This & That

She's Gone All Martha

Happy Halloween! When all my kids were home, I would wake them up on Halloween morning with this music going. I'd turn it up full blast on the stereo and let it rattle a little bit. I don't think they appreciated it a whole lot and that tradition didn't last very long. Ah, those were the days....

I don't have people around my house who want to carve pumpkins any more, but what I did get this past weekend from my daughter were some pictures of her going all Martha Stewart crafty and carving this very artsy looking pumpkin.

She did a really nice job, especially considering she absolutely despises pumpkin guts. She said that's why she got such a small pumpkin. :)

It looks even better lit up in the dark. Atta girl!

 

"Help, I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!"

These critters are awaiting transport to the cabin where they will reside in various places on the walls. For the life of me when I walk past that darn goat, all I can think about are those Life Alert commercials. I'm wondering if he's thinking, "Yeah, where's that dang Life Alert when you really need it??"

Long Distance Fall

I told you last week that The Girl gets that I need to see her face one way or another every once in a while.

Last week, I sent a little box of Halloween goodies down for her and a couple of days later, got these pictures sent to my phone thanking me for the box and showing off the leaf she'd found that day.

A little happy mail does a body good.

The Aspen Grove

When my sisters and I were at the cabin, we took a drive up the canyon for the express purpose of taking pictures of the aspen leaves. They were beautiful and brilliant the weekend we were there and on our drive we treated to a bright yellow grove of them.

We ventured in among the trees. One of my sisters had in her mind taking pictures of the leaves from a different perspective and had even come prepared with a towel to lie on.

And of course I took a picture of the experiment. We are sisters after all, and we document things like lying on your back with your camera pointed up to the sky. What you're not seeing is the group of deer hunters and their camp set up just outside the aspen grove on the other side of the road. They probably thought we were nuts. 

And if you're wondering what that view looks like, here it is...because I had to try it out as well.

We wandered around for a while taking shots of whatever caught our eye.

Even Ollie posed nicely.

I'm not sure what it is about this time of year, or the colors of the leaves, but there is just something about it that is good and soothing for my soul.

Hash Brown Quiche

Holy cow this is good stuff! It's a perfect fall dinner with green salad and some kind of veggie on the side and PB inhaled the leftovers. I found the recipe on the Jamie Cooks It Up blog. 

Hash Brown Quiche

1 (24 ounce) bag frozen shredded hash brown potatoes
2 T butter
1/2 t smoked paprika, divided
1/4 t seasoned salt
salt and pepper
4 sliced bacon
1/3 C red onion, chopped
1/3 C green pepper, chopped (I used red pepper)
5 eggs
1 1/3 C half and half
1 C sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

Put the hash browns into the microwave for a couple of minutes to help them begin to defrost.  Heat a large, deep skillet up over medium high heat. Add the butter and let it melt. Add the potatoes, 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika and seasoned salt. Add a little salt and pepper and allow the potatoes to cook through. While your potatoes are cooking, in a separate skillet, brown the bacon until crisp. Discard all but 1 teaspoon of the bacon grease from your pan.

Add green pepper and onion to the skillet you cooked the bacon in. Allow them to saute over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. You want them to be nice and tender. Pour the cooked hash browns into a 9" deep dish pie plate and press them into the bottom and up the sides of the dish.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl place eggs and  half and half. Whisk them together with a fork. Crumble up the bacon and add it and the sautéed green pepper and red onion to the bowl. Add remaining 1/4 teaspoon of smoked paprika, a bit of salt and pepper and 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese. Stir it around to incorporate. Pour the mixture over the top of the potatoes and bake at 375 degrees for 45-55 minutes or until the center is set and top is golden.

Projects This Week

It was a good week for playing with paper. It's been a bit since I've had the chance to have some concentrated time doing it, so that was a happy thing.

 I started out just grabbing a baggie of little paper scraps. These are Pebbles papers and I love them...love the color combination and the patterns. Made a few cards.

