The Road Less Traveled

Sounds like the beginning of a deep and incredibly poignant post, doesn't it? Welp, if that's what your here for, then scram. The only thing deep about this post is the amount of pumpkin muck we got into.

I don't ever remember my parent's grumbling about pumpkin carving. It was always just one of those things we did. I don't have any particular memories at all, truth be told, concerning pumpkin carving. I don't ever remember not having that orange, glowing jack-o-lantern on our porch this time of year, so it stands to reason that it must have been a relatively simple process for those memories to be so markedly unremarkable.

Oh, ho! How my memories have either failed me or how my husband and I just stink at traditional pumpkin carving.

We selected a small-ish pumpkin for each child, thinking that a porchful of warm pumpkin grins was just the ticket to all things fall. We took those pretty little pumpkins home and the kids thrilled in drawing their idea of the perfect pumpkin face on a trash bag. I transferred those ideas to the selected spot on their pumpkins, and soon we were ready to start the carving.



Except perhaps not. Those were some tough pumpkins! They obviously did not choose the destiny of jack-o-lanterning and were determined to not give up the fight easily. And folks, those orange gourds won. We admitted defeat for the evening and plotted on purchasing better tools the following day.



Joshua brought home the official pumpkin carving kit and we thought we were all set for some real pumpkin carving. What happened was that we bent two of the miniature saws within the first five minutes. And broke one of the hole poker tools.

Joshua finally sawed his way into one of the pumpkins, started a second, then looked slightly dismayed as he realized how much carving was left to be done. Caps off, eyes, noses, mouths...he looked up at me with a look of defiance in his eyes and announced...

'I am going to get the dremel.'


Yes, we really did resort to power tools for our pumpkin carving. It was highly effective, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Despite the cat's distaste for the added noise.


It worked out quite well, really. I'm thinking we might just make that there dremel a part of our pumpkin massacring tradition!



And yes, I really did trash the majority of that pumpkin carving kit while I did my best impression of Yosmitty Sam under my breath.