Black Friday- pictures to post later

Black Friday here in Morgantown went over without a hitch. I actually had a pretty good day. But I was very upset to find out that there was a Walmart employee killed in New York by a crowd of people. How bad do you want sales? Bad enough to trample someone to death. That is disgusting and I think all the people who was part of that should have charges put against them. I give my prayers & sympathy to his family and friends.

As I was aying. Black Friday here was worse then normally. Most of the Walmart employees were in a bad mood. I showed up there at 3:30am. Yes I know.. CRAZY right? lol. I stood in line for over and hour for one particular item and I was 3rd in line. When Walmart cut the plastic off it was a mess. People were mad because others were skipping line and everything turned into a huge mess. I did get most of the stuff I was looking for a Walmart though. I went to Target next and and waited outside in the cold for 45min till 6am. For a stupid Black & decker rechargeable broom which doesn't work good anyways and I am taking it back. People again skipped line out side and they had an employee outside trying to make piece. There was people yelling and screaming at each other. But when the doors opened it was a riot. It was awful. I am surprised no one there was hurt. Then I drove clear to Clarksburg. To go a Joann Fabrics for there clay, quilting, pattern, and material sale. I was there forever. The mall had a sea of cars. It was crazy. I waited in line to have material cut for around a half hour then another 30 to 40 minutes to check out. Plus I had been walking around for an hour or so. So it was around 9am when we finally left. Then I went to Circuit city which I had pre-orded online for pick up.. I loved that. Although we did walk around for a while to see what was left and ended up with some extra movies. It was around 11 am when we left there. we stopped by the walmart in Fairmont to pick up a couple grocery's (lettuce, tomatoes, & croutons). So we made it home around 12:30pm. And I crashed because I had not slept the night before. So here is my running list of the day:

Walmart
Movie- The Omen 2 pack- My pick $2.00
Movie- Borat w/ t- shirt - Johns pick... $2.00
Movie- Robots w/ soundtrack- $2.00
V Rocker game seat- John- $30.00
Some electronics stuff which I can't list because of Christmas.

Target
Black & Decker Rechargeable Broom- $30.00(has now been returned to the store. It sucked...well it really didn't... it really didn't have enough suction at all)

Joann Fabrics
Polymer clay 2oz packs- $.99 each was over $2 each
4 sewing patterns- $.99 each normally over $15 each
3 yards of natural cotton quilt lining for $5.50 yard normally $10 something.
5 yards of fabric at $1.50 yard normally $4.99 and $5.99 a yard
A quilters square for $7.49 which was half off.

Circuit city
2 Sony 4 GB MP3 players w/ a card for 20 songs each from emusic downloads- $50 each- normally around $130 plus the music. - I love this MP3 player. It is very easy to use! Sounds great. But only comes with 3.5 GB free when you get it. Plus it will not let you delete this music and movie trailer it includes. But it works great and is very user friendly. I have like 60 podcasts on it right now and still have about 1.2 Gb left. But I keep cycling out podcasts too. I use it primarily for podcasts.
Wii dance mat- $12.99 normally $20
100 DVD/R- $10.00 normally $50
100 CD/R- $10.00 normally $25
2- 4MB SD memory cards- $10.00 each- work great. Holds about 1800 pictures with a 7 mp camera.
Wii Game party- $10.00 normally $20- its an ok game. I am glad it was only 10 dollars though. I wouldn't want to spend anymore than that on it.
and we purchased a couple movies as well.

So 2 years in a row yes we have found really great deals. But overspent terribly. Next year lets say debt diet...! :)

A Vegan Organic Thanksgiving Dinner

This year I made an all organic vegan Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out really good and it was easy. First course was Sweet potato soup, 2nd was tofurkey, roasted veggies ( carrots, fingerling potatoes, green beans) tofurkey gravy, mashed potatoes, wheat roles, and baked apples for dessert. I made the vegan pumpkin pie from Sinfully Vegan but I didn't like it. So it went straight into the garbage. And yes I had let it sit all night in the fridge. J & I had dinner the day before Thanksgiving. I surprised him that night when he came home from work. I normally don't fix a whole dinner. But I really liked doing it for us. It was awesome. We had a nice family evening just the 2 of us.

