Candy Corn

One of my all time favorite sweets. I especially love the pumpkins :-) Mmmmmm, yummmy.

Did you know that today is National Candy Corn Day? Woohoo! I think I'll celebrate!

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Candy corn is a confection popular in the United States and Canada, particularly around Halloween. Created in the 1880s by George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company, the three colors of the candy are meant to mimic corn. Each piece is approximately the size of a whole kernel of corn, as if it fell off a ripe or dried ear of corn. The candy is usually tri-colored with a yellow base, orange center, and white tip, although the color combinations may vary. The yellow, broader part is the top, while the white point is the bottom. The most common alternative color scheme, called "Indian corn", is white, orange, and brown, and is sometimes associated with the Thanksgiving holiday.

Sale
The National Confectioners Association estimate 20 million pounds of candy corn are sold each year. October 30 is National Candy Corn Day. Although regular candy corn is most popular at Halloween, it is available year-round.
According to Brach's Confections, Inc., the top branded retailer of candy corn, each year Americans eat enough Brach's candy corn that if the kernels were laid end to end, they would circle the Earth four times.

Production
Candy corn is made primarily from sugar, corn syrup and honey. Originally, candy corn was made by hand. Manufacturers first combined sugar, corn syrup, and water and cooked them into a slurry. Fondant was added for texture and marshmallows provided a soft bite. The final mixture was then heated and poured into shaped molds. Three passes were required during the pouring process, one for each colored section. Few changes were made to the process or recipe, and machines were quickly invented to perform the tasks formerly done by people.

Halloween

Some Halloween things are just funny as hell. I love this one...Zombie Candy Corn. hehehehahaha

And then there's the creative crowd...I think this first one is amazing, but this person should be sculpting with permanent materials, not pumpkins.

Remember when jack o lanterns looked like this?

Tic toc, tic toc,

Time goes by doesn't it?

Do you ever stop and think about your life, a year ago? And how much it's changed? When you're young, it seems like your life changes from day to day. But even as you get older things change all the time.

A year ago I became an ex-smoker. A year ago my brother was single, now he's blissfully attached to Denae. A year ago, Mom became a new dog owner. A year ago, I was trying to be happy for my man at his attempt to forgive his brother ~ now we say, what brother? A year ago, I was angry all the time, now, not so much ;-) A year ago, I just didn't get the whole MP3/iPod thing. Now, I love my MP3!! As a matter of fact, today I'm listening to Elton John, Billy Joel and Rod Stewart. My perception of things is different as well. I'm more cynical these days than I was a year ago. I trust people, in general, less than I used to.

But don't get me wrong...I'm also happier than I was a year ago. That comes with getting older too.

So much is different I don't even try to imagine what things will be like in another year!

On a lighter note, in case I didn't send this cartoon to you, here's one that was tailor made for ME!!
Boo bees...get it? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Influenza!

Whew. I'm SO glad to be feeling better. Wow did that suck! I actually took TWO sick days!! That's surprising for me. But, I've been sucking it up for 30 years and I just didn't feel like it this time. Maybe I'm just turning into a sissy as I get older? Oh, I know, how about "I'm getting wiser"!? That's more like it :-) Yeah, I like that.

Thanks to my Uncle for the following chuckles; (I needed these this morning)

fly off the handle...get it? hahahahahahahahaha

Ewwwwwwwwwww. I'll never be quite as happy eating candy corn again.

Don't forget!

Wasted days...

Phooey. Didn't get to go to the hockey game because I was sick all day. I don't think it was the flu though, but man do all the muscles in my stomach and sides hurt! Ick.

Yesterday was a better day. Whew. Late in the afternoon we bagged up another 12 bags of leaves...I'm keeping count this year, just out of curiosity (17 so far). Bill said he thinks I was exaggerating when I said 100+ bags last year. I do exaggerate sometimes but I'm fairly certain I'll be right this time :-) And of course he was grumbling about all the leaves! Me? Nope. I was saying things like, "I LOVE Autumn!" and, " I love the smell of the leaves and I love this chore! It's a classic Midwestern thing to do." and "I love the crisp air and I especially love it when it's windy and it looks like it raining leaves!" and, "I also love driving down a tree lined street when everything is dry and you can see all the leaves swirling behind you in your rear view mirror." He said I need therapy. Secretly though, I think it made him smile.

I didn't watch my movies either. I just slept a lot. Oh well.

Oh, I heard a funny thing this morning. Someone asked an older person how they were and they said "I'm still on the right side of the grass." It wasn't until I got to my desk that I realized what they meant, then I laughed out loud. I swear, sometimes I'm so slow!

Coming up...

HOCKEY! Nah, I'm not really that excited :-)

But we got tickets to the opening game tomorrow night for 5 bucks. That's a lot of entertainment for $5. Better than the movies. Aaaaand, we won the championship cup last year...bet you didn't know that did ya. Anyway, it'll bee fun.

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I also have tickets to the musical, Chicago! I'm taking Chuck's daughter...she needs some fun :-) But that's not until November. It's always nice to have something on the calendar though.

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Slumdog Millionaire is on HBO this weekend. I'll finally get to see it. And I have Marley and Me waiting on the DVR. I'm fairly certain I'll be able to watch them both, sans Bill, because he will be busy doing his obsessive thing and listening to music on Rhapsody. Really, in 2 days he's listened to pieces of over 800 tunes!!! Whoa.

