Is It Too Early to Decorate for Halloween?

The summer is winding down here. Temperatures have been going down into the fifties at night! Horse balnkies were sent out for cleaning this morning. Our resident woodchuck is a tank and the hummingbirds are starting to go into training for their annual migration.

Fall is in the air.

It's the time of year when you start to want to bake

and be in the warmth and comfort of your kitchen.

I've been following a blog by an amazing woman at OctoberFarm.

I don't even know her name, but the recipes are A M A Z I N G !

This Best Pecan Shortbread Bar

recipe was tried here yesterday.

Very good, but a little over cooked, 

I'll adjust my time the next time.

Have you started decorating for Halloween yet?

I have.

Decorations are popping up everywhere.

Inside

and out!

It's a time of transition.

And now there's something to remind me

to stop, live in the moment

and savor the change

that is all life.

"To be interested in the changing seasons

is a happier state of mind than to be

hopelessly in love with spring."

~ George Santayana

♥

So, do you think that August 18th

is too early to start decorating for Halloween?

When do you start?

A Labor Of Love

My husband, Jerry, loves sweets. As a special surprise for Valentine's Day, I decided to make him his favorite homemade sugar cookies today. In fact, he loves them so much, we call them Jerry's Sugar Cookies.


I made a double batch. I've got plenty of trays, so I rolled and cut out all the cookies before I even turned on the oven. Here's a shot of the cookies all cut and decorated waiting to be baked.


TaDa...The finished product. I only encountered one casualty - a minor burn. And I over browned only one pan which happened when I decided to call my friend, Bobbie, and got distracted at the very end. This is definitely a labor of love as it took me the better part of the afternoon. No wonder so many of us remember our grammas with such respect and love!


HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYBODY! I hope it's sweet!

Holiday Tradition, Alive and Well

When all the girls moved out of the Sandy household, it became a yearly tradition to get together at Christmastime and have a holiday cookie party. Each sister and Mom would make a couple of different kinds of cookie dough and we'd all get together and bake them, eat and share them.


That way we all ended up with lots of kinds of great cookies that lasted us well into the winter. Now that the family is spread out all over the East Coast, Denise and I are the one's in this area to carry on the tradition. In Florida, Mom and Gaile still have cookie parties and Ellyn in SC will soon continue it with her daughter, Meadow. What kind of holiday traditions do you keep alive?