This Week on the Dining Table

The "Halloween was a Bust!" Edition................

Halloween was warm but windy and drizzling rain.  We had a total of FOUR kids at our door!  I have never had so few trick or treaters.

Funny thing is Hubs had the porch light on Saturday night(TWO days after Halloween)for Ex-College Boy's expected arrival home from work and we heard the door bell ring.  2 kids in costume stood there waiting for candy.....WTF?!?!
Gave them candy and turned OFF the porch light. lolz
So I guess we had SIX kids total.
And that's the huge bowl of candy this morning....6 kids and Hubs and Ex-CB hitting it later.

I guess Trick or Treating is now an activity of the place here. 8-(((

Moving On....

Onward to the meal planning!

This is what was planned--

1. Sunday--Chicken and Dumplings
2. Monday--Chicken Broccoli Cheese Casserole

3. Tuesday--Tacos

4. Wednesday--Spaghetti and Meatballs, leftover Garlic Bread, Salad

5. Thursday--Something TBD + Brussels Sprouts

6. Friday--Leftovers
7. Saturday--Fend for Yourself

And this is what actually happened at home per Hubs info & after I got home--

1. Sunday--Chicken and Dumplings
2. Monday--Chicken Broccoli Cheese Casserole

3. Tuesday--Tempura Haddock, Brussels Sprouts, Cheddar Biscuits

4. Wednesday--Leftovers or FFY

5. Thursday--Leftovers or FFY

6. Friday--Fend for Yourself (The power was out all day so we had lunch out and I just had a couple pieces of cheese for dinner.)
7. Saturday--Tacos or Taco Salad

Last week saw 4 nights of home cooked dinners,  3 nights of leftovers/ffy, and 0 nights of Eating Out/Take-Out.

Tacos happened but on a different day, fish was procured to have with the Brussels Sprouts but on a different day than planned and extra leftovers meant the meatballs + spaghetti didn't happen this past week.

What got put into the freezer last week.....

* 2 packs of Brats
* 2 packs of Chicken Breasts(BOGO + $3 in discount stickers)
* 1 pack of Ground Veal($2 discount sticker)
* 1 pack of Sea Legs/Faux Crab($2 discount sticker)
* 1 lb. Shoulder Steak($3 discount sticker)
* 1 lb. Haddock(we ate the other lb.)

What got taken out of the freezer and used.....
* Nothing(We have been using proteins I bought last week and the week before + the fresh haddock I got on special this past week.)

Two trips to Weis, a few items from Ollie's and a small trip to Walmart brought the current weekly spending to $119.05 and my November spending on food to $119.05 for this month.

My savings percentage last week was 37.23%(without Rite-Aid trips)and November's monthly savings total comes in at 37.23%(w/out R-A).

I have 26 more food shopping/spending days in November.

Leftovers going into this week......1 helping each of chicken and dumplings and chicken broccoli casserole.  Not much in the way of leftovers.

Here is this week's "food plan".....

1. Sunday--Rigatoni w/Sausage in Sauce
2. Monday--Pecan Chicken, Roasted Carrots and Taters

3. Tuesday--?(We are working the polls until 8+pm)

4. Wednesday--Chicken Parm w/Spaghetti, Salad

5. Thursday--Haluski(Cabbage, Noodles, Onions and Bacon)

6. Friday--No clue yet(maybe soup or chowder and cornbread as it's going to be frigid)
7. Saturday--No clue yet

As always this menu is subject to change or rearranging depending on what leftovers get eaten or not and what I am feeling like cooking(or not). lolz

What needs buying for this menu?  Salad Greens and fixings and a gallon of milk.
The ads aren't inspiring me this week so other than the Friday freebie at Weis I may be staying home.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week? 

Sluggy  

Halloween Is Here!!!

How did I keep Halloween Trick or Treating frugal this year?

I bought bags of candy last Halloween and Christmas on clearance and threw it into the bottom of my chest freezer, digging it out a couple of days ago to thaw and be ready for tonight.
If you have spare real estate in a freezer for this sort of scheme(and the self-control NOT to raid the stash for your own eating)I'd suggest you hit the candy clearances after the Holiday and do likewise.

I'm off to set up the front porch to receive beggars this evening.


Here's a little mood music for the day.
Enjoy!




luggy

Well That was a Bust

Jack-O-Lanterns set out and lit at dusk, porch light on and the candy was in the bowl and ready for the hoards of beggars for Halloween Night.

Heck I even had the company of 2 beasts while I attended the miniature people.............

My Daughter in a Gorilla Suit and the Granddog, the fearsome canine.

The night was a bust!
The weather was near perfect-no rain, no wind and temps in the high 40's.
5 of the 6 houses on our cul-de-sac had lights on to welcome the T-or-T'ers.  The Hermit's house across the street was dark and they hid.  I guess since his kid is beyond T-or-T'ing age they don't participate.  Heck even the childless couple our age who lives catty corner to us on the street in the house that's a mirror image to ours gives out snacks to the little goblins!

By 8 pm we had 17 kids stop by to beg.  And I am not counting the two cute little brothers who came back to the house AGAIN on their way out of the cul-de-sac because I had Zombie Sour Patch Kids and they wanted some more. lolz

At 8 pm, after all but one other house on our street had shut down for the night I took the candy bowl inside.  It was too cold to remain outside with so little traffic and I could just hop back to the door if the doorbell rang.
I had 5 more show up(older teens)between 8-9 pm, which is when I turned the lights off.

22 kids!

