We Don't Do Halloween...So Happy Halloweenie!

Yeah, we're one of those freaky families that doesn't celebrate Halloween. I know. We don't do Santa, either. Scared yet? Well, don't be afraid; I won't go into all the spooky reasons why we don't include these two traditions in our family. That's a whole 'nuther post.

I would like to share something that I, in fact, did do that is kinda Halloween-ish.

But before I do, I have to tell you that just yesterday I saw on Dena's Green Acres that she shared some really cute food projects for this week that even if you don't "do" Halloween, you might get a grin like I did. The reason I bring that up is because she had this very project on her site. I told her I was going to post this even though she beat me to it because I enjoyed my name for them so much. Plus, I had already gone through the trouble of taking and downloading the pictures, editing them, and uploading them on Blogger. I can't stand wasted effort.

Anywho, I got the idea from a Pillsbury coupon booklet at the grocery store. Pillsbury calls them "Mummy Dogs," but I like to call them "Halloweenies."

Here's what you need to make them:

1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls or 1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® Crescent Recipe Creations™ refrigerated flaky dough sheet
2 1/2 slices American cheese, quartered (2.5 oz)
10 large hot dogs
Cooking spray
Mustard or ketchup, if desired

(I used the Recipe Creations dough sheet; it was much easier!)

What to do:

1. Heat oven to 375°F.

2. If using crescent rolls: Unroll dough; separate at perforations, creating 4 rectangles. Press perforations to seal. If using dough sheet: Unroll dough; cut into 4 rectangles.

3. With knife or kitchen scissors, cut each rectangle lengthwise into 10 pieces, making a total of 40 pieces of dough. Slice cheese slices into quarters (1/2 slice cheese, cut in half).

4. Wrap 4 pieces of dough around each hot dog and 1/4 slice of cheese to look like "bandages," stretching dough slightly to completely cover hot dog. About 1/2 inch from one end of each hot dog, separate "bandages" so hot dog shows through for "face." On ungreased large cookie sheet, place wrapped hot dogs (cheese side down); spray dough lightly with cooking spray.

5. Bake 13 to 17 minutes or until dough is light golden brown and hot dogs are hot. With mustard, draw features on "face."

I think I forgot to "spray down lightly with cooking spray" so they didn't get as brown as they probably should have been. But my kids loved them!

And since we don't do Halloween, they just associated them with Ancient Egypt and mummies from Egyptian history, which is where they get their fix for dead people. :-)

Just kidding.

Thanks, Shannon, for hosting another infamous Works for Me Wednesday!

My Recent DIY Project

Well, the first thing I want to say is: my blogging padres, I've missed you. I feel like I have skipped two weeks of therapy...my viscous prescription that holds my sanity together.

Oh this feels so good. Sitting in my red, over sized chair-and-a-half with my feet propped up on the ottoman and my Sony VAIO reposed on my lap. I have a hot cup of coffee on the end table beside me and Frank Sinatra playing softly in the background. I have looked forward to this the whole time I've been away. Seriously, who needs a therapist with a diversion like this?

I have uploaded all my pictures from the last two weeks (hundreds upon hundreds of them!) and have begun six different posts...just so I don't forget anything that I've been planning to tell you. Oh I have so much to say! I've been meticulously collecting posts in my head since my mom got here and left. Okay, meticulously is probably an exaggeration. Bear with me; I haven't been able to type words like "meticulously" in days and days!

Alright, enough basking...on with the intention for this post.

When DH and I first got married, we had nuthin. I mean nuthin. We were in desperate need of an entertainment center and money simultaneously. So DH got up one Saturday morning, made a materials list, and went to Sutherlands (a local version of Home Depot). He came home and called a buddy of his to come over and help him build us a "temporary" entertainment center so our little 13" TV could sit on something other than a folding TV tray.

Because those trays are meant for your dinner while you watch TV, not for the TV itself. Just in case you ever wondered.

