"Falling Back" into November...

Hello brisk weather! I'm ready for ya! But we're not turning on the heat just yet. :)

This week and weekend came and went. Halloween and Trick-or-Treat were a great time. I've been waiting for trick-or-treaters for years now. Finally, we got our fill. We had probably 200+ cutie kids. I also went all-out with the decorations. I spent Wednesday afternoon putting up more props and decorations. I set it up so the kids would walk onto our porch through skeleton beads and past our Frankenstein windsock, spider, and skeleton head. We had several light-up pumkins, a light-up black cat, and a strobe light behind our gravestones in the landscaping. Tyson dressed in his pumpkin costume and sat on the porch with me the whole time. He was a big attraction to the kids, but so were our decorations from what I hear! As a kid, I remember that any house having more than an orange porch light and jack-o-lantern was way cool. I guess things haven't changed.

Thursday night I worked late, and ran straight to the grocery to spend $240 of Adam's money! :) We hadn't been on an official grocery trip in about a month and a half, so it was more than time. I had planned to buy quite a few special ingredients to create new meals this week. My first meal was Thursday night when I got home. I made an omelette (which isn't new, but the ingredients were) with green and red peppers, onions, cheddar cheese, spinach, and cream cheese. It tasted wonderful! And I also made Pillsbury/Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. YUM! Then we watched the movie "1408" about ghosthunting. It started off okay, but then got out of control and crazy in typical Stephen King-fashion.

Friday I only worked for a few hours. In the morning, I got my crockpot meal ready to go. We had another new dish - creamy chicken stew. It consists of peas, carrots, onions, chicken, and red potatoes in a whipping cream/chicken broth/corn starch sauce. Again, very good! After dinner we watched "Blades of Glory," which was the MOST hilarious movie! Right up there with "Old School!" Okay, now I'm getting my days confused, because I'm certain we watched "Knocked Up" on Friday.... so the other two movies were in there somewhere, along with "Disturbia." This was definitely a movie week! They were all quite enjoyable. "Knocked Up" was cute, but I was a little turned off by all the use of the "f"word.

Today was sleep-in day. We apparently didn't get out of bed in time for the OSU game. We went to BW3s and a local bar just before halftime and there were still no seats anywhere. We ended up just going to a local Delaware pub - The Brown Jug - for lunch. It was great! We hadn't been there yet, but I'd been wanting to go. I had grilled cheese, French onion soup, and punkin' pie. Mmmm, mmmm.... After that, we played golf at the local course (with my pink golf glove). We got a golf cart, too, which was fun! I did horrible though, and my only good shot was my final drive in which I made it over the water hazard. Then we stopped home and picked up the boys to take them to the Bark Park. They had a great time there. After that, we came home to warm up in the tub for an hour. We relaxed and read our magazines. Then it was time for me to attempt new dinner dish #3. I made a version of chicken marsala tonight. (One thing about all these new recipes - I never follow them exactly and usually improvise or substitute ingredients for things we don't like or have or know what it is!) I ended up cooking skinless chicken strips on the stove in oil, pepper, and salt. Once they were almost done, I added cremini mushrooms, onions, chicken broth, and Dale's juice. They turned out to be very flavorful! Very easy to make too. Probably a new staple! Since then, we cleaned up the downstairs and did laundry (much needed!). Now, I finished reading my "Ghost Hunters" book and have been reading US Weekly and watching SNL. Now, it's getting about time for bed. I have to work all day tomorrow.

Don't forget to "fall" back an hour tonight! Nite nite!