Since they are snowy themed papers, the insides are stamped with the sentiment, "Sending Warm Thoughts..." Then I decided I really needed to do some actual scrapbook layouts, so I did the November ad for the POM site. You'll see that in a couple of weeks. And since I was on a roll, I grabbed a Scrapbook Generation kit and just got some done. You can click on the images to make them a little bigger, if you like.

Here is my dear friend Irene earlier this year on her 96th birthday, with her cohorts The Wild Bunch. Sadly, shortly after these pictures were taken, one of the charter members passed away. Irene is still here, for which I'm very grateful, but I realize that time is fleeting. I love these women.

Here is SD Boy and my DDIL#4 the night before their wedding almost 3 years ago now. We had a dinner for them and these were some of the pictures from that.

And lastly, LBoy's swearing in to the Idaho State Bar. I didn't care for the huge expanse of  "wasted" space on the left page, so I printed the words of the oath he took on there for some visual interest. These kits are great for those "event-ish" kind of pictures.

Made a few cards from the scraps of the layouts, even some guy birthday cards which are always a little harder to find supplies for. Good week, which should persist since DH and PB are leaping around in the hills for a few days.

A Glimpse of College Life

It's been almost 2 months since The Girl started her college adventure.

Every so often, I'll get an email or text with some pictures of what she's doing.

She gets me like that.

She knows that visual proof of her face does my heart good.

And she looks like she's having the time of her life.

And We're Walkin'

When we're up at the cabin, we will always take our cameras and walk a bit to see what there is to see.

 We'll walk down to the bridge...and I'll say again that this is one of my favorite views up at the cabin. 

 

The colors up there have been so vivid this fall. There has been more moisture there.

Since we have been so dry down where we live, the colors aren't nearly as vibrant, even though I have aspen in my yard. They are sad, thirsty aspen.

Then we'll walk the other direction on the property over the log bridge. 

Where we will see yucky things like mushrooms. It has apparently been a soggy fall.

And we'll see much nicer things as well.

And we'll get the river view.

Sister Days

The weekend after the grandgirls and their parents went home, my sisters, mother and I spent a couple of days at the cabin. We try to do this every year to just reconnect and be together and we're always glad when we can pull it off. The days were beautiful and spent them talking, laughing and crafting. Each of us always brings some little craft to do.

I bring cards to make and this year my sisters were on the same wavelength with a fall theme. 

One of my sisters brought this cute pumpkin craft that involved foam pumpkins, fall paper napkins and Mod Podge.

You tear the straight edges of the napkins off and then tear them into pieces and Mod Podge them onto the foam pumpkin. Then tie a burlap bow around the stem. Very cute and very easy to do and you can see my sister is very happy doing it. :)

My other sister brought this pillow project. It's very cool because it was easy like the pumpkin. We were all about the easy this year. And it was cool because of the way she put it together. She printed the phrase out on the shiny side of freezer paper, then turned it over onto the pillow fabric and rubbed it so the wet printer ink came off on the fabric. Cool, huh?  We sewed the pillows together and stuffed them. I loved the font she used as well. It's called Respective and can be found here.

Lots of fun stuff crammed into the time we were there.

 

Family Photos

While we were at the cabin, I took some family photos of AP Boy's family. I'm always willing to try, so we put headed out about 4:30. The cabin is located in a canyon, so the sun goes behind the hill fairly early...earlier than you might think the Golden Hour might be. All these places are within a short walk of the cabin, so it's nice to have multiple attactive outdoor spots to take pictures.

We started at the fire pit.

Then moved on to the big rock where we'd set the corn for the deer.

We started to wander to the bridge,

...pausing in front of some willows where we got a little flare.

The water was low enough that they could stand on the rocks in the stream by the bridge.

We also tried the girls alone. I don't know how to photoshop out flyaway hairs, so I'm stuck with them until I figure that out.