Pumpkin Produce Problems

Halloween is right around the corner. Spooky-time has been in full flow for awhile, though. Candy is on-sale. The good kind. The large bags. Costumes, skeletons, cauldrons, and candles line shelves. Orange and black envelopes storefronts.

But not everyone wins.

The pumpkins are the real losers.

Sure, some of them get to look all festive and awesome. With faces or intricate designs.

From Design Bolts

But others, well…they’re cannon fodder.

From onsizzle.com

So take a moment while you enjoy the sites, smells, and tastes of autumn to really think about whether or not that pumpkin spice latte was truly worth it.

And then visit an apple orchard for some hot spiced cider instead because, honestly, that’s the bee’s knees. And keeps pumpkins happy. And a happy pumpkin is a better jack o’lantern. Trust me. I’ve asked around.

At the pumpkin patch.

I’ve asked pumpkins.

I talk to them at the grocery store.

Don’t look at me like that. It isn’t that weird. How do you know if they’re the right one to take home? You can’t just take any old pumpkin.

You can’t tell me you haven’t had a moment as you gaze across the grocery store produce section and your eyes meet a bunch of bananas and you know they’re the ones for you.

Just me?

Well, then you’re just shopping wrong.

We’re Still Working On Escaping Monday

So we sit on another Monday. Another day to choose to forge ahead and keep the day or allow Monday to win. But we won’t let it.

Unlike the rising gas prices or the march of time, we can change how we view Monday.

Except we’d rather not. Monday is the day we choose to despise because it holds all the negatives for the week: the return to the office, the beginning of the daily grind, another day when we could be enjoying anything else.

But do we really?

How do we spend our time off? Relaxing by not moving from the couch. Lounging in pajamas all day. Binging TV, movies, and games in the vain hope of forestalling another Monday.

But there is no magic portal from Sunday to Saturday (yet).

I’m sure one day we’ll crack that code, though. It might not probably won’t be from Elon Musk or Jeff Bevos. They’re more distracted by fleeing Earth (and all Mondays in general, no doubt).

Until we’ve conquered that space-time continuum portal question thing, we still must march through Monday. But, one day, we’ll be free of the tyranny of Monday.

Who Runs the World: Facebook

Social media stopped the other day and the world with it. I mean, if I didn’t post my meal pic, did I even eat it? If nobody knows how perfect my life seems on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, etc., is it really happening at all? Am I really real if my fingertips aren’t attached to the internet exploring just how great things could be?

From analyticsweek.com

So, what did we do? Mostly sat around waiting for the internet to return to normal. We moaned, complained, and felt lost. We sat inside staring at blank phone screens hoping for the moment when we could return to the social media hub we prefer. Or we took the opportunity to take a million pictures simply for the one perfect one we’d post once things returned to normal.

We spend so much time talking to our phones and the people out there in the interwebs that the phone knows our preferences, guides our shopping tastes, and even predicts what we’d like to see. Without that, what is there to do in life?

So be thankful today [even though it’s Monday] that we live in a world where we can be totally absorbed in our phones, tied to the internet, and exposing to the world wide web just how perfect our lives are.

Or, hopefully, you simply didn’t even notice the world ended for seven hours.

Another Week Begins With Monday…Again

Good times. Sometimes we have them, sometimes they have us. It’s all in the perspective. We go through our day in a sort of daze because, I mean, things become routine. We just get used to the grind: sleep, eat, work, repeat.

And somewhere along the way, we forgot how to laugh. Don’t get me wrong, life certainly has it’s serious moments, but we can get so caught up in bills, worries, and the grind that we forget to take joy when we find it.

It might not be in the rom-coms or the terrible B-movies that we once liked because we grow, change, and sometimes we outgrow things. Sometimes we still like them but feel like we don’t have the time to enjoy them.

But there is joy and laughter to be had. Yes, even on Mondays.

From theawesomedaily.com

So let’s take back Monday. Let’s return to the laughter we had as children. Let’s not let ourselves be discouraged because it’s Monday ad we’ve got a long week ahead at the start of a long month.

From Pinterest

It’s autumn. We’ve got apple cider, soup, flannel, blankets, pumpkins and 70 degree (Fahrenheit) weather.

There’s Monday night football, restaurants are open again, the cool crisp smell of drying leaves is in the air, and we can simply enjoy the moments between the madness.

Maybe you’ll learn to laugh again…or, at least, do what I do: laugh to keep from crying.

Because it’s Monday.

From theawesomedaily.com

Soup of the Day

It’s fall and that means one thing: it’s pumpkin spice soup season. Everyone seems to be posting about how, now that the weather is turning colder, they’re excited and ready for soup. At least in the Midwest. I suppose it is nice. A comfort food of sorts. Plus there are so many varieties and easy to make: dump everything into a pot and wait.

It’s like the original slow-cooker.

From imgflip.com

Pumpkin spice lattes are so last year [2019 (we skipped 2020, remember?)].

Nothing wrong with enjoying soup. There are plenty of sides to choose as well. Whether it’s tortilla chips with chili or breadsticks with chicken noodle, even fried chicken and potato chowder.

Autumn is the time to bring together old favorites and new. As the trees change color, we keep adding color to our meal palette, too. And soon, we’ll have dozens of favorites to try.

It’s just the beginning of soup season. It stretches long into winter. On a cold night there’s nothing better than warm soup. During flu season what do we turn to as a homemade remedy? Soup.

From Pinterest

I don’t know why people say an apple a day keeps the doctor away when it’s clearly soup that does the trick just as well. Hmm…maybe people made a sort of apple mash soup back in the day?

As you enjoy your cinnamon, pumpkin, and everything else fall that gets shoved at us, I hope you take time to warm your belly with a bit of soup too. At least once.

This is a direct quote from Episode VIII (from reddit)

I don’t want to discriminate. I know some soups are meant to be enjoyed cold. But that does beg the question: if ice cream gets melty enough, is it considered soup?

Because I don’t see why not.