Crock Pot Left-over Spaghetti Soup

I love left-overs.

But more than that I love turning left-overs into another meal, so we have more left-overs. 

Today we had left-over spaghetti but I knew it wasn't going to be enough for all six of us, that's when I decided to turn it into soup in the crock. 

Sound kinda gross to you.....or like a bunch of crock?? :) 
It's actually really good! 
It's not uncommon to find recipes with pasta in soup, so this is basically the same thing.

The awesome part, this only takes 2 hours in the crock pot!

Crock Pot Left-over Spaghetti Soup

What you will need:

Left-over spaghetti

1 can corn

1 can stewed tomatoes

2 cans water

1 can black beans rinsed and drained

2-3 tsp. basil

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. dried onions

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

Throw all of the above in your crockpot and cook on High for 2 hours.

My "highly expressive" hubby said it was "Good, real good" ;)

Linked to:

Pallet Chalkbard Sign - Frugal Decorations for Fall #2

A few days ago I decided it was time to give the mantel a Thanksgiving makeover. In fact since we had moved in the new house it has not been properly attended to. As I was unpacking I would stick something up there wondering if maybe it would work, when one day I looked up at my mantel and realized what a hodge podge array was staring back at me. Mercy! 

A fall Thanksgiving makeover was definitely a good reason to change the present state of my mantel. Once I got the ends situated I realized I had a HUGE hole in the middle and nothing to place there, a mirror would be nice but I don't own one. That's when I headed outside to look at my pallet pile. I selected four pallet boards and placed shorter boards behind them on each end and nailed them together....this is rustic decorating right, so it's okay that some of my nails only went halfway in and then had to be nailed over. 

Rustic, rustic, rustic! :)

That day I was Thankful for Thanksgiving in the most literal sense because it was that day that I made a terrifying discovery. Realizing I needed a larger hammer one of my daughters ran into the addition we are tearing down on one end of the house. It was then that she heard water 

gushing.....
pouring....
spewing.

I hurriedly called my hubby, who works nearby, and asked him to rush home. Then I got my wits about me, threw on my welders gloves and ran out to the water source by the road and quickly turned the water off. 

I was proud of myself.

The pipes had frozen in the addition and we're pretty sure that water had been spewing for 24 hours, let's just say I'm dreading that water bill come mid December!

Had I not been making a sign for Thanksgiving we would not have went into the addition that day and made the discovery!!

Right then and there I decided to give thanks for everything.....as mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

I was thankful for the water spewing.
I was thankful for the blowout poopy diaper our youngest gave us...AFTER we turned the water off (I use cloth wipes and need water for them).
I was thankful for our van that was overheating on the way to town to get the cap to fix the leak.
I was thankful for our van that was low on oil and needed an oil change.
I was thankful for the older man that crossed lanes on the bridge and sent us onto the side of the road, praise the Lord he didn't hit us.

And not surprisingly when I got home that night (All 6 of us safe and sound, alive, and breathing) I grabbed the sign I had nailed together out of pallets, brushed with chalkboard paint and wrote a message on it.......

WE
GIVE
THANKS

This blog post is linked to:

Firewood Welcome Sign - Frugal Decorations for Fall

As much as I would LOVE to go into all the fancy stores and buy fall decorations, it's just not in our pocket book. Goodness, I'd be happy with shopping for decorations in Dollar General, but that's not happening either. And I am totally cool with that. In fact I'm glad I can't because it totally gets my creative juices flowing.

A little bit of nature.
A little bit of browsing through catalogs.
A little bit of chalkboard paint & burlap.....

That's my Inspiration.

We have recently moved so in between organizing and unpacking I really didn't want fall/Thanksgiving decorating to fall through the cracks. 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to spruce up the front porch. I noticed some firewood in a shelf in my Pottery Barn catalog and on the ends they had painted Ho! Ho! Ho! for Christmas, that's when I decided I could bundle up my own firewood on my porch, wrap it all up in burlap and paint the words welcome on the ends!

The girls helped me find the right sizes of firewood and I laid my burlap fabric strip on the park bench. Once I had the amount of logs I needed I tied the burlap tight.

The only paint I had on hand was chalkboard and I couldn't even place a paint brush so I fingerpaited the letters on. We had some pumpkins given to us at a local pumpkin patch and Voila ~ Fall decorating on a dime, using nature as inspiration.

I hope this inspires you as well.