Remember those awesome paper-bag puppets you made in kindergarten, perhaps during a lesson on recycling? That’s what cyclops frankenstein reminds me of. If you’ve been secretly longing for an excuse to spend a peaceful hour with a glue stick and some glitter, here it is: our Halloween bag-decorating contest! Details here.

I should mention that our contest is open to all ages. If you’re drinking coffee by the 5-lb bag, we figure you’re probably an adult. Send us a photo of your finished bag-monster (if you don’t have a 5-lb bag handy at home, you’re welcome to download and decorate our bag photo. See the contest details page). The artist behind our favorite submission will receive a free 1-lb bag of our coffee or tea to fuel their creativity, as well fame and glory.

Photo: Allen County Public Library

I know it was long time ago , but we had a Chili cook off back in October and boy was it fun! We had a fixins’ bar with white cheddar cheese, sliced avacado, green onions, sour cream, fresh limes, Fritos and tortilla chips!

This is the chili that took the win. Mike, our flavor czar, made a General Tso’s chili, it was awesome. Sweet, spicy and just plain amazing.

Anthony  made a BBQ vegetarian chili. It had a ton of layered flavors and didn’t taste a thing like it was vegetarian.

Niki made a pumpkin chili! She used pumpkin beer, our own pumpkin spice coffee and pumpkin puree. This is one of the chili’s that was empty at the end of the contest.

Diane made a white grilled chicken chili that was really tasty…her’s went super fast.

Here is Meg’s Vegan Bulgar Wheat Chili. It was chock full of veggies and super spicy. Meg made so much chili it overflowed her crock pot!

Josh made his Dad’s famous chili. This one was emptied in no time.

David who made chili for the first time ever made a red chicken chili.

Here is Molly’s tofu chili…she was not very happy with the results…since it came out more like a soup.

Marcie made a traditional beef chili using beer, coco and Dark Costa Rican.