Snoring

RT had quite a few vacation days left this year.  He can only bring over so many days into the next year.  His department has been quite busy and it has been difficult for him to get away for long (and short) periods of time.

RT asked me if we could get away in November.  Unfortunately, the kids had school and I couldn't get time off (I work part time and don't get paid vacation days).  So, I told him to take some time off and go on vacation by himself.  He enjoys hiking and wanted to do some longer hikes in the Smoky Mountains.  This was his time to do it.

I didn't want to appear too excited for him to go.  I was a little jealous that he was able to go on vacation, but I envisioned this as a nice "vacation" for myself (wink, wink).

The first night (and every night thereafter) I slept in the middle of the bed.  No one hogging pulling the blankets.  No one snoring.  No one breathing their bad breath in my direction.

It was quite nice.

RT returned at the end of the week.  We got in to bed and the minute his head hit the pillow, he started snoring.  He snored loudly all night.  He apologized the next day.  That day, he took a nap (and, I'm sure he snored).  Again, when we went to bed, he started snoring right away.  Two nights without sleep.

The third night, I woke him up and told him to "roll over."  A lot of good that did....he rolled over and snored some more.

I think all of RT's snoring was punishment for me getting so much sleep while he was away.

I'm thinking he needs to go on another vacation (and soon) so I can catch up on my sleep.

Halloween Candy Cupcakes

So, your kid(s) went trick-or-treating on Halloween and you still have Halloween candy leftovers.  What do you do?  You make some cupcakes!

What?

You heard me.  Make cupcakes.

It's very simple.  Make your cupcake batter.  Place your cupcake liners in the cupcake tin.  (I like to use the silicone liners myself).  Open some of your small candy bars in your trick-or-treat bag and place in each liner.  Pour cupcake batter over the candy bars and bake as usual.

Here is a link to my original post for pictures.

Now you can share some of your Halloween candy with everyone!

Black Friday

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day and is the biggest shopping day of the year.  For retailers, it marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

For those of us working, it's a crazy, long, tiring day.  If you are shopping, it can get crazy out there.  Be safe.

Also, be nice to the store employees.

Song suggestions for today:

Man In Black - Johnny Cash
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
Back in Black - AC/DC
Black Cat - Janet Jackson
Black Magic Woman - Santana
Black or White - Michael Jackson
Black Widow - Iggy Azalea

Happy Thanksgiving

In the year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast.  They invited the great Indian chief, Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great abundance of food.  Governor Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were honored guests.  Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that went something like this;

"We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land.  We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice."

Linus Van Pelt
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Graham Cracker Crust for Pumpkin Pie

Once again, I cooked down a pumpkin.  This time, I used the crock pot to cook it.  It took less time and was so much easier than last year.

It's pretty easy.

Cut pumpkin and scrape out seeds.   Cut in smaller pieces and place the cut side facing down inside the crock pot.  Put lid on and cook on high for 2 hours and a fork can easily pierce the skin).  Let cool.  I then cut off the skin and placed in a food processor until smooth.

I walked away with enough pumpkin for 8 pies.  I froze the pumpkin in bags (3 cups of pumpkin to a bag).

I decided to try making the pie with a Graham Cracker Crust and it turned out delicious.

If you need the recipe for the pumpkin pie, click HERE.

Here's the recipe for the crust:


Graham Cracker Crust

1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar*
1 1/4 cups finely crushed graham crackers (18 crackers)**

Melt butter.
In mixing bowl, add crushed graham crackers and sugar and mix.  Stir in melted butter and mix well.
Spread mixture evenly into a 9 inch pie plate, pressing onto bottom and sides of plate.
Bake at 375F for 5-7 minutes or until edge is lightly browned).
Cool completely before filling

*I used half of this amount.  I figure that there is sugar in the graham crackers.

** I used the food processor to crush the graham crackers.


Let me know if you try making homemade pumpkin pie!

Enjoy!

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 8

Bonus day!

It's not too late to join in!  Comment with what you are thankful for in your life!

I'm thankful for "Cupcake Wars."  Well, you are probably thinking about the TV show with the same name.  I'm referring to the cupcake wars that occurs in my kitchen on the weekend.  We enjoy watching the show and RT and Bella like to recreate the show in our kitchen.  It results in a huge kitchen mess fun filled times for the two of them and a huge kitchen mess for me lots of cupcakes.

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 7

I'm thankful for leftover night.  You gotta love that one day a week where you don't have to cook.  Well, I enjoy it.  Hey, and everyone can have something different!