Roasted Veggies

I used:
Green Beans
Carrots
Lil Tomatoes
Fingerling Potatoes

But you can use almost anything you want.

Try to cut the carrots to match the size of the green beans so they cook evenly. Cut the fingerling potatoes in to. Put a little oil and salt on the veggies. Enough to coat them all. Bake for 10 minutes take out and turn them. Put back in for another 10 minutes.

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup- I have never had this kind of soup so I hope this taste ok. J liked it. I ate a little maybe it will grow on me. I would like regular beg soup more although I like creamy soups. This recipe was converted from a recipe at www.elise.com.

2 T- Veg Butter or Oil
1 Cup chopped onion
2 small celery stalks- I added more then this and there was a strong celery flavor.. oops
1 Medium leek (white and light green part)
1 1/2 pds sweet potatoes, cut up
4 cups- No chick broth or other veg broth
1 large clove of garlic
1 cinnamon stick or 2tsp
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cup soy milk
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Melt Butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add Veggies which should be be chopped. Saute about 10 minutes. Do not burn. Add garlic saute 2 min.

Add sweet potatoes, veg stock, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bring to boil. Boil uncovered for about 20 minutes.

Take batches and put into food processor. Puree then put back into pot. Add soy milk & maple syrup. Warm to a good eating temp and serve. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Chey's 7th B-day

"C"s B-day party went very well this year. She had 3 friends & some family over. The kids spent the day running through the house like the cats do when I am trying to sleep. All the time screaming and laughing. So she had a very good day. I did make a vegan birthday cake but I didn't have enough powder sugar to make icing. So I had to ruin it with store bought icing.... oops. Then I melted down some chocolate and spelled out everything with it. Not one of my favorite cakes... But thats ok. The kids liked to pick off the chocolate and eat it. We also had pizza for dinner. No not vegan sadly. I did use the pizza crust recipe from Vegan with a vengeance though. It always turns out really good. But here are some pictures.

1st Grade Halloween Party

A Few days ago we had my little sisters 1st grade Halloween party. It was fun. I had put together some cool games for the kids that went over really well. So I thought I would post them.

First they ate. Cupcakes (which I made pictured to your left, which came from "Vegan cupcakes take over the world"), Peanut butter bone cut out sammies, cookies, veggies, some animal products, ect. ( I didn't schedule this part of the day)

2nd we had an ewwy... gewwy... witches cauldron relay

In this game I had 4 icky bowls for the teams of kids to collect stuff from different areas around the yard. I gave them each a "recipe" card with 3 pictures. They would go collect 1 item at a time and put into the cauldron. Then run out and collect the 2nd then the 3rd. Then the next team member would go. After all the team had gone they had to run over and pick up a role of Toilet paper and wrap one kid up like a mummy. The first team done would win.

Spider webs- sticky spaghetti
Brains- a brain made out of instant oatmeal & water
Pumpkin insides
monsters drool- Corn starch with water dyed blue. I don't know what I did with the picture to it.( if you have never mixed it together it is really need. It feels hard to the touch and stays solid for a couple seconds after you pick it up. Then it turns to liquid..)

The kids loved this game. They let out tons of energy and really had a blast. I took cheap gloves so that the kids who didn't want messy could use them. I was surprised to find that most of the girls didn't want them and most of the boys did..hahaha so cute... But they did have trouble with the toilet paper. It kept breaking apart. So maybe the toilet paper is a better idea for an older group. Even the parents had fun watching them though. It was cool.

Next game we played was the Cluck Cluck Hunt Game.

I had thrown out some old candy corn into the grass before the kids had come outside. I gave 1 kid in each team a paper cup. That kid was the rooster. When I said go all the other players would run to a piece of corn and cluck like a chicken..till the rooster came to get the corn. The first cup to be filled won. This game although cute and fun. The kids didn't play to well. All the kids were picking up the candy corn and everything turned into a mess. But they still had fun.

4th game was a Skeletal hunt. I bought cheap plastic skeletons in 3 collors at the dollar store. I had John pop them apart and then we throw all of the pieces out in the yard. The kids had to collect 10 pieces of the right colored skeleton. Then put it together. The kids had fun and did a great job with this game. And really did put the skeletons together pretty quickly.

Because there was also a costume parade that day that was all the games we played. But it was a really good day. They also got huge gift bags.