Dreamflower's Mathom-house

1. I got a challenge up for October at the lotr_community! I was so upset that I did not get one up for September! I hope people will like this one! Very fitting for October.

2. Finally got to make my pickled cherry tomatoes.



These are all the ripe ones we had left, but we still have quite a lot of cherry tomatoes still on the vine!

3. We finished getting our Halloween decorations up! There are a few things we will wait until Halloween eve to put out, like our noisy ones and our animated ones, and we have some ideas for some new homemade ones.

4. I made something new for supper, a recipe I found in "Cooking Light" at the library: Black-eyed Pea Cakes with Corn Salsa and Sautéed Tomato and Onion KaleSpinach (Because I didn't have any kale and I like spinach better.) I accompanied the Pea Cakes, Corn Salsa and the Sautéed Spinach with a couple of small baked sweet potatoes.
It was a delicious meatless meal! And I think it would be perfect for New Year's Day!

BTW, I've been planning to post some pics of our sweet potato harvest.

These were harvested first:




A couple of weeks later:


This week (a couple of weeks after the previous harvest):



That's all of them!

5. This happy is really from yesterday, but it still makes me happy today (I couldn't resist watching it again), so for those of you who have yet to see it, Michelle Obama's speech in New Hampshire:



I love this woman so much--she is the best First Lady of my lifetime, and I go back to Eisenhower. Her classiness, strength and high standards are amazing.

I don't count the weekend, because I was too busy to count. So let's start with Monday.

1. Updates by three of my favorite authors at Stories of Arda.
2. We found a pretty Queen sized brass headboard at a local second hand/antiques store. It was going for $85, but the owner is letting us have it for $50 because we've been good customers over the years.
3. We went to Stillwater on our usual Monday errands, and also we found fall flowers: we picked up two 4-gallon mums, one yellow and one light rust, and two 4" mums in dark rust and white, and four 4" pansies, in white, light and dark purple and orange. I also picked up jelly jars to make cherry tomato pickles.
4. I finished the body of my crocheted blouse and am working on the border. I will soon be on the sleeves.
5. I went to knitting circle.

And today (Tuesday)

1. The DH and I quickly knocked out our morning housework, and went to pay for our new headboard. The owner's husband will deliver it tonight.
2. I picked up some groceries, and found two (only two left) 4-ounce juice glasses! My other two have been broken for a while, but it's hard to find glasses in that size. AND they are blue, which goes with our kitchen color scheme.
3. My co-writer and I made a LOT of progress on our "12 walkers" AU today. I thought her idea was wild when she proposed it, but I actually think it's going to be pretty good. The premise really does sound cracky, but it's not turning out that way.
4. We got out all the Halloween decorations. One of our homemade ones needs a little refurbishment, but the rest are in good shape. All our noisemakers and animated ones are working just fine! It's going to be fun getting them up this week.
5. We had tacos for supper. I cooked about three pounds of ground beef, saved some of it for the tacos and divided the rest up for the freezer. And I picked up some crunchy shells for myself at the store, since the DH can only eat soft ones, and we already had those.

I wasn't sure I'd have a post today. I was sick much of last night, and still felt crummy this morning, so I pretty much slept in my recliner until around noon. BUT some good things did happen!

1. I checked the bank online and was shocked to see two rather substantial DEPOSITS from SS. It wasn't our regular SS checks, those don't come until next Wednesday. It was something called post-adjust. Still, it added up to over $200.00! That was really needed, since we were going to be broke until Friday when our paychecks from work come in.
2. My wonderful DH! While I was feeling so bad, he changed the bed, dusted the floor and mopped, washed the dishes and did the laundry!
3. When I wasn't sleeping, I was watching YouTube: Eowyn is on WatchMoJo's list of top ten movie princesses, along with Buttercup!
4. "Dancing with the Stars" had a Cirque de Soleil theme tonight!
5. Cherry Limeade sherbert. Enough said.

I am still a wee bit under the weather, but I think a good night's sleep will help to set me right.

1. I finished a really great book! Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads. It's a graphic novel by Nick Hayes, a biography of sorts about Woody's life up until the forties, but it's more than just that--the art is perfect for the telling of those difficult times (all browns and sepia tones, with an angular style that just fits), but the prose is beautiful and lyrical even when speaking of dreadful fires or horrible dust storms or the horrible crushing poverty of the average people of those times. It resonates greatly with today. I HIGHLY recommend it!
2. The DH and I watched "Zootopia" tonight on Netflix. What a delightful and fun movie!
3. We harvested more sweet potatoes today. So far I think we've gotten about 8 pounds. We still have about a third of the bed left to harvest.
4. I finished working on my sewing/craft room today. I do have a couple of boxes to sort through left, but they are now all tidy and stacked in a corner, along with a box that will go to a thrift store on Tues. (Around here all the thrift stores are closed Mondays).
5. We had homemade vegetable soup, along with cornbread and for me, buttermilk to drink, for supper tonight. I do believe that's one of my favorite meals.

I've decided to jump on the five good things bandwagon with many of my friends:

1. The weather today was absolutely gorgeous: cool this morning and a high of only 80F.
2. We got to Stillwater to pick up the police report without any mishap. Plus, when we found out how much a fax would cost ( O_0 ), the DH called Geico. They gave us the name of a local agent who could send it for us for no cost!
3. I only have about eight rows left on the body of my tunic-blouse that I am crocheting, and then I can get on to the sleeves and the trim!
4. I hung new blinds in one set of my sewing room windows. And I got a lot of progress made with my cleaning and organizing in there.
5. Best for last: for supper tonight we had HOMEGROWN BAKED SWEET POTATOES along with our baked chicken strips and salad with HOMEGROWN TOMATOES for supper tonight! We've never grown sweet potatoes before--these were grown from slips grown from ordinary grocery store sweet potatoes. These were delicious, and we still have about three-quarters of the little bed we made to still dig up.

BONUS: Today I also got my $10 gift card for Walmart in the mail. Four times a year I do this climate survey for OSU, and then they send me a $10 gift card! Couldn't have come at a better time, since we are low on funds right now.