Penny's Passion: October 2020

Friday, October 30, 2020

Five on Friday - October 30, 2020

Friday is here! Big weekend ahead. We have Halloween, the time change, and a full moon! We won't see another full moon on Halloween for another 19 years. Before things go totally crazy, here's my five for this week ~

1. Daylight Savings Time Begins

Don't forget to set your clocks back on Saturday night. We'll have an extra hour this weekend! This is also a reminder to take care of a few things in your house. Yesterday I did a post on some of those things and you can read it HERE. Enjoy your extra hour!

2. Friends Advent Calendar

Are you or do you have friends who are gaga over the TV series Friends? Check out this Friends Advent calendar that will be available on November 3 (in just a few days). Here's what Amazon has to say about it ~

Friends: The Official Advent Calendar is the all-new holiday gift that's perfect for the Friends superfan. Packed with 25 days of surprises and over 40 keepsakes, ornaments, and booklets, Friends: The Official Advent Calendar will be the most sought-after Friends gift this holiday season. There’s something for everyone in this set full of fun, nostalgia, and even a Holiday Armadillo surprise.

Get yours before they are gone!

3. Milano Amaretto Hot Cocoa Cookies

Are you getting tired of pumpkin everything? I'm just about ready to move on to a new flavor and I think I've found it! Milano's new Amaretto Hot Cocoa Cookies are hitting the shelves and they sound pretty amazing. They are made with rich dark chocolate with a layer of almond-flavored amaretto cream. I'm picturing myself in front of the fireplace, dipping these gems in a big mug of hot chocolate. Yum!

4. Fortune and Glory

Are you a Stephanie Plum fan? Janet Evanovich's Book 27 in the series hits the stands on Tuesday! Here's the summary from Amazon ~

When Stephanie’s beloved Grandma Mazur's new husband died on their wedding night, the only thing he left her was a beat-up old easy chair…and the keys to a life-changing fortune.

But as Stephanie and Grandma Mazur search for Jimmy Rosolli’s treasure, they discover that they’re not the only ones on the hunt. Two dangerous enemies from the past stand in their way—along with a new adversary who’s even more formidable: Gabriela Rose, a dark-eyed beauty from Little Havana with a taste for designer clothes. She’s also a soldier of fortune, a gourmet cook, an expert in firearms and mixed martial arts—and someone who’s about to give Stephanie a real run for her money.

Stephanie may be in over her head, but she’s got two things that Gabriela doesn’t: an unbreakable bond with her family and a stubborn streak that will never let her quit.

She’ll need both to survive because this search for “fortune and glory” will turn into a desperate race against time with more on the line than ever before. Because even as she searches for the treasure and fights to protect her Grandma Mazur, her own deepest feelings will be tested—as Stephanie could finally be forced to choose between Joe Morelli and Ranger.

5. I like tomato soup...

Enjoy your weekend! Are you doing something fun for Halloween? We have decided to hang at home and just put a bowl of candy out for the kids who are trick or treating. Very low key. Sunday we're celebrating Eric's birthday a couple days early. That will be fun! Stop back in next week to read all about it.

Linking up with:

Erika at Little Bit of Everything

Simply Sweet Home

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Friday Favorites Linky Party - October 30, 2020

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Reminders for the Time Change

Hello there! Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday where I talk about something I'm thinking out loud about and invite you to share what's on your mind too.

Today I'm thinking out loud about the time change this weekend. Very early Sunday morning, we will be setting our clocks back an hour. One additional glorious hour has been added to our weekend! This is a great time to also remember to do a few other things around your house.

One of the most popular items to remember to do when we change the clocks is to check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. A wise person would just change the batteries and not be at the mercy of that annoying chirp that sounds when your batteries are low. (Haven't we all experiences that chirp in the middle of the night!) So take a few minutes and change out those batteries! It could just save your life.

The next thing to remember to do is to reverse your ceiling fans. Did you know they should rotate clockwise in the winter?

Since you have a whole extra hour, now is a great time to knock a few other things off the list. Remember to do things like ~

Flip your mattress
Vacuum your dryer vents
Check for expired medicine in your cabinet
Clean your refrigerator coils
Go through your pantry
Check your sump pump
Clean your gutters
Restock your emergency kit
Wash your pillows

What are some things you try to remember to do when the time changes?

