Have a Lovely Halloween!

You know it's true! I am spending the next three days enjoying the last of a beautiful month.. 

We don't have any plans and no trick or treaters... but I'm sure we can manage some celebrations. I found a jack-o-lantern shaped pizza at Aldi's. AND I plan to make cheeseburger soup. 

I spent the day in my Studio again. True to my Tortoise and the Hare ways,  I fooled around and sent Halloween cards pretty late! I made them in July I think, but I forgot about the extra postage stamps! That's a 3- day process out here in the wildwood! Lol... I sent way, way, way too many [54!]... oh well... it's my jam!

I was contemplating my Halloween costumes in the past.....fairy, gypsy, princess, and then boho/gypsy from about age ten on to eternity... love the bells and dangles and scarves. 

Have a lovely weekend.  If you don't celebrate this holiday,  then you are probably getting ready for the next.

 Here at Meadow Lane the Thanksgiving will be out next week... Christmas is banging on the closet door! At least I hope that's the clamor I hear.....lol ......

Boo!

I fought the Litter... guess who won!

Good morning! Just a quick note to give you motivation to have a super Saturday!

Did you ever have one of those days? I'm so sure you have... First. I get a text that my Discover is maxed out... what? My card is paid off! Luckily that was a spam text and my card was fine... I set it out on my table in my Studio; I admired the design I'd chosen.... I won a discussion over an item I'd ordered and got a refund...

And decided yeah, we will get new cat litter...  and that's when the party started. Top heavy kitchen trash can yelled Timber! Wow! Cat litter [not the new either] all over the Studio floor..  enough to prompt my son to excuse himself from an online meeting to "check on a house emergency

So.... on with my day. I'll leave out the typical spilled milk... Along about 5 I decided to put away my Discover card. What? Absent-mindedly, I had carried it off... insert a couple hours sorting through stacks of card stock and browsing the house.  I'm a tucker....especially of charge cards... I slip them into somewhere so they aren't laying out... yep. Even in a locked house with two trusted people and a cat who is not authorized to swipe the card!

You're already ahead of me, aren't you?.yes... I finally bit the bullet and dragged in the sack of Studio scraps and old, nasty, twice-spilled cat litter. Yes, indeed... I'm a tucker. Along about lower midway, yes it was. My Discover was slipped into the wrapper of the box I'd had refunded, then pitched in beneath... yeah.

Discover cards wash... hands wash... trash goes back out... Goodnight, Moon...  Weekend, here we come!

Have a good one. Don't be a tucker!

Fruit Jar Banking

I was just thinking about the incredible spirit and strength of the women in my family.  My grandmother, my mother's mom,  was such a tiny little dynamo at less than 5 feet tall. She is responsible for this farm and for our ownership of it.  I've detailed the courtship and elopement between her and my grandfather. But here's the scoop on a woman who toiled as a housewife and kept her family afloat.... from home... Minnie Samantha. 

Minnie was from Indiana, a mommy's girl, she said.  She and her new husband moved away here to mid Missouri, Moberly, while he worked in loading on the railroad. She was so homesick that he told her if she could save 1,000 dollars,  they would move back to Indiana... on his tiny salary, with their rent and expenses,  that seemed impossible. I think he felt sure he would stay in his beloved Missouri... However,  after 32 months she presented him with a fruit jar of money, just a little over her quota, and they moved to Terre Haute.

They had my mother there and lived 18 years in the land of the Wabash River.  The thing is,  my grandfather was not happy delivering ice in the city.  His knees were ruined with arthritis, he is said to gave imbibed too much... So again my grandmother worked her financial magic.. one night this little woman, who had marched with the suffragettes and turned 21 the first year women could vote, presented a deal my grandfather couldn't refuse. 

If he would promise to stop drinking cold turkey, she said the family could move to Missouri and buy a farm.  She produced a suitcase full of fruit jars and odd cash worth several thousand dollars,  enough to awaken my mother her senior year in high school and move immediately one cold November night in 1941. Mom said she didn't even tell her friends goodbye.... just packed her things and made the trip with a bowl of goldfish and a huge dog in the back seat of their car.  Can you imagine?  

