Spooky Supper

My daughter and her husband invited a few friends to join them for a Halloween Spooky Supper. They also invited their mothers (myself and co-gramma Nancy) to help hand out candy while the parents supervised the trick or treaters.  

I couldn't help myself - Aldi Halloween Pasta salad served with the viral pumpkin head. 

My easiest recipe - Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with green food coloring added to the milk before combining. And flavored with a few candy eyes. 

I carved a few fingers from hot dogs.

Either my oven isn't level or I tilted the pizza plan while baking my spider web brownies.

My daughter's dessert charcuterie board courtesy of Aldi. 

I have a nifty gadget from Pampered Chef that helps create peanut butter and jelly spiders. 

My daughter served this delicious ham for those afraid of spooky foods. 

My daughter's chili was very well received by the adults. 

My daughter is very good at dips. This is a cream cheese caramel dip to serve with apple slices. 

This dip was cream cheese based with finely chopped broccoli and other vegetables I can't remember. 

She also served a very scary cheese board. 

I have spent the past week on this requested project. 

Just an FYI, Dollar General sells a square shipping box.  They also sell black electrical tape. 

Dollar General also sells multi packs of craft foam sheets.  I ran out of glue but Dollar Tree sells Alene's Craft Glue and saved the day. 

A Rubik's Cube obsessed first grader gave me an "A" on my craft project. 

Books

 I have a huge stack of books to be read. 

A few weeks ago I was cleaning (switching piles from one place to another) and found a second stack of books to be read. 

Does this stop me from ordering books from your recommendations? No it does not.  Please block me from any of your book reviews!  

Here are my recent purchases.

This book was a big mistake. I enjoyed it so much I ordered the next four books in the series.  They are hilarious! I have finished book 1 and am halfway through book 2. Thank you to Connie and her book club at  https://farsideoffifty.blogspot.com/

No idea where I saw this book. It could have even been on Facebook.  I read the first ten pages when I opened the package and it is very very good.  

This nonfiction memoir is a recommendation came from  Doug, who likes to read about old television series actors and actresses and his blog at https://apachedugs.blogspot.com/  I watched the television show starring Dominique Dunne. I remember the day that Griffin's sister was murdered.  I remember his father at the trial. I assumed justice had been served.  It was not. 

I can't remember who recommended this. It was during the past week . . .  Anyway - the title is too cute!  I read that it has been made into a series.  I don't want to watch it.  I am disappointed in 90% of the series made from a book that I see.  I have not started this book yet. 

I guess the question is: to which pile should I add the new books?

Miss Merry, please stop buying more books!!! And you don't need anymore new tote bags either! This one, I am embarassed to say, is from Temu. 

Monday Morning

Good morning. Today I am going to talk about the football game and the cheerleaders and the fact that I am a couch potato and my kids and grandkids are all athletes. But first I am going to talk about tariffs and that idiot in the White House.  

Oh, is that another counter full of green peppers for the food bank? (They are all sweet peppers, just a fancy shape). 

I will start at the end. My oldest daughter completed the marathon and came back to my house to take a shower before heading home. She was very impressed by my shower head and asked me to send her the link.  Imagine my surprise when I sent her the link and it is currently priced at $649.

In November of 2024, after the election, we quickly ordered the remaining materials to complete our bathroom remodel. I was able to find the price we paid for this unit two years ago. $301.86

Yeah.  Don't tell me American is winning. The prices of the products we purchased have doubled and tripled.  And by tripled I mean the acrylic walls of my handicapped accessible shower which came from Canada.  It would now cost three times as much for those shower walls. When I pointed this out to my husband he pointed out to me that his pension has not increased. 

Okay. Rant over. (not really but I will move on). 

We made it to the football game on Friday night with no problems. We were there to watch the cheerleaders and the mini cheerleaders and they were wonderful. Unfortunately a player was injured horribly, he was screaming while a limb was splinted. I have not hear how he is doing. 

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn for a marathon.  I was the cheerleader.  We watching one of my grandsons run by in the 5K, he led for most of the race but lost to 4 adults who passed him at the end. 

My oldest daughter competed in the actual half marathon which means she ran for 13.1 miles which is just not even part of my comprehension.

My youngest daughter was "cheering" with us, we do cheer for all the runners, and brought a special beverage for the second time she passed us. 

 

She places 5th in her age group which somehow is the age group I think that I should be in. 

I can't skip the person who crosses the finish line first each year. My youngest son the cop serves as the "rabbit" leading the racers.  He laughingly complains that he never gets a medal. 

I took the cheering section plus those who spent the morning in Sunday School out for breakfast.  

I contacted my farm family to see what date in October I should expect my beef quarter. Somehow I got lost in the shuffle but she can provide a quarter in December. This is actually going to work out better for us since I have lots of odds and ends in the freezer and we won't have to eat tomato sauce and squash every day from all the tomatoes and squash I froze. I can space them out.  I might even do one of those freezer challenges (where you cook from your freezer instead of shopping) that I have seen around. 

And speaking of tomatoes, how did I just learn about tomato flights? I will be planting beef steak tomatoes this spring! 

Not my photo

And I guess that is my weekend. 

And we got our final pictures from the Witches Wander. This store had a photographer that edited the photos so this is as good as we get, lol. 

Doing My Part!

We have had a busy week. Early voting started here on Monday and we didn't make it in until Wednesday, but we have voted!

The postcards I signed up for finally arrived.  I wrote them all in one night and signed my name and my daughters names to all of them. I thought their names sounded more youthful than my old lady name. They went in the mail last night! 

I also sat through two hours and forty five minutes of poll worker training. I think it is an endurance test. 

Now I am off to a football game about two hours away. One granddaughter is a cheerleader and the youngest granddaughter is joining her as a mini cheerleader.  I don't mind the drive there but the drive home will need coffee. 

Happy Weekend.