Happy Halloween, autumn surprises, and homemade apple pie (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

Our boys won’t be trick-or-treating again this year, but we will be handing out candy, and we have two magnificent jack-o-lanterns for the front porch. We are never sure how many trick-or-treaters to expect, but we will be ready. I am hoping our boys will join me in welcoming people at the door.

Halloween is a happy time, but it’s also a day when I remember Georgie, our nephew and cousin who passed away in utero just a few weeks before he was expected to be born. That was nine years ago on Halloween. Time really does fly. He’s still very much on our minds and in our hearts.

~2~

This past spring, I waited for the magnolia tree by our house to bloom, and the delicate pink flowers never came. Somehow the spring weather was all wrong for the tree, and we missed seeing it all dressed for spring.

But this fall, the tree has surprised me. I don’t recall it being particularly lovely during past autumns, but this year its leaves have been gently turning yellow.

Every time I see it, I marvel at this unexpected beauty.

Somehow, there’s a little extra joy because we missed out on the tree’s usual spring glory.

~3~

Our dishwasher is still broken, and I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since we’ve been washing everything by hand. The dishwasher is under warranty, which means we need to wait for a part to come in. I have decided it will never happen.

My sister Maureen’s dishwasher just got fixed after being broken for six months. What are the chances that two sisters would have dishwashers broken at the same time?

Meanwhile, I am not the only person washing the dishes, as you can see in the photo. I might be doing most of the complaining, though.

~4~

The dishwasher might be broken, but the stove isn’t, so the other day I made this copycat recipe for the beef a la Sichuan from P.F. Chang’s. I’m not even sure they serve it in the restaurant anymore since it hasn’t been available the past few times that we have tried to order carryout from there.

It turned out well, even though I was missing a few of the ingredients—not the beef or the vegetables, fortunately. I realized, though, that it’s probably time for me to invest in a wok. Maybe I’ll put that on my Christmas list.

~5~

I had a late night at work this week, and I couldn’t figure out how to do school pick-up and make dinner and not leave a million dishes in the sink for someone else to clean, so I ordered Chinese food for my family.

We were cracking into some of the leftover fortune cookies the next day, and I found myself wondering, when did fortune cookies stop holding real fortunes? Sometimes they’re more mantras or advice. The ones we got this week were extremely disappointing. “A diet is a selection of food that makes someone rich.” Really?

I never thought that the slip of paper in our fortune cookies would actually forecast my future, but I would like the cookie to make its best guess. Is that so much to ask?

~6~

We’ve been wanting to go apple picking this fall, but it just hasn’t happened. So, I finally decided that the next best thing was making an apple pie. So I peeled and sliced some apples, rolled out some dough, and baked a pie for us to enjoy. I used this recipe, with maybe a little less sugar and—admittedly—not much measuring.

Whenever I make a pie, I think of Amelia Bedelia. Amelia Bedelia always makes a thousand mistakes throughout the day, but then she makes an incredible dessert, and all is forgiven. I like to think that my freshly baked apple pie redeems my day, too.

~7~

Even though we haven’t made it to an apple orchard, we did get to Valley View Farms to pick out our pumpkins and a couple of mums. I had actually gone with a few colleagues earlier in the week, but I didn’t buy anything for my family because I knew we would want to go together.

Going together to pick out pumpkins is such a simple tradition, but I don’t take anything for granted, especially as our sons get older. It was so much fun just to fit in that outing.

The real miracle, of course, was that we went to Valley View Farms on the Saturday before Halloween, and we didn’t run into anyone we knew. Wonders never cease.

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