Queen of the Loveseat

Little birds

Katie and I hand-stitched these little guys together for a baby gift. We saw them on etsy for $85 and decided to make them instead. It did take us a bit of time to make them, but we had lots of fun and giggles shopping for the materials and a couple evenings putting them together.

Minnesota Mushroom Wild Rice Soup

A recent and wonderful meal made by my wonderful husband, Minnesota mushroom wild rice soup with homemade whole wheat bread and red wine with a movie and a fire in the stove - a great relaxing night!

Pink Ruffle Pillow

Ran into this tutorial by Dawn at Designed by Dawn Nicole and I knew I had to make it, but I made mine in pink for Valentines day, even though it really doesn't match anything else in my house, oh well. The only difference I did was I used a different dimensioned pillow and I put in a zipper on one of the short sides. I think I'll make some more in other colors.

Willow's Loveseat

Quite the queen of the love seat... look at how many blankets are there just for her.

Beautiful start to the day!

The day started beautiful and warm and ended with a chill and a strong breeze, one that I should be used to, but with this winter we are having I'm not quite accustom to yet. I do wish for some snow, please!

We have some of the best neighbors!

We love our home

A house is what you make it. Our house may be small but it is our home and right for us. Most of the time it is just the two of us with just enough room to accommodate but not enough to have a large chaotic gathering (we do in warmer, outside friendlier weather). We love our home.

We've been having Thanksgiving leftovers daily since last Thursday. Erik made a stock from the turkey and made a mushroom agnolotti turkey soup. It was fantastic! Last night I made a spicy white bean soup with turkey. We have ice cream in the freezer but I haven't gotten into it yet.

Lately we've had some dinner guests, they aren't too hungry though.

The Christmas decorations are up except for the tree and have made some cookies. Hoping December is a good month for everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. We thoroughly enjoyed hosting Thanksgiving for the first time. We had a nice time with family and everyone brought scrumptious sides (e.g. my sister's mashed potatoes). It was nice hanging out at the table and enjoying the company of each other. Erik did a terrific job with the turkey, he brined it in an apple cider maple brine. The turkey was so moist it fell apart when taking it out of the roasting pan. It also was done about an hour before we expected it too, but thanks to some good advice by Mom it wasn't a big deal.

Friday was a fix it day and hang out with Dad day. It was a great day with no rush just trying to help out. We did have to go to a store, but thankfully it wasn't too busy. I very thankfully received a Nikon D80 yesterday too. My D70 is done clicking. I'm excited to be able to take pictures again! Thanks Dad! We wound down the day with dinner with sides from Thanksgiving and steak, good conversation, and pie at Mom and Dad's with Katie and Aaron.And then one of the sure signs that Christmas is approaching, we watched Christmas Vacation. I'm not sure Katie or Dad watched much, or just laughed the entire time. That kind of laugh is contagious!

How do others have time to blog everyday? I don't, or at least I don't make time for it. Even when attempting to sit down to write this Willow wanted to play. I'm not even that busy of a person. I guess maybe part of it is that I like pictures as part of my blog and not just writing (although no pictures for tonight).

We are getting ready to host Thanksgiving here for the first time. I'm excited. I went and bought a table cloth and dug around to find some things that we haven't used in a while but will be desired. This next weekend will entail some deep cleaning, although we've been keeping up with that a little bit lately so I'm not too worried. Things that do need done are fixing the toilet seat, finally hanging some pictures on the wall (I've been nervous ever since we had them fixed), finish the boards to go temporarily around the fireplace, maybe get a lamp for the living room (it's pretty dark on one side), and then the cleaning.

This past weekend was certainly a nice mix of accomplish a few projects, cleaning, time for myself, and family time. It was good and refreshing.

A night in the kitchen with Katie

Wednesday night I had a great time with hanging out with my sister. For dinner I made spaghetti squash-sagna. It was delicious - better than anticipated and that is always nice, with leftovers too. We made pear ginger preserve from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. The recipe only made barely half of what it said it would, but it turned out good. We used pears from our pear tree and lately when ever I've been thinking about our pear tree, I wonder where the partridge is?
It was fun hanging out with Katie and nice to have another person stirring. Willow certainly enjoyed their time together too.

Smoking Boots

Literally smoking boots... that is what I came home to tonight. Essence of burnt plastic lingered in the entry. My boots had been knocked over next to the radiator. Lucky for me I hadn't been gone long and the smell was the only damage as my boots are intact. I love my boots.

The yellow room is done. It looks, well, yellow - really yellow. I'm hoping with some things up on the walls and curtains it may lessen the feel of walking right into the sun. That said, I'm very pleased with it too. It is bright and cheery - a happy place.

Goodbye white walls!

The walls in the old office are going from white to yellow... Manilla Tint to be specific. I'm part way into this project and a little nervous that it is too bright and then second that the carpet looks particularly dingy. I guess that might mean it is time for some new carpet - hm, wasn't really anticipating that project. I guess we didn't even think about the carpet when looking at paint colors. Our new office turned out quite well and I had some of the same reaction when I was about this far into painting it, so I will just keep on the keeping on with brush in hand.

Treat Day!

It is my treat day at work and I love baking and making things for other people. Today's treat day sweet feast included:

• Brownies - from a mix, but always still good
• Pumpkin Gingersnap Cookies - my new favorite cookie
• Chocolate Dipped Wavy Potato Chips (and the undipped chips)
• Pear Galette
• Gluten Free Pear Tart - it was an experiment that didn't turn out exactly like planned but definitely edible and enjoyable

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween treat was that Willow's kidney function tests where in the normal range today. We were delighted! Our pup is not quite herself 100% but she has made some great progress and we are so thankful!