Now it's your turn. What are you thinking out loud about today? Link up and share!

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop - October 28, 2020

Welcome to the Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop! Can you believe this is the last Wednesday in October? I bet there will be an abundance of amazing Halloween links today! Before we start our main event, let's take a look at our features from last week's party!

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To Thine Own Self Be True

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20 Easy Fall DIY Decor Ideas that You’ll Absolutely Love

Charming Antique Table and Chairs for Two

2020 Cash for Christmas Giveaway

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Easy Halloween Bats Candy Treat

Halloween Peanut Butter Ritz Cookies 12 Ways

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Dresser Makeover

This week I completed a project that was years in the making. Since I was a baby, the same small dresser has followed me around wherever I go. It was in my bedroom growing up, my apartment in college, the apartments we lived in when newly married, my first house and now in our current home. Fifty-six years of housing my belongings.

Since living in a house, the dresser has been located in the master closet. I open the drawers every morning to grab out my underwear and socks for the day. The bottom drawer holds treasured letters from friends and old jewelry.

For years I've wanted to paint it, but the project never bubbled to the top of my to-do list. When I started working on our closet a few weeks ago, that changed. And this is how the project turned out ~

One of the things that always deterred me from starting the dresser redo was I thought I'd have to strip the varnish off the wood or, at a minimum, sand the whole thing. I started reading about Heirloom Traditions All-In-One Paint that promised no stripping or sanding. Sounded like I no longer had an excuse! The paint was ordered and the project began!

Before starting any good project, I always fall down the rabbit hole of checking out every similar project on Pinterest. Just painting the dresser was not going to be enough to make me happy! After a lot of searching on Amazon, I ordered a rub-on for the front, new pulls, and liners for the drawers.

The Heirloom Traditions paint was a winner! I washed the dresser down with soap and water, then applied the paint with a foam roller. It went on smooth and easy. Three coats were applied. For this dresser, I ordered a pint and used about two-thirds of the can. Heirlooms Traditions has discount codes everywhere, so do a quick Google search to get their current code. They also have several application YouTube videos. Bottom line: the painting was a breeze.

Next came the rub-on. After letting the paint cure for 48 hours, I cut the rub-on into the sections needed for the drawers and held them in place with painter's tape. The rub-on came with the tool needed for the application. This was so, so easy! I had done rub-ons before on walls, but this was so nice because I wasn't applying it over my head.

The words are from Victor Hugo and mean "Life is a flower in which love is the honey". True that!

Next came the new drawer pulls. I'd had my eye on these crystal ones for quite a while and had been trying to figure out where I could use them.

Next came the outside of the drawers. For this, I used wrapping paper. I cut the wrapping paper a bit larger than the size of the drawer, sprayed adhesive on the paper, and attached it. I used a brayer to rub out all the bubbles. Then used an Exacto knife to cut off the excess paper. This little extra touch is going to make me smile every time I open the drawers.

Drawer liners have long been one of my favorite things. The drawers are now neatly lined with fresh linen scented beauties!

To finish off the drawers, I added dividers. These help keep my items neatly in place and makes it so easy to find what you're looking for. My tights are separated from my pantyhose, my underwear from my camis.

Overall, I love the way it turned out! As a matter of fact, I'm kind of sad it's going back in the closet for no one to see but me. But it will give me a sense of accomplishment every time I look at it!

Monday, October 26, 2020

Weekending - October 23, 2020

Happy Monday! Can you believe this is the last week of October? This fall seems to have disappeared quickly. We tried to enjoy the fall weather and scenery this weekend and I think we succeeded! Let me rewind and start from the beginning ~

Friday night Eric and I cuddled up on the couch to watch On the Rocks, the Bill Murray movie I talked about on my Five on Friday. We were both disappointed. It was slow and we both struggled to stay focused. I will be so happy when the movie industry is back in full swing! I'm dying to see a really good movie!

