October is....

October is....

My favorite month of the year. Or at least it used to be when I lived in Michigan and we had a little thing I like to call "seasons", which are practically non existent here in Texas. Actually, there are 2 seasons here in Texas. We call them "So Hot I Might F--king Melt" and "Oooooh no, it might actually ice and we better close down the whole town for 3 days". There's no happy medium. I miss the medium. I need the medium. The temps have been gradually cooling down here, and I think we might finally be over the 90 degree days. This week the highs are supposed to be in the 70s, which is not at all resembling the falls I knew up north, but I will take it. I can open my windows and put on my button tab hat and pretend like it's cold outside.

ACL. The Austin City Limits music festival was 2 weeks ago, and once again my cousin and her husband, The Doctah and I went. And once again, we had a great time. Despite the crappy

weather. Friday's weather was amazing - high around 80, sunny, beautiful, perfect. Saturday it

rained all day (which was fine with me, since I didn't go on Saturday) and by Sunday, the entire

park was a mudpit. A stinky, smelly, messy, disgusting mudpit. And let me tell you what, kids,

there were some crazy fools walking around that park in their bare feet. Not Caps, no sir. I didn't want to get any of those crazy worm-like diseases The Doctah was warning me about.

Thank goodness for my $6 Target rain boots. Best $6 I've spent in a long time. One of my

favorite parts of ACL is getting to check out new and little known bands. This is both good and

bad of course, as we saw one guy who was HORRIBLE, but I feel bad slandering his name on my blog. But really, really awful. On the flip side, though, I found a new band that I am totally having a love affair with. The Avett Brothers.

Little known fact about me: I am a sucker for a banjo. I love it. Throw in a couple of grungy looking brothers, an upright bass that the guy actually picks up while he plays, and some really

catchy tunes that are a funky mixture of bluegrass, folk, rock and punk, and you have The Avett Brothers. It's a musical snack. (anyone name that movie?) I immediately came home and downloaded 2 of their albums and haven't stopped listening them since.

Football Saturdays. I have a long standing Saturday morning date with Lee Corso and a cup

of coffee.

The Cowboy likes to sleep until noon on Saturdays (except when he goes fishing, like he did

today), so I get up early, brew a big pot of coffee and lay on the couch and watch College Game Day. Lee Corso is a crazy old coot, but my October Saturdays aren't complete without him, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and Chris Fowler. I'm not one for the NFL, but I love college football, and I look forward to Game Day every week.

Halloween! It would stand to reason that since October is my favorite month, Halloween

in my favorite holiday. Well it's not. Thanksmas is. That's a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas. More on that later. But I do like Halloween, I think it's a lot of fun. It's the only other holiday that I actively decorate the house for.

Our friends always have a Halloween party (see this post, and this post from last year), and we

all have a lot of fun dressing up and getting together. The jello shots help, too.

Yummy. There are certain foods that I only make in the fall/winter months. One of those foods are the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

If you haven't seen this recipe yet, please click the link and make them now. NOW. If you have seen the recipe and haven't made them, shame on you. And if you have seen the recipe, made

the muffins and sang my praises, then you are welcome. They are, as Neil Diamond would say, so good. So good! So good! Neil Diamond knows what he's talking about, people. Don't ignore Neil.

The other food that I wait 'till October to make is Gobbles. Gobbles is my family's name for homemade chicken noodle soup. It's my grandmother's recipe. If you are wondering, as many do, why we call it Gobbles, so far as I can tell it's because she sometimes makes it with leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. I never make it with turkey, but I suppose it would taste just as delicious. This is the recipe I've been promising you all week, and I'm going to be cooking up a big pot of soup tomorrow, so the blog will follow immediately. Here's a sneak preview:

Oh mommydaddy. Neil approves of this one too.

I hope everyone out there is having a great October!

(ps - the last thing that October means to me is that I start listening to Christmas music when I'm alone in my car. Yes that's right. I'm not proud, but I do it. Hey, they put the decorations out in September, why can't I listen to the music? Don't judge me.)