Halloween was put on the backburner this year. It is one of my favorite holidays. I love pumpkins and fall. We didn't carve pumpkins - ran out of time, but I did have some ceramic pumpkins that are carved that I was able to put out. A couple people asked if I was baking, but no I just put peach cobbler candles in the pumpkins.





 

Earlier I made a little table runner that was autumn colors and reversible, the other side has deep purple corduroy. The pumpkins on the table are ones that I grew in our backyard. I was pretty excited about them. I had a few more that I gave to my sister, or my sister's cat who is in love with them as play toys.

Other fall things I've been up to lately include making a pumpkin spice syrup for hot drinks. I love it in coffee. And with all the pears that have been ripening faster than I can use them, I've been making pear galettes. This last time I added some fresh ginger to the pear. 

Willow

A little over a year ago Erik and I adopted Willow, our yellow lab mixed with (fill in the blank with your own idea - maybe pointer?). She has been challenging at times (mostly in the beginning couple of months) and a delight. Willow has added greatly to our lives and it a member of our family. One of my favorite things that Willow does when we get home is weave herself through our legs and does figure eights rubbing on our legs. I think it is her way of saying she missed us and is glad we are home.

This week Willow went in for a little surgery to have a tooth removed (she bonked it on something, it broke in half). She got sick from an allergy to a drug and was hospitalized. Today I'm happy to say she is home and snoring away next to me. We still have some time to wait to find out if she will be back to herself one hundred percent, but it sure is great to have her home.

The Office

Back in July I took on painting the new office room. Most rooms in our house were white when we moved in and color scared me (except the pumpkin colored walls in the family room), and we are slowly adapting to more color. I guess I may have had the new office on a very slow migration, as I painted the walls, but never quite finished the room - I needed to paint the yellow bi-fold doors of the closet and the closet trim as well as fix and paint the small doors on top of the closet. This weekend I finally finished the closet, just not the small doors on top. That spurred the office move. We moved the furniture, plugged in all the cables and wiring for the computer, and then found out that the internet didn't work there - darn. A little futzing and we find out no where else in our house does the router work except in the room I'd like to remove the title office from. In a few days and a technical visit hopefully we'll be back to sitting at a desk soon. For the time being we make do. 

Quintessential Fall Night

Last night was a beautiful night with pizza and the inaugural fire in our wood burning stove. Tonight was a beautiful night as well. We had both of our chimneys inspected last month so that we knew everything was good for the winter. Tonight it is toasty both downstairs where the stove is and upstairs.

I made my first pumpkin pie today. I read up on it and still made some mistakes... sloshing pumpkin mixture into the oven followed by 15 minutes of smoke coming from the oven. I only had a hint of smoke lingering around when Erik came home about an hour later. The pie turned out fairly good for the first one, but I think I need some more practice. It wasn't the prettiest but it did taste great. For dinner I made braised pork chops in red wine with walla walla onions and pears with mushroom thyme mashed potatoes. I was pretty proud of myself then to follow that up with a decent pie.

I didn't quite get everything done today that I had wished, but I did have a great day.

Squash

I had to share my culinary exploration tonight. I had picked up some different types of squash at the farmers market, from Peter of Peter's Pumpkins. The one I used tonight was a carnival, similar to acorn squash, but a really cool variegated shell. I also picked up butternut and ambercup squash to be used soon as well.  I think I'm going to make soup with the butternut, but not quite sure what I'm going to do with the ambercup yet.

I found my recipe that I used tonight from TasteSpotting, of which I'm often perusing for ideas. It is delightful site although it often makes me hungry and wishing to bake sweet things. Recently I came across a link for Calabacín relleno de cebollas moradas (Pumpkin with red onion and ricotta) and it looked like something I needed to try. (I was a little nervous about the Spanish, but the recipe was also in English.) I was all ready to make it tonight, got the ricotta from the fridge and found that my ricotta had become quite the colorful science experiment (decided not to show a picture of it - hope that's okay with you). I do like experiments but this had me disappointed. I had already begun prepping the squash, so it was either run to the store for ricotta or adapt the recipe - I chose the latter. Also during the time of deciding what to do about the lack of ricotta, I had a little accident with boiling water all down the front of my sweater, but all was good. My sweater thankfully repelled most of it so no burns here. So my substitutions included goat cheese rather than feta, grated mozzarella and parmesan cheese rather than ricotta. I also put maybe a little more than a pinch of nutmeg, another accident, although a happy accident and then I also used dried thyme instead of fresh, again, I didn't want to go to the store. All in all, I was quite pleased that  tasted so good. I can add another type of squash to the 'I will eat' category, as many foods have made the switch. Things I might change... I might try ricotta, or maybe something to make it a little creamier.

Speaking of eating things, but completely unrelated. My dog, Willow, who has been so good in the house while we aren't home, must have accidentally chewed on the corner of a book I was borrowing from a friend. I was in shock when I found it where I left it but the top corner was slightly gnawed on.

Rain

Tonight it finally RAINED! I am so very thankful for some rain. We could use a lot more, but I am thankful for  the little bit we got tonight. It even puddled in the driveway. We have been so dry for the past month, maybe two.

Willow liked the rain too. She likes being a wet dog I think. Tonight she wanted to be outside even after our long walk in the rain and it was a good thing because we watched the sunset with beautiful pinks and purples.