$10 Date Night: Halloween

Since we are not yet independently wealthy, we tend to just not go out. But being the bargainista that I am, I thought we could still have a lot of fun for little money and knew that I could come up with $10 every two weeks or so. There begins $10 Date Nights. If we get creative enough, we'll see if it warrants its own blog. We'd love ideas!

This week, our first, I said I would plan (I'm guessing we'll take turns). Since it's Halloween weekend, I thought a themed date was in order.

Here was the plan:

• Carve a pumpkin
• Roast said pumpkin's seeds (see recipe below)
  
• Eat cookies
• Watch a scary movie

Here's what it cost:

• Cookies, $2.96
• Pumpkin, $4.18
• TOTAL... $7.14 (what can I say, I like a bargain!)

It's no Marta Crass creation, but works for our front steps!

Roasting the pumpkin seeds was pretty easy too. Here are the instructions:

• Wash the seeds thoroughly. Lay on a paper towel to dry most of the way.
• Lay them on a cookie sheet (we greased the sheet, but I'm not sure you need to do it)
• Brush on melted butter and Worchestershire sauce, then sprinkle on some garlic salt
• Bake at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes, stirring them every 5-10 minutes. It took us about 30-35 minutes to get ours completely toasted and crunchy. So just keep an eye on them.

Jeff picked the movie. We watched "The Strangers". Nothing gross and bloody (okay, there was a little blood), just suspenseful. It was on TV the other day and Jeff recorded it so we didn't have to rent a movie!

Visit to Birmingham

A couple weekends ago (two? I've lost track), we went to Birmingham to visit with all the Taylors again. We hadn't seen any of them since early summer I think. We typically do a September or October visit, which consists of watching football and playing with Abby. She's getting so old! Normally it takes a couple minutes for her to warm up to us, but this time not so much. As soon as we got there (at 9:30pm!) she ran around a corner and yelled, "Jeff, come scare me!"... which means "come chase me around the house while I squeal at the top of my lungs for thirty minutes". They picked up right where they left off!


And in a little less than two months, we'll have a nephew to play with, too! Max is due the week before Christmas! This year we'll be in Maryland for Christmas, but hopefully we'll go down shortly after to meet him.

Conan!

While there are other things in life I look forward to, I'm REALLY looking forward to November 8th. Can't wait to see what TBS does with the show!