Halloween Masquerade Ball

Last night we went to a masquerade ball and dinner at the club house.  It was a charity event for the Children's Trust Endowment Fund, which helps prevent child abuse.  The costumes were fantastic. I can remember Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, Cleopatra, a Christmas Tree, Draculas, cowboys, a flapper, the butler from Rocky Horror Picture Show and several girls from the 50's.

The Red Queen

The food was okay: pork roast, shrimp bar, mashed potatoes, green beans, roasted veggie orzo and mousse for dessert.  It was very similar to the dinners we have on Tuesday nights at the club house.  Very high in sodium and fat, but tasty.

There was a live band and the drinks were flowing.

Me as the Red Queen

Hubby as man riding a
big bird

I am wearing the dress I bought at the antique store in Daytona Beach a few weeks ago.  It is very shiny and itchy.  I can not believe someone had actually worn it out of the house.  

I thought it made a great dress for the queen, until I saw someone dressed up in this fancy Red Queen outfit.

I am already thinking of what to wear next year.

Smoky morning

When we lived in South Florida the weather was always the same.  Spring, summer and fall it was hot with a chance of rain.  In the winter it was not so hot with a slight chance of rain.

But here, the weather changes by the hour.  Here are some pics taken from my back porch this morning at 7:45.

Meet Your Neighbor Party

It was a beautiful day for a party, sunny, breezy and warm.  Nine guests enjoyed our backyard patio decorated with orange lights and pumpkins.  The ladies carved pumpkins while the men hovered over the grill.  We ate hamburgers,hot dogs, baked beans, corn salad, lettuce salad and potato salad.  Only a few people were brave enough to try a Snappy.  But those that did, raved about them.  After the pumpkin mousse and oatmeal cookies, no one had room for the toasted marshmallows.

For the best baked beans ever:

8 cans white beans rinsed and drained
2 cups catsup
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup diced bacon
3/4 cup chopped onions

Mix and bake 4 hours at 325.  Uncover the last 45 minutes.  Recipe can be doubled or halved.

Getting ready for the "meet your neighbor's" party

A few weeks ago I decided to have a little get-together with our neighbors so we can get to know each other better.  I chose the date of October 24th at 4PM and ran around handing out invitations.

About 10 years ago I did the same thing in our neighborhood in South Florida.  I went house-to-house and if someone didn't answer the door, I taped the invitation to it.  When I got home hubby said he had gotten a phone call from the man down the street.  It seems that when I knocked on his door it caused his dog to jump on it and scratch it.  Hence, he was going to sue us.  He didn't, and he never came to the party either.

Hubby and son 

Back to tomorrow.  I think it is important to have something to do at get-togethers so people don't get bored.  We are going to carve pumpkins and roast hot dogs and marshmallows.  I even went on-line and ordered special hot dogs from Syracuse canned Snappys, or Coonies.  To make sure the hot dogs were going to be tasty we had a trial run.

Looking good

Hubby and I finished shopping this morning and he put together the sangria so the flavors of the wine and fruit have time to blend.  In the morning I will make pumpkin mousse and baked beans, and yes, I have already made them once to make sure they will be edible.

The weather should be perfect.  This morning we had our first frost of the year and it was 32 degrees when I woke up.  It will be cold in the morning, but will warm up to 70 degrees.  As long as none of our guests threaten to sue us, all should go well.

Frosty lawn

Church Fashion Show

In Sunday's church bulletin was an announcement that the Active Adults were having a fashion show and lunch.  When I saw the lunch was being catered by Sweet Aromas, a terrific little cafe and bakery, I signed up to attend.

The designer herself,
straight from Paris

Come to find out it was the ladies themselves that were putting on the show, and what a show it was!

Judy in a seersucker dress
Those are lollipops 

Wilma in her Evening Dress

Amelia in a checked dress

Mae has on her outdoor play outfit

Peggy in a cotton ball dress

Mae in a Slip-over sweater dress
What is she wearing on her head?

Oh my, she has a pair of panties on her head

Jennifer is ready for a tea party

JoAnn has on an elegant
Dinner Dress that you can eat off of
Is that a plunger around her neck?

