Happy Thanksgiving to everybody out there in Blog Land. It's going to be a busy week around here. There's still much to be done in the new addition. Bob is on vacation and working to make it usable for our guests on Thanksgiving. Stormy and Nick (future grandparents of twin-Smithlings) will be joining us from Wilkes Barre and Brent and Lindsey will be coming up from Indy. I'm teaching second grade Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I'm also subbing for a body toning class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Book Babes meet in Fort Wayne tomorrow night, and I've got pies to bake for church - plus our own personal pies. Oh, and I'm trying to schedule Salvation Army Bell Ringers. Oh, and there's Black Friday, of course. Enough already. We are thankful that we're busy. As you can see, the dogs are dressed for the occasion. Bonnie is, as you might predict, the savage.










The dining room table arrived late Friday afternoon. I'm displaying some lovely pumpkin and squash salt and pepper shakers that Cathy sent back from California with Bob. I know you can't see them, but trust me, they're great. Thanks Cathy. I love them. This tablecloth that Stormy gave me barely covers the ends, but it will work for our dinner this week. I'm thankful to have it too.










Maddie, the Amazing Barking Dog wants you to know there's another new CPA in town. On Wednesday, Rachel found out that she had passed her final exam. Congrats to you Rachel with a five woof salute from Maddie and the CPA song. (chorus sung to the tune of YMCA)





Now Rachel is A CPA
It's fun to be A CPA.
She can count all your stuff,
She can take you to lunch,
Just give her the numbers
You want her to crunch.
'Cause Rachel is A CPA,
Yes, she truly is A CPA.
Hmm, hmm, hmm,
and so on and so forth.

Kelly's Korner - Show Us Your Life Friday

Show Us Your Pets

These are the dogs and granddogs that we love both in the flesh (or fur, rather) and their cartoon versions, which often show up on this blog:

Maddie, the Amazing Barking Dog -sporting her construction paper rhubarb crown in honor of our rhubarb celebration. Not sure she really liked it.










And, looking happier without a hat























Granddog Bonnie the Barbarian, cute as a bug, but a real hooligan, trust me.













And, granddog, Little Roxanne - little dog with a big personality who likes to run the show. Here she is sitting pretty on the back:






And as they appear in cartoon form - the bulldog, Slobbery Stella, belongs to my niece.


Celebrating Easter.....

.........and not celebrating the Fourth of July.

Maddie, the Amazing Barking Dog, is dispensing woofs tonight in honor of some very exciting news items:


First of all, when Nick and Stormy were in Paris they were informed by their son and daughter-in-law that they were going to become grandparents, which is exciting in itself, BUT, on Friday, they were told that they will be the grandparents of twins. And let the record show that this is a natural phenomenon, created without the assistance of medical technology. Until they arrive these fetuses ( or is it feti? I am now, officially, an English teacher and should know this.) fetuses. These fetuses ( scheduled to arrive around Nick's birthday in May) will henceforth be referred to on this blog as "the Smithlings." Congratulations, Emmet, Emily, Nick, Stormy, and the whole Smith clan.


And, other big news.......

Last week I told you that Rob and Candace went to Hawaii for a vacation, but what I didn't say is that Rob was wearing an engagement ring around his neck when he left. And, we hear that he proposed to Candace on the last night of their stay, on Waikiki Beach at sunset. Congratulations kiddos. We couldn't be more pleased.






Maddie is going to have more to woof about very soon, because Lindsey will finish her MBA in just a few weeks and our dear Landon Kutscher has only two more chemotherapy treatments left and just about 30 days to go before he gets a baby brother or sister. Woof!



I did a little subbing last week and started scheduling Salvation Army bell ringers for Noble County. If you want to ring, give me a ring. Ha-ha. It's been a rough week in the kitchen and that's all I'm saying about that at this writing. My poor Bob. Here are some remodeling pictures:





Shot of the front of the house - new woodland green siding and clay colored garage.






This picture shows the new addition


And finally, something Bob has entitled" Kitchen Chaos 2.

Recipe of the Week? Of course, there's no recipe. All I've had to eat today is three slices of sourdough bread with butter and a pack of Sarburst leftover from Halloween. There's no stinkin' recipe. But, I'll leave you this week with my favorite quote of all time:

"Aunt Lou, you make everything fun."

Baleigh Bohannon Koester
I'm puddling up.

I'm not feeling very bloggy this week. I conked out last night watching the Cowboys and Eagles and didn't get anything posted. So, here's a mini-blog: I worked at the park department for Sally last week. Bob took the week off to work on the dining room. We decided to have our old kitchen cabinets refinished and will put on new counter tops. He started putting down the flooring and I'm almost done with the plaster. Here's a picture of Rob and Candace at the Detroit airport on Saturday getting ready to board a plane for Hawaii. Aloha Kiddos.

It's hard to whip anything up in my kitchen these days, so I have no exciting recipes to post for you. I did help the Gamma Xi girls make their cheeseballs yesterday at the middle school. We had five assembly lines going and I believe we made 3,300 of those tasty spheres in just over three hours. Um-mm. I was a weigher, which I think is the most interesting job because you try to get faster and better at it as you go along - gauging the weight of the cheese and trying to hit it right on the mark when you plunk it down on the scale. Here's a photo from workday. I'm not in it, because I always shy away from the paparazzi when wearing a hairnet. Also, I would love to share this cheeseball recipe with you all, but I cannot because it is top secret and I will have to take it with me to the grave.

