Marvelous Monday.

Happy Monday y'all. A few things on which to cogitate for you here.

1. I know what that thing is from Thursday's post! My friend Kathy told me that it's a praying mantis...ugh!!!!
2. Halloween is coming up! Some might be offended at the early onslaught of holiday-ness {the witching day through love day} but I kind of like it. I do love my job but sometimes the school year goes by slowly, generally when it's between 6 and 6:15 AM and I'm trying to wake up...we joke in our family that the academic year is just about over when Halloween hits and it does feel true. I think it has to do with looking forward to something. It feels exciting to anticipate a fun occasion and I find the holidays fun...even the ones just our family celebrates like crab fest weekend. Anyway, the message from this convoluted point is that I like holidays even/especially if it's an excuse to dress up and eat themed {or not} food.
3. I had a good running weekend. Today may or may not be my day off, I haven't decided yet, but the two runs I got in got me feeling good and jazzed about my plan. I should probably get some new shoes, just like Bec's {way to reciprocate blog love today!!!}, to make me even more pumped.
4. I made a YUM-O dinner last night. Pardon me, please, since I took a picture.The lighting was poor and I try not to take pictures of my food since I'm not a professional food photog and my efforts just don't communicate the deliciousness of whatever if is that I was enjoying, they just make it look weird. But this blog is here so that I can remember things dagnabbit. And remember this dinner I will.

I love to cook. I really love it. I also love to eat. I double-really love it. But cooking kind of fell by the wayside with wedding planning so it's an effort of mine to do it almost every day for the rest of the month. There is something I don't usually like, though; contrived stuff. That sounds weird. What I'm trying to say is that I like to make things myself. It most certainly doesn't always happen that way. More often than not it doesn't. I do derive great satisfaction by cooking from recipes; making my own taco seasoning, for example, instead of buying the packet, since I have all the spices anyway. So when I saw these interesting little contraptions, I was skeptical, but I got over it and decided that they might just help us when 1) the going is not strong {we're tired after work} and 2) the creativity is lacking and we're making tuna melts for the 5th time this week. What I'm talking about is packets of spices, just the right amount of each, and a recipe card. I put in all the "regular" ingredients {the meat and cheese or whatever} and don't have to measure out the spices. Lazy? Yes! Fun and convenient? Yes! Last night we did the quesadilla casserole. Not fine dining but DELISH! We substituted pita chips for tortillas and did kind of a beefy/cheesy/tomato-y/pita chip bake and I loved it. Thanks McCormick! They don't know about me, bee-tee-dubs; they have NO clue, I just like these little spice packet/recipe card things they've got going on.
5. This is related to #2: along with holly-daze, I also like Autumn. Now, living where we do, and I'm not complaining here, we don't really have super definite lines between our seasons; one just kind of melts {get it?! It doesn't really work here though since we get no snow...} into another and the variation in temperature year round {hottest to coldest, around average} is maybe 30 degrees {Fahrenheit, y'all, we in the U S of A here...just kidding; but really, it is Fahrenheit...}. I have had the lovely and valuable experience of living somewhere where there are seasons {Minnesota} for four years, albeit that the emphasis was on cold there; though don't let me forget beautiful, because it is. So even though our seasons aren't super defined and varied, I still am appreciative of Fall and the contrived nostalgia of warm/cool days and leaves floating around. I say "contrived" since I didn't do especdially idyllic things at this time of year growing up {it was a great though, don't get me wrong!}, I think I just really like the color scheme most often associated with it {golds and reds and deep greens} and all that jazz. I'm weird like that. Apple picking and pumpkin patches don't detract from it at all either. To sum it up, I'm actually happy that the season is changing; summer is my number one love, that's for sure, but Fall is beautiful and a lot of fun it it's own right.

What is great about your Monday? Is there a season or the onset of a season which delights you? Do you have any interesting motivational tools when it comes to home cooking? ¡Hasta luego!
xoxo, natty ♥