So these two literally threw this thing together on our shared driveway. I only mention the driveway so you can appreciate the necessity of finishing the thing in one day. We seriously rolled this 10-foot long made-of-solid-pine (meaning too heavy to pick up) monstrosity...rolled it...on a radio flyer wagon! Too bad we were too poor for a camera.

Eleven years later, our "temporary" entertainment center was less than stellar. It was less than haggard. Truth be told, it was just a notch above rickety.

Last fall, we finally bought all new living room furniture and it was time for the "rustic" (as we affectionately called it) cabinet to meet its delinquent doom. As DH was shoving it out of the living room and through our farmhouse kitchen, it occurred to him that this piece of, um, furniture, fit quite precisely along an empty wall in the kitchen.

Thus the old relic was saved. He decided to take the sagging bottom doors off and add some bead board to the back and just generally spruce it up some. Then I got some advice from an extremely talented furniture finisher at church who let me in on some creative secrets on how to get the finish I wanted for it.

After many (wo)man-hours sanding, painting, more sanding, more painting, staining, and finishing this piece, it is now something that DH and I can be proud to own! We finished it last year just before Thanksgiving with just one exception.

Remember the doors I told you he took off from the bottom? They simply had to go, but we hadn't done anything to replace them. We went just about a whole year with open cabinets on the bottom of it.

Until Momma was comin' to town.

For some reason, nothing motivates us to finish projects like someone special coming over.

When I was little, my granny had kitchen cabinets with fabric "doors." Since I like old-fashioned, I decided that's what I wanted for our new cabinet.

The only problem with that is I don't sew. At least not normally. But my DH convinced me that "how hard could it be?" and if I could labor and deliver three kids with little to no drugs, why couldn't I do this?

So I did:

Here's some pics of the top of the cabinet with the awesome bead board and finish that my friend Janet taught me:

The curtains are these precious rooster panels that say "Le Chanticleer" and "Le Coque" with their cute little French country selves! And as you can see, the outer fabric has chicken wire over black...which was just perfect. I finished them the week before mom came to see us.

But here's the entertaining part: A very good friend of mine gave me an antique Singer sewing machine several months ago that was merely for decoration. Well, a little cleaning, oiling, and some more TLC by my DH, and voila! It works!

I discovered from the serial number on it that it was made in 1926 in Clydebank, Scotland. And get this: it's a HAND crank!

And I, with my inexperienced single-handedness (since I had to crank) made those delicious curtains you see in the picture! Me! Can you believe it? It's true...here's proof:

Oh, and one other amusing component to my sewing expedition: the rubber thing that turns the thingy that winds my bobbin on the machine is unusable until I get a replacement, so my ingenious DH rigged up a bobbin winder on his drill:

Yes he did.

He's a pretty amazing fella if I do say so myself.

Well I have much more to share, but I know if I have any readers left at all, ya'll don't want a book all at once, therefore I will refrain...for now.

How Do All These Cobwebs Get Here, Anyway?

I promised my sister, Rachele (otherwise known as Chel-The Abiding Branch), that I would post soon for her brand new carnival celebrating the Names of the Lord. You should go read her post about Him being our Peace. I loved what she said about praying for the Peace of Israel.

So since I missed last week's go, and now I'm three days late for this one, I thought maybe it's time I should. :-)

But before I do...

A couple of you may have noticed an unusual silence in this corner of the blogosphere. Or maybe not. But anyway, I've been crazy this last week getting ready for tomorrow.

What, prey tell, is tomorrow you might ask?

My sweet mommy is coming to see us all the way from Texas tomorrow! She hasn't been here in about 4 years, and I have to admit...my house has not been exactly "Mommy-fied."

What, prey tell, do I mean by that, you might ask?

