Mid-October emotions

This week had a portion of sadness.

The saddest part was that my sister's best friend from high school died from an unexpected illness. She was thirty-seven. It's sad enough that I feel a little bad talking about it on this blog where I discuss frivolous items. It wasn't like I personally knew her super well. She was my sister's friend, not mine, and nine years older than I am. And yet I find myself sad about it. I thought about her a few weeks ago as I was putting up our Halloween lights on our garage, as I remember her commenting six years ago about them, saying she couldn't tell they were ghosts from the street. She used to come over many afternoons in 2010, a time when I was living at home searching for a job. I can remember her back to when I was six years old--I remember her telling me she had a journal identical to mine; telling me she believed in Santa Claus when I didn't; calling my sister (and my sister calling her) "enema" based on a shirt my brother had; and bringing my sister a toy car on her sixteenth birthday. She used to honk every time she drove past our house. No more honking or commenting on my Thanksgiving decorations. It is sad.

Any change is sad in its own way. In the past year and a half, I've been serving in a stake family history calling. In the last few weeks I've had to help out at family history-themed FHEs, and I attended my last such event this week, as I'm being released from that calling. However, I'm not a very good person, because I'm kind of relieved about it. Three others are also being released, and I think they feel the same way (at least one of them pushed to be released even though he didn't have another immediate calling). But that's all I'm going to say about that.

Instead, I was called as executive secretary in my ward, which basically means I set up the bishop's appointment calendar. While it will be time consuming, I was also just released as assistant ward clerk, and my two callings together--clerk and family history--seemed to equate to about the same time commitment I will have in this one. In fact, I might have more time, because I can spend time doing things while I'm sitting at appointments. Which is exactly what I'm doing now, so I'll have less time spent blogging later today.

Despite moments of sadness, there were good highlights. Do you like my new Halloween tree? To me, there's nothing that screams Halloween like orange and black. Some people throw purple and green in there too, but that makes it look almost Eastery. Orange and black is the pure way to go.

And I like real autumn trees even more than I like decorative autumn trees. I spent three nights on the Woodbriar Trail, a short trail with portions that are exceedingly steep. You climb 700 feet in less than a mile. I'm getting better at the steep parts.

 And then, of course, there's my perpetual favorite, North Canyon:

 I was amused by this sign, because every type of recreation has been crossed out, apparently by people who don't like the other kinds. I'm not a fan of dirt bikes (which appear to be least popular), but horses are the worst. (I guess I'm in the hiker category, even though I don't use sticks and backpacks like the picture suggests, and I pass all the hikers.)

I've often passed a little road but never gone up it, so I tried it yesterday. It wasn't really a road, but it led to a broken building with graffiti. Also beer cans and cigarette butts. Why do the beer drinkers and smokers litter so much? (They're not the only ones; I had to pick up a water bottle on another trail yesterday. One of the many reasons I don't believe in bottled water.)

I did also explore another road in North Canyon where I'd never been before. There were lots of steep side roads. It wasn't as pretty, but it was still fun to be someplace new. This put my run yesterday at 8.5 miles (an extra 1.5 miles). I'll have to explore more here when I haven't already done so much.

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It was a busy week in pumpkinundation roundup. I ate out every day. There were also a few homemade items. 

At the FHE I attended, I had a grocery store pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. I was kind of in a hurry, so I didn't see what store it was from. These cookies all tend to be the same; it's hard to do it wrong. 4/5.

I had a TacoTime pumpkin empanada. I've had these several times, and I liked it most this time, perhaps because it had cooled down enough for me to actually taste it. It's a pumpkin filling inside a cinnamon-coated tortilla. 4/5.

Subway hasn't usually been on the seasonal game (except for the gingerbread cookies they've had occasionally in years past), so I was delighted to try a Subway pumpkin spice cookie. I like all Subway cookies, so I appreciated having a seasonal one. 4/5.

The Jamba Juice Pumpkin Delight is a new alternative to their regular Pumpkin Smash smoothie (which I haven't had since 2013). It's made with pumpkin, almond milk, and bananas. It was good, but a little fruitier than I'm used to in a pumpkin item. 3/5.

