...in case you noticed my absence...

I guess by this time you have noticed a change in the foliage about our normal pathways. This is one of my favorite roads to drive by in the fall. All of the trees here by the University by my house are a brilliant red. It was getting sunset here so they seem a little dark. By lovely just the same.

Our daughter and family made it safely back from Brazil...

so we celebrated her birthday a bit late. I made here a turkey head that

 we attach to a pineapple  for our thanksgiving centerpiece.

 Of course I made the body out of our old family joke"Potholders"

 that are passed around lovingly quite often...sometimes for no reason at all. LOL

On monday night I made three large containers of soup for our Ladies

Bible Study. This was the homemade chicken and noodles.

.

Also I made Italian wedding soup with meatball  and acini de pepi..

and ham and 15 bean soup

One of our ladies makes a ribbon sandwich using hawaiian bread sliced

 across the middle and filled with ham salad and egg salad..

 She then covers this giant sandwich with philly cream cheese tinted

 orange. with additional trimming  like a Red headed pumpkin..

We all enjoyed a slice of this sandwich. She made two so she insisted I take

the second one to work for our potluck. Again it was fun and delicious.

more food...ending with apple strudel delight.. yummy!!

Before I could catch up (and clean up)..it was halloween. I wore my

kuspuc ,eskimo dress, to work with all my hand beaded hair piece,

 earing, and eskimo doll  pin.. The next day  I wore my halloween sweater.  

My hubby's boyhood friend from Wisconsin and his wife came to visit 

for the weekend on the way home from visiting their grandkids.

.So we took them out to see the Lincoln sights..

 I meet a friend that  I thought had good taste in clothing.

She was nice enough to give me a spider ring to wear.

Here they see young Lincoln outside his log cabin . inside the

Presidential Museum.

Then over to see the first family at the white house. . They were kind

enough to pose with them.

On the front porch of the white house were some folks we have read about ....

Mary Todd was welcoming everyone to to her home ...but I couldn't

take my camera in any farther.

We took a break for late lunch then went by Lincoln's tomb.

 You may notice the shiny nose...rubbed for good luck.

inside there are many statues of him at different stages of his life.

This is the one my chorus stands by just off to the side from his tomb

 area when we sing on his birthday.. Can't reach his nose so we keep his toes shiny.

We then walked over to the Old Capitol.This is the back entrance but you

 may recognize it from the new pennys. It is also the location that our

 president opened his campaign and also came here to introduce

his vice president running mate. This is where President Lincoln served till he went to washing ton.

This is where he came back to Springfield.

 They have updated the railroad station and park area. very nice. 

Then on Sunday after worship with a very loving church family, we were

 taken to lunch at Smokey Bones by our guest to celebrate my birthday.

I opened this gift from daughter , Donna.  It is perfect!!

Daughter Vicki,sent a blouse and  called and kiddoes sang to me

We also sang to granddaughter Cynthia who shares this date of birth. 

A friend at church gave me a pig made of tiny shells from Florida.

There were several cards.

Later at home . hubby gave me a bracelet that says I AM LOVED...

Inside  the O there is a diamond.. What a sweet birthday. I told my little

children in class it was my birthday and they wanted to know how

old I was . I told them three. They said no way!! I asked how old

 they thought I would be..They said twenty. I like that. Another boy

said yeah ...my mom is 38 and she is real old!!. I love these little kids!! 

HAPPY  BIRTHDAY *

 to my younger sister ... Mary!

She is a wife, a mother to two young men, Aunt to 12, and a great Aunt to 13 in our family 'BUSH'.

She is Smart, energetic, never meet a stranger, pensive, a serious Artist, teaches at a university, tried several different professions, says she will try scuba diving next. She is loved by all she meets. And she named me theprettysister!

She is not on xanga much anymore with her very busy schedule. So lets all go by and fill up her comment section with birthday wishes. I think she will notice that.

* xanga photo server not available

edit....I went to bible study last night at our church building. Our youngest kiddoes want to help with our Great Give Away. So we saved a special job they could do. We lined all the paper sacks up in the hallway by their class rooms. Then each one had a bucket of 'stuff' (personal items),soaps, etc) and went down the hall and put 'stuff' in all the bags. They were pretty full this year. Just as we were almost finished the camera man from our local TV station arrived. He took film of the kids and then interviewed my hubby. We saw the clip on the 10 o' clock news. that should bring out the crowds. I hope we don't become 'cops' because it is all free

Saturday morning found me up early...really early for me!!

Our neighbor hood was having a garage sale so hubby thought we should also. I said I am not going to go all out.

