Dahlia DeWinters - Author

Quirky Heroines, Happy Endings

Blogtoberfest – My Bloody Vampire Sangria

PublicDomainPictures / Pixabay

Hello again!  So glad to see y’all along with me for the ride Halloween blogging, or, as I call it……BLOGTOBERFEST……..

Today’s recipe is not a mocktail, but a straight up liquor fest.  It was a choice between this and chocolate martinis.  I chose this because it looks like fruit punch.  (What, me drinking?  Nah, this is fruit punch.)  And I love sangria.

You can find the basic recipe here, but I added my own twist.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 (750 ml bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja reds, Zinfandel, Shiraz)
  • 1 Lemon cut into wedges
  • 1 Orange cut into wedges
  • Strawberry or Kiwi slices
  • 3 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 shots brandy
  • 1 shot gin
  • 2 cups ginger ale or club soda

Preparation:

Pour wine in the pitcher and squeeze the juice wedges from the lemon and orange into the wine. Toss in the fruit wedges (leaving out seeds if possible) and add sugar and brandy. Chill overnight. Add ginger ale or club soda just before serving.

If you’d like to serve right away, use chilled red wine and serve over lots of ice.

 

Blogtoberfest: Vincent Price's Rap Career

skeeze / Pixabay

If you are a horror fan from way back, and lived in the New York area, certainly you remember the 4:30 movies on WABC, channel 7.  They aired after The Edge of Night and were all those cheesy 70s movies we know and love.  Oftentimes, they would have a “theme week:”, such as Godzilla week, Gamera week, Monster week, Planet of the Apes week etc.  I always loved the Vincent Price/Edgar Allen Poe week.  It was a fun, not too scary, kinda cheesy introduction for kids to horror films.

From then on, whenever I saw Vincent Price, I knew something scary or sinister was about to happen on-screen.  Michael Jackson must have had the same experience, because he tapped Mr. Price to do the “Thriller Rap”. Here, Mr. Price recreates his part on the Joan Rivers’ show, the first time he’s done it on television.  And the laugh.  The laugh.

Enjoy!

Blogtoberfest – Poor Fellas and Gals: Dog Halloween Costumes

skeeze / Pixabay

I have a dog.  I think she’s a rather judgy dog.  She doesn’t like it when I dress her in her winter coat, even though as a pit bull, she has zero undercoat and needs the insulation in the colder weather.  Still, the eyeballing she gives me as she stands there in her Land’s End insulated doggy coat. I mean, come on, what dog can’t look good in Land’s End outerwear?  Not Athena.  She hates it, and makes it clear she hates me for putting in on her.  

However, I won’t be a party to dog Halloween costumes.  I find them unwieldy,  a pain to put on and something that can really be only worn once a year.  The dogs, themselves, seem so….pitiful yet revenge filled when you snap that picture.  After one year of one of my dogs dressing as something or other (I really don’t remember), I’ve learned my lesson.  However, some humans never learn.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

All Pictures courtesy of PartyCity.com, except where noted.

Yoda’s looking like he could drink from the toilet at any moment.
This TinMan looks sad enough to be the REAL TinMan.
Oh yeah, this Superman dressed dog is totally JUDGING you.
This dog has just decided to give in and roll with it, baby.
Harley Quinn? Or is it Doggy Quinn?

 

 

Blogtoberfest – Not Just “IT”: More Creepy King Stories

From what I’ve heard  is that the new IT movie is pretty scary.  I  have to say “from what I’ve heard’ because I haven’t seen it yet.  Nothing like seeing something scary on the big screen to scar you for life and I’m not as young as I used to be.

While being scared on the screen is fun, being scared from words on a page can be even more fun.  Yep, I just touted reading above movie watching and you all know how I LOVE reading.  Following this, Stephen King has written just a tad few more stories than IT that are guaranteed to take you over the creepy/scared line.  Here are five of my favorites.

 

 

 

From Nightshift 

Graveyard Shift – Whose nose doesn’t twist at thethought of working in a mildewy, dark, damp basement?  Bonus points:  it’s hot and there’s rustling in the walls.  This is a story that will make you wash your hands after you’ve finished reading it.  Don’t forget the hand sanitizer.

 

Grey Matter – Strange things can grow in beer – something about those hops – and when you guzzle one down without thoroughly examining the contents, bad things happen.  I promise you’ll pour your beer in a glass after reading this one. Gross, scary body horror.

Sometimes They Come Back – Like a little melancholy with the heebie-jeebies?  Well, this story is perfect for you.  A man gets revenge for something that happened in his childhood, but remember, the devil is hell to pay.

Skeleton Crew

The Raft – Those of you who’ve seen Creepshow 2 are familar with this story.  Yes, the charactersare archetypes and the whole thing reads like a B-movie script, but you won’t be so eager to jump into the lake next summer, now will you?

The Monkey – Short, but gets under your skin.  A haunted toy monkey does….bad things, for lack of a better term….to those who find it and wind it up.  I’ve always found those mechanical toys weird anyway, so to find out this monkey was haunted was no big surprise.

 

And just like that, we;’ve come to the end of our Blogtoberfest visit!  Check out some of these King shorts that I mentioned.

 

Dahlia

 

 

Blogtoberfest – 10 Days of Zombie Movies

Keeping it simple for today.  Here’s a graphic that give you ten of my favorite zombie movies.  In case image doesn’t come through, here they are in no particular order.

 

 

REC
Dead Snow
Zombieland
Night of the Living Dead
Sugar Hill
Train to Busan
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Planet Terror
The Battery
The Horde