Happy November and what's up with us...

Our 'back yard' in northern Idaho

November has arrived, ushered in with foggy mornings that look like the mountains we're nestled into are on fire, leaves that swirl and dance across the driveway, and all things pumpkin abounding. Last month Cub Sweetheart managed to find several cans of pumpkin and we've been eating baked pumpkin this and that for several weeks, with no tiring of such in sight. I've baked plump, heavy loaves of my mother-in-law's pumpkin bread several times, a recipe that is improved by throwing in a handful of chocolate chips. 

This past week we were again at the grocery store and there were no cans of pumpkin. Just those big fat cans of pumpkin pie filling, which is not the same. So warning - the next time I actually see Libby's plain ole pumpkin I am going to go hoarder and buy every single one of them.  I swear I was not that person that stocked up on toilet paper earlier this year. We made do with whatever we had, calling into service boxes of tissue, etc. But it's hard to find a replacement for pumpkin. So if you live in northern Idaho or the Dallas metroplex and see it on the shelf and want some, you better buy it. And if there's none there it may well be my fault. 

November has me looking at soup recipes, heating water in the tea kettle most afternoons, and usually I've got a book or knitting in my lap.  I'm finishing up knitting knockers (I posted about these sometime last year I believe), but am beginning to eye a next project. More and more I hear socks calling my name. Knitting socks is always highly entertaining, and leaves one feeling brilliant after having done so, and who wouldn't be blessed by that these days? When very little else may be going right in the world, it feels terribly satisfying to take string and sticks and twist your wrists and viola, out come socks to wear or give away. Who isn't comforted by a new pair of cozy, hand knit, stripedy socks?

Back in January, in preparation for the election that was then ten months away, I decided to be a more informed voter, and started the year with reading a textbook on American Government. I realize it sounds as appealing as pulling out your eyelashes one at a time, but it was actually fascinating. I suspect I was taught all about the branches of our government, how the electoral and popular vote worked, what exactly the President's job entailed, and how our judicial system works, back in jr. high or high school, but that doesn't mean I actually learned it. This time I found it riveting. 

So I moved onto reading John Adams by David McCollough, then followed that with 1776 by the same author. Next was a book on all the big talking points of politics, written by a bi-partisan author. It wasn't the kind of book one would sit and read for hours, but at one chapter every night I got through it and learned so much. 

Then the first debate came, and I was so excited to watch it, and hear each candidate speak on those points I'd studied up on. As anyone over ten currently living in America knows, it quickly became obvious there wouldn't be much discussion of immigration, the economy, global warming, etc. So the debate was overall terribly disappointing, but the book wasn't and I'm still glad I worked my way through it. 

And Cub Sweetheart has commented more than once that after forty years of never having a political conversation with me, he's wondering if aliens have taken over my body and / or brain. 

I've also been studying Van Gogh, an author I knew pretty much nothing about except that he cut off his ear. There was so much more to him, such a tragic person, tragic life, and I was struck to find out he suffered from epilepsy which was completely untreated back then, and when he admitted himself to a mental institution his total treatment consisted of a cold bath now and then. 

Hard to imagine. 

Which made me very thankful to be living in this time, where we have discovered cures to many of yesteryear's diseases, and are working hard to find cures to the ones that are causing so much suffering now. Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Diabetes, Cancers of so many types, ALS and so many others. 

I've also dabbled into studying Beethoven. I haven't gotten very far with him, but just for fun I'm teaching myself to play Fur Elise and Ode to Joy on the piano, which Cub Sweetheart dearly enjoys hearing over and over and over. 

My daughter told me about an online math tutor that is fabulous - Teaching Textbooks. For anyone out there unexpectedly trying to homeschool their children, it's really wonderful. After years and years of being miserably inept at math, I took some of the placement tests and decided to start at the 5th grade level. Much of it is the basic addition, subtraction, multiplying but I realized I never really learned Roman Numerals (which I now find delightful - sort of like a fun puzzle), and starting to do a bit of dabbling in Geometry. I realized I spent years thinking I could not do math, but actually I just DIDN'T do it. We moved so many times during those years when I should have been building skill upon skill, but somehow I missed the math bus, and am finding it a joy to learn it now. 

Cub Sweetheart (who is an engineer by degree and a whiz at math) asks me why I need to know Roman Numerals or any higher math, and my answer is that I don't like feeling limited by inabilities. Passing a placement test for algebra prevents me from signing up for college classes, and when he asks if I want to take college classes, I tell him likely not, but I don't like knowing I wouldn't be allowed to just because I didn't learn enough math, so why not learn it now? And I like the idea of being able to help our grandkids with their homework if I have to, rather than telling them I have no idea how to help. 

And until we come up with a cure for Alzheimer's, a horrible disease that my mother died from several years ago, I figure none of this is hurting to keep the dust blown out from between my ears. 

So here's my MIL's wonderful recipe - if you happen to be one of the lucky ones who can nab a can of Libby's Pumpkin:

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

3 cups sugar (yes I know it's a lot)

1 cup oil

4 eggs (my MIL was born in 1912, they ate eggs)

2/3 cup water

2 cups canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

Place first 6 ingredients in bowl, making a hole in the center of the dry ingredients. Ad next four ingredients, mix together until smooth.

Pour into 2 or 3 greased and floured loaf pans (if 2, they will rise higher). Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

If desired add 1 cup chopped nuts or a handful of chocolate chips to the batter. 

Cool completely before slicing.

You're welcome.