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 6

Are you joining me on my week of thanks?  Comment with what you are thankful for.

I'm thankful for my health.

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 5

If you have been following along you know that I have been reflecting on everything that I am thankful.   With Thanksgiving and the Holidays approaching, it's a great time to step back and reflect on everything that you are thankful for in your life.  Play along with me and comment with your thanksgivings.

Today I am thankful for pens and paper to keep me busy when I'm waiting.  I find they can be very entertaining and very therapeutic for me.

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 4

I am thankful for all things pumpkin.  I love pumpkins.  I like all the recipes with pumpkins.  I'll probably be tired of them after Thanksgiving...but, for now, I'm thankful for them.

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 3

I am thankful the election is over.  I'm not very political, and, even though this election has been interesting and entertaining, I'm just happy that it's over.  No more circus events and media attention. Hopefully, the elected candidate will do good for our country and the media will, well, just go away.

What are you thankful for today?

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 2

As I have said yesterday, for the next few days, I'm writing down what I am thankful for and hoping you will join in and comment on my posts.

Today I am thankful for my house (shelter) and my car (to get me places and to help me in my career as a chauffeur).

A Week of Being Thankful - Day 1

As we are approaching Thanksgiving, I thought this would be the perfect time to reflect on everything we are thankful for:  people, places, things, etc.

It's a great time to think about them as we head into the holidays, where everything gets crazy and we lose focus on what is most important to us.

I am thankful for my family.  They are always there for me.  And, they are great providers of entertainment for me (and my two blog readers).

Play along with me.  Let me know what you are thankful for today.

Blogger App

I have the old Blogger App.  I was so excited to get it!  I loved that I could type up a blog post anytime....anywhere.  The anytime was great because sometimes I come up with good posts at 2 am.

Lately, I've had so many problems with the App.  The app will close as you are typing in your post.  Sometimes you write quite a bit and the app shuts down before you have time to save your draft, which means you lost your entire post.  That hurts.  Especially when you type in some extra things that you think of as you are writing the post...you can never get that back.

I'm not sure why they don't update the Blogger App.  I think a lot of people would be really happy and a lot of blogs would be updated more often with a better working app.  Oh, and a lot of readers would benefit by getting all of these great posts sooner.

The Burglar

Both Alex and Bella get creeped out easily by some of the sounds from our house.  Our house is older and does make a few noises.  The floors and stairs creak.  The furnace (sometimes) makes noise.  Then there are the unexplainable sounds.  The ones that happen that you know are normal, but don't know exactly what causes them (probably ghosts).

At night, Bella and Alex are very attentive to all of the strange sounds.  They don't miss any of them. If I happen to be upstairs, they start asking me,

"What was that?"

"Did you hear that sound?"

They tell me stories of how they hear sounds in the middle of the night.  Almost like someone is walking around.

>>>>Turns out it is someone walking around.  Usually Nick who is hungry in the middle of the night and goes to raid the refrigerator or make a meal at 2am.  Sometimes it's RT because he can't sleep and decides to try sleeping on the couch in the family room.

The other night, I was cleaning our bathroom.  It was 8:30 pm.  I was scrubbing in the shower when Alex knocks on the bathroom door and says,

"Hello?  Who's in there?"

Me:  "I'm cleaning the shower."

Alex:  "Oh.  Bella and I thought someone was trying to break into our house."

I'm not sure why they think someone is always trying to break into our house.  I'm not really sure what a burglar would walk away with from our house?  I used to say our most valued possession was a Buzz Lightyear, but, now he is 15 years old and has a bad knee.  We do have a large collection of dog hair.  Maybe our treasured dust bunnie collection?  How about our valuable dirty clothes collection?

I think they need to work on what the burglar will steal before they jump to conclusions about a burglar breaking in to the house.

And just let me clean the bathroom in peace.

World Kindness Day

Today is World Kindness Day!

Great timing!

Celebrated around the world, today is a great day to spread kindness and love. 

Greet people.  Help a neighbor.  Help someone in a store or at a park.  Be the good in the world.

What are you going to do to make today special?

Sunglasses

Went shopping the other day with RT and Bella.  Somehow we went our separate ways.  Bella and I hit some fun stores while RT looked for clothes and shoes.

When we finally met up, RT guided us into a store so we could check out some sunglasses.  RT put the first pair on and Bella and I were not impressed.  Something about those glasses made him look funny.  He picked up a few more pairs and they didn't do much for him.  The sales lady came over to us and said that everything was an additional 10% off and did we get the coupon?  She handed one to us and then casually said, "By the way, the men's sunglasses are in the back of the store."