I am still confused that Candy Corn M&Ms exist when regular white chocolate M&Ms only come out occasionally. These are OK. 3/5.

I don't do Pinterest, but my mom found this pumpkin pull-apart loaf. It's made with canned biscuits and sweetened, spiced pumpkin. They were pretty good, although it was a little hard to get it sufficiently cooked. 4/5.

I got a Roxberry Pumpkin Bash smoothie. It actually tasted like pumpkin pie, but in a smoothie. 5/5.

I always like to get a Dairy Queen Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, which is pumpkin ice cream with graham crust pieces. And I'm glad they have a mini size--I tend to get numb to the flavor if I have too much of a milkshake. 5/5.

I saw these Pumpkin Spice Fat Boy Ice Cream Sandwiches last year but didn't try them. Apparently that's a good thing, because the sticker brags that it's a new flavor. And I have to wonder what it was like before. This time, it was OK. The ice cream is sub-par. It's not terrible, but it's the most inferior pumpkin ice cream I've had. The graham wafers I think are a better choice than chocolate would be. 4/5.

I wasn't going to buy these Lindor Pumpkin Spice Milk Chocolate Truffles, but I was stuck in a very slow checkout line at Walmart and they were staring at me. These actually have real pumpkin in them, but you can't taste it. These don't taste like pumpkin spice to me; they just taste like chocolate. But it's still very good chocolate. 4/5.

About this Cheesecake Factory pumpkin cheesecake: I'll just say that I intended to eat half of it and finish it later, but no, I ate it all in one sitting. I'm not a huge cheesecake fan, but this was wonderful. And at those prices, it better be. 5/5.

I like these Sunbelt Bakery pumpkin spice chewy granola bars. They're not very pumpkiny, but they're good as granola bars. 4/5.

I don't know why I keep getting Greek yogurt when I'm not big on it. But Oikos pumpkin pie Greek yogurt is better than Chobani. 3/5.

My earliest memory of these Kashi pumpkin spice flax crunchy granola bars is on a Death Valley field trip in early November in 2012, although I might have had them earlier. I keep getting them, even though they're not fantastic. They're pleasant enough, though, especially when eaten with milk. 3.5/5.

I think this F'real pumpkin cheesecake milkshake is intended as a convenience store thing, although in this case it was the Winegar's grocery store service deli. You buy the cup and put it in a special machine. I was skeptical. I mean, a prepackaged milkshake? Also, the Arby's pumpkin cheesecake shake was literally the worst pumpkin item I had last year. But I was pleasantly surprised here. It had a nice pumpkin flavor with light cheesecake flavor. 4/5.

I recently got Caramel Apple Mike and Ikes, so I had to get the Cinnamon Apple Hot Tamales. It's just Hot Tamales with apple Mike and Ikes thrown in. With the Mike and Ikes, the apple overpowers the caramel; with these, the cinnamon overpowers the apple. But I like Hot Tamales, and I haven't had them in years. 4/5.

I was tempted to get these Caramel Apple Sugar Babies in a theater-sized box, but I already have lots of opened candy packages, so this way I can give them to trick-or-treaters. Guys. These are seriously the best caramel apple candy there is. Maybe even the best Halloween candy there is. And I don't even really like regular Sugar Babies. 5/5.

Now, with all this talk of pumpkin, it only seems appropriate that I talk about real pumpkins. I bought a pie pumpkin and cooked it.

And then I turned it into puree. I cooked pumpkins last year but didn't puree them, because I didn't have a food processor or a Blendtec last year. I'm excited to use the puree.

I made pumpkin waffles using a different recipe from last time; I used a weird restaurant cookbook from 1985. I had to use up leftover canned pumpkin (why do they only sell the giant cans?), which is darker than fresh.

I also made an apple cider syrup to go with them. The waffles were inferior to my previous recipe, and probably less healthy. The syrup is also rather unhealthy, but it was good enough. 4/5.

And then this caramel apple crumble is another Pinterest item, and we used apples from our neighbor's tree. It was too sugary, and the apples were too soft from the slow cooker. 3/5.