Maddie, the Amazing Barking Dog, exaggerates about Halloween night. It was not all that painful for her. In fact, I just stayed outside and greeted the trick or treaters. I set up a card table and served hot mulled cider from a crockpot to the adults, which I thought was a great idea and wondered why I'd never done it before. Next year, I'm expanding. Maddie watched most of the action from the front door. She joined me later, when little Roxanne came by wearing a white fur hooded pink coat that said "glamorous to the bone" on it. A two-year- old, chubby-cheeked, pink fairy was so taken with Roxanne that she didn't want to leave and kept shaking her Milky Way bar at her mother yelling "Go, you go!"

Midway in the process of plastering the dining room. This afternoon we painted our garage door and both front exterior doors, and flower boxes to match the new siding. Now all the blue is gone. We put up the shutters yesterday, so the outside is done. I'll post a picture next week of the finished exterior. This week, the focus is on finishing the walls and putting down the hardwood floor. I'm also in love with my chandelier.

Recipe of the Week: The old Ramada Inn in Effingham used to have a great restaurant. Back in the 70's it had an American history theme going on, and when we went there for lunch I always ordered The War Between the States salad. (which was a chef's salad with some delicious croutons). The Keller's owned the inn and Thelma Keller was well-known for her cooking. One of her most famous desserts was a deep dish apple dumpling. The recipe was printed in several women's magazines years ago. Thelma put out a couple of cookbooks, and I have one, so I decided I'd make the dumplings. The only problem was that the recipe calls for canned apples, and I couldn't find them, so I just sliced up some Granny Smith's and worked from there. I'm going to give you Thelma's actual recipe and maybe you can find canned apples, I don't know.

Deep Dish Apple Dumpling

2 twenty ounce cans of sliced apples, drained (save juice)

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

6 teaspoons red hots candy

butter

Mix apples and other ingredients. Roll out egg-sized ball of pastry (Opie's No-Fail, of course) into a ten inch circle; line deep dish, let hang over sides. In bottom of each, put a small pat of butter and 1 teaspoon red hots. Put in apples, dividing equally into the 6 deep dishes, fold dough over top, place on baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Sauce

1 cup apple juice

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup red hots

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 tablespoons cold water

Heat to dissolve the candy and sugar in apple juice. Then, bring to a boil. Mix the cornstarch and cold water and add to the mixture, continuing to cook until clear. Serve hot over apple dumplings. (Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for an extra treat).

Just to clarify, "drive by howdy," as mentioned in last week's post is a little expression I invented and it means - "just stopped by to say, 'Hey.'" It's simply a quick exchange of pleasantries, and one does not have to be in a car to execute a "drive-by-howdy." A co-worker who stops at your cubicle and asks about your weekend? Drive-by-howdy. A fox just passing through, in front of the Snowmancam? Again, drive-by-howdy. I am the sole author of that nifty saying, but only the co-author of the increasingly popular acronym for tough economic times, TET. Stormy and I made that up together. (although, teachers, don't use this one in the middle school classroom because I'm sure it would produce giggles) Here's a third one that I had nothing to do with at all: It was made up by my friend, Cindy. It's called "making the appropriate noises." Like, when that person standing at your cubicle is telling you all about his weekend and although you might not really be that interested, you're being supportive and giving him all the timely, "ah's" and "oh's" and umm-hmms, and hmm-mmms, and tsk-tsk's and shocked gasps. "He was boring me to tears, but I made the appropriate noises." Feel free to use all three of these great expressions in your daily conversations. No, really, they're our gifts to you and the world.

From the Archives: Halloween, 1987 - Lindsey as a lovely green-faced witch, and....

......Halloween 1998 - Also lovely, Rob and Mike prepare for Trick or Treat night on Hickory Hill Drive. I had to keep an eye on Rob because he liked to lay in our ditch and pretend to be a dead body to scare our Trick or Treaters. I don't know how many times I made him get out of that ditch over the years.

And, how about a bad Halloween poem I wrote in the 5th or 6th grade. It has no title.


Unnamed Halloween Poem

On Halloween night when the moon is out
And the wind through the trees sings a song.
You think there is nothing but silence about
But that's where you get me all wrong.

Down the sidewalk comes a bunch
That scares you plain out of your wits.
There's a ghost, a witch, and a goblin
And things that come out of pits.


Recipe of the Week: I tried a new chicken recipe tonight, which consisted of browning some breasts in butter, then sauteing mushrooms, black olives, and green onions in the same pan and pouring them over the breasts in a glass baking dish and adding slices of mozzarella on top. The originator of the recipe claimed that this preparation kept the breasts very moist. I thought the dish was okay, but wasn't so sure about the moist part, and didn't really consider it blog-worthy. You can't hit a winner every time.

Happy Halloween

Autumn on Hickory Hill Drive

We make these topiaries - one on each side of the driveway - every fall. My husband drills a hole in each end and drives a metal post or dowel rod down through the pumpkins and through the hole in the bottom of the pot. Wrap bittersweet around the pumpkins and, voila.

Cornstalks, pumpkins, and mums, oh my!

And, of course The Autumnal Spider

Bittersweet on the lights.....

...and on the coffee table too.

Burlap Pumpkin - please ignore the mess in the background, we're getting new siding.

And, bushel-basket pumpkin. We love autumn!