Needless to say, Bella and I lost it.  We laughed all the way back to the car.  I'm not sure RT will ever live this one down.

Cologne

We have entered a new phase with the teenager.

The discovery of cologne.

This phase brings back memories of my teen years when every single boy wore Drakkar.  And, they didn't wear just a hint of it....more like the entire bottle.

Alex borrowed some of RT's cologne.  The one I bought him 100 years ago that he wears once a year (maybe?).  It's a nice cologne and when used sparingly, gives off a hint of scent to those around.

Well, I think Alex wanted his own cologne, so he went to the store and purchased a bottle for himself.  It's a different brand/scent.  It's not bad....when used sparingly.  Some days, the entire house smells like his cologne because he put some on before he left for school at 6:30am.  My car is starting to have a cologne-y smell to it, too.

I guess I shouldn't complain.  At least it's not the opposite (no showers and a sweaty smell), right?

A Cure for Shop-o-holics

Bella and Alex both needed clothes (growth spurts are overrated).  So, I took them out shopping.

I should have started this post telling you how much I "used to love shopping."  I enjoyed shopping for clothes, household items and shoes.  Now, I didn't always buy things, it was just fun looking.  I could spend hours shopping.  Did I mention that it was fun?

OK, now back to shopping with my kids.

First, it's the effort to get them to go with you when you have the free time.  They try to come up with excuses.  I just say it's either now or possibly a month from now.  They hop on the opportunity and off we go.

Once at the store, they forget why we are there.  They start looking at everything that is not related to our current shopping trip.  Oh, and then there's a story they have to tell me because they saw something that triggered this memory in their mind.  The story has nothing to do with the current shopping trip.  After several prompts and reminders of, "Why are we here again?"  we I start getting down to business.

Yes.  Me.  I start combing the racks while they stare at me.  That's when I have to remind them that we are there for them, not me and that I am not their personal shopper.

Once we have combed through the racks we move on to the fitting room.  Also known as "The Black Hole."  The teenager can take an extremely long time to try on one pair of pants.  After twenty minutes, he walks out to show me.  I'm assuming nothing else fit him.  He then tells me it's the one (and only) item he has tried on.  What took him so long, you ask?  Oh.  He was texting his friends.  He didn't want them to wait for a reply.

After a few more changes and a thousand few more runs out to the floor for me, we are able to head to the checkout.  At this point, I'm exhausted and ready to go home, put my feet up and have a drink.  The child, on the other hand, is happy and full of energy.

I try to get them to go shopping with RT.  The kids always refuse.  They want to go shopping with me.  I do try to make it fun while we are there.  I think RT tries to make it a very long and painful shopping experience for the kids so he never has to take them.

Or...he's paying them to go with me.

Halloween Post

I know this post is a little late but I didn't think of it until yesterday (Halloween).

When Nick was two, RT decided to do something different for trick or treating.  He decided to hand out candy by lowering it in a cauldron off our front porch.  It was something that Nick found quite entertaining.  The entire neighborhood got a kick out of it, talked and talked about "the house that lowers the candy bucket from their front deck," and a tradition was born. 

Over the years, RT has made little changes to his candy distribution technique.  He has the big spider that is on a string that he moves before lowering the bucket.  He has added cobwebs to the bushes (or I have forgotten to dust...?).  We had a skeleton that he would place in various spots under the deck (also attached to fishing line where he could move it around).  A couple years ago, he purchased a ghost that was usually hanging out in our front window.  It would freak me out every time I walked by the living room because I thought there was a real person standing there.  The little kids that live across the street were so scared that RT put a CUBS jersey on the ghost.

This year, RT got home early and went to work.  His mission was, "to scare the kids."  We had an old couch that we put in the driveway and had the ghost sitting on the couch.  RT would move the ghost when someone sat down on the couch.  We got quite a few screams that way.  He also had some recordings and had them play on the speaker that was in our attic.  One was Bella saying, "Help me!  Help me!  Don't eat me!  Help!"  Another was Alex saying, "Hey!  You in the driveway!  Can you help me?"  I had him playing "Thriller" in between trick or treaters so people could get in the Halloween spirit.

I think he freaked out some really small children early on.  They will probably never be the same.

I'm looking forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve for next year.

Belly Ache Day

Every year, on the day after Halloween, my Dad would announce that it was Belly Ache Day.  The first time he said it, I asked, "Why is it called Belly Ache Day?"  He replied, "Because you ate too much candy yesterday (Halloween) and today you have a belly ache."

So, Happy Belly Ache Day!