Happy Halloween

 It's a spooky time of year. There are ghosts from Halloweens past haunting my blog today.

I'm obviously not afraid to look silly when I go to work.

Week 20 drawings.

 Another batch. My favorites from these is the mouse, the ghost and the scarecrow.

Week 19 drawings

 I've gotten behind on posting these so here's another post of drawings. I'm going to do another one tomorrow and that should catch me up to where I'm currently at. Although it may still put me a week behind because I'm scheduling this in advance. 

Enough talk, here's the drawings.

In case you're wondering where the idea came from for this one. I came home from work in a terrible mood and was feeling a bit angry. I thought the expression fit my mood. That's not to say that this is a self portrait though.

I think this one may be my favorite in this batch.

Work doodles.

 Just a couple more today.

This time of years gives me lots of ideas for things to draw. I think I should be good through the end of the year for ideas.

A new routine

 If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen my post that read "Breathe in, breathe out, repeat. I can do this."

Well we have a new manager at work. She's nice, knowledgeable and has plans that aren't open much for discussion. Basically she is working on increasing the parts of the store that are doing well and trying to find new ways of bringing people in. 

One of the plans involves increasing the number of donuts that we fry every day. I don't object to that but although it doesn't seem like it would strenuous, lifting all those racks in and out of the fryer is tough on my back. Then on top of it I have to do a daily breakout of product for the next day and it involves lifting a lot of heavy boxes. She is sympathetic to this problem at least and has made some changes that will help ease the added strain.

She wanted to me to advertise on our Facebook page that we increased the donuts. I put these pictures up.

She also wanted something that would be a bit Halloweenish. Her idea was to make these donuts with orange cream inside instead of the white. I wasn't thrilled with the idea so I devised a plan. Rather than tell her what I thought would work better, I showed her. I did one donut the way she wanted and another the way I would prefer to do them. Visuals worked because she liked my idea better and I'm just drizzling some orange frosting on the top of these.

These are our glazed croissant donuts. A customer commented that "These are what dreams are made of."

Interesting soup

 I saw a video on Facebook for a chicken bacon ranch soup. I forgot to save it but remembered everything they put in it. I decided to make some for myself. 

I used

32 oz. of chicken broth

1 packet of hidden valley ranch dressing mix

1 packet of bacon bits

1 block of cream cheese

about 2 cups of  shredded cheddar

as an afterthought I decided to cut up some potatoes and through them in. They ended up being a bit on the hard side but not to the point of being inedible. If I did it again I think I would use frozen hash brown potatoes instead.

Any way I sent the following picture to Amanda and told her I made some soup

Her response was "Interesting"

When I questioned her about her choice of words she said it kind of looks weird. She added "I mean as long as it tastes ok I guess".

All I can say is, weird looking or not, it tasted pretty good to me.

Note to Shug at My steps of faith. I visited your blog today but when I tried to bring up the comments my computer was blocking it. I do thank you for visiting me. 

Another shirt.

 I made myself another shirt. I had purchased the pumpkin colored shirt at Walmart and wanted to put something on it but couldn't decide what or what color vinyl to use. When we were at the farmers market there was a lady who had shirts and hats and one of the shirts was the same color as the one I purchased. She used white vinyl and gold glitter vinyl. I liked the looks so when I got home I started working on mine.

I made the design, cut it out and put it on the shirt.

I'm not entirely happy with my choice of pumpkins as I think it looks a bit unbalanced. If I had to do this over I would make the two on either side the same.

I did wear this to work on Sunday though. In general, I'm happy with how it came out.

Week 18 drawings

 Another batch of drawings today. 

Last Saturday

 Amanda and I had another fun day out last Saturday. We started at a small craft show. I forgot to take any pictures there at all. I did purchase a couple items for Christmas gifts.

Next we went to Als Melons again because Amanda had heard that their mums were buy one get one free. She ended up not getting any but I went away with quite a few nice pictures.

Next was a stop at Chupp's Country Cupboard which is an Amish store not far from me. I didn't take pictures in the store but this tree outside was gorgeous.

Last was the final farmers market of the year in Albion. 

I had never heard of a mashed potato squash before. I should have bought one to see what they were like.

They also had a few people set up with crafts and an Amish lady that was selling baked good. Amanda and I each bought a donut. They were huge and oh so delicious.

Looking like fall.

 The fall colors seem to be bursting out everywhere the last few days. I was headed to Walmart on Sunday and was enjoying the show that the trees were putting on.

I snapped a couple pictures while I was driving. Don't worry I just aimed and shot and didn't take my eyes off the road for a second.

Then I thought, why not take a video and take you along on the ride. It was easy to switch over to video without having to distract me from my driving.

Christmas in the woods

 On Saturday October 12, Amanda and I went to Christmas in the woods in Columbiana Ohio. It's about an hour and a half drive from my house. This is a huge even held in the woods. 

As usual there was a long line of traffic waiting to get in to the parking lot. It was a beautiful day though.

Here's a shot of the parking lot that gives you a bit of an idea of just how many people go to this. 

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures because the crafters don't like pictures being taken. I limited it to some of the decorations.

And what Christmas event would be complete without a Santa.

Most of the stuff there is very expensive but I did buy a few things. I got a bag of homemade dog treats for Gibbs, one small Christmas present and for me a bag of maple coated cashews. They were $7.50 for an 8ounce bag but they are so delicious. They do have a website Dennis Farms. You can purchase items from their website but they also have a list of places you can buy their products. It looks like quite a few different states where they are available.