This & That

Around Here This Week

Happy Halloween!

As you are reading this, I am on my way to Boise to pick up Eric's family who will be staying with us for the next week. I'm starting this post off with a picture from a year ago. Sigh. I miss this cute cat. It's not really a Halloween picture I guess, but when I took it I had just finished taking pictures of Eric's girls in their Halloween costumes. So it is....kind of. Maybe I'll ask for a cat for Christmas and put the ball in my husband's court. Oh, if you only knew how ironic that would be.

Next, here it is Halloween and Evan picked these two big boxes of garden stuff last Sunday. In our 25 years of living here, that's never happened.

We have spent the week in much more normal-for-here temperatures. There's even a rumor of some rain in the next couple of days, which would make me deliriously happy.

I managed a couple of layouts over the past couple of weeks. This one documenting the Bacon Merit Badge text exchange between the boys. Why yes, I did take screen shots of the whole thing and used them on a layout. It's the kind of thing that needs to be documented when it comes to my family.

And this one. These are recent pictures of my daughter that made me smile. The journaling came from her email home to us this past week and it also made me smile. She is just enjoying her time. 

From the kids and grandkids this week, this is a picture I took one evening this week when Evan's boys were over for an evening and everyone was caught up in Marc reading them a Halloween book. This total peace is kind of a rare occurrence when the two toddlers are together. 

Here's James on his first birthday having a little cake.

And Isaac at the pumpkin patch where his mama was picking out pumpkins to carve. He was very interested in the tiny ones.

Marc carving said pumpkins.

And just being Marc.

My daughter checked in with several pictures. She always does because she, more than the boys, gets that whole "I need to see your face" thing that I have. We are down to 5 weeks and 6 days, people, not that I'm counting or anything. 

She says that fall is pretty where she is. I have to agree.

Willpower and Cookbooks

I could make this short and sweet by just saying that I have none, but of course there's a story that can go along with it.

I went into Costco a week or so ago and saw stacks and piles and scads of one of these books on display. I thumbed through it and was tempted, but decided not to get it. I picked up a copy of Bill O'Riley's Killing Regan for my husband for Christmas instead, and since he's never read my blog I'm in absolutely no danger of that surprise being ruined.

Fast forward a few days and find me ordering not only that one, but two additional cookbooks from Amazon. Now, I have a vast and extensive recipe book collection. I could cook new meals out of the books I have and probably go several years without repeating a recipe. Does that stop me from buying new recipe books with pretty pictures of food in them? Not on your life. Will this be the end of my cookbook purchasing? Um....

Walking Around

I was walking around the house and yard this week and noticed a few things. 

Isaac and his mama made this cute ghost for the season out of a paper plate and some toilet paper. Nothing gets you into the Halloween spirit more that a paper plate-toilet paper ghost. Trust me.

A few things are fading outside. We haven't had a true frost yet, so these aren't totally dead....they're only mostly dead. (Name that movie.) I can't blame the weather totally, either. They've blown the sprinkler system out and turned the outside water off, so I can't water my pots unless I haul buckets by hand. I'm OK not hauling buckets by hand. It's the end of October and I'm ready to be done with the pots.

Like I said, we haven't had a true frost yet. Flirted with it, yes, but haven't gotten there yet. Average first frost date for our area is somewhere about a month ago.

I can't feel terrible about it when I still have things like this crazy random zinnia to look at, and we're still picking stuff from the garden.

The War Rages On...

In late August I documented how we have been fighting a mouse war at our house. It's still raging, mostly because I can get a cat to save my life. Three times since then, we have made arrangements with different people to get cats and three times it hasn't worked out.

In the meantime, we've killed 5 mice inside the house. Amazingly, Isaac and Roger have both left the traps alone. I'm on my knees begging for any cat of any kind...seriously. I have visions of the movie "Ratatouille" going on in my kitchen when the lights go out.

If You Give a Toddler a Broom

Isaac and I spent a morning together last week while his mama ran an errand.

 My plan was to spend some time outside while I put the leaves I'd swept up into a big garbage bag to save for future composting. 

He actually wasn't too interested until I gave him a broom of his own and then we were off and running.

 

 

 He trailed that broom all over the yard.

And into the garage, with Ollie following us everywhere we went. After we were done here, we picked those apples you saw in the box over the weekend. It was the only way I could get him to let got of the broom. :)

Curried Chicken Rolls

Cold sandwich weather is about over, being replaced by soups here. I served this earlier in the week, trying to aim for the warmest day. I'm not sure I hit it quite right, but it worked out fine. We had some garden tomatoes with this dressing and sliced Honeycrisp apples alongside it. The original recipe came from Taste of Home magazine.

Curry Chicken Croissants

• 2 1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (opt.)
• 1/3 cup finely chopped celery
• 1/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion (I used the garden Candy onions)
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 Tablespoons sour cream
• 3/4 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/8 teaspoon Cajun seasoning (opt.--I don't usually have this lying around, so I left it out. Didn't miss it, but if you like more zip, then be my guest.)
• Lettuce leaves
• 4-6 croissants, split

In a medium sized bowl, combine all ingredients except lettuce and croissants. Refrigerate for about an hour to blend flavors. Serve on croissants with lettuce leaves.  I just put it on homemade buns and it worked great, but I've also served it on croissants with lettuce and that's good, too.

