A Perfect Fall Festival

I love fall.

I love fall festivals!

One of my favorite fall festivals is the Chatauqua in my birthplace, Chillicothe, MO. Today, I drove the hour and fifteen minutes northeast to attend the festival with two of my gal pals. I think The Lord gave me a small gift, The Short Chic decided she did not want to leave her Daddy's side all day today so she stayed home. I had a Mommy-free day!

Why do I love fall festivals. I love crafts. I love seeing new things. Running into old friends. And trying out some new foods!

I ran into this lovely lady. When I was 14 years old I was a candy-stripper at our local hospital. She worked at the hospital in the front office. She taught me to answer the phones, how to file, and many more office tasks. She is such a wonderful lady with a great heart. It did my soul good to see her today!

I found new garden art. How cool are these recycled glass decorations. They had so many variations, it was really hard to select just one. I ended up buying the one on the bottom, it is six pieces of glass and will look great in a patch of flowers next summer.

This is the really cute pear that sits on top of my new garden art. It is a pale pink/peachy color. My husband wants to know if this piece has any functional use. I told him No, but it isn't it interesting!

I learned a lot about wool. The photo above is of a woman who had spent four hours making this Llama wool hat. She told us she was no where near done. She was using soap to help clean it and help form it. I wish I could remember the specific word she used to describe what she was doing. Oh, yeah, and I learned that Llama's wool is much softer than lamb.

This lovely lady explained how she was spinning Llama wool to make yarn to knit and sew with. She also thought Llama wool was much softer and less scratchier than lamb wool. She had a lovely spinning wheel and spent a great deal of time explaining how it worked to us. Melissa from Living on Gods Grace went with me. She was pretty excited to see that Rapunzel is alive and well.

We also spent some time watching this lady work on her pottery wheel. I have never done pottery and think I might put it on my bucket list. I so enjoyed watching her.

There was a man there teaching us how to tie brooms. Can you just imagine how many generations have tied their own brooms?

Oh and food! We had some yummy food today. Walking taco's are a must these days. We also ate cake truffles. Homemade Root Beer.

And does anyone know what these are? They might be one of the biggest festival foods around. We watched a family cook 'em up hot. Yep, pork rinds. Who knew they came like this. I was raised in the country and had never seen them in this form.

This is one cup of pork rinds cooking in a bunch of hot oil.

After they cook, he drains them, dumps them into the big blue plastic container. His wife then takes them and adds seasonings to them. My Momma purchased bbq flavored. Is there honestly anything better than cooked pig fat?

I also enjoyed seeing and spending time with these two gals today. We went to high school together. It has been a while since we last saw each other.

I bought the Short Chic a new headband. Orange and Green are her favorite colors. How perfect was this find?!! I only hope she will now keep it on her head!

The other cool thing I purchased today is this piece of tin. It comes from an old church. It is very pretty! I am looking forward to putting it in my house.

The only other exciting thing that happened to us gals today...we got caught in a rain storm. As we started to leave the park today, it started sprinkling on us. By the time we got a block away it was a complete downpour! Soaked! That is the best word to describe us gals by the time we got back to my car. Absolutely soaked!

My Weekend Project: A PVC Camping Lamp Post and Flag Holder

I have seen a few of these around campsites and I knew I would like to have one. The only problem that I had is The Husband. He already thinks we drag too much stuff with us when we go camping and if I had told him my desire to have a PVC Camping Light Pole he would have shut it down quickly! So, that leaves a girl with only one choice: Figure out how to do it by herself. I did some internet searching and found a few road maps on RV forums. They seemed easy enough! I visited the local hardware store for the supplies: An exterior post lantern light 2 inch PVC pipe (I used 5 feet but had to purchase a 10 foot piece) A 3 inch toilet flange A 3 inch to 2 inch Reducer PVC Glue A 12 foot electric cord kit 2 - 3/4 inch PVC Caps I also used a few supplies we already had on hand: White Spray Paint 3 1/2 foot - 3/4 inch PVC Pipe Drill Bits (1 inch and 1/2 inch) Tent Stakes The first step was preparing the lantern light. I could only find black i

Liver Cheese: A Family Tradition

Today is an anniversary date. One of those dates you wish you did not have to remember but there is no way you can forget. Fifteen years ago today,two days after his birthday, my father died of lung cancer. He was a lifelong smoker and his cancer was aggressive. His battle was short. He fought for six short months after his diagnosis. He knew the chemo was not working and that his time was limited. When he came to this realization he became the best dad in the world. In the days before my father's passing, my family shared some memorable moments. One of those moments centers around the deli meat: Liver Cheese.I would not be surprised if you have never heard of it, or even never tasted it. But I was raised on it as it was one of my Dad's favorite things. What is it? Well, it is a German food that is actually called Leberkase. It is bacon, corned beef, pork, and onion that is ground together and baked. It comes with a

Tonsillectomy (Warning Photos!)

The Short Chic came down with a pretty nasty case of strep throat back in April. So, when The Boy started complaining about his throat hurting about 12 days later, I was pretty confident that he had inherited his sister's strep. Instead, The Boy was diagnosed with a peritonsillar abscess growing on his right tonsil. We had to immediately see an ENT Physician who took a needle and drained the abscess. He removed about 5.5 cc of puss from The Boys throat.and then told us that once you have a peritonsillar abscess you were high risk to keep getting them. The Boy's tonsils were now compromised and needed to be removed. We were told to plan for a two week recovery so we worked a surgery into our summer plans. Between family vacations, summer sports, and the beginning of school The Boy had his second surgery. A tonsillectomy. Pre-surgery prepping went well. It must be nice to be young and have healthy veins for an IV! The Boy had lots of pre-surgery visitors. My

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