Get your spooky on!

For most of my childhood Halloweens, year after year, I dressed up as a ballerina. And by ballerina, I mean I wore a tutu skirt (handmade with love by my mom) over a pair of jeans, with a heavy winter coat and tennis shoes. My sister Becky often went as a witch, wrapped in heavy black plastic for the dress. My brother Brian once went as a pirate because he already had to wear an eye patch to correct his lazy eye and it made for an easy costume. I actually think my mom made him go as the pirate. Like I said, it was an easy costume.

Once I hit college, I really started to branch out with my Halloween ensembles. Unbeknownst to me at the time, scary was not, and still is not, "in" for a young 20-something's costume. So, for my first college Halloween party, I went as a scary inmate, complete with teardrop tattoo that I've heard represents you've killed someone. Since then, I've made it my mission to up the (shall we say) girlishness/femininity/cuteness of my costumes. This year, I'm going as a vixen Sherlock Holmes type of detective. Should be a good one. Photos to come!

Here's the past several Halloweens in review.

2002 - Scary inmate, Avril Lavigne, and a chipper sailor

2003 - Cowgirl, a '60s inspired get-up (some would say I was a flight attendant), and Asian beetle (get it?)

2004 - Construction worker, firefighter (not pictured: knee-high boots, flouncy little skirt and plush dalmatian), and Oriental rug (get it?)

2005 - Road construction worker, UPS delivery girl (my favorite costume of all time! I got a lot of "what can brown do for you?" while I was out), and pirate

2006 - Jem and geisha (that little obi is now a part of my piecemeal coffee table)