Around Here This Week

First off, it's James' first birthday today. You will  see later in this post that crackers aren't the only thing in jeopardy at his house. My DIL has decided that he can probably get his own lunch now. Happy birthday, cute boy!!

 

So around here this week, we actually got a little rain...a nice evening rain shower that was just amazing.

I hoped for some the next day, especially when I saw this cloud moving across the valley, but as often happens here it veered off south of us, leaving me quietly sobbing.

I gathered up some of the Honey Locust leaves on the back patio and put them on the compost pile. 

Isaac and his mama accompanied me and since the horses were tied up to the fence waiting for the shoer, it was very exciting for him.

There was also some of this. Exotic meat butchering-o-rama. Thankfully, since my eldest son now resides in the same zip code, my husband doesn't have to do this totally by himself.

There was this as well. Isaac and I picked the apples off the Golden Delicious tree as well as a couple of random Red Delicious. Trust me when I tell you that what you get at the grocery store doesn't compare to fresh-picked. My city girl self didn't think it mattered much until we planted fruit trees. It matters.

From the kids and grandkids this week. We have had the cousins together off and on. I caught this picture of Isaac on Edward's lap. Pretty sweet.

Eric was at the big Radiation Oncology meeting in San Antonio last week, where he did a presentation on the research he's been doing for the past several months. If you want your brain bent, you can click on the photo to make it larger so you can read the title of his research.

My DIL sent this picture of James, saying that this is what happens when it's too quiet at her house. Apparently, he needed some wipes.

Isaac and I had some quality time one morning, but that's getting its own post.

Bryce checked in with this picture. They were having some kind of "who done it" activity in his building at school.

And lastly, my daughter sent this beautiful picture of some fall farm ground near where she is right now. 

The Last Roses of Summer

If I'm being totally honest, I will say that, ok, maybe there are a couple of things I will miss about summer. While I maintain that there are only a couple of things, and that I'm totally enjoying the cooler weather, I will miss sleeping with the windows open. I confess that I still am, even though the temperature when I got up yesterday morning was 39°. I can't help it. Not only do I enjoy the cool air circulating around and sleeping under the weight of more quilts on the bed, but when that window goes shut for the winter, I have a sense of being shut in with no fresh air. Hate that. It's almost like being stuck in a submarine with only a limited amount of oxygen available. I know. I'm weird. There are also the fresh tomatoes. Here it is the 23rd of October and we're still harvesting tomatoes.

With the cooler weather finally arriving, the roses are at the tail end of their fall show. I went out and cut these earlier in the week. There were so many that I had to divide them into 2 bouquets. I miss the roses during the winter, almost as much as I miss the fresh air coming through my window.

Stuff I Know #12--Follow the Directions

Time for another installment in this series. Usual disclaimer here that these posts are mostly for my kids and if others get something from them, great. Stuff I know #12 is.....You have to follow the directions. You just do.

My daughter loves chocolate chip cookies. More specifically she loves the chocolate chip cookies that I make in triple batch quantities from a recipe in my grandmother's old Betty Crocker cookbook. It was one of the first recipes she learned how to make on her own.

Well one day she and her friend decided they were going to make some cookies. The only problem was that when they got started, they accidentally put triple the amount of salt into the dough. Fortunately, they realized it before they baked the cookies and at that point they had 2 choices. They could either triple-triple the batch or they could throw everything away and start over.

In all honesty, I don't remember what they chose to do but the point is that whether it's making chocolate chip cookies from scratch, putting together a quilt, doing some canning, or even parenting....you have to follow the directions. There are no shortcuts and it you want the end result to be what you envision, then you have to follow the directions.

Sometimes those directions take more time and effort than you want to put into the process. Then you have a couple of choices just like my daughter and her friend. You can either start over, or you can do what you have to do to fix it. Have you noticed, though, that it's the things that take more time and effort that are worth it? My husband's grandmother was a really good cook and she very rarely used a written recipe. She made cookies and sweet rolls and they all seemed to take a while to accomplish. It was those things that her family enjoyed eating most. If you take the easy way and decide not to put the effort in, you may not get what you want. You might get an approximation, but it's not the real thing.

You get that this can all be extrapolated out beyond simple food analogies, right? This walks hand-in-hand with Stuff I Know #11....that some things are worth sweating. 

You can't make a quilt that looks nice if your blocks are different sizes and shapes when they're supposed to match up uniformly. You can't make good chocolate chip cookies if you triple the salt. You can't bottle stuff for your family and expect it to be safe to eat if you don't follow those guidelines, and you can't expect the bigger things in life to fall into place unless you follow those directions, either.

Sure, there are shortcuts, just like there are shortcuts that can be used for making cookies, and they can be fine, but you have to think about what you really want....if you're willing to settle for fine, or if you want the real thing. For cookies it might work out OK. For influencing kids, maybe you want to think twice about that.

A Picnic in the Fort

Evan's boys were out of school on Friday and my DIL called and said she was bringing them over for a picnic lunch in the fort out in the backyard.

I have to say it was the perfect day for it...the last really warm day we had before things finally cooled into a more normal fall range.

There were peanut butter sandwiches.

They left a little tell-tale evidence,

until his mama told him he needed to clean it off. 

There was some sliding as well.

But the best view of the day was this one. Ollie was fixated on Roger's lunch, probably because Roger was initially sneaking him bites of his sandwich.

The long view. Ollie was just sure he was going to get some more lunch. He sat there until Roger was totally done.