The Discombobulating (confusing)...

Hi! Kelsi here.

If you didn't catch it, my title has an ellipsis at the end. According to correct English writing rules, an ellipsis indicates something is to follow. So be looking for whatever is to follow!

I am here to share a new bit of knowledge that may come in handy some day! Who likes to pull out new words and totally impress your circle of friends with your tremendous vocabulary? Yeah, me too! :)

So, I'm going to teach everyone a new word through a little story, to which I'm sure we all can relate.

Well, I take that back. Maybe my family is the only family that still plays card games on holidays.

It's Thanksgiving. A few of the family members are sitting around the kitchen table, playing Phase Ten. It's Sally's turn. Hmm... Should my other set of four be 6's, 7's or 9's? I've got two of each...

"You should pick up that 3 from the discard pile," her cousin's voice whispers in her ear.

Sally turns her head and glares her disapproval. "Are you kidding me? Stop looking at my cards." She gives him a nice shove.

He smirks. "Do it. I'm telling you."

"That makes no sense, and you know it!" Sally exclaims.

He shrugs and saunters away. "Do what you want."

*six and a half minutes pass*

My turn again. Hmm... I have three 6's, two 9's, one 1, one 8, one 5, and two 7's. Sally picks up a card from the draw stack. It's a 3. Joy bells.

"Don't discard it." It was her cousin, looking over her shoulder...again. "I'm telling you, go with the 3's."

"You little..." Where's the word I'm looking for?? Ugh. Then Sally remembers! "...kibitzer!"

Her cousin's eyes grow wide. "What?!"

"That's exactly what you are!" Sally exclaims.

"What are you talking about Sally?"

She smiles brightly, imaginatively patting herself on the back. "You're a discombobulating kibitzer, my dear cousin!"

...Kibitzer: a giver of uninvited or unwanted advice

And that, my friends, is our word for the day. Or for the week...or month... or maybe for the new moon.

You just never know with peculiar treasures, I suppose.
We really just like to keep people on their toes.

And I just got inspired to end this post with a rhyme.
However, I think I'll leave that Cara.

Because, folks, I'm not a poet...
...And I know it. :)

Good day/week/month/new moon to you all!

One Dot, Three Dots to the Left, Dash, Dash, Two Dots Side By Side.

Hi! This is Cara.

I was kind of wondering if any of you people even follow this blog anymore or care that it's still here. I checked up on it the other day, and I looked around and felt sad that this Peculiar Treasure of a blog has been so neglected. So, I gave it a little makeover. And Now I'm a-gonna give you all a little update, if there is anyone out there listening/reading.

I guess you would be reading, not listening, since we don't have anything for the blind on here yet.

If you know how to install a listening aid for the blind, let us know. (I'm pretty sure blind people don't use the computer anyways. Unless it reads to them in Braille?) Imagine...

Computer: "Two dots, side by side. One dot. Three more dots."

Blind Person: "Isn't that hysterical! Listen, everyone. Madge just posted on Facebook and said "Two dots horizontally!" And then Billy commented and said "One dot, three dots in a row, and five more dots after that! What a card, what a card."

Anyways, whether you're blind or not, I hope you like the new, colorful site.

And if you're blind, you won't. Because you can't see it.

And I don't even mean that in a mean way.

It's just a fact.

Sorry. :/ I feel bad now.

So I'll just say goodbye.

Bye.

18 Ways to Confuse Trick-or-Treaters

It is INEVITABLE. You cannot avoid it. Once a year, in the month of October, greedy little monsters dressed in all sorts of extremely ridiculous costumes will knock on your door and demand candy. But what if you decided to do them a favor and not hand them something that's going to rot their little teeth out? Are you prepared?

Here are some ways to confuse the trick-or-treaters instead of willingly handing them candy bars and tootsie rolls:

1. Give away something other than candy. (Toothpicks, golf balls, bags of sand)
2. Wait behind the door until some people come. When they get near the door, jump out, wearing a costume, and holding a bag, and yell “Trick or Treat!” Look at them, scratch your head, and act confused.
3. Fill a briefcase with marbles and crackers. Write on it, “Top Secret” in big letters. When trick-or-treaters come, look around suspiciously and say “It’s about time you got here,” give them the briefcase, and quickly shut the door.
4. Get about 30 people to wait in your living room. When trick-or-treaters come to the door, say, “Come in.” When they do, have everyone yell, “Surprise!” Act like it’s a surprise party.
5. Get everyone that comes to the door to come in and see if they can figure out what’s wrong with your dishwasher. Insist that it makes an unnatural “whirring” sound.
6. After you give them candy, hand the trick-or-treaters a bill.
7. Open the door dressed as a giant fish. Immediately collapse, and don’t move or say anything until the trick-or-treaters go away.
8. When you answer the door, hold up one candy bar, throw it out into the street, and yell, “Fight for it!”
9. When you answer the door, look at the trick-or-treaters, act shocked and scared, and start screaming your head off. Slam the door and run around the house, screaming, until they go away.
10. Insist that the trick-or-treaters do 10 push-ups each before giving them any candy.
11. Hand out menus to the trick-or-treaters and let them order their candy. Put random, confusing items on the menu.
12. Get a catapult. Sit on your porch and catapult pumpkins at anyone who comes within 50 yards of your house.
13. Leave a nearby window open, and when people come to your door, dive out of it into the bushes, and run away, screaming.
14. Answer the door dressed as a pilgrim. Stare at the trick-or-treaters for a moment, pretend to be confused, and start flipping through a calendar.
15. Instead of candy, give away colored eggs. If anyone protests, explain that the eggs are the only things you had left over from Easter.
16. Answer the door dressed as a dentist. Angrily give the trick-or-treaters a two-hour lecture on tooth decay.
17. Answer the door with a mouthful of M&M’s and several half eaten candy bars in your hands. Act surprised, and close the door. Open it in a few seconds, and insist that you don’t have any candy.
18. Open the door quickly and throw the candy at the trick-or-treaters, yelling as you do. Slam the door when you’re finished. 

