Happy Thanksgiving blog friends! I hope your day was full of lots of family and friends, good food and endless laughter. I know mine was. I have a lot to be thankful for, including the wonderful folks I’ve met through this little thing called the Internet.

Good luck to those brave enough to hit up the mall tomorrow!

Did you know there was a shortage of pumpkin? If you are a pumpkin lover like myself, don’t fret – it is over, which explains why I had such a hard time finding canned pumpkin last month. I’m still on my never ending search for Dreyer’s/Edy’s pumpkin ice cream.

With my lone can of pumpkin, I knew I wanted to bake something and what better way to find a recipe than to go straight to the source? I love pumpkin, but dislike pumpkin pie. Its a texture thing. I decided to bake a bread since I didn’t have the patenice for cupcakes or cookies.

The end result was Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Nut Loaf Bread. I would include a picture of the final product, but there’s the whole broken computer thing.  Mine looked like the one on the link above. Really.

Here’s the recipe if you’re too lazy to click over. It turned out moist and delicious. The pumpkin isn’t too over powering and its easy to make. I found a couple of other pumpkin bread recipes, so we’ll see if this one stays in my recipe box. Enjoy!

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 can (15 ounces) LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Fat Free Milk
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 cup chopped nuts

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

COMBINE flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, salt and baking soda in medium bowl. Blend pumpkin, granulated sugar, brown sugar, evaporated milk, egg, egg white and oil in large mixer bowl. Add flour mixture; mix just until moistened. Pour into prepared loaf pan; sprinkle with nuts.

BAKE for 60 to 65 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

I can’t believe its November already. Time to set goals for the month, but lets look back at October first:

Doesn’t the start of a new season seem like a chance to start fresh? So, with the start of October and fall, I wanted to post my goals on the blog for accountability and support. I’ll post how these things are going throughout the month and post a wrap up at the end of the month.

Fitness
* Start running again – I’m running a half-marathon relay with a friend at the end of the month. We’ve already signed up, so there is no backing out.
* Work out 5 days a week. This should be easy with with running and my twice-weekly aerobics class with a local adult education program.

Food
* Try new recipes with fall foods – apples, pears, pumpkin, butternut squash.

Blog
* Update the layout and get moving on changes/ideas that I have in the pipeline.
* Post more!

Career
* Keep applying for jobs and be more proactive in follow-up. Since the G-20 was in Pittsburgh last week, things were kinda slow for a while. Things have picked up again and I am optimistic.

Fun
* Expand my social circle and don’t be afraid to put myself out there.

Well, there they are. Stay tuned. What goals do you have for October?

I’ve been home for about a week and I’m starting to get a little stir-crazy being in the house all day. I am going out on interviews and stuff, but for the most part I am home, without a car for most of the day.

Tomorrow I have an exciting day planned. I will be going to the bank with my grandma then off to the grocery store and walmart. Yay for getting out of the house. I’m going to see if I can get a bike helmet at walmart so I can bike to places during the day using my mom’s bike.

My social life kinda sucks and is pretty much non-existent. It is hard making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. I did go to trivia with my friend Jen the other night and that was fun, but I haven’t been too active on the social front lately.

Even though I am a little down in the dumps lately, I must remember that friendships and jobs don’t happen overnight and I’ve only been home a week. I am happy to be home and I’m enjoying the break from the fast-paced work environments I’ve been working in over the past few years. I’m also excited that Fall is coming. This means I’ll get to enjoy some of my favorite things:

* Pumpkin Spice Lattes and everything else pumpkin
* FOOTBALL and October baseball
* Tights, boots and scarves
* New TV episodes

I’ve also been keeping busy cleaning out my room and I’ve been finding the most random stuff…

* Every single book V.C Andrews has written – I was obsessed with her novels in my preteen-teenage years.
* Lots and lots of arts supplies from my career as an art major. Someone on freecycle is going to be very happy.
* Lots of art projects, I can’t bear to throw them away, but they are just sitting in boxes. Including the one where we had to draw ourselves in the nude for drawing class, life-sized. When am I ever going to need a 6 foot drawing of myself naked?

What would you find in your childhood bedroom that would make you scratch your head today?