was filled with decorations that were scenes from fairytales and each scene was created with various ways of using pumpkins. Every year the scenes were different. There were farm animals to visit and pony rides for the children. It was always such a special time.
I use to come alive this time of year as fall has always been my favorite time of year. I would bask in the festivites. Every year I would decorate my porch with bails of hay, scary scenes, pumpkins and music to set the mood. It all seems to have escaped me over the past few years. Each year I seem to do a little less than the year before.
I finally broke down and put a few Halloween decorations up last night. It took me all of about five minutes to pull them out of the attic, so it's not like it was a huge task to do. I have not decorated the front porch. I will be lucky to have pumkins out there by the time that the children arrive. Yet here I sit blogging about the task that still needs to be finished.
I finally broke down this morning and set things up in the kitchen to get these babies carved. I have managed to clean one pumpkin, but I have yet to carve it. The other pumpkin remains untouched at the moment. I know that I must complete this task and yet I am still putting it off.
Every year my pumpkins serve as a dual purpose. I scrape the meat from the inside prior to carving them and boil it down and freeze it to use for my pumpkin pies over the holiday's. Scraping the meat from the inside of a pumpkin can be quite the work out. I try to take as much meat from the pumpkin as possible while still leaving it carvable.
Speaking of carvable.....they are not going to carve themselves, so I have better stop writing about this and get the task done!
NOTE: To those of you that have procrastinated like I have, I have a pumpkin technique that I will share with you. For those of you that have done the deed for this year, you may want to consider it for future reference.
When cutting your pumpkin open, cut the hole from the bottom. This makes it easier to just slip a candle under it and the pumpkin is much easier to handle.
Happy Halloween everyone!
