Hello again!

It's been a few days since I've posted and October has set in with steadfast determination. The trees are every color but green and the temperature are getting nippier - the thoughts of a cool glass of iced tea are long-gone. I've been drinking Upton's New England Harvest blend for the past few days because it's delicious and it suits the time of year. It's black tea flavored with orange, apple and cinnamon-type spices. It goes well with the apple crisp I made yesterday or the spiced pear pie fillings that I prepared for next weekend, Thanksgiving.
I so want ginger cookies but the good ones are about 40 km from here, in a restaurant that features an on-site bakery which also makes the best raisin bread I've ever tasted. Instead of spending the gas, I should make my own cookies. They would probably be just as good and I can't use the excuse that I don't have the ingredients in anymore. This payday, I replaced 90 per cent of my cooking ingredients since this is one of the best times of the year to do that - those things tend to go on sale just before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I suppose I didn't need to replace everything but when you open the ginger spice tin and can't smell anything, it's probably a good time to toss it. All together, and because I already had fresh flour, cinnamon and baking soda in, it probably cost me about $50 to renew my baking supplies and I'm sure it will help me produce many hundreds of dollars worth of food (plus keep me out of those bakeries). I even got some cherry and lemon pie fillings, which I rarely buy since I make my own pie fillings - but cherry tends to be one I prefer to get in the can. We rarely get decent cherries around here and pitting them for filling is, well, the pits.
I also bought some apples yesterday - ginger gold, honey crisp and gravenstein. Some will end up in another pie - I suppose I better start making crusts although sometimes I cave and buy the frozen crusts. The problem with the frozen crusts is that it's nearly impossible to get that second crust to go over the first, if you're trying for pie with a crust on top. They usually tend to fall apart. While I enjoy the occasional French apple tart, I do prefer a double crust apple pie.
If this sounds like I sit around eating pie all the time, I don't.
Not that I'm against the idea ....