(this one is for my Dad)

I’m not normally the Halloweenie type that really gets into the decorations and such, but this year I found some really cute stuff at my favorite place, the Dollar Tree. Cute plates and serving bowls. Skeletons and Frankensteins, so fun! One wouldn’t think those things fall into the cute category, but these do! They have candy corn that ring the rim of the plate and are black and white. I mean, come on, you can’t go wrong for a buck! I plan on picking up some more plates for next year, one can never have too many ghoulish plates and cups!

So I was looking through a magazine last week and I was inspired to make the kids a Halloween dinner and then carve our pumpkin afterward. Like I said, I don’t normally go all out for them except I gather and purchase their costumes every year. This year I decided it would be fun for us all to have a haunted Halloween feast!

Here is what I picked up at the dollar store:

• a purple table cloth
• 6 spooky plates
• 2 spooky serving bowls
• clear plastic short stemmed glasses
• black plastic utensils

I asked the boys what they would like to eat for dinner; either Boo Burgers and Frankentots or Spooky Spaghetti and Monster Meatballs. Spooky monster won them over. Spaghetti is one of their favorite meals.
I would love to show you how the bloody finger breadsticks turned out, or the oozy alfredo sauce looked, or even the spooky spaghetti and pumpkin juice turned out, but my blog is telling me that those files are too big. Not sure how to make them smaller, but trust me, they were awesome!

Ok, well……I figured it out.
How fun is that??? I drew faces on the cups and made “Pumpkin Juice” out of orange juice, orange pineapple, and sprite. I added a few drops of red and yellow food color to darken it up and the kids loved it! I tinted the alfredo with black food color paste and even though it tasted as good as it always does, the color threw everyone off and dare I say even gave Jon a bit of a stomach ache! LOL!! I love it! The meatballs were a hit as well. Dan loved calling them monster meatball brains and at the end of the night, all but three were gone! The breadsticks with almond sliver nails and bloody marks…tasty!! Brenna joked around and said, “Yummm, I always knew chewing on my nails tasted good!”

All in all, it was a fun night and I enjoyed making a spooky, not so scary dinner for my family. I think next year will be even more frightening…we might actually carve a pumpkin!! Muuuuaahahahahaha!!

I am not sure when the blogging bug will hit again. Maybe tomorrow, mabye next week.

Right now my heart and my mind are focused on the people I love who’s lives I am in constant prayer for. I pray for complete healing for my Dad, who got the word today that his cancer isn’t in remission, but new spots have reared their ugly head. I pray for Matt and Debbi who will be going on the rollercoaster ride of their life when the cancer treatment for him begins. I pray for Valerie who is still fighting for her life with Cystic Fibrosis and the battle that rages on in her lungs that her body is rejecting. I pray for Laura who is awaiting the arthritis confirmation her doctors believe she has. Only God knows what he has planned for each of them, and I trust that He does. I also ask God to help me through each of these relationships, that I can be there to meet their needs what ever they may be and that I remain strong in Him because when I am at my weakest God is at his strongest and will provide me with all things, big or small.

In the mean time, I will be keeping busy with life in general. Keep checking back- you never know when I’ll be moved to write something…and hopefully it’ll be worth reading!

So, here it is. This is what you are supposed to do. Take the list below and come up with examples of things that start with the first letter in your name. You can do like we did and make a mosaic here or just write out the list, either way; it’s fun!! Come on….you can do it!!

1) Angie-Here Am I!
2) Famous Singer/Band -Aerosmith
3) Four-Letter Word -Army
4) Street Name -West Angela St.
5) Gift/Present -Anklet
6) Color -amathyst
7) Pro Sports Team -Anaheim Angels
8 ) Movie Title -Aquamarine
9) Boy’s Name -Alton
10) Girls Name -Audrey
11) Vehicle -Aston Martin
12) Flower -Amaryllis
13) Drink -Alabama Slammer
14) Magazine -Allure
15) U.S. City -Adak
16) Item found in a souvenir shop -Alligator Totebag
17) Celebrity -Angelina Jolie
18) Reason You’re Late for Work -All Nighter (I pulled an all nighter and I over slept!)
19) Fruit -Apple
20) Cartoon Character -Alvin
21) Anything else about you that starts with your letter -Absolutely Fabulous!
22) Body of Water -Atlantic Ocean
23) Occupation -Archaeologist
24) Something you Shout -Amen!
25) Something you recycle -Aluminum Foil

Tonight is Ladies Night Out. We aren’t meeting for dinner at a restaurant like we normally do. Instead we are going to meet at a local church for a “Cents-sible Celebrations” and dinner. This speaker will show us ways to get ready for the holidays without spending too much money or time. The tag line was “Get us thinking INSIDE the box for the Holidays”.  I’m looking forward to seeing what ideas she throws out because I tend to do the opposite during the holidays by thinking outside the box as far as menu’s and decorations, all at the expense of my sanity and bank account. I have a lot of neat stuff tucked away, I hope they come up with creative ways to use what we might already have in our homes for the upcoming holidays.
Speaking of holidays. I vow to put up my Fall decorations this year and not let another year go by with those pretty decorations sitting in my closet collecting dust. It’s my promise to myself to pull out the things that make me smile and bring out those warm touches that usher in Fall and make me feel cozy inside.
Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler…70 degrees! Can you believe it?? Here in Texas, we get so excited when the temperature falls below 75! That means Fall is here and soon after Winter!! And no more mosquitoes and sweaters and hot chocolate (like this one! OMG I’m in love!!) and fuzzy warm socks!! Can you tell I love Fall?? In fact, I think I’ll go put my Fall door bucket up right now!!

