The air is changin, especially at night. It is gettng darker earlier. Winter is comming Not that I mind, but yes, I kind of do mind. (that was an awkward sentence, oops, sorry, but you get the idea) I am not ready to allow the fall to go away. Many if not all of the leaves have fallen off of our trees. We have already done one lawn cleanup, but the back yard is full of leaves. This weekend will prove productive in that category. I have to upload photos off of my camera, I took a few over the past week. I have to decide what I will be making and bringing to Thanksgiving Dinner at my in laws. If it is something that I have never attempted, well then I have to practice it, to ensure that I can attempt it and execute it. I love to have the concept of a dessert or a dish in my head, a mental picture as you would say, but there are times when my mental picture and the actual product never match. Last year, I was going to bring a dessert bread that I saw in a book or magazine. It was simply made from those pislbury "grands" biscuits, cinnamon and sugar. You cut out leaf patterns from the biscuits and layer them in a wreath pattern. Sound easy? Yeah, no, not for me. The leaf patterns didn't cut properly, they were sticky and hard to get out of the cookie cutters, even with flour on the cutters. When I did the egg wash and sugar mixture, it was gross. The finished product looked like a twisted up mess. SO, I am glad that I didn't bring it to my mother in law. I am glad that I attempted to make it before the big day. I am happy that it was a disaster before the fact. Some things just don't work, that is fine. I love the "test run" that I do. THere are things that I don't test, for instance the apple walnut cake that I make for Christmas, that is something I grew up watching, while my Mom made it. In fact, I was enlisted to chop the nuts by hand, with a chopper and a wooden chopping bowl. Now my daughter has taken that role, and I have made the cake for the past 4 or 5 years. It is a once a year cake, a special one, not fancy, but special. Most of the time, thoug, I pray for perfection on that cake. I wouldn't want to have to do it twice, with all of the dicing and chopping, it is work. Anyhow, don't know how this post got here, I guess it just naturally progressed. Cool. I do kind of have a twist on a decoration that I saw in a book. Cupcakes with leaves on them arrainged in a wreath. The leaves are made out of colored melting chocolate, paintbrushed on actual leaves, then carefully peeled off. I just want to know how the heck am I to clean the leaves? The fall on the ground for goodness sake! I thought of making super thin sugar cookies and then paining on either icing or chocolate to make the colors, that way there is no cray mess. Like I said, it is conceptually a nice idea, but will it be worth the actual time and work to do it? I have to muse over it more, ruminate on the idea, and maybe try to bake the cookies, and ice them to see if it is worth the frustration that may ensue. I will keep you all posted.