And of course there has to be a haunted hotel or two.

This link is for all the folks who followed my time up at the lake last summer at the Haunted Hotel most every weekend. And no, the one I stayed at is not on the list.

Top 10 haunted hotels in the US.

So. Happy Halloween from me … Happy Holly.

This is a special day for me … in three different ways.

First – writing.

It was on this day in 2011 that the odyssey began.

Long story … OK not quite that long …. as to why I write. After losing the possibility of life with the “love of my life” with a bizarre turn of events, I came out of mourning, as it were, to 4 people in 5 days saying … out of the blue … separately and unbeknownst to each other … “You ought to write a book about it”. (and no, nobody had said that before to me … well at least not for a few decades).

While telling someone of this spooky coincidence, the conversation was overheard by someone at work who said “Tomorrow starts National Novel Writing Month … go to nanowrimo.org”.

So on this day in 2011, I went to nanowrimo.org and signed up. Which led to a month of writing, which led to me writing a private diary on a not used web site I owned, which led to a friend suggesting that I do something for myself each and every day … and that I write about it on a blog.

This blog.

I have written virtually every day since then in one place or another and am sitting here contemplating what to write for this year’s NaNoWriMo effort.

To be honest I’m thinking of going out of my comfort zone (chick lit / humor) into something a bit different. Maybe something otherworldly … magical … spooky. Well, someone once told me I was living in a dream world.

I don’t think he meant it as a compliment.

Second – moving.

Yes. On this day in 1991, yours truly moved into the house which has become the focus of all the improvements in the last few years, which I have chronicled in part in this blog.

The house has at different times looked a great deal like the Addams Family House. You know. The spooky haunted ramshackle house from the old television show?

In yet another classic Holly Foot In Mouth moment the other day, I ran into an acquaintance on the street of a nearby quaint town. Not someone I knew all that well. More a friend of a friend.

Catching up on the happenings, I listened to her latest … then shared a few of my own recent happenings. Like my house. The one I’ve been renovating.

I told an amusing (I thought) story … and ended with “Yeah, it’s a wreck. A real Addams Family House”

She glared at me.

And told me her last name.

Addams.

Third – Halloween.

The obvious one. The time for ghosts and goblins, trick or treating, spooks and skeletons.

Well, I suppose we all have a few skeletons in the closet … but today I learned that the origin of the phrase had more to do with doctors … doctors who wanted to dissect bodies. It was against the law to do that for some reason in the 1800’s.

So in order to do their research, they paid  body snatchers who lurked in cemeteries. Then when they got the freshly deceased, they hid the bodies in their closets / cupboards so as not to be arrested for doing something illegal.

Now skeleton in the closet just means “I’d rather you not know that about my past”.

Not that *I* have any of those. But my friends. My friends tell me that’s what the saying is for.

There are many other traditions for the day … but I’ll not go into them here.

I’ll just wish you a Happy Halloween … and encourage you to join me next month doing that writing marathon that is NaNoWriMo.

If you want, let me know what your NaNo Name is and I’ll be glad to be your writing buddy. It is good therapy.