I might even post a picture or two after I’m done! Stay tuned…

**edited**

Here are some pictures of what I did on the front porch. I didn’t take a full shot because I have to find a place for all the crap the kids leave at the step, so I didn’t want to show you that part. Isn’t it pretty??

Happy Fall Y’all!!

• I have a horrible sinus headache that has been coming on for days.
• I am still in shock about Matt having Lymphoma. I hate cancer! I just want to kick it in the ass.
• I worry about my other friends who are dealing with health issues.
• I’m still waiting to hear from my Dermatologist about my biopsy test results. I had one mole removed and a suspicious spot tested for Squamous Cell. Of course they take 6 to 10 days to get the results back and today is day 7 (not including weekends! grrr…)
• I haven’t been sleeping well. Lots of neck aches, back aches, and tossing and turning. To add insult to injury, I wake up exactly 4 hours after I manage to fall asleep and then wake up every hour after that. It’s no wonder I sleep in the mornings to make up for the lack of sleep at night. And yes, I have tried staying up in the mornings and being really tired at night, but it doesn’t seem to matter how little or how much sleep I get, I still sleep crappy at night.
• We are behind schedule on our sorting/ reorganizing plan. We got 4 rooms done and sorted, but stalled out for a week when Jon was sick. Saturday I worked on my closet and dresser, sorting and purging. Still a lot to go. Not really motivated to keep going, but we must press on.

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Hopefully this week will go better than I feel right now.

Speedtest

Family:Famine (not really-they ate Chili Dogs)

Me:Feast

♥♥♥♥ (4out of 5 hearts)

I have been visiting this awesome blog Pioneer Woman Cooks for a couple of weeks now and everyday that I explore her recipe archives, I can’t wait to get in my kitchen and start making something yummy. It’s not like her recipes are complicated with a lot of fancy ingredients, on the contrary. They are simple, basic, and look OH SO delicious!! I put it on my short list of recipes to try.

I really enjoyed the texture and flavor of this soup. It was more puree and less soupy though. I think I let the chicken broth boil out too long before I covered it. Sometimes I don’t read the recipe and absorb it until after I have almost all the way cooked it! Then I wonder why it’s not doing what I thought it should! Haha! I didn’t have any fresh basil, so I used fresh dill. I also topped it with crumbled feta cheese. The cheese was a great salty addition to the soup. I will use that next time for sure! I think crispy bacon would be good sprinkled on top as well!

I think I would have given this 5 hearts if I had used fresh carrots instead of the sort of dry ones in the bottom of my veggie bin and I had basil to put on top. Other than that, I really loved this soup.

When I was a young girl, I would watch cooking shows on PBS. They mostly came on during the weekend and some of my favorites were shows like:

• Yan Can Cook with Martin Yan
  
• The Galloping Gourmet with Graham Kerr
• The French Chef with Julia Childs
  
• Cooking with Jacques Pepin
• Great Chefs

These cooking shows were on TV before the cooking network was on cable. Well, it could have been on cable, but we didn’t have cable, so I wouldn’t know. Anyway..the whole point is, I would watch these shows and dream of becoming a chef. I took cooking classes in high school as an elective. I learned basic tecqniques that have stayed with me for the last 20 years. I enjoyed cooking for my Mom and anticipated cooking with my Dad. He and I share a love of cookbooks and talking about food; eating and preparing it.
When I grew up and married, I didn’t stop loving to cook. When Jon and I had babies, it was easy to keep making new dishes and experimenting. It was when they got older and more vocal about their food preferences that I began to dread dinner time. For about 3 years, we were limited to a very short list of foods that everyone would eat. I thought I would never enjoy cooking again. I really thought the love, excitement, and joy of preparing a meal was lost. Now that the kids are older and are expanding their palates I feel that twinge of excitement and flutter of happiness when I think about what great meal I can make for my family.

Here I will post my weekly menu plans, recipes I come across, and pictures of my creations! Stay tuned, it’ll be delicious!!

I do wish it had a third column so I could put more widgets, but I only have what I have and I’ll just have to make do. I would like to put another tab at the top and do a weekly, if not daily “What’s on the menu” type feature. I made my list of things I wanted to cook in the immediate future and last night I crossed one off my list. I made the Creamy Carrot Soup and ended up substituting a few ingredients because I didn’t have basil on hand. I used fresh dill that I got last week. I also love the sweet/salty thing, so I sprinkled Feta cheese crumbles all over the top. So fabulous! I ate both big cups of soup! By myself. I won’t think about how many calories were in the half and half I used! The rest was healthy, so I’m going to just go with that! I could try using plain yogurt next time. I’m thinking that it will taste slightly more tangy and less mouth round fullness because it won’t have that fat in it. I love me some fat!

Anyway, now that I totally went off on another tangent, I will just say, I love my new look…hope you do to! Look for more cool things to come now that I’m all updating and wordpress likes me again.