I should probably say that there's a good chance I've blogged about this very thing before, and if so, I apologize. But after posting 3,202 consecutive daily blog posts, it's easy to lose track of what you've written about, and what you haven't.
Last weekend I carved a little pumpkin and placed on my mom's headstone. It was her birthday jack-o-lantern and it's something I've been doing for quite a while. Before she passed away, I could carve it, stick a lighted candle in it, then just give it to her.
Can't really do that at the cemetery.
Well, I suppose you could, but the candle would go out eventually, then if anyone happened to be walking the cemetery grounds at night, they wouldn't be able to see the pumpkin at night once the candle was finished.
I came up with an idea.
And, I think, it's one of my better ones.
Years ago, we bought some very inexpensive (cheap...) solar-powered lights you put in your yard. I seriously think they were $2 each. Eventually, the lights would wear out, or, in many cases, they'd get damaged and were no longer usable.
At least, not as yard decoration.
I found a broken one and set it aside for the next Halloween. When my mom's birthday came around, I carved the pumpkin, then cut a round hole and jammed in the light. Turns out, it worked perfectly. So, even though I don't regularly drive through the cemetery at night at the end of October, I know there's a light shining inside my little pumpkin.
Last year, I did the same thing. A few days later, I drove by the cemetery to pick up the pumpkin and bring it home. Someone took the pumpkin and smashed it--there were pieces all of the graveyard. Thankfully, they didn't destroy the light. I cleaned up the mess, tossed the pumpkin in the trash, but kept the light. I used the same one this year. Today, I stopped by the cemetery and--thankfully--it was in one piece. I brought it home and it's now on our porch.
The solar-powered pumpkin light...one of my better ideas.