Needless to say, I had a wonderful time.  The ladies were good sports and really enjoyed themselves.  They meet once a month and travel to different hot spots around the area.

The chicken salad sandwich was made with apples and just the right amount of mayo.  It was so large I only ate half of it.  Hubby ate the rest when I got home.

Mudbound

For this month's  Reading Club we read Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.  It is set during the 1940's in Mississippi.  Laura married Henry late in life and they had two little girls.  One day Henry came home with a surprise!  He had bought a farm and they were all moving from their nice city home to a 3 room shack without running water or electric.  Oh, and by the way, his crotchety, mean dad was moving with them and would live in the lean-to attached to the shack.

Laura did the best she could living in that shack that was surrounded by mud whenever it rained.  A few months after they moved to the farm, Jamie, Henry's brother moved in with them when he came back from the war.  Laura fell in love with Jamie, and I think he fell in love with her.

Jamie became friends with one of the sharecroppers sons, Ronsel, who had also served in the Big War.  That friendship led to the local Klu Klux Klan (which Jamie's dad was a part of) making a visit to Ronsel one night, which was the same night Jamie silently smothered his dad in his sleep.

There were about 30 people at this months book club meeting.  Most people in the group had grown up in the south.  Some grew up during the 40's and agreed that black people were not treated with respect.  One lady spoke about how the black help always sat in the back seat of the car and ate in the kitchen while they ate in the dining room, but that didn't mean her family was prejudice.  Oh no????  That's the way things were done back then and everyone accepted it.  The black help had their place in society and the white folk had theirs.  It is always interesting to see how Southerners have very different view points from us Yankees.

Our next book is Same Kind of Difference as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.  It is a non-fiction book and the librarian said she thought it was about mental illness and the other members said good, they didn't want to talk about race anymore since we dealt with it in the last two books.  I just looked it up on Amazon and it's about a black, uneducated, sharecropper from Louisiana who meets a wealthy art dealer at a homeless shelter and they become friends.  Looks like we'll be dealing with the race issue one more time....

The Valle Country Fair

The fair from afar

Yesterday hubby and I went to Valle Crucis for the Valle Country Fair.  My plan to get there at 9 AM was foiled when I didn't wake up until 8.  After a stop in Boone, to the only place in the High Country that makes their own bagels, Mountain Bagels, we were off.   We didn't get too far when traffic came to a crawl.  It took about 45 minutes to limp to the festival, with hubby complaining every 30 seconds.

Once there, it was a delight to all of the senses.  There were over 150 vendors selling anything from dog cookies, toys, birdhouses, clothing to apple butter made in large pots.  There were two stages for music and a plethora of food vendors.  There were so many people there that the food lines were 20 deep.  I enjoyed every minute and the weather was perfect, bright and sunny and a little nip in the air.  Hubby, however, said that he is staying home next year.  Party pooper.

Apple butter anyone?

I loved this bubbling bird bath

Bird houses were the most popular items sold

Country music

Isn't this beautiful?

Rag Quilt

Rag Quilt

I have finally finished the rag quilt I started over a year ago.  Once I got going, it went pretty fast.  It took me a while to figure out how to position the stars on each square.  Sewing the pieces together was a breeze with my new Janome sewing machine.  The machine had no problem sewing through 6 layers of fabric.

The most time consuming part was snipping the edges.  I used a pair of spring scissors, which are much easier to hold than regular scissors.  All you do is squeeze the handles together and they cut.  I had piles of string under my chair, on my clothes and floating through the house.  After putting the quilt through the washer and dryer the edges fluffed up nicely.  Although the washer and dryer were a mess of strings.

Fluffy seams

If you are not a perfect quilter, this is the project for you.  I cut the 8 1/2 inch squares with a ruler and scissors and when I pieced them together, they did not match up very well.  The seams are actually on the front of the quilt and the cut edges hide the mistakes.  Now that I have learned to use a rotary cutter, my future seams should perfect, but don't hold me to it. 