Before calling it a day, I finished reading the book selection for my Kansas City book club. We read Secret Daughter. I loved it and can't wait for the discussion. Here's the summary from Amazon ~

Secret Daughter, a first novel by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, explores powerfully and poignantly the emotional terrain of motherhood, loss, identity, and love through the experiences of two families—one Indian, one American—and the child that binds them together. A masterful work set partially in the Mumbai slums so vividly portrayed in the hit film Slumdog Millionaire, Secret Daughter recalls the acclaimed novels of Kim Edwards and Thrity Umrigar, yet sparkles with the freshness of a truly exciting new literary voice.

Saturday I accidentally spent the entire day cleaning the laundry room. Have you ever done that? It started with me just wanting to go through the papers I had on top of the dryer and it ended with me going through every nook and cranny of the room. Not that I'm sad the laundry room is now in great shape, but the other things on my to-do list are still undone.

I was super excited when the mailman rang my doorbell and left the last piece of material needed for my dresser project. I had ordered wrapping paper to go down the side of the drawers. It looked as good as I had dreamed it would. Later this week I'll be sharing the completed project. I can't wait to show it to you!

We celebrated a friend's job promotion on Saturday night by taking her to dinner. Blogger fail - I didn't take a single picture. But it was glorious to celebrate her success and I'm so proud of her!

Sunday morning we slept in a bit and then headed to the polling place to vote. I wanted to vote early just to relieve the stress of trying to plan the timing on November 3. Hope you've made a plan to cast your ballot this year!

Eric had read an article in his Missouri Life magazine about a conservation area about 2 hours from our house. Sunday we loaded up and trekked to Millstream Gardens Conservation Area. We missed the peak color of the fall leaves, but the area was still beautiful and the hike was a splendid way to spend the cool day.

Sunday night we continued watching The Looming Tower. It's good. Have you seen it? Here's the summary from Hulu ~

Based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning book, The Looming Tower traces the rising threat of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and how the rivalry between the FBI and CIA during that time may have inadvertently set the path for the tragedy of 9/11. The series follows members of the I-49 Squad in New York and Alec Station in Washington, D.C., the counter-terrorism divisions of the FBI and CIA, respectively, as they travel the world fighting for ownership of information while seemingly working toward the same goal - trying to prevent an imminent attack on U.S. soil.

Hope you have a wonderful week! I'll be sharing the completed dresser later this week and a few other surprises. Pop back in and see for yourself!

Friday, October 23, 2020

Five on Friday - October 23, 2020

Happy Friday! I woke up yesterday and had in my mind it was Friday, not Thursday. So today is my second Friday of the week. 😏 Since today is the real Friday of the week, here's my five ~

1. Greenlights

Guess who wrote a book - Matthew McConaughey! It was released on Tuesday and I'm adding it to my reading list. I mean, even if I never read it having that beautiful face on the cover to look at would be fine by me! Here's the summary from Amazon ~

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable—you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.

2. Lego Advent Sets

Grab 'em while you can! Lego advent sets go fast so don't let these goodies slip away before you buy the ones you need for the holiday this year. I so wish I knew about these when Ian was little. Of course, that's been quite a few years ago so they might not have even existed. But they definitely exist now, so take advantage of that!

3. National Make A Difference Day

Tomorrow is a day we should all try to honor. It's National Make a Difference Day! You don't have to win a Nobel Peace Prize to make a difference. There are so many little things you can do to participate in this day. Think about donating to a charity, saying a kind word to someone who is struggling, doing something nice for your neighbor. Give it some thought today and put it in action tomorrow! Let's all do something to make a difference!

4. On the Rocks Movie

Eric and I are having a date sometime over the weekend and are watching Bill Murray's new release On the Rocks! It was released in theaters earlier this month and will be available on Apple TV+ starting today. The movie is about a New York Woman (played by Rashida Jones) and her impulsive, larger-than-life father (Bill Murray) trying to find out if her husband is having an affair. Can't wait to watch it!

5. Safe place....

The weather was a record-breaking 86 degrees on Thursday. Today the predicted high is 66, then only 51 on Saturday. Crazy! If it doesn't rain on Sunday, Eric and I are going to seek out some fall foliage. I would love to get a picture or two with beautifully colored leaves as the backdrop. I'll be back on Monday with an update on if we found said backdrop. Whatever is on your agenda, hope it happens!

Linking up with:

Erika at Little Bit of Everything

Simply Sweet Home