My daughter's Autumn mantel

She said everything is from previous years except for the burlap canvas.  She bought the burlap canvas at Hobby Lobby and made the design with her Silhouette.

The burlap canvas is hung in front of a framed mirror.

I think it turned out so nice! 

Thank you to everyone who left comments about my commenting problems. I have a gmail account and I am going to see about switching to it for blogging. Hopefully that will work out the glitch,  we will see........

Weekend doings and Blog Comment problems

First- I've been having trouble leaving comments on some blogs. I can add the comment and it looks like it was done but on blogs that have comment approval,  some of my comments don't go through and I get a long jibberish email saying this

Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

Mail Delivery Subsystem

To

3_RtUVAoJCS4cdgYVSfObniKRYY.MYW0bYRpYPecKYV.MYW@blogger.bounces.google.com

Oct 31 at 6:32 PM

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
and it goes on and one but that is the top of the emails.

It is very frustrating and I have been in contact with some of the bloggers.
Anyone have any suggestions on how to get my comments to go through or how to fix this?

I have certainly been annoyed by spam commenters. 
My blog comment settings seem to be working pretty good on filtering out spam right now- I don't have the word verification,  commenters have to be registered users and I only require approval on comments on posts more than 7 days old. 


now on to more pleasant topics......

we get most of our eggs from some country friends that home-grow them.  We haven't had any for a few months but they have new hens now.  The eggs are small but aren't the colors pretty? there are 4 shades of white, beige and brown.  The blue eggs are the bluest chicken eggs I've ever seen.

3 of the grands were here at the same time and they liked digging in the new dirt pit. 

When I helped my parents downsize, I got 2 very nice bundt cake pans.  I used this rose shaped one to bake a yellow cake

I frosted it with the chocolate frosting left from last week's acorn project. The frosting had been in a covered bowl in the fridge and was fine. Waste not, want not!

Costume fun-

This is my daughter in law Sheena at her job on Friday.  She is as pretty and as sweet as an angel too  

below- the 2 little pirates are granddaughter Andie and her cousin Lily.  I think the Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy passing out candy are so funny~  the man is really named Andy but I am amazed he is happily dressed as a big rag doll. 

here are 2 of my grands in costume looking forward to candy. 

Prepping the outside for winter

I spent most of Friday doing yardwork. A hard freeze was predicted for the night and my grandchildren were all somewhere else so Friday was a perfect day to get lots done. 

I mowed and edged and did lots of pruning of all the flowering bushes as well as pulling up the last of the zinnias. 

All the clippings got bundled and bagged and will be picked up Monday. Our city's waste management picks up our trash, our recycling and our green waste. 

The backyard was in need of organizing too. So I put one play area on the east side....

Another play area by the back door and picnic tables. (If you don't live in Oklahoma or haven't followed my blog for long, you may be wondering about that giant gray thing. It is a concrete safe room for tornado protection. Yes, we have been thinking of ways to beautify it but haven't yet got around to it)

The grandsons will be thrilled with this new digging area made with paver stones from a neighbor and dirt of pots that need replaced. 

The only plant still growing in the vegetable pots was this jalapeño. It has tiny peppers and quite a few buds on it. My husband moved it up near the back door to protect it from last nights freeze. It survived th night just fine. But I am wondering if it will actually give a harvest. 

There were 2 pots of succulents on the front porch and I brought them in for the night too. They really thrived this summer. 

The 2 pink rose bushes both still had a few blooms. So I clipped and saved the pretty ones before I whittled down the bushes. 

One quirky thing about my town is we are home to lots of Canadian geese that live here year round. For some reason, they forgot to fly north and now they just stay. 

They look cute but when a big bunch of them hang out on streets or sidewalks for long, there is a lot of icky big goose you-know-what on the ground afterward. 

There they go, marching down our street in row...... I am glad they weren't hanging out here while I was working so much yesterday. 

some of this weeks cooking

we were out of our favorite homemade sauce  so I made an extra large batch.
I don't use an exact recipe.  It is pretty simple and I just mix it up until it tastes right.

it uses lots of tomatoes,  a little olive oil and onions.
spices are oregano, basil, garlic and just a little sugar.

first the onions get sauteed-   then the tomatoes and spices are added

after it simmers a while,  it gets divided into meal size containers and put in the freezer for future meals.

while the sauce simmered,  I mixed up and baked a loaf of Raisin Bread

Raisin Walnut bread - mixed in the bread machine and baked in the regular oven.  I used  my grandparents bread recipe but increased the sugar and added nuts and raisins when the machine beeps time to add stir ins.

Raisin bread

1 cup water
2 T butter in cubes
1 t salt
1/3 C sugar
2 t cinnamon
3 cups flour- bread flour is nice but all purpose or your favorite would be fine
2 t yeast
put all ingredients in a bread machine on the dough cycle, then add
1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 3/4 cup raisins ( I like to chop them a little too) when the bread machine beeps for the add in time.
When it is finished rising, punch down and form into a loaf and put in a well greased loaf pan.
I think I used an 8 inch loaf pan but it would work in a 9 inch loaf pan too.
Let rise again and then bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.

My grandmother made raisin bread and she always topped her loaves with white frosting.
I don't add frosting as we like our raisin bread lightly buttered and toasted.
either way raisin bread is Yum!

my husband's work lunch and breaktime box - I packed a turkey and cheese sandwich on a homemade bun, Popchips and olives.  Also grapes, a jar of fresh pineapple chunks, cashews and jalapeno string cheese.  Beverages are coffee and a bottle of water.  

Fun weekend food

Hello everyone
I knew my grandchildren would be for several meals over the weekend so first thing Saturday morning,  I got out the fruit I had bought at great prices at Aldi on Friday-  I cut it up bite size and put it in  covered serving dish in the fridge.

I think we all ate some of this fruit at 3 different meals.  It was so easy and convenient to have it all ready.
Their sale ends Tuesday night but right now,  Aldi has whole pineapples for just 99 cents and I think the red grapes are less than $2 for a 2 pound bag.  Ours were all fresh and delicous and a very thrifty fruit tray.

For fun,  the grands made something from Pinterest- edible acorns.
They are Hersheys kisses,  Mini Vanilla wafers and chocolate chips stuck together with a bit of homemade chocolate frosting.  They look a little like acorns but taste a lot better.

I gave each child a plate with 4 wafers, kisses, chocolate chips, a dab of frosting and a small plastic knife.  

5 year old Gavin ate his acorns about as fast as he made them.

4 year old Elizabeth worked very seriously as she made hers.  She ate a little but she mostly enjoying the crafting part of it.  She also made extras to take home to her dad who was busy with his moonlighting yardcare business.  

1 year old JJ didn't craft much- I think he mostly just got frosting all over his face.  

if you look in their hands, you can see some of the finished acorns.  

2 year old Braeden was not interested in crafting.  He only wanted to eat Kisses.  He worked so hard unwrapping each one and kept all his wrappers in a pile.  

The acorns were fun and get a thumbs up from all of us!