It isn't Halloween without whoopie...pies!

Makes 12-14

Ingredients3 c AP Flour
1 T cinnamon
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 t ground ginger
½ t salt
½ t ground nutmeg
¼ t ground cloves
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup Splenda (use could white sugar if you like)
1 cup vegetable oil
1 - 15 oz. can of pumpkin
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat together brown sugar, Splenda, oil and pumpkin. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla. In a separate bowl, shift together the dry ingredients. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.
3. Using a pastry bag with a round tip, or a big zip top plastic bag with one corner snipped, squeeze out concentric circles of batter, starting from the middle and working outward until the circles are about 2 inches in diameter.
4. Bake for 11 minutes and cool on a rack.

Cream Cheese Filling
1 - 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 - 16 oz. package of powdered sugar
about a capful of vanilla extract
a pinch of cinnamon (to taste)

Beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Frost flat side of half the pies and top with another piece.

Enjoy right away or chill overnight.

A warm and fuzzy recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 2 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans, drained
• 1 (46 fluid ounce) can tomato juice
• 1 (28 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes with juice
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (Didn't have so I found alternative here)
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 cup white sugar

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, cook beef until brown; drain. Stir in onion and bell pepper and cook 5 minutes. Stir in beans, tomato juice, diced tomatoes and pumpkin puree. Season with pumpkin pie spice, chili powder and sugar. Simmer 1 hour.

Nooo! Ughh! Ackkk!

The fastest way to get your basement remodeled?

Flood your basement.

The other morning I was driving my son to school and he says, "Mom, there was a puddle of water at the end of my bed."

Noooo!!.

So I ran home and sure enough, there were random puddles on his floor. I checked for empty cups because, hey, he is a teenage boy and there was a high likelihood that is was spilled water. But as I walked around his floor, I could hear the water moving under the laminate flooring.

Ughh!!

I sent out a text to some friends and within minutes I had 6 people assessing the damage.

Apparently the water was coming in from the tiny spaces between the foundation and the cement wall. We had had 2 days of heavy rain...really heavy rain. (I was checking for cats and dogs, to be honest.)

Within an hour, all of my son's floor was pulled up, half the dry wall cut out and about a foot of insulation around the walls. About 1/4 of the adjacent room's flooring, dry wall and insulation  had to be removed.

Ackkkk!

So in the coming weeks we will be putting in a sump pump, new insulation, new dry wall and mostly new flooring.

Voila...basement remodeled.

I do not recommend our method.

Book: Someone Knows My Name

"Someone Knows My Name" by Lawrence Hill

Goodreads Summary:
Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom―and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. There Aminata finds a life of hardship and stinging prejudice. When the British abolitionists come looking for "adventurers" to create a new colony in Sierra Leone, Aminata assists in moving 1,200 Nova Scotians to Africa and aiding the abolitionist cause by revealing the realities of slavery to the British public. This captivating story of one woman's remarkable experience spans six decades and three continents and brings to life a crucial chapter in world history.  

My Review:
I can't believe that I haven't put this book on  here yet. I read it earlier this year and loved it. I listened to the audio version and Adenrele Ojo did an amazing job. The book was so good that even if the reader wasn't amazing I would have been moved. I love the determination and positivity of Aminata Diallo. I cannot imagine being taken from my homeland and have my life sold away. Horrible. But Aminata is amazing. Just read the book and you will be inspired.

Tastes like home

When I was young, my mom would make this stuff called "Tang Tea."

It wasn't tea. I'm a good Mormon girl. My mom would never give me tea.....Although...her mom did giver her a hot toddy when she got cramps...but that's another story for another time.

Tang Tea.

It was an interesting concoction of lemonade, Tang, cinnamon, and some other stuff. She would make a big powder mixture and all we had to do was warm up water (on the stove.. microwaves weren't invented back then.) (Correction....they were invented, but we couldn't afford one.) and add the mix.

It was glorious.

A few years ago, I found this mixture on the shelf in my store. Different name, same delicious drink.

I love this stuff. I stock up on it every Fall and use it clear into March. When we lived in New Mexico I had to order it on Amazon, but now that we live about 45 minutes from the manufacturer, I can find it in most stores.

It's a little taste of home for me.

You're welcome!!

It was meant to be

There are 4 people in my house

who wake up to an alarm clock

 before 6am,

Monday- Friday;

every week.

 

This way no-one is late.

no-one sleeps in,

no-one has an excuse.

 

Well...

 

The electricity went out

sometime in the middle of the night.

 

No worries.

Only one of those alarm clocks

is actually plugged in.

 

(Thank you Apple).  

 

Or so we thought....

 

Not one.

Not two.

 But all four of us

slept past the alarms this morning.

 

 

How

does something like this happen?

 

So very bizarre!

 

 

 

Book: A Torch Against the Night

"A Torch Against the Night"  by Sabaa Tahir

Goodreads Summary:

Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.

My Review:

I absolutely love the way ..... writes. Her books are wonderful from the first page to the last. I love her characters. She is able to invoke emotions through her words. I loved the first book in this series, "An Ember in the Ashes." Though not as good as the first, it did not disappoint. There are three stories happening at the same time which often overlap each other which I feel adds more depth to the story. The only disappointing thing about this book is that I have to wait until 2018 for the next installment. Grrrr.....