November Update on My Fall Bucket List

This is my November update on how I'm coming along with getting the rest of the items checked off my fall to-do list.  I'm in the process of making pumpkin pies along with some honey fudge this weekend.  Here is how some others are doing.

1.  Go to County Fair  ✅  Attendance seemed to be down this year, perhaps because of the you know what - Covid.  Kevin pitched in the horse shoe tournament.  I go for the cinnamon buns.  Kevin got 2nd place in his division.

2.  Send Grands a little money for back-to-school supplies ✅  The Grands started back to school having 2 days of in person attendance & 3 days of distance learning at home.  The oldest Grand decided to do distance learning full time.  His 2 days of in person attendance was online learning with a lunch provided & not a teacher in front of the class teaching.  He came up with a plan of what he would do at home.  Daughter said it's working good so far & the Grand tells me he is getting all his school work completed.  The oldest Grand went back to school for the 2 days, life at home 24/7 was getting boring.

3.  Put out fall decorations ✅  I'm not much of a seasonal decorator but I do have a few items I put out to set the mood.  My decorations are inside.  I'm going to add - drive around town & look at outdoor fall decorations & leaves.

4.  Make a snack mix using candy corn ✅  I like candy corn, how about you?  I made this pumpkin spice snack mix.  I sent some to work with Kevin & me to have for lunch.  The rest I sent to the Grands in a care package.

5.  Get candy for trick-or-treaters ✅  I plan ahead for special treats due to our little grocery store being limited on seasonal selections.  I also have to plan to get enough candy, so when Kevin & I eat some most of it, there will be some left to give to the trick-or-treaters.

Sunday afternoon picnic

                                                                                     

6.  Stock up on canned goods & personal items ✅  I like to stock up about every 6 months - fall & spring.  I'm not much of a shopper.  When there was the Covid toilet paper shortage, it was here too in our small town & everywhere else that I have family & friends, we had what we needed already on hand.  Heard there was another toilet paper shortage, we still have plenty to last till spring when it will be time to do spring stock-up.

7.  Start Christmas shopping ✅  Christmas is the busiest time of the year at work for me.  The more Christmas stuff I can do ahead of time, means less stress.  I plan to mail my presents the week after Thanksgiving.  Season passes to an amusement park for the Grands & sent money for bicycles.  Daughter let me know Walmart was stocked back up.  Got all the Christmas shopping done & have 2 more boxes to mail to Daughter.

8.  Watch the Adams Family ✅ Snacked on spiced apple cider & homemade pumpkin cookies while watching.  That checked 3 items off my list.  I'm going to add - watch 31 nights of fall/Halloween movies.  For November we are watching Westerns.  My idea of Western is different than Netflix search. 

9.  Get out coats, hats, gloves & long johns ✅  We had our 1st freezing temperatures the 1st week of Sept.  That got me in the mood for getting out the cold weather gear.  Also, we were planning for freezing weather & maybe even snow during our camping trip.

10.  Go camping in the Big Horns of Wyoming ✅  Kevin & I took 5 days off from work.  We did some 4-wheeler riding & walking, saw lots of wildlife, spent 2 days fishing.  The nights & mornings were cold.  During the day was perfect vacation weather. 

Ready for trick-or-treaters

11.  Make tator soup ✅  Kevin harvested the rest of the garden that included the tators, after the 1st frost.  I'm not much of a soup maker.  Never been able to really get the right blend of savory spices.  I have a loaded baked tator soup recipe we like.  We ate soup for several days & I put the rest in the freezer for later.

12.  Go to a football game ✅  I like to go to a game before it gets too stinkin cold.  The telephone/electric companies had their customer appreciation tailgate party & we went to that game for the hotdogs snack bags due to Covid.

 13.  Drink spiced apple cider ✅  Kevin & I like the kind that comes in packets.  It's quick & tasty.  I saw on someone's else's list to have doughnuts with cider, so we gave that a try.  I'm adding that to my list.

14.  Have a hotdog roast ✅ I like to have a hotdog roast every chance I can get.  It's on my bucket list for every season.  Our favorite dinner party is roast hosting.

15.  Make a pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins & pumpkin cookies ✅  I made pumpkin cookies from scratch starting with peeling the pumpkin that came out of our garden.  I plan to do more pumpkin baking so not marking this completed yet.  I made pumpkin muffins using Joanne's 2 ingredient recipe.  I'm in the process of making the pies this weekend, so I'm checking off baking with pumpkin as done.

Sunset on Halloween night

16.  Take a leaf drive & have KFC for a picnic ✅  We stopped by KFC to get our chicken & they were closed.  New temporary hours being closed on Sunday...  Ohhhh what a bummer.  We substituted chicken from the deli of a grocery store for our picnic.  Lots & lots & lots of other folks had the same idea as we did.  There was not a picnic table available in our picnicking spot. We ate our lunch on the creek bank before going fishing.

17.   Make caramel popcorn ✅ I was planning to make real caramel corn & then I saw I had some popcorn caramel topping, so I used that. 

18.  Carve a jack-o-lantern ✅ On Halloween Kevin & I worked together to carve the jack-o-lantern. He did the cutting part, I did the scooping out the insides part. I was expecting 6 to 8 trick-or-treaters, prepared for 12.  24 creatures & cuties came knocking at the door.

19.  Make pumpkin chili ✅ Made chili on Halloween.  We ate on it for several days then put the rest in the freezer.

20.  Get vehicles ready for winter ✅ I put a blanket in my car along with a small snow shovel, extra gloves & hand warmers.  I washed the car it's final time before winter.  Kevin checks the fluids, changes the oil & stuff like that.

Drive around town

* I got all my items checked off.  Now on to the winter bucket list.

This has been my November fall bucket list update, how about you?