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Mama Kat Thursday: The Case of the Invisible Boy

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        Prompt topic today is: "a spooky story someone once told you."      I don't know whether my grade school chums were just imaginative or I just gullible, but whatever the case, they pulled off the best, most believable scare story I ever heard.      It was around 1965 when I was either in 2nd or 3rd grade and it was during recess.   In those days the whole elementary school emptied out at recess time and we were allowed to roam freely over it's football field size acreage.  I guess we could roam inside freely, too, since that's where the bathrooms were.     On this particular day, four of us had gone back inside the quiet school: me, Merry Jo, Robin and Diane. I'm pretty sure it was Robin's idea. She was the ring-leader in the affair.      Our elementary school was comprised of two parts: a two story brick building built around 1910 and a modern single story wing. The an...

Wednesday Garden Pic: Winter Garden

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We belong to a YMCA that's located up in the plaza, about 2 miles away from where we live. There future has been up in the air for over a year now--particularly since they had to close the pool area. Truthfully, the whole Emerald Coast YMCA, which consists of about 5 Y's spread throughout the community, has been operating in the red. They are terrible at managing their money over all. This Y branch near us has not, to date, even paid it's debt for all the remodeling done initially to open it 7 years ago. Today I got the news that it's officially closing on Dec 15. This means my husband and I need to find a new fitness location we can both go to that is also nearby . So, I did a little on-line research for local fitness centers and, guess what, there is a Snap Fitness center about another mile down the road from where the Y is that would cost us  less to belong to monthly then the monthly fee were presently paying for our decrepit & failing YMC...

Good Eating Monday: Dump Apple Crisp

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Greetings! Final week in October!  How many trick or treaters come to your door? Generally I get 1 to 7, max. Most people who currently own houses on my street don't have children anymore, though a couple of the rental houses have young families---so who knows?     Today's Good Eating recipe is one from Pinterest for a "Dump Apple Cake," which is really a "Dump Apple Crisp" that I tried last night. The ingredients are just sliced apples, topped with a yellow cake mix and drizzled with 1 stick of melted butter. Missing from the recipe, however, any specific pan size or how many apples to slice and seasoning. It's was a "wing it" recipe on some blog. But apples in pies or crisps are tastier with a bit of lemon juice and cinnamon.   So here's the modified recipe for this Dump Apple Crisp I adjusted for a 10 x 13 pan:   Ingredients: 10 -12 sliced apples-- enough to fill pan with about a 2 inch or more ...

Mama Kat Thursday: Halloween Memories

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  The Mama Kat prompt topic for today is: "What was your favorite candy? Share what Halloween was like for you as a child."  I've mentioned before I grew up in rural Indiana. Not a farm, mind you. Heavy forest. I can't even see my old house for the trees on the Google satellite map, they're so thick. We lived along a state road with a speed limit of 55. The land around us was hilly and rolling with homes scattered rather far apart and there were no side walks.  We did Jack O' Lanterns every year, but they weren't visible from the road. Only the rare parent who happened to drive their kids up our driveway to knock on our door saw them and that was rare. That's how trick or treating was done in our neck of the woods: hop in the car and drive to various neighbors. Mostly everyone just trick or treated at peoples houses they knew. This was the late 60's and early 70's and there wasn't any agreed upon signal, like a lit porch...

Garden Pic Wednesday: The Retaining Wall Project

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With night-time temps are headed for the mid to upper 40's, that's might signal to bring the houseplants in! So that's what I was doing today as well as moving another layer and a half of blocks to the project area. I actually did two rows yesterday.  (18 blocks per layer.) So today's Garden pics are of our retaining wall project: The pallet of red castle wall blocks in our driveway: (The flowers in the background, zinnias and vincas, are looking nice!) Next photo is the project area: The house next door is was built on higher ground because there is a septic tank system under it, but a city sewer line was installed before the completion of the house, so they hooked up to that instead. That was like 30 odd years ago. This area in the photo used to have a decorative retaining wall of landscape timber that we put in, which you can still see remnants of, but termites have nibbled it away over the past 24 years. The side walk to our front door runs past t...

Good Eating Monday: Slow-Cooker Chocolate Cake!

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Greetings! Nearly the end of October now--weather is cooling down. 46 at night on Wednesday this week is expected, which is fairly seasonal for  north Florida. Today I've been working hard on my Zazzle stuff--expanding designs to many phone styles and adding seasonal Christmas items. Also Lowe's delivered a pallet of landscaping blocks--the kind that stack into a wall. "Before pictures" of that project will be Wednesday's garden pic this week! Today I have an interesting dessert recipe: chocolate cake in a slow-cooker! I found this recipe on Pinterest, tried it and found it made a delicious cake! And it's easy. Just mix and let cook. I only found it hard determining when it was fully done, but I think you just have to trust the directions, since the top is moist from the steaminess of being inside a slow-cooker. It doesn't burn or dry out to cook it a bit longer if you're not sure and using a toothpick to test the middle might be a worth tryin...

Garden Pic Wednesday: Flower Bed Pumpkin

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And how do you decorate for Halloween? For me, this is it. An electric pumpkin in the front flower bed to greet kids hoping for a sweet treat! This is my new one. It's plastic---unlike my previous pumpkin I'd had for years and years that was comprised of like a hard styrofoam  that was too old to take being dropped on the garage floor when I was re-organizing this past spring! Oopsie!  Garden Pic of the Day: I also got 2 awesome gorgeous photos of a Monarch Butterfly with wings fully open over the past 2 days. It's tricky photographing butterflies. You have to stealthily trail around after them, then stand very, very still with camera on them, patiently waiting for just the right second.  The Monarch likes to sip with it's wings closed for the most part, but this one was fanning it's wings open every so often, but only for a split-second! Believe me, I got a lot of photos of the back edge of his wings already closed again in my effort to click that...