Happy Halloweenween!

It's official. Today is the most un-Halloween, Halloween, in the history of all hallows eve.

Ben and I barely had enough time to carve a pumpkin.

No costumes. Two bags of candy [for the record, Ben ate 1.5 bags.] No real Halloween decorations except our one pumpkin. We got a total of 3 trick-or-treaters. Womp Womp.

Here's my deep thought of the day--There are four periods of your life that matter: 

• Age 0 - 12ish: Halloween is awesome. Mom buys your costume. Walk around neighborhoods collecting candy from strangers. 
• Age 12-17: This period doesn't count. Halloween sucks for you. Too old to trick-or-treat, to young to get away with wearing scandalous costumes. These are the lost years.
• Age 18-22: Halloween is awesome. Costumes are a big deal. Parties galore. Halloween is celebrated for an entire week with two weekends. You have about 5 costumes--one for each party. Your liver recovers for all of November just in time for Holiday parties.
• Age 23 - 30ish when/if you have kids: Halloween sucks. Another period of lost years. Too old for Halloweek. No kid to dress up in a super cute plush Hippo costume. You spend Halloween passing out candy to the 3 kids that live in your apartment complex. You may be able to get away with going out for one night--but let's be honest. Your liver cannot handle more than one day of Halloween.  You wrecked that train in your last life-period.
•  30ish - until your kids reach age 12: Halloween is awesome. You have a mini-me to dress up every year. Hopefully said-kid is deathly allergic to something like nuts and you get to eat all their Snickers and Reese's. You ration their candy out: they get one piece per day, you get 15. You also get to walk around the neighborhood and have people tell you how cute your kids are

 Tonight we did have a lot of fun. Ben and I made 'Dinner in a Pumpkin'--delicious! It's a semi-tradition in the Reese Household...since we've done it twice now.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• One 5ish lb pumpkin
• 1-1/4 pounds ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
• 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of chicken soup
• A bunch of mushrooms [6 big ones?]
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 cups hot cooked rice
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

What you do:

• Wash the pumpkin; cut a circle around stem. Remove top and set aside; discard seeds and loose fibers from inside. Place pumpkin in a shallow sturdy baking pan; set aside.
• In a large skillet, cook the beef, onion, celery and green pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink and vegetables are tender; drain. Stir in the soup, mushrooms, soy sauce and brown sugar. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until heated through. Fold in rice; spoon into pumpkins and replace tops. Brush outsides of pumpkins with oil.
• Bake at 350° for 50-60 minutes or just until pumpkin is tender. Stick a fork in it, if it goes in easy, you're golden.