Thankful Sunday--October 28, 2012

I am thankful I get to spend time with Sarah today.

Below I am rerunning a post about Sarah so you will see why.

The Present is the Present

I am lucky that I get to spend some Sunday mornings with my friend, Sarah, a special needs teenager. I buddy with her during Sunday School as we visit different programs that she enjoys. Two things you need to know about Sarah (other than how sweet she is) is that she loves nature and can be quite determined.

She was exhibiting these two traits one day last fall as we were walking from one building to another on the church campus to go to a singing activity. I was trying to hurry her along only half listening as she showed me a bug or a leaf that she found interesting along our path. When we were almost to our destination, she said she was not going any further and sat down under a maple tree. After a brief moment of frustration, I stopped and remembered that there was no agenda for the morning except for Sarah and me to enjoy ourselves. It was okay if we skipped singing this time.

Sarah then told me to come and that we were going to play a game to see if the falling leaves would touch us as they fell from the tree. We sat still and felt the warm air of the morning and watched the leaves float around us in a gentle breeze. Up until this point, I hadn't even noticed what a beautiful morning it was.

You have probably heard the saying, “The present is the present.” Never has this been more evident than it was that morning with Sarah.

(In case anyone is wondering who won the game—she did. Sarah had a total of three leaves fall on her and I had two.)

Voting

As cliche as it sounds, I'm glad to live in a country where I have the right to express my opinions on many issues including who is going to represent me. So today I'm going to vote and I encourage you to do the same when you can.

You may wonder why I'm voting early. I'm going with Theodore who won't be able to make it to the polls on November 6th. However if I'm going to do a full disclosure, here it is. I heard that once you vote, your name will be taken off the call rosters and you won't get any more political calls. I hope it's true. I don't think I can stand another political ad whether it's by phone, mail, sign, or TV.

Note: I have a good example of exercising your right to vote. My mother, who is 82 years old, has never missed voting in an election--local or national. I think that's impressive.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Oct. 26, 2012

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This week's food waste.

Practically, no waste

We had no food waste again this week. Well, let me qualify that. A few things went to waste, but I didn't count them. There was a quarter of a piece of bread that was leftover from a sandwich and a few rotten leaves from the salad greens. If you blink really fast, you would never see them. So if you don't look very closely, we had no waste this week. Yea!

Thanks to Simply Being Mom for hosting Food Waste Friday this week.

This week's True Food Confessions.

Our cooking this week used mostly what was on hand.

We ate at home every week-night after a weekend of being away and eating out. I could tell you everything we had to eat at home, but I'd rather talk about what we had to eat at the pig roast we went to on Saturday.
I love it when people share their favorite dishes.

There were three kinds of cheeses that I sampled--mac and cheese, cauliflower and cheese, and broccoli, rice and cheese. All were topped with bread crumbs and were "cheesed" to perfection. There were two kinds of sauerkraut--one cooked with bratwurst and one made with champagne. Theo reports that they were very tasty.  There were also dozens of deviled eggs that disappeared quickly and a green salad that had everything in it except the kitchen sink (just the way I like it). I ate mine with a pasta salad made with delicious homemade pesto. We also had baked beans and homemade BBQ sauce which satisfied the taste for both sweet and spicy.

Then there were the desserts. There were at least five chocolate desserts that involved sauces, rich cakes, and mousse. I know that there were more sweets, but my eyes didn't make it past the chocolate.

I think that's all of the time I have for food talk now before I start drooling down my chin. Maybe another time, I'll tell you about the appetizers and I'll get the carnivores in the house to tell you about the meat that was there.

Today...

Today, I am not going to make things more complicated than they need to be.

A Second Look--October 24, 2012

Fall is here in all of its glory. The trees are really starting to turn while a few flowers are still blooming. The nights are cool and the days are warm. I'm glad that I got a chance to enjoy it this week.

See what I found this week during a Second Look.

We have a new color of mum blooming. (Notice the criss-crossing spirals in the middle.)

Most of the coneflowers have gone to seed, but a few are still hanging on like this one.

Fungus always grows more vigorously in the fall.

Most of the sweet gum trees, like this one, are in prime color.

I found a violet and fleabane both of which usually bloom earlier in the year.

We have a big crop of black walnuts this year. Too bad we don't like them.

Last week, only one of these mums was blooming. Now there are many.

Honeysuckle vine twisting around itself and a wild cherry tree.