Well, it goes something like this: my mom and dad (God love 'em) had one girl. Me. One. Girl. So it was themselves and me that they had to keep up with. I almost can't even call that parenting. :-) Just kidding, mom. But seriously, my mom didn't raise three boys like what live in this house! She's not gone through the reformation of the mind like I did: "They won't be in my home long; I need to love them and forget about all the fingerprints on the walls. I'll miss them when they're not there anymore!" I literally had to train myself to remember that.

Now, let me just insert right here that our house is reasonable. I mean, most of the time, anybody could pop in and I'd be okay. But this is my mom, ya'll. And she's clean. Really, really clean. And although I would say that our house is clean, and she would never say anything if she saw something that wasn't, she'll notice it. And I want to be a good mommy in her eyes. :-)

Plus we're having a lot of people over for Thanksgiving this year, and all this needed to get done anyway. So there.

So I've had a llloooooonnnngggg list of "projects" I've been working on all week long and have had to lay aside this glorious addiction hobby I've fallen in love with.

Now then, back to the originally scheduled program.

This past week, the Lord really spoke to me about the certain Person of Himself and how He is so interactive in the life of a Believer. We know that Person as the Holy Spirit. The Helper, the Comforter.

By searching the Scriptures this week, I was reminded that He teaches us all things, He testifies of Jesus Christ, He guides us in all Truth, and of course, He dwells within the believer. Dwells within. Have you really thought about that lately?

The Holy Spirit of God dwells in me. He resides in me. He doesn't watch from above, over my shoulder or from afar. He's in the deepest recesses of my soul. And yours, if you know Him.

Amazing.

The other thing that struck me when I was reading about the Person of the Holy Spirit is that He reminds us of all things that Jesus taught. (John 14:26) That is so huge to me, because the memory, oh it is failing.

I don't know about you, but I forget things all the time. But my God, He knows me. And He knows that I need a constant Reminder-er. I would be so lost without Him.

And just as a nice tie-in with my mom's visit and my ridiculous obsessive behavior over "getting ready" this week, He's been here reminding me that if I will go through my house (my heart) every day and clean out every dark cleft (of sin), it stays clean.

And you know what? He's the perfect Companion, too. He even offers to help with the housework. I love Him so much.

This Probably Won't Be the Last One Before November, But It's Close

Okay, okay. I know, there are enough political posts out there that I don't need to add to it. I hear ya.

But this one is a little different. Please take the time to read and consider if the Lord would have you be an instrument.

Tomorrow night, Thursday, Oct. 2, at 9:00 pm EST, Governor Palin and Senator Biden will have a formal debate. I cannot imagine that any of you have missed the fact that there have been many things stacked against Gov. Palin simply because she has proved herself to be a threat to the Obama campaign.

We are asking each of you who claim the life of Jesus in you to lift this debate up in prayer while it’s happening. What a fragrant offering we can offer up if we would heed the Scriptures and pray on behalf of our nation! Many in our country do not know they need to pray, but those that do know are charged with the responsibility. My very first Sunday School teacher as a new believer in Christ used to always say, “With light comes responsibility.” We have been given the Light, and with it comes the responsibility to be good stewards of it.

Please join us as we record the debate tomorrow night, and instead of watching, spend that time on our knees for Governor Palin in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of our nation. You’d better know the enemy is ready; the army of God should be ready to do battle just the same. Yes, we know Who the ultimate Victor is, but we are not guaranteed protection for the here and now if we stand back and allow the enemy to use the media and the obvious bias of just a few to deceive others. Only significant prayer can make a difference.

Examine the following 7 Scriptures, and please consider joining us in battle over Sen. Biden and Gov. Palin.

Proverbs 10:21
“The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom.”

James 3:17
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.”

2 Timothy 1:7
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Matthew 6:33
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Zechariah 3:6-8
“The angel of the LORD gave this charge to Joshua: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.

'Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch.’”

2 Chronicles 7:14
“if my people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Deuteronomy 4:7
“What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to Him?”


He is near, but He’s waiting to see if we, His beloved Church, will stand up and call on Him. Please invite anyone who might participate to join us. The future of our country depends on intervention of our God.