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Now if I could just get him to be obsessive about finishing the bathroom!!!!!!!! *sigh*

Garth Brooks says he's coming out of retirement

YIPPEE!!!!!!!

Blech

It's a gloomy, rainy, cold morning. I'm sleepy and for the life of me I don't know how I got to work! I hate it when that happens...you know, when you're just on auto pilot in the car and all of a sudden you look around and realize you have NO idea how you got where you are? I was only a couple blocks from work when I really looked ahead of me and discovered I was only a couple blocks from work! I have no idea what was playing on the radio, I have no idea what I was thinking about or what traffic was like. Ugh. I guess I wasn't sleeping but still. Sheesh.

Something new to like...

It's called Steampunk art. You'll recognize it when you see it. I didn't know it had an actual name though. I like it a lot...

http://photobucket.com/images/steampunk%20art/

Happy Tuesday!

What a nice long weekend...that was too short! Funny how it always seems like that. Plus, a short work week always seems much too long. Now you have to get 5 days worth of work done in 4. Phooey.

Most of the weekend we just hung out. It was nice, especially for the man. After the whirlwind wedding weekend and 2 weeks of on-call, he really needed the down time. Yesterday I went Mom's and helped her with her new DVR. If you don't have one of those, or TiVo, you should. It's the greatest thing ever! She's going to LOVE it. Then we went winter coat shopping. She's had hers for over 10 years. Even though she says it's still perfectly fine, it's time for a new coat!

We also joined Rhapsody this weekend. So today I'm listening to the craziest mix of new music on my MP3. Michael Buble', Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Kenny Chesney, Kool Kats and Led Zeplin. It's pretty fun. But I don't get the whole Michael Buble' thing. He's okay, but why listen to someone new do the classics if you can listen to the originals? I had to give him a try though. If I really want to listen to those songs again, I'll choose Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and Dean Martin. I can hardly wait until it's time for Christmas music!!!

The fox!

Well, the fox is still hanging around...I got its picture today. Really, it's so ho hum about everything, it was just odd. See it right there in the middle? Across the street?

That was as close as I got. Even though it acted like it could care less that I was there, it's still a wild animal and I'm not nearly as brave as I used to be.

Awwwww

The rain train

The rain train has moved in. That's what the weather dude called it this morning. Two days of rain complete with flood watches and warnings. Secretly you know they are hoping for disaster. You can practically hear the excitement in their voices. Oh goodie!, there's a chance of flooding!

The leaves are finally starting to change colors. I especially like the trees that start out by changing just on the tips of the branches. It makes the tree look like it has a bee-utiful halo of color on it. I also love the smell of fallen leaves. Got that little chill this morning too! Yup, Autumn is my favorite :-)

Hmmmm

Norway is best place to live, China moves up:
AFP/File Norway has taken the number …
Mon Oct 5, 7:53 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – Norway takes the number one spot in the annual United Nations human development index released Monday but China has made the biggest strides in improving the well-being of its citizens.

The index compiled by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) ranks 182 countries based on such criteria as life expectancy, literacy, school enrolment and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

China moved up seven places on the list to rank as the 92nd most developed country due to improvements in education as well as income levels and life expectancy.
Colombia and Peru rose five spaces to rank 77th and 78th while France -- which was not part of the top 10 last year -- returns to the upper echelons by moving up three places to number 8.

A child born in Niger can expect to live to just over 50, which is 30 years less than a child born in Norway. For every dollar a person earns in Niger, 85 dollars are earned in Norway.

This year's index was based on data from 2007 and does not take into account the impact of the global economic crisis.

"Many countries have experienced setbacks over recent decades, in the face of economic downturns, conflict-related crises and the HIV and AIDS epidemic," said the UN development report's author Jeni Klugman.

"And this was even before the impact of the current global financial crisis was felt."

Afghanistan, which returns to the list for the first time since 1996, is the only Asian country among the bottom ten which also include Sierra Leone in the 180th spot, just below the Central African Republic.

The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan.

The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from last year.

10 things

1. This mornings t-shirt on Woot is called, "exercising demons". THAT was funny!!!

2. Summer really is over. The highs this week are in the 60's and the lows are in the 40's. I LOVE AUTUMN! I even wore socks to bed last night.

3. Hugh Jackman is so, so, um, HOT. Really, he can do it all. He can sing, he can play a sweet sensitive guy and he rocks as Wolverine. mmmmmmm

4. My brother got married :-) It was fantastic. Now that our new pc is up and running, I'll put up some pictures this week. It was delightful, did I say that already? I love my new sister-in-law and she loves my brother. HOORAY!!!!

5. The weirdest things happen to me. I won't tell you what weird thing happened to me this morning but I will tell you what Chuck's daughter says, "Facebook is the devil". She may be right. Yikes!

6. Just in case you were wondering about the woodchuck...not hide nor hair of it anywhere. But now I'll never know if it was the real fox or just the bottled fox pee. I guess it doesn't matter.

7. Pepper knows a word. She can say "hi!" Really. Ask Bill, he heard her. We just looked at her trying to comprehend the notion that she had actually just said "hi!" Crazy I know.

8. My toe still hurts. It's only been a couple weeks and all the color is gone but it's still swollen and it still hurts. Grrrrrr

9. Don't forget...THINK PINK!

10. Go Colts!!

Think pink!