So he sat up a long table and put out a printer, a copier, a fax/copier, and a new scanner. I put out 6 bags of

books and a box of jewelry left over from another sale last year.  Sales traffic was casual and friendly. We chatted

with several neighbors and sold a few books and earrings. I ended up with $8.25 and hubby made 25c on some

small thing he found in the garage as an afterthought.  This was better than I thought at 25c an item. LOL

In between the people we did some cleaning in the garage. We recently had some cement work done in the

corner of the garage. The sawing of cement left a dusting on everything. As we took everything off a shelf to clean

and dust ...well I organized some and hubby threw away some "stuff".Yeah!! Two items were still in a bag with

the receipt. I asked if he was not going to us them would he like to return them. He did return the "stuff"  so in the

 end of garage sale we both made about the same. LOL

Then I went to a bazaar in the afternoon. Not to buy... but to take away what was left over. They had oodles of

good stuff left and we were allowed to take only what we wanted for our Garage Sale. That 'We' is my chorus

and I am in charge. A friend meet me there with a truck which we filled as well as the trunk and back seat of my

car. That took over two hours...after we unloaded at her garage for next week. that probably will be enough but

we will have "stuff" from the other 30 or more people at chorus donating. I f we can just get some of you all to

stop by and do your Santa shopping...well that would be great and less to pack up to move on to the next

weekend adventure. Thankee....we would love to have you come share your expertise!!

What a fun weekend....

Hubby promised to play in a golf tournement so I wouldn't let him back out. The money goes for church camp. And as I reminded him they have enough 'oops' to keep them remembering and laughing for two or three months. And I think that is the case already.

...and since hubby was happily off playing ...I remembered the favorite festival of the season was also this weekend. So I called a friend and her little girl to go with me to the Apple and Pork festival . It is held in the town where we lived back in early 70's.

We actually attended the first one in this location. It was a quiet 'old' 1800's type fair. All the food was cooked in large black kettles over fire..the crafts were rope braiding and blacksmith works, and ladies hand maid ites like lace making. No microphones, no harried people, just happy greeting friends etc. The kids found a large grassy hill to lay down  and roll till they got to the bottom. Then they would race up the hill and start all over. Those were fun times in the beginning.

But now it has grown to thousands and thousands....everywhere!! This small town makes enough in this one weekend to live off of for the year.

My friend and I just ook in a sampling of some of the 'fun'. We parked close to the main Victorian mansion and rode a cart pulled by this tractor. You can see how the five year old looks next to the wheels.

After some shopping and visiting with old friends, we rode back and did some 'old tyme' exploring. I showed her the hill that my girls loved to roll down. So what did I get for that information...A huge smile and a run up and roll down and all around.  LOL Some things never change.

What fun she had.  Then she found this 'old fence thing'. I love seeing though a childs eye.

She got to watch this 'old' man split the wood. That was interesting.

But right behind the fence area was something pretty cool for a kid to check out.

I think they had a fire going inside .

They were cooking dinner outside on a fire pit with a iron pan hanging off a hook .

But just then another smile appeared as she found another hill to roll down. LOL

I made one last stop for my favorite treat...

Alas it was time to mosey on home. ....

We had seen a small red barn on our drive over

and thought we would look for it again on the way back.

That was pretty cool but we thought we could get a better one up close.

I can imagine some one making a puzzle out of this photo.

You can see the soybeans are golden and ready to harvest soon.

Now that was better yet....nearly perfect. That is the kind to enlarge and frame.

As we turned around to go back to main road the sun was  changing.

This was a pretty site also with the tree.

 I am not savey to lighten it so I will just remember it as I saw it.

What good memories.

Well now it seems some of you want to know what I ordered at my party.

First of all I was helping my friend out who was just getting started. The ladies at work had busy schedules but were kind and excited to be able to order some of these great tools for cooking. Most of my orders came just from catalog orders. But there were a few that came to the house for the actual cooking part. I was busy with the mixing ,cutting, chopping, microwaving ...stuff.. and didn't take pictures then. The pictures for today came from catalog plus still shots after the fact.

One item was a pinapple wedger....see photo...

We cut off the top and used it on tray for decoration...

The food chopper was used for the nuts that were sprinkled on top

of the brownies we cooked on a stone bar pan. They also had chopped

carmel/chocolate Rollos and chocochips with melted chocolate drizzled over top.

not just yummy but decadent!

I also was able to purchase at great discount because I hosted the party  these items..

The covered and red glazed stone cooker...you can cook a whole chicken

 in the microwave in 20 minutes. So moist and tender...as was the pork tenderloin.

not a good picture but I also got a rectangular stone ware also glazed in red.

I have plans for christmas for these two to cut some of my cooking time down.

With the rice all cooked earlier and some mexi corn and yeast rolls we sat down to a nice dinner.

I have had two additional meals from the remainder of this meal.

I do like left overs. Hou about you?