It's in the Air! I can smell it!

Hi All!
Hope you are having a good week!

Can you smell it?
It's crisp and clean and cool and so...so...so....ORANGE!
HALLOWEEN IS COMING. It's tingling in my toes and fingers. Ooooooo....I can hardly wait. Just over 3 weeks and I can decorate. YAY!! And once again the cosmonaughts will be able to see my house from space. :)
I was looking online today and came across some new ideas. Makes me want to run out and start building things right now. New creepy, slithering things that go bump in the night. My Scare~me~crows are watching over my shoulder while I'm writing this. My skeleton scarecrow has a great big grin....I think he's getting excited too!
I want to build a toe-pincher coffin for this year (looks like my graveyard fence isn't gonna get done). Hopefully I can find some wood at a reasonable price (free?) in the next week or so. Anybody know anyone that is tearing down an old barn? Or has wood stacked up that they aren't using??? Tell me, Please!!! :)
I have to do a witch's broom too. Before Bart (and his other brother Bart) show up. I have a decorator friend seeing if he can find me some broomcorn (also known as sorghum) at a good price. I'm gonna be busy in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck! OH, I'm soooooooo ready!
In my searches I came across a site called HauntTactics. They make some really cool costumes. I want one so bad. They're pretty much zombies...but the 'bodies' could be used for so many things. They have fused the 'bones' onto the costume itself. They are so cool. Go and check them out. I promise, you won't be disappointed.  :)

In a previous post I said I would put up some recipes as I came across them. Well, here's one that's really yummy. I made some chilli the other night (it's been quite cool here the last few days - after the rain) and chilli sounded really good. This is my recipe, not one I got from a book or the internet. Due to the 'low sodium' diet thingy...

The Ingredients:

Red Beans (Kidney beans) dried - small bag

Pinto Beans  dried - small bag

Lean Hamburger - 2 lbs

tomatos - 2 or 3

onion

sweet peppers - 6-8 small ones

tomato soup

chilli seasoning

Recipe:

The beans I used called for the following; Boil for 2 minutes. Cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 1 hour. Drain bean water and rinse beans thouroughly (check for 'extra' pieces). Add fresh water and bring to boil. Simmer for 2 - 2 1/2 hours or until beans are as soft as you would like them. Mine cooked for almost 3 hours.

After I boiled and rinsed the beans, while I was waiting for the 'first' hour I put the hamburger, tomatos, onions, sweet peppers and chilli seasoning in the crock pot on high. I stirred the mixture regularly (every 20 minutes or so). It took about an hour and a half for the hamburger to be completely cooked. I added the tomato soup at this point.

I continued to follow the bean directions and dumped the bean water, rinsed and got them boiling in fresh water. I cooked the beans for the specified time and continued to stir the 'chilli mix' in the crock pot.

When the beans were ready, I drained them and added the 'chilli mix' directly to the beans in my big pot.

Stir thouroughly and serve.

This makes A LOT of chilli.

Speaking of food ~

Sally made Bannana Bread from scratch today. I was just brought a piece while I was writing this......still warm from the oven. YUMMY!!

I also came across this while I was looking up Halloweenie stuff.....I so want some. And it is soooooo not on my 'can have' list. :(

Our Walmart has emptied 3 isles to start setting up for Halloween. I have spies.....watching, so they can give me a heads up on new stuff. Sneaky, Sneaky. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do to make sure you get first picks at Wally World. :)  I'll post some pics as soon as I get them.

Anyways, I guess that's all for now....

til next time ~ Be good & Be safe.

TTFN

p.s. Only 53 Days Left  ;p