It's never been this low a number.  I guess our part of the development has has all the children age out for this sort of activity.  Houses don't resell very often here, people tend to buy here and stay forever, or at least until they no longer need the good school district. ;-)
Come to think of it, I can only count 3 houses in my immediate area of the neighborhood where T-or-T aged kids reside.
I figure the bulk of the kids now reside in the newer development that was hooked onto the back end of ours.  It's kind of a long walk from back there to us near the front of where the residential area connects to the secondary roads through town.

Usually we get at least 100 kids.
Nada.  And there were no "little" kids(toddlers with parents or very young school age tikes). For me, those are the most fun to interact with.  The youngest kids were the twin brothers who came back for more....I'm guessing they were about 7 years old.

Now the question remains.............

What am I going to do with all this??? lolz

I can pilfer the mini Butterfinger bars but I don't like the rest(ok, maybe a Baby Ruth or two also).
Daughter & the BF will suck down the Sour Patch Kids and Airheads and some of the chocolate no doubt.
I guess there is always putting some in a candy dish for Thanksgiving guests to nosh on and use some of the chocolate bars for holiday baking.  Pouring a lot of it into various Christmas stockings in another month+ is a solution as well.

Yikes!
I totally forgot that once Halloween is over we begin the short frenzied panic to Christmas!!
* Sluggy plugs her ears and sings and hums to avoid thinking/talking about the Christmas Rush.*

So how did your Halloween go off?
Are you stuck with a metric shit ton of candy to use up?

Sluggy

BOO!.....Did I Scare Ya?.......Happy Halloween!

Looking back at Halloween when I was a kid.....I can only remember 1 costume I wore.
It was a black dress shmatah...it was homemade. The best part of it was the awesome Witch's hat my mom made for me. It had a paper bag base covered with black crepe paper with a brim....the classic Wicked Witch of the West model....

What made it even better was she took strips of black crepe paper and curled it and attached them to the underside of the brim, making black flowing "hair".  She also made a tassel of strips of the twisted paper and had it coming out of the point of the hat.
As I ran from house to house, my costume flapped in the breeze.
Best.
Witch Hat.
Ever.

And it cost almost nothing since the paper bags were free from the grocery store and the pack of crepe paper was cheap, and the dress thing was a dyed sheet she cut up.
We weren't wealthy people so no cheap plastic costumes from Woolworth's or Rose's for us.

Yah, I thought I was Miss Thing that night! ;-)
Until near the end of the evening, some older kid grabbed my hat as I ran past him, snatched it off my head and broke it.
If I had known that kicking a boy in the nuts would make him suffer back then, I so would have done that to this kid.....

Another  good memory of Halloween I have is also of my mom.  When I was about 5, she taught me a song that she was taught to sing at Halloween back in the 1930's.
I just did a little research on this song and it was a poem first, attributed to Abbie Farwell Brown, a prolific writer from Boston, 1859-1927.
I can't seem to find the tune so I don't know if the one my mom taught me is the official one created for the poem by W. Otto Miessner.

I can't remember my kids' names sometimes, but I still remember that song.lol

I'll leave you with a song from one of the Best Movies.
Ever.

What are your best memories of Halloween from when you were a kid?

Sluggy

Boo!

There!
Did I scare ya?

Darkness made our decorations look a little bit better.
#2 son dressed up and went out with his buddy but the buddy had to go home fairly early so #2 continued on with the 'candy looting' mission.
What a brave soul!
That's what sugar motivation will do for ya!lol

We were hit hard by the zombie children and often and were down to our last spare bag of chocolate when curfew time rolled around.
That was a squeaker!

#2 son refused to let me take his photo in his get-up....what a party pooper! (He went as Garth from Wayne's World btw...his buddy had been Wayne.)
For being a spoil sport, I told him I was posting this photo of him at Halloween when he was 4....

He's the one in PINK.....
Yes, he went as Kimberly the Pink Power Ranger for FOUR YEARS!
And it was his own choice.
He was in love with the Pink Ranger....

Does this make me a "Scary Mommy"? lol

Hope your night was special!

Sluggy

Happy Halloween....Are You Ready?

Except for the string of pumpkin shaped lights framing the front porch, this is all we could muster up to greet the Trick-or-Treaters this evening.
My dying potted mums(gee, the purpled ones never even bloomed fully before the cold got them)and 2 'fake' light-up jack o'lanterns.

We are pathetic....

No one got the 'umph' this year to get a real live pumpkin and carve it.  The teens are at the age where they hardly care about this kind of thing anymore....the Daughter has to work and the #2 son just wants the "Halloween Loot"....perferably Twix bars.

But our lack of Halloweenie spirit won't deter all the little and not-so little hobgoblins in our neighborhood from darkening our door as soon as the sun dips below the horizon this year. 
You see, we have a "rep"....as in reputation around here.  We are on the list of "best houses to hit" for Trick-or-Treating.
That's because we give out BIG CANDY!
No little bite-sized pieces of candy or even worse, that generic stuff in the plain wrappers.
We give out full sized candy bars and full packs of gum.  And this year, we also have, for the lucky few, KING SIZED candy bars, thanks to Rite-Aid's candy deals.
We get hit early and hit up often for "loot" and often have to turn out the light because we run out before the parade of kids is done for the night.
I would go broke if I had to pay full retail price for all that candy!
Sigh....What I do to be popular for one night a year....lol

And when I got home from my trip to the farm on Thursday with eight pie pumpkins Hubs started stroking his chin and sizing them up as carving material.  I looked him in his beady eyes and told him these are not decorating gourds, so no one lays a piece of cutlery on these babies unless the end result is to make pie, so back off Michelangelo! 


Here's hoping that only the nice ghouls and goblins surround you this year.
Happy Halloween!

Sluggy