Happy Halloween!

(Sorry I stole your cartoon Kory - but imitation is the most sincere form of flattery)

“A Girl’s Got to Accessorize!”

I love Halloween. It's my second favorite holiday (Christmas is number one). I dress up every year. This year Amy's family is dressing as the Wizard of Oz characters. Amy is Dorothy, Kyle is the tin man, Lincoln is the scarecrow, and Emerson is the lion. It's a no brainer to figure out what I'll be (a wicked witch). Jennifer is Captain Hook and Adam is Neo from the Matrix.

Lincoln, Kyle, Emerson & Amy
Jen and Adam

Photo credit for greeting card: Dennis Mosner-card@1997 Avanti Press, Inc.

2-Ingredient "Fudge"

With all the holidays fast approaching, I thought I'd share this quick, easy, and delicious fudge recipe. It tastes just like the fancy, slow cooking, candy thermometer kind. If you don't tell, they'll never know. Just a note: The only 12 oz. cans of frosting available in stores around me are the "whipped" frostings. The fudge turns out a little too soft for my taste, so I prefer the 16 oz. cans of regular frostings and I just use 3/4ths of the can. But, to each his own.

2-Ingredient “Fudge”

Ingredients
1 (12 ounce) can (or 3/4ths of a 16 oz. can) of ready to spread chocolate frosting
1 (12 ounce) package chocolate chips*
(I like nuts, so I add chopped walnuts)


Directions
1. Melt the chips in a 4-cup glass measuring cup. Microwave for 1 minute @ 50% power. Stir. Microwave another minute at 50% power.
2. Add frosting and stir until combined. (add nuts if desired)
3. Pour into an 8x8 pan sprayed with Pam cooking spray.
4. Chill until set, about an hour.


*You can use milk chocolate or semi sweet. Try any other flavor combo you can think of.
For Thanksgiving: I like Nestle’s butterscotch morsels and vanilla icing and I add chopped pecans.

For Christmas gifts: white chocolate chips, vanilla icing and add dried cranberries and pistachios (note to mom: you have to take the nuts out of the shell !)

Scroll down to see my 2-ingredient Macaroon Cookie Recipe

No Electricity!

I woke up an hour late this morning because the alarm didn’t go off. I went into my bathroom and turned on the light, but the light didn’t come on. I tried to brush my teeth but my electric toothbrush wouldn’t work. Ah ha. No electricity. So I brushed the old-fashioned way. I took a shower, but didn’t wash my hair because I couldn’t blow it dry.

I went to the kitchen to make some toast, but remembered there was no electricity so I had a bowl of cereal. (When I opened the frig for milk, I realized that if the electricity didn’t come back on, all the food would spoil). How will I cook dinner? No stove, no oven?

I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t use the computer, I couldn’t vacuum the house, I couldn’t do the laundry. I couldn’t even make phone calls. “ I know, I’ll go shopping!”

I went out to the garage but the garage door opener wouldn’t work so I couldn’t get my car out of the garage! (Even if I disconnected it, I realized I still wouldn’t be able to get out of the yard because the electric gate wouldn’t open! )

I realized how dependent I was on electricity. It seems everything I do requires it. How can that be?

What did people do before electricity? It hasn’t been around that long – only about 100 years – but my, oh my, how it changed our lives.

I wonder what we don't have now that the next generation won't be able to live without?

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The U. S. Dollar

Wow - the Dow is below 9,000 for the first time in five years!

The high for the year was 4/18/08 - the Dow closed at 12,849

on 10/10/08 it closed at 8,451 !!!

What the heck is going on???

If you don't have any money in the stock market,
Lucky you!

Old Geezer's Mantra:

"My husband can beat your husband at dominoes."

Tacky Party

One of my favorite parties to put on for church is a Tacky party. Everyone dresses tacky,
The food is tacky (green Jell-O, macaroni and cheese, tuna casseroles, decorated cupcakes, etc.), we have a tacky auction (every one brings “white elephant” items and we have a live auction and several tables of silent auction items – the kids LOVE this part of the party) and we even have a tacky talent show (a “gong” show). It is great for the whole family. We give everyone tacky money (we put the Bishop’s face on regular money and Xerox it on green paper. They get ten tacky dollars for coming to the party, 10 tacky dollars if they are dressed tacky, 10 tacky dollars if they brought something for the auction, and 10 tacky dollars if they do a tacky talent .

I come by all this tackiness naturally. I won “Queen of Clash Day” when I was in High School. But even when I’m not trying I can get pretty tacky. Here’s a perfect example:




In the early 80’s I bought this coat for myself (what was I thinking) and liked it so much I bought one for my mother for Christmas. (I should have put it where it belongs – on the bathroom floor!). You can see how much my mother loved it, look how thrilled she was.



Is tackiness inherited? After Jennifer’s Halloween party, my mom asked what she was going to do with the skeletons. She asked if she could “store” them for her. This is what she had in mind. She put this out in front of her house in Hemet (where it is known for being very hot). Then she put four around a card table and had them playing cards. Now who’s the queen of tacky? (Looks like the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. I guess we were both in the shallow end of the gene pool).

Gypsy Curse

Did you know that the worst card in a Tarot deck is NOT the death card? It is the Seven pentacles card (left). It basically says, “You will get what you want.” Yup. If you got that card you’d be happy, right? What you don’t know is that, “May you get what you want” is a gypsy curse. It’s the worst curse they can bestow upon you. We have the same saying, “Be careful what you wish for, for you shall surely get it.” or as Oscar Wilde put it, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it." Wise people of all ages have come to realize that getting what we want is rarely good for us.

Don’t be the person who spends his life climbing the ladder to success, only to find when he reaches the top, that his ladder was on the wrong building.

When making your plans and dreams, run them by your Heavenly Father before pursuing them. He knows what is best for you. Ask Him to help you see the drawbacks and make a more realistic assessment of your dreams and aspirations. So when you reach your goal, you will be happy with what you got.

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(I know what you are thinking..."Where is all this gypsy tarot card stuff coming from?" and "How does she know? " First, it's October and Halloween is coming, so I thought I'd get you in the spirit. Second, My grandmother had some gypsy in her and I guess she passed a little on to me. Also, I've been the gypsy fortune teller at my daughter's halloween party for the last five years and each year I did a little more research so I'd sound authentic. FYI, I have developed a really good gypsy accent. I can read tarot cards, read your palm, read your aura and cast spells. well, not REALLY, but I do a great imitation).