ACK! Only 4 days until the big event! Overall we are doing well but it is definitely final crunch time! More wind was frustrating Sunday afternoon as I fought with more pieces flying off the roof, so I am not setting out the spires until the last minute. We had some sprinkles on Monday, 
enough to make the contact paper garage door cover fall off completely (*sigh*), but gladly very light so I had time to quickly cover everything that might possibly get damaged, but as of now Saturday’s forecast is a 60% chance of morning showers, clearing by the afternoon. Clear later is good news for the party itself, but having rain that morning means that all the tables & chairs in the backyard can’t be set up until after the rain is finished, and I was hoping to set them up Friday night. We will have to go with the flow and hope for the best!
Due to the rain I was glad we hadn’t set out the plethora of pumpkins quite yet, since that also requires more electrical runs for all the lighted pumpkins, so that is scheduled for tonight instead. No more baby pumpkins set but my one is getting even bigger! No chance of turning orange in 4 days but maybe by Halloween night next week? Otherwise I’ll have a nice big Thanksgiving pumpkin to bake!
Sunday night we got the new Pumpkin Queen setup working, this year using my full-size Sharp projector firmly mounted under the eaves of my house with a $25 metal projector mount, instead of the UltraProjector that wasn’t bright enough. Ghoulish Glen tested the light spill saying 
“I’m a giant pumpkin” and receiving the stab perfectly! Haha! I’m impressed we can see the ghost even when using camera flash! Now all six ghosts are set up, but final tweaking and decoration is underway, and all seven portraits are working, including their new surprises!
Steampunk construction is still underway, using PVC scraps and joints like LEGOs then painting them “brass” which look great. I am on my EIGHTH roll of gold duct tape as riveting edging, but 
boy does it look great and save time! I might be gluing rivets on the last sections down to the wire!
The giant device needs a “speaker” which wouldn’t have existed in 1914, so I made a Victrola-style “metal” cone from scrap tagboard then painted it gold. It really looks like metal now with the perfect curves, and it looks great on the giant device! I’ve even been cutting tagboard coverplates to clean up the edges where the PVC enters the foam. 
The main VSA projector is the fancy short-throw BenQ I bought last year for the pumpkin chorus, but our backstage space is so limited that my projector tripod box couldn’t work, so I build a custom tilt shelf that mounts directly on the fence. Even anchored in my old fenceboards, that 
isn’t going anywhere now! VSA programming is still underway too, but there is enough done that looks really fantastic, and a lot of what’s left is copying & pasting sequences from one section to another. I think we will actually make it!
Scary Jerry did a lovely job setting up my lab table, even “harvesting” some interesting foliage samples around my yard and mystical black cat hair clumps off my floor…brilliant! haha! More will be added since this was just the new glassware from this year plus the alcohol bottles, nothing at all from the big lab equipment box! I guess I need to go through my collection and keep only my 
favorites now, since there’s not much space to actually mix beverages anymore. 
Thankfully both manuscripts are on schedule to be done in the next couple days, and I’m very pleased with how they are looking! I even bought some fancy trim for bookmarks, and dressed them up with some of the metal scrapbooking corners I had in my steampunk stash. The other 
four spires still need to be sewn, but since I know they take an hour each and that the technique works, I’m getting other projects done first that haven’t been attempted before since they might need reconfiguring.
What’s left to do? A lot of course! One more large-scale drawing is required by hand due to size, and all the steampunk signage is still pending, but I will print them together to maximize the expensive gold label paper, so I want to make sure we’re not missing any labels first. I haven’t designed or printed the three quiz sheets, but they should be quick, since the text is all ready, just a quick layout job, then printing & cutting them. I plan on costume voting by crown noise 
again so that saves a little paper and ballot counting time. The final grocery shopping will be in the next couple days, then since no gelatin body parts this year, my food prep will be completely different. I have a lot of fresh fruits and veggies planned, so there will still be a last-minute flurry to get all the food ready Saturday afternoon, and I will be running the oven pretty much all day to bake the 8 dozen Pumpkin Pasties, crisp the 258 Bone Breadsticks, bake the Brie En Croute, and bake the Spicy Bat Wings.
That’s it for now! Good luck if you’re hosting or attending parties this weekend! My next post will be after the party, but I can’t promise exactly when since we’re hitting the road bright and early Monday morning for Halloween at Disneyland! 
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