Picture-Perfect October Weekend

It’s been a beautiful weekend; the kind of weekend that reminds me why fall is my favorite season. The sun came out, the air was warm and there’s still plenty of color in the trees.

Under the Maple tree out front

October clouds

Halloween is in the air. A handful of Halloween decorations have appeared around our house.

One of the witch hat luminaries that light the way up the front walk

On the front step, there’s a large, plastic, light-up jack-o-lantern. Jack has seen better days. His left eye has a slight puncture. But he stands proudly on the front step every year. He’s the same one Kacey picked out when she was three years old and out on an errand with Mark to the local do-it-yourself store. Jack was as tall as Kacey back then and when she pointed him out and told her daddy she wanted him, Mark’s inner softy made a rare appearance and they took him home. As long as Jack continues to light up, he’ll grace our front steps on Halloween.

Mark and I made a trip to Target today for some necessities and while we were there, we strolled through the Halloween section. Mark pointed out a pair of sound-activated googly eyes that made scary noises. I picked them up to try them out and soon noticed a little boy of about three years looking up at me. I held the box down at his level and asked, “Did you want to see these?”

He looked up at me and nodded as his mom watched, smiling from a few feet away. I showed him where to press the button to make the eyes light up and make noise but he made no move to take the box from me. He was content to let me hold it while he pressed the button.

Mark asked the little boy, “Are those scary?”

The little boy shrugged. Mark asked him, “Are you going to go trick-or-treating?”

The little boy ran over to his daddy who was standing nearby with a shopping cart. He reached into the cart and whipped out a pirate costume, holding it up for Mark.

“Is that your costume,” Mark asked?

“A pirate,” the little boy proudly announced! He then held up his Halloween themed sippy cup for Mark to see and said, “Look what I got!”

His parents and we were laughing by now at how quickly their son had befriended us. Mark explained, “Our kids are all grown up now. No more trick-or-treating for us.”

The mom said something about looking forward to that day. Mark told her, “You say that now, but you’ll miss it all too soon.”

We said goodbye and went on our way.

Back at home later on, I picked up a recipe card I’d set aside earlier this week - Secret Recipe Chocolate Chip Cookies. I’m not sure what it is about fall that makes me feel like Susie Homemaker, but I like it. Last weekend there was all that cooking. This weekend, it was baking. Yesterday morning I took one look at the overripe bananas and soon banana bread was in the works. Earlier this morning, I made a batch of granola. Then came the cookies.

Yum!

Wait… Let me give you a little perspective on just how big these cookies are. The recipe called for three cups of chocolate chips and said to use an ice cream scoop to scoop them. I could only fit six on a cookie sheet as opposed to the usual twelve. I’m not sure who I was thinking was going to eat all these, but I sure don’t want more than one … maybe two. Okay, maybe three.

Cookies, anyone?

I just heard the weather man say something like, “… more active weather patterns this week,” and “… possibly snow.” I’m glad I took notice of this weekend and enjoyed it.