Give us your feedback!

Okay guys, here's your chance to give Peculiar Treasures your feedback.

We're in the middle of a lot of changing and updating right now. No worries, the good old Peculiar Treasures traditions that you like will stay, but we're thinking of switching it up a little bit in some areas.

Please leave us a comment below this post and tell us what your favorite part of Peculiar Treasures is. Do you particularly like the monthly themes, the personal stories, the crazy features, etc. ?

What else would you like to see from us? Any ideas or suggestions on how to improve your reading experience?

We're listening to your feedback!

Comment!

-Peculiar Treasures

Columbus Day or Balboa Day?

Does anyone know what today is?

No, it's not Columbus Day. We can't even remember what he did that was so special most of the time anyways...and we always mix up the lyrics to that Columbus sailed the ocean blue song! What year did he discover the Pacific anyways? Or was that Balboa? And why don't we have a Balboa Day? All we have are Balboa Bars. Those little chocolate ice cream things. And I think there's a Balboa island. Somewhere. So why don't we have Columbus Bars and Columbus islands? Hm?

Anyways...

........DRUMMMMROOLL.....

TODAY, 10-10-11, is Peculiar Treasures...

2nd ANNIVERSARY! 

Isn't that awesome? Today, 2 years ago, one of the most awesome blogs ever (in our humble opinion) came into existence! We love Peculiar Treasures and have absolutely no plans whatsoever of shutting the blog down, ever. It is our hope that when we can no longer uphold our duties here, that we can pass the torch to others who enjoy humor as much as we do, and that they will uphold the Peculiar Treasures legacy. Sniff. 

In honor of the day, we deem this month "Party Month!"

That's right, we're going to be posting for the rest of the month.

We're officially off Spring Break! And it is ABOUT TIME! :))

And what's more, we're having a Peculiar Treasure Hunt on Facebook, and it's going to be AWESOME. Head over to our Fan Page now, to check out what's going on and get involved in it!

-Peculiar Treasures

Security!

Heyyy! This be your gurl cara here at AMC! We bes havin fun here and I just wanted to dona quick post sayin hi! Now done a quick favor! Go to www.angelo-alvear.blogspot.com and follow hims! Or I will cut you! Ok bye!

Just droppin' in from Africa to make sure everything's OK....

Hey There! What have all our Peculiar Treasures fans been up to during Spring Break? Enjoying it, we hope! As for us, we've been slaving away, putting together plans, ideas, new innovative (well we think they're innovative, anyways...you might think they're insane) ideas for ALL OF YOU! While on our vacation to Africa. The mosquitos are INSANE HERE! Anyways...We've been workin hard on some changes we want to make to the blog, not just in the upcoming month but over the next year.

One of them is: Posting consistently. We have pretty busy lifes (No, we really do! lol) and while we love this blog and all of our readers out there, this has kind of gotten shoved to the back of all our responsibilities in the middle of the chaos, many times before! Ya'll have been very patient with us, but WE KNOW posting consistently is imperative for this blog to grow in the way we want it to!! =)

So, we're actually working on getting some other people involved. Which might take a while you see...(this is why I said over the year.) We need people with kind of the same sense of humor, I will not accept anything less than immaculate spelling skills (Don't even get me started on how no one knows how to spell these days. Seriously. Definitely is not spelled with an "a". What were you doing during English Class? Text messaging? Uh-huh, thought so.) And a bunch of other stuff. But we'll know when we find the right person to contribute their funniness as another administrator of this blog. ;)

Oh, and by the way, did you know that YOU can contribute? Thats why we have a "Contact Us" page up there! If you have comments, suggestions, ideas, funny stories, pictures, jokes...Send them to us at any of those email addresses, and we'll probably use them eventually! We love it when our readers get involved.

We'll be starting a brand new, fun theme in Mid-April! Are y'all excited or WHAT?!

See you then!

-Peculiar Treasures

P.S. #2 ...All the stuff you hear about Africa being nice?! LIES! It's sweltering! And these natives are CRAZY! They keep giving us beads and trying to get us to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or something. Let's not even mention the tribal dances. HELP!