Would you let that in bed with YOU? ;-)

This is actually a dog and person I know, so be nice! ;-)

I NEVER like these, BUT...

John sends these to me all the time. I don't usually find them funny. But this one ALMOST made me laugh... They come from HERE.

Thursday's menu... A carb festival!

Stuffed acorn squash from a recipe as yet to be determined, but something like THIS.

Homemade stuffing, made from a loaf of bread, apples, cranberries, onions, celery, etc.

Mashed potatoes

Gravy

Cranberry bread

Pumpkin pie

I wonder what I could add to get the children to participate...

Wow. Please watch this.

Evolution gone horribly wrong...

We had a mouse problem this summer. Eventually, it was SO bad that I called an exterminator and he came and distributed "mouse stuff" around. Fortunately, everything in my basement is in a box, but ever single box cover has been traversed by a mouse. And what does every living thing do? (I say to PL and Tiger when they ask if they can have a bird or a toad or a [fill-in-the-blank] for a pet...) It eats. And then? It poops. AND PEES. Yeah. Joyfulness.

Historically, we put out a few traps, catch a couple of mice and that seems to end the problem. But when bread on the kitchen counter was being nibbled in the bag, we had to draw the line. So, the exterminator came, was duly impressed with the problem, and departed. We encountered one deceased mouse and one nearing-deceasement mouse in the following week or two. Another week or so passed. And then... the smell! From the location of the horrific odor, they had all gone under the house where the basement and the garage are not connected -- a dirt area. We pushed the pocket door open and put masking tape over the edges to close that up... We could only close the bathroom closet that goes under the stairs... And burn candles, lots and lots of candles! It was awful!

And then one day... FLIES! Fortunately, they really only found their way into the garage and not into anywhere else, which is heartening in terms of how secure the house is. A few would get into the main part of the house when the garage door was opened, but essentially, they were confined to the garage... But how many? THOUSANDS. No joke. And it's COLD. So thousands of sleepy flies. HUGE, ginormous bottle flies. Just YUCK. We tried to sweep them out, but they wouldn't move... And the three windows in the garage have extremely deep wells -- the wall on that side is VERY thick because it was a field stone foundation to which we added a reinforcing cement liner. So the flies went toward the light of the window and found themselves stuck in a dead end.

Luckily, there were a couple of warmer days and a couple of opportunities to leave the garage door open. They disappeared out the door without any more effort on our part than to sweep out the stragglers who might have missed the mass exodus.

This week? MOTHS. It's the great moth invasion of 2009 as PL noticed they were forming a great dot-to-dot formation -- "look, it's a one-armed man!" -- on the sliding glass door. Ooma vacuums them off the walls. There was one in the car.

Next week? Frogs? It's a little late in the year for frogs, though... Maybe lizards. I'm just afraid it might be more of those really large arachnids that I so, SO do not appreciate.

This is NOT the post I was supposed to write as promised to one reader, but maybe tomorrow on that one!

The list...

For a long, long time, I had this short list of three things that I thought were going to be monumental life-changing things that I needed to do, but which I found difficult. No need to go into what they were; they were just hurdles I had to clear to move on. They were absolutely challenging for ME, no question. Definitely things I had to get past. But the image I have in mind is this... A very small person is out sweeping the sidewalk. There are three leaves. Maybe not even leaves. Maybe specks... Or maybe stains on the sidewalk. The very small person has gotten down on her hands and knees with a scrub brush and has cleared away those stains. There. And when she gets back to her feet, the very first thing she hears is the tell-tale sound of a large truck in reverse... "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" And in that exact spot, an entire load of horse manure is emptied out.

I choose horse manure, because horse manure IS good for something. It helps things grow, after all. A prized fertilizer. And it comes from horses, which are lovely animals. But the point is, all that attention spent on those three small stains for what?

So now that small person had better become a much larger person and instead of a scrub brush, get a shovel and a wheelbarrow and start moving some of this CRAP to where it can do some good.

These days, I spend a lot of time distracting my brain so that I can't think... So that I don't think. Whenever possible, I fall asleep to the TV. That's my favorite. I love being in bed, cuddled down into the covers next to John, while he watches something excruciatingly fascinating -- to HIM. With the lights out. That's perfect. If he goes to sleep early, then I plug in the earbuds to my computer and play audiobooks. It just doesn't feel safe to have a bedtime routine that involves being responsible, turning out the light at a good time and waiting for sleep to come.

Stuff to do, gotta run...

Dinner tonight...

Dinner is NEVER about weight loss, so feel free to read on! ;-)

I started by preparing Cranberry Bread, made in my family forever from a little recipe booklet put out by Ocean Spray...

2 cups sifted flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp. double acting baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

Sift or wisk above together.

In a 1 cup glass measure, melt 2 T. shortening.

Juice 1 orange or 3 clementines into above, to make 3/4 of a cup.

Grate rind and add to above.

Add 1 beaten egg to liquid mixture.

Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to dampen.

Fold in 2 cups of cranberries, cut in half and rinsed of seeds.

Spoon into a greased loaf pan, spreading evenly and making corners and sides slightly higher than center. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. OR

Spread in a 9" square pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

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Then the main deal for dinner was "Taco Twist Casserole" that I tripped over on the 'Net. With a few adjustments for ingredients on hand and vegetarians:

One onion, chopped

1/2 of orange pepper, chopped

Stir-fry above in olive oil. Add one package of Helen's Kitchen Vegetarian Ground Beef (which happens to be frozen) and continue cooking until thawed.

Stir in 1 15 oz. can of tomato sauce.

Recipe called for 1 package of taco seasoning mix... I had made a batch recently — maybe a recipe from Alton Brown? Not sure now, but had some of that left over so dumped ALL of it in. Only THEN did I wonder if maybe 1 T. might've been enough, but it turned out fine.

Meanwhile, cook 8 oz. twisty macaroni like cavatappi. Mix cooked pasta with 1/2 c. shredded cheese (I used mexican blend, non-flavored variety) and 1/2 c. sour cream. Spread in the bottom of a casserole dish.

On top of the pasta, spread the tomato/beef mixture. Cover with another 1/2 c. shredded cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. It was declared delicious! Yay!