This random post is specially dedicated to Janet :-)
We've been hoping to attend the Christmas Ball in Monroe, LA, next month, so the girls and I are making several dresses and innumerable petticoats and pantalets. I bought the fabric and got it all washed two weeks ago and began cutting out, but have not made much progress since then. I'm not quite to the panic stage yet, but I'll be sure and let y'all know when it's time for prayers of desperation. ;-)

Latest pet peeve: seeing those yellow ribbon "support our troops" magnets stuck onto vehicles sideways.

I really need to update my blog template. My blue asters have been dead for three weeks - the orange mums came and went without my being able either to find a usable picture online or talk the resident artist into making one for me. There are several new blogs I want to add to the blogroll, plus several I really ought to remove since I haven't visited them in ages, and a few others that ought to be rearranged to fit my reading habits, which have changed somewhat since I first set up the current blogroll.

Gardening stuff: Our tomatoes were not very good this year. Naturally, they tasted better than grocery store tomatoes, but were smallish and ugly, and nowhere near as abundant as they were last year. On the other hand the bell peppers have been successful - large, beautiful and tasty. The green beans were a total loss, the corn only yielded enough for two meals, the pumpkins were plentiful, but small. (Were they supposed to be this small? I don't rememeber which variety we planted. I really must have a garden journal next time!) I'm taking pumpkin pies to my mom's for Thanksgiving and mean to use our own pumpkins for them. I suppose I should make a test batch to be sure they turn out well. If they don't, I'll use Libby's canned pumpkin, which I've always done with excellent results, though I only use about half the sugar the recipe calls for.

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Yummy food I made last night, intending to take it to the home school group's Thanksgiving dinner, which we did not attend after all for a really stupid reason, and NO I don't wanna talk about it. :-p

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Sweet Potato Souffle

Souffle:
3 large sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick butter

Topping:
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans

Put 1/2 stick of butter into 8x8 baking dish, or 2 quart casserole, and melt in 350° oven. Mix together the rest of the souffle ingredients, adding melted butter, and beat until fluffy. Pour into baking dish. Meanwhile, melt 1/2 stick of butter in small saucepan on the stove. Remove from heat and add the flour and brown sugar, mixing well. Stir in pecans. Spread evenly over sweet potato mix. Cook, uncovered, in 350° oven for 35 minutes. Makes six side servings.

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This recipe originally called for a lot more sugar than what I use - I think it was a cup of sugar in the sweet potato part and 1/2 cup in the topping part, but then you could hardly taste the sweet potatoes for all the sugar! I've also made this cutting the butter back drastically. You can melt one tablespoon of butter in the baking dish and not worry about mixing any into the sweet potatoes, and you can cut the amount of butter in the topping in half and still have decent results. But I beg you not to use margerine. At Thanksgiving you must use real butter in all of your creations.

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Three weeks ago I saw a fully decorated and lit Christmas tree in someone's house. Lots of houses around here already have their trees up and Christmas lights on. I don't get it. I just. Don't. Get it.

Actually, now that I think about it, this being a military town and all, the Air Force deploys a fresh crew of folks right around Thanksgiving, so it could be military families celebrating Christmas early. The year that Mike was in Alaska, he came home for three weeks in November and we celebrated Christmas then, but I didn't put our tree up until the usual time, and I still had regular Christmas-time celebrations, too.

My brain works better late at night. Why is that?

Last night just as I was going to bed, I thought of something really funny to put here, but I'd already shut down down the computer and I resisted the temptation to turn it back on again. Now I can't remember what it was I wanted to tell y'all! Please pretend like I said something very clever and laugh at it, okay? Thanks. Y'all made my day!