Evidently Gramma's banking system was a winner because after a few years passed, the story continued.  Gramma and Paw-paw bought a second, connected farm from a man who traveled to get his money from the Chicago area. Gramma had buried ..... you guessed it.... fruit jars of saved and scrimped cash in their dirt floor basement... She spent the night ironing that money and washing it to get the musty smell out of it. They handed over a few thousand  freshly crisp dollars in a gunny sack...  

I don't know why this all popped into my mind. I sure wish I had inherited that frugal tendency... a jar of musty cash would go well with breakfast, no? I admire that... after all,  she's the one who gave me the loans for my cars, my first home built in 1976,  for my weddings.... both of them... I usually paid her back at least some of it... I 🤔 think... 

We're fine... but just products of a different, more spendy generation... 

Well, it's 3:30 a.m.   I need to go back to sleep in this house nestled on a farm bought with fruit jar savings... 

[photos are from random  Facebook groups]

Friday Night Deep Dish Un-Pizza .. and ramblings

Let me start by saying I forgot to take a picture!  But seriously this was a good one!

DEEP DISH UN- PIZZA

1 head cauliflower, par boiled and cut         up in bite-sized pieces

I jar low or zero sugar marinara

1 can black olives

1 can sliced mushrooms

15 pieces sliced pepperoni

1 # browned, drained, crumbled.                       breakfast sausage

2 to 3 c. shredded mozarella cheese

Spray oil a 9 x 13" pan and layer ingredients on top of cauliflower. Top with cheese. Bake at 350° until brown and bubbly. It will have a lot of juice but as it cools, that absorbs. If you like cold pizza, you'll like this cold the next day, too. 

We finally got some dark, October days.  Rain and storms slouched across the Prairie yesterday and today. We've been busy with all kinds of this and that.  My son's big project outside of work was to nail down what is wrong with his pickup Vista roof... not good! It's a defect, broken, not insurance covered, not home fixable.... $2200 for the part. He is lucky that he can't see any water inside the cab... but?  Ugh.. The service techies told him to park it under a tree and hope for a wind storm... Well, both our vehicles are always parked.....Under a tree. But guess which one would Probably get boinked. Yep.  It would likely be mine since I just paid the darn thing off! 

Have a good week.  

Happy October!

I've really been soaking up the October vibes! I look forward to this month all year. 

No news is good news... so they say.  I finally seemed to get some real space made in my studio. Pitched a little more junk... I made three more journals:

These were a lot of fun.  

Confession:

Trying to save a little money this month.  We've had lots of unexpected repairs and purchases and expenses this year.  I tend to buy stuff in the middle of the night! You know, sometimes a person finds herself in the middle of the kitchen with a brownie and a glass of milk... Well,  yeah... I've done that, too. But really,  I have a lot of fidgets at night and I watch YouTube...  yep... the next morning I'll see I've ordered a 12 x 12 paper pad or a grab bag of vintage lace... or Instacart groceries! Nothing horrific, but... it's a guilty pleasure I'm watching out for this month... Time to use up some of what I've been stashing!

Picture from Facebook

We had chili for Octobet 1st. Our current recipe is different from the past... but it is still sweet..I now use 1/4 c. Sugar free maple syrup in the recipe... I used to use sorghum.  

CHILI

3 # browned hamburger, drained if needed

1 large can or 2 small tomato puree, sauce, diced, or anything tomato-ey

1 1/2 c beef broth... or more... or less

1 regular can chili beans [I used to put in up to  4!]

1/4 c. Syrup or Molasses or brown sugar

Big squeeze of ketchup

Salt,  pepper; 

Lots of chili powder, less of cumin. [I don't measure but pour it into my palm and go BAM!......like Emeril!] I use a lot.

2 T. Worchestershire

Sometimes a little bit of chili flakes or just a kiss of sweet pickle vinegar... 

Simmer 30 minutes [or not, but it's better if I do]

Facebook pic

HAPPY OCTOBER! ENJOY!

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