Halloween was just a few weeks ago…and even though it was the perfect excuse for me to spend the weekend eating an entire bag of 3 Musketeers…it was also a mildly stressful weekend. It was only stressful for me because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be for Halloween…and I changed my mind several times. Here are some of my ideas that I had:
- Sarah Palin – I have the same hair color, the bangs, the glasses, and the suits. But, I’ve dressed up as Sarah several times in the last few years….and I need variety, you know?
- A Toddlers & Tiaras Contestant – I loved the idea of this one…but I didn’t have the outfit…which is a pretty tough outfit to just create on a whim with the stuff in my closet.
- A Real Housewife – I liked this idea too…but I do not resemble any of the Real Housewives in any way, and I wasn’t quite sure how many people would understand what I was.
- A Dance Mom – This is a combo from the show, Dance Moms, and from my own experience dancing at competitions when I was younger. Dance Moms are their own breed, and I just knew that I would be able to pull it off and make fun of them as much as humanly possible.
- A 50′s Housewife – I liked the idea, but when I realized that I would just dress like myself (A-line skirt, fitted button up, pearls, and heels)….I decided that it wasn’t the best idea anymore.
- Katie (or Carl as we all call her), my roommate – At this point I said that I just wanted to go simple…and that I didn’t want to put on any clothes that were special. So, I figured that by going as Katie, I could just wear her clothes, and be a hipster for the evening.
Basically, I was set on being Sarah Palin up until around 1 p.m. on the Saturday of Halloween. Then, I decided that my dressing up talents would best be used elsewhere, so I set out to find another idea. As you can see, most of my ideas were inspired by reality TV shows, basically because I am obsessed with all kinds of reality TV.
I sat in my room, brainstorming ideas with my roommates all day long….until I realized that if I didn’t just decide what I wanted to be, then I wouldn’t have time to put it together. So, I forced myself to just decide to be a Dance Mom…and I’m pretty glad that I did. I wore a track jacket (you know, the dance studio type of track jacket with the embroidery on the back and rhinestones to top it off), skinny black pants, heels, a photo button (of myself, in my dance costume from the 3rd grade), and as much rhinestone jewelry as I could find.
Dressing up as a Dance Mom made for a pretty fun Halloween, even though my roommate Katie (or Carl) totally showed me up by knocking her Halloween costume out of the park. She was John Bender from The Breakfast Club…and she looked awesome. Check it out… (they even did a photo shoot to get all of the epic shots from the movie)…
Katie (Carl) as Bender....
For some of us, this is our first election, and some of you can’t even vote yet. Regardless of your age, please please please try to pay attention to what happens on election day and for the four years following it. Soon you will have the right to vote if you don’t already, and when you do, don’t be apathetic and think that you just don’t understand politics, so you shouldn’t even try. Educate yourself on the issues, or ask someone who you trust to explain everything to you. It does take some effort, but once you are 18, there is no reason for you to not care about the issues that are important to our country anymore. Your vote counts as much as your grandmother’s, your town mayor’s, or any random person on the street. I have been really excited this year to see how many young people are coming out to vote and who are voicing their opinions, that is exactly what we should be doing! I haven’t been hearing the regular, “Oh I’m voting for whatshisface because my parents are” line nearly as much this year, which is great because it means that we are starting to take charge of our own decisions. Don’t think that just because we are young it we don’t need to worry about it yet. Before we know it, we will be out on our own and we will be facing the same struggles as many Americans are right now. So if you’re curious, go online and find websites that talk about the issues. dividedwefail.org is a great place to learn about a few issues….and there are tons of other sites that make some of these complicated topics easy for us to understand. So I hope that you have voted or will vote if you can, and if you can’t….take this time to just sit back and watch what happens, and start learning about our country’s political process in advance! 
