The Alignment of the Stars, Harvest Food and when the Universe throws you A Twenty.

Fall Greetings to you all! I don’t know how you are feeling at this stage in your October. I have never been a watcher of astrology but things have seemed a little off kilter in my realm this week. Here are some of my hunches as to why the stars may not be aligning:

1. Election Day is coming. I’ve got my ballot right here. I’m an environmentalist so there is no question as to how I will vote, especially with forthcoming information about Climate Change.
2. I lost a friend. (I blogged about this recently).
3. My dog took a bad turn over the weekend. She is my geriatric rescue pet and a tough old lady. She had shown all signs of having a stroke.  Just when we were in the process of making some big decisions about her, she started to make a comeback. As bad as things were, she would always wag her little tail when she heard our voices. She still can not roll over or get back up the stairs after going down them. She sometimes needs physical prompts or a push in the right direction. Her eyes look SO much better. I just adore my dog with the beautiful brown seal eyes! I know she is reaching the end of her life span, but after watching her fight her way back this week I don’t think she’s ready to leave this world just yet. She will let me know when she has had enough.

Despite the events I have had with the dog, I am doing my best to maintain some Halloween composure. I have a confession,  in the past I have been obsessed with themed Halloweens. For instance, one year my daughter was a vampire, her sister was a bat. Another year, I dressed all the children in black, white, and red. Below is a picture from another themed year. Yeah…plastic bag…I don’t use those anymore. It was a little chilly for picture taking as you can tell by their expressions! Ha! It’s like my girls were saying, “take the picture already!” The spider web skirt was a success. Theatrical make up has never been my forte’. (As you can see by that spider on my daughter’s forehead). I am getting better.

My children have told me in recent times…”mom, I am doing my own thing this year.” They have taken a stand for their individuality. I’ve had to let go of family themed costumes. With recent events, I am abandoning my fortune teller decorating theme and going for a hodgepodge of everything.

My big Catharsis? Isn’t that what Halloween is supposed to be about? Chaos and disorder? Beetlejuice and Jack Skellington would agree with me. I do have a plan for the chaos because that is the theatre buff in me. I’ve narrowed my Halloween to-do list and this is what I am going to try and tackle this Halloween season:

• Dinners will resume as normal with plenty of fall soup recipes. I’m also trying out some new enchilada recipes. (I will provide a review and recipes in a future post). I also plan to share my homemade tomato soup and Oatmeal caramel cake recipe with you. These were GREAT comfort foods when I was having that rough patch with my dog over the weekend.
• Tonight my girls and I are going to tackle some Halloween crafting felt projects. Pictures to come. We’re going to expand on some Day of the Dead decor we had going on last year.
  

 

• I have had two Halloween treat ideas on the agenda. Ghost Buster Popcorn and white chocolate ghoul peanut butter bars. I made these last night. We had them for desert after eating some “ghoul-osh.” I hadn’t had goulash in years. My mom used to make it from an old Lucille Ball recipe she found in a Ladies magazine. My how celebrity recipes have changed!
• I have laser bat and red lights at the ready. I have some interesting candlelight ideas in the works.
• I’m picking up the creepy hands and Halloween makeup today.
• I have a design plan for white pumpkins.
• I’m trying out an outdoor “web” design project with glow in the dark washi tape.
• My daughter Ember’s costume is all ready to go. True Story:  A few weeks ago, my daughter wanted an Eeyore costume really bad that was twenty dollars. AS we were talking about it twenty dollars just blew in on the wind. We asked around to see if anyone lost anything and there were no claimers. The weird thing about this: This isn’t the first time the universe has blown me a twenty.  This one was for Ember.
• I’ve got two Etsy Halloween packages on their way! I can hardly wait! If I can squeeze it, I have a bleach pen project I am going to try.

We shall see how this all comes together in future posts.  I just want to throw out a few food instagram accounts I have been following. The first one is where I got the idea for the ghost peanut butter bars and it’s centered around harvest baking. The second one, is geared for French cooking.

• halfbakedharvest
• mimithor

Here is another fall baking blog I have really liked and another Halloween crafting blog that has captured my attention:

• Domestic Gothess
• Striped Stocking Studio

Thank you all for reading and I hope your Halloween season is moving along splendidly!