In my opinion, the worst and most dangerous storms are the ones that come through at night. First, because most people are asleep and don’t hear the warnings so they do not take cover. But also because most homes have the bedrooms on the second floor, and when a tornado strikes a house, the roof and the second floor are the most likely to suffer extensive damage. So, if people are asleep in their bedrooms and a tornado does hit their house, they have a very high probability of not surviving that storm.

At my house, we got a lot of wind and rain that re-arranged parts of my backyard. Thankfully, we did not have a tornado come through this area. But there is a huge gully that was washed through my backyard and down the hill that didn’t used to be there. I have to get a shovel and fill in a huge hole and the canals that were created. When I say huge, I mean that an entire car could be driven into this hole. I don’t have any idea how long it is going to take to replace all that dirt, shovel by shovel.

This year we got a live tree. It didn’t look this big at the Christmas tree lot. I love it, though. It took us over 4 hours to put it up and I even had to run up to the store and buy more ornaments to fill it out. Looking forward to a really nice traditional Christmas this year.

This has been a rainy autumn. The past three weeks have been rain, gloom and doom. I think we only saw the sun two times in the entire three weeks. We might as well be living in Seattle.

Doing laundry today, I was assaulted with a variety of added fragrances. The detergent has a fragrance. The bleach has a fragrance. The fabric softener has a fragrance and the dryer sheets have a fragrance. My poor clothes are just bombarded by perfumes.

The funny thing is, when they come out of the dryer they have a faint fragrance in them, but by the time they are fluffed and folded and put in the closet, they don’t smell like anything at all any longer.

Something new for me this year will be a formal table with a centerpiece of fresh flowers. That is the nice thing about having just adults for dinner. You can dress up a little more, and we can splurge on a nice bottle of wine and fresh flowers. I’m really looking forward to this being the first of many more nice dinners.

Although I am a “dog person” as opposed to a “cat person,” I do love the way cats are companions and inspiration for a lot of Halloween symbols. I am not superstitious and worried about black cats. I found this pumpkin design and thought it was really cute. I might try it on mine. Heading for the pumpkin patch this weekend.

I am heading to the grocery store to stock up on my regular groceries plus some extras for comfort food and baking cookies while we are snowbound this weekend.

Without the kids, its is much more somber and even depressing. I still went through the motions of decorating the tree and we will have a nice dinner. But it’s not so much fun this year.

But today I discovered that there is mold behind the walls of the bathroom. So I will be remodeling the bathroom – the walls have to come out and be replaced, so I might as well upgrade the fixtures, too. It’s going to be a mess.

We don’t know who is the right repair company to call – I can’t tell who installed it in the first place and I don’t have a phone book. So I’m going to check the internet Superpages and see if any company names sound good.

I used a Reynolds oven cooking bag and placed a cut up onion inside. Then I took the chuck roast and cut it into smaller chunks so it would cook faster and also have all the sides exposed to the gravy for more flavor. Then I added a can of tomato soup and used the same can to fill with water and added that to the bag, too. Then I sprinkled some seasoned salt and some garlic pepper over the meat, sealed the bag and let it cook at 350 for about an hour and a half.

As it finished cooking, I took a can of store brand brown gravy and dumped it into a saucepan on top of the stove. When I took the meat out of the oven, I pierced the corner of the cooking bag and let about a half cup of the bag’s gravy pour into the saucepan with the brown gravy and stirred the two together. It was fantastic – not a drop of anything was left over.

I cannot tell you the last time I went to the store and bought a newspaper. I get my news from TV and the internet. The only good thing that comes in the newspaper anymore are the store flyers and coupons over the holidays. Other than that, the Tennessean sucks – almost no actual scoops or news. Just a lot of bias and opinion, advice that I don’t want, and a rehash of stuff I already read online the night before. And their web site is crap, too. Forget about breaking news coverage from the newspaper – it’s all old news by the time the paper is printed and hits the streets.

I will be busy cooking most of the day.We bought a turkey on Monday and it’s been in the refrigerator slowly thawing out. I considered getting a fresh turkey, but I have had good luck with the frozen Butterball turkeys, so I decided to stick with the tried and true. Along with the turkey will be plenty of vegetables and stuffing, and I’ll make two pies this afternoon to bake while the turkey is in the oven. Can’t wait for a great turkey dinner!