Ready to snuggle up 

River House Inn

River House Inn

The New River

The lawn in front of the Inn

Yesterday afternoon hubby and I took two friends from South Florida, who live here five months out of the year, to the River House Inn for some entertainment and dinner.  The River House Inn was built in 1824 and is now a bed and breakfast, as well as a restaurant.  Their Sunday Salon Series includes music,
hors 'oeuvres and dinner.  Yesterday the featured artist was Mickey Harte who is a popular singer in Ireland.  He recently won the You're A Star show, which is the equivalent of American Idol.  Mickey is going to be touring the country and his first stop was ASU.  His producer lives and works in Grassy Creek, so his second gig was here.

He has a wonderful singing voice and was very personable.  I took this video with my little Olympus camera.  He had a lyrical Irish brogue and I could easily picture him singing in a pub with a beer at his side.  The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and warm.  Every once in a while leaves would rain   behind him from a tree hidden by the house.  There were about 50 people there.  We sat on the porch in wooden rockers and there were people sitting in chairs on the front lawn.  Everyone was sipping wine and enjoying themselves.  Mickey sang for about 90 minutes and we went in to dinner around 6 PM.  We didn't leave until 8:15.

Our first course was squash soup-about 1/4 inch of soup in a bowl.  Next we got a 2 inch round potato patty with a small piece of haddock on top covered with tomato puree.  The third course was two pieces of pork loin 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches round on top of lentils and savoy cabbage.  Dessert consisted of cooked apples on top of a stack of phyllo with a melon ball sized scoop of coconut sorbet.  While none of went home hungry, we were sore from sitting all day.  The food was actually quite tasty and was wonderfully presented.

What I couldn't figure out was why he wore those short pants with the buckles.  Is that the style to come?  I had better get a pair for hubby.

Here are some links to Mickey Harte:
http://www.mickeyhartemusic.com/
http://www.mickeyharte.com/
I'm sure you'll be hearing more about Mickey Harte.  You can tell people you saw him here first.

Church Bazaar

Looking good

Homemade baked goods

Yesterday was the annual church bazaar.  My job was to work in the kitchen.   It is a tradition to sell soup and sandwiches.  This year the ladies made beef vegetable and potato soup, with the help of a caterer.  They were still making the potato soup when I got there at 9 AM.  The vegetable was made the day before.  Other helpers were making the sandwiches-pimento cheese (yuck) and peanut butter and jelly (?).

jars of beef vegetable soup

I helped by dishing out cake slices and getting the table set up for customers.  Customers could buy a bowl of soup, sandwich, drink and slice of cake for $6.00.

People began coming in at 10:00 and didn't stop until 1:30.  Almost all of the items were sold except for some plants and jewelry.  This year the ladies had collected costume jewelry to sell and there was a lot of it.

It was busy like this all day 

Unfortunately, it was a beautiful, warm fall day out, and not many people wanted a steaming bowl of soup for lunch.  Many did go home with a jar or two for later.  (including yours truly).  I also purchased a quart of homemade chili, some apple butter and a tomato knife and knife sharpener(both new) and a shamrock plant.  My partner, Glee (yes her real name) and I both bought a jar of chili and put them next to our purses in the kitchen.  When we were ready to go home, only one jar was on the counter.  We never could figure out what happened to the other one.  Another lady offered to give us the jar she had put aside and hadn't paid for yet.  Hubby and I ate it for dinner last night and it was tasty.

I was glad to get home after a long day.  The caterer was still there at 2:30 putting vegetable soup in canning jars to sell at church this morning. I think I will suggest to make the soup earlier next year. That way they can freeze and can it and the ladies won't be working so hard on bazaar day.

Chunky Applesauce

I am so looking forward to my first fall season in 33 years.  The weather has turned cooler.  During the day it is in the 60's and at night it is in the 50's.  The leaves are just starting to turn.

This morning I went to Welch's produce stand and bought some Fuji and Golden Delicious apples.  I came home and peeled and cut them up to make 8 cups.  I put them in a pan with 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla and 1 teaspoon cinnamon and cooked them on low for 35 minutes.  Then I used the potato masher to mash them down.

The kitchen smelled wonderful and the warm applesauce was delicious.  I am going to make more and put it in the freezer for later. Yum.