Cheers to spending time with your friends, family and those important to you!

Winston

Paco

Winston and Paco Snuggling

Me and Hubby – wishing you a merry christmas!

An egg slicer – been wanting this baby for years! A rolling pin with auto thin-ness measuring disks, a cake froster, some more glass measuring cup – they always wear off in the dishwasher! and…  a dutch oven!!

The dutch oven was something new hubby and i decided we needed to try. We have friends that have a baby one and bring it camping and make wonderful yummies on the fire. We’ll be attempting wonderful – less butter and less cheese (they tend to add flavor in ways my big old bootie can’t handle) cooking light recipes in the oven and on the stove top! So far i have found a spicy orange beef recipe and intend to spend much of our road trip searching for delicious things to try! Now i just need to be home and work from home to cook up these 1-5 hours dishes!

If anyone has any favorites for the dutch oven, let me know!

Being some place with “on demand” is kinda weird. Last weekend my friend Kim and I wanted to catch up on our missing harry potter movies! Pretty sure it was part 1 and 2 of the hallows. Well – this on Demand thing had every harry pottery – BUT – part 1 ….  really? part 1 was missing?

Long story short i found part 1, in all 3 version – blue ray, regular dvd and digital as Best Buy for $10. More than i hoped to pay, but i got it and we finally finished the series that we started together (AGES ago), yup we finished it together!

While i was checking out this on demand thing, i came across some season items – including an “on demand” fire place! Cracked me up so much!

Wanna come get warm by my TV?

Tee hee!

Here is some TMI:

Basically the dogs have a little “sac” that gets released when they poop. Sometimes this doesn’t always happen and then they have, as we call in my house, “leaky butt”

TMI – complete

To alleviate this, the vets suggest pumpkin. Well canned pumpkin is about 2.69 a can. I was in walmart a while back and they had squash (same thing as a pumkin, right?) for 44 cents a pound, so i bought a bunch and learned how to get it done in a crock pot! Woot!

A couple weeks ago i was in costco and there was a big old box of yam/sweet potatoes (same thing as a pumpkin, right?) for what ended up at 67 cents a pound, so i bought it up! Hello 10 pounds of yams!

Since i’ve done most every other veggie in the crock pot including corn (super easy, pull leaves back, slather butter and cayene or what not, put leaves back, wrap in foil, put in crock pot for 4 hours) i decided to give the yams a try.

I wrapped them up in foil, placed them gently in the crock pot with a ramikan full of water and turned the bad boy on for about 8 hours. And whala – OMG good! Some of those wondrous mashed sweet potato did not make it into the freezer for the boys! Great idea for potatoes in the summer to i say!

Recently we had a pumpkin carving night at hubby’s co-working space, put on by Yelp Denver and there was a left over pumpkin. I volunteered to save the poor fella from a smashin!

So it’s been sitting in the house, staring at me since then…

Tuesday I was working from home and said, lets give this a shot..

I looked up on line how to “cook” a pumpkin. Basically no-one had a crock pot option. So i decided to follow the butternut way. Obviously this was not a small pumpkin, in fact it took me 3 rounds of 5 hours to get the whole thing cooked!

Preparation:

Basically you cut the pumpkin in half with a bread knife in a sawing motion since a smooth knife might remove a finger or 2 if you slip (fyi – my bread knife, cuts in a circle…  boo)

Remove the seeds into a bowl of water – save for later, see the next post (ice cream scoop is a wonderful tool here)

Put whatever pieces of pumpkin will fit in  your crock pot, fill the bottom with water, enough so it will steam but not cover the pumpkin.

Turn on low for 5-8 hours.

Let it cool (i am too impatient and i was doing a bit of oooh, hot hot hot, as i scraped the mush out)

Remove the mush into a bowl (again the ice cream scoop is amazing for this part!) Mash to consistency desired. Freeze in whatever format is best for your needs (for me it’s the same as chicken broth, old yogurt containers! Boys usually go thru 1 container in a week)

From the smaller half of my pumpkin i got five 6oz containers full of mush!

The boys loved the tastings they got as the pumpkin was being cooked throughout the day! We’ll be covered though a number of months with all these veggies!

I was at walmart that night and saw that the pumpkins were on sale – $1 a piece! Hello!!! I think i need a bigger freezer!

Happy Halloween!

I was in The “OC” over the weekend and they decorated the “orange balloon” for the season and it looked like it was eating the building! Cracked me up!

I did also ride that thing – oy – 400 feet up in the air – i was scared to death till it was almost over and then it was fun! Typical me!

(just realized this never was posted yesterday, on halloween… doh)

One of the group attempted to tell one of the “what do you call someone without any arms and legs” joke, but messed it up and said “What do you call art on the wall with no arms and no legs”

It was either the margaritas, the long week or my sick sense of humor – but i started laughing, and then he started laughing and then we couldn’t breath long enough to tell the group what was so funny.

I got home and tried to tell the hubby about it and he just shook his head and said there was something wrong with me…  well ok, there is!

So in that theme:

What do you call a person with no arms and no legs…

Thanks to Joe Castillo and his great website!

After a couple discussions with friends and my mom – i was convinced that i should just pull up my big girl panties and go and have fun.

Not wanting to disrupt the initial friendship that connected me to this gal, i figured i should make the best of it.

My other friend that I was dragging with, was game for whatever I wanted to do – she is such a good sport!

Some emails were exchanged with the gal setting up the event where i asked about bringing a table. See, once i start making cards, i’m like an addict and i hate to put my toys away to just pull them out the next day… So I wanted to bring my 6 foot table, but would settle for my card table, and leave everything out and ready!

Luckily the owner of the home had a card table I could use. Well that was cool!

Then my dear friend that I was dragging into this mess, also indicated that she would need a table. A response came back saying there was a big kitchen table, and a breakfast bar and a coffee table – sounding pretty cool… and then that response ended with…  By the way the condo is on the 3rd floor so you’ll have to schlep whatever you bring up 3 flights…

That was indeed the final straw.

My stuff is mostly based on paper. Paper in a group is heavy. Paper tools in a group are heavy…

I have a 4 draw cubby that my dad had to reinforce years ago with super thick plywood and real casters, non of those crappy black plastic wheels..  When i move this thing by myself i usually take out the draws…  (i have so many toys in this thing, just in case i want something, it’s in there, stamp pads, corner cutters, stickers, fancy special paper, glue, paint, and on and on it goes)

And then i have another little cubby with just paper and a paper cutter and a sticker maker and basically i have a bulky hobby.

I know it. I still love it!

I could surely pare it down for a weekend away, but really if i had the time to pare it down and figure out what i wanted to do for my craft weekend, then i wouldn’t need a craft weekend! I like to have options!

So – long story longer…  I declined that weekend and started my own, at my house!

I have no rules, just come and craft, or chat or whatever (ok, well no kids)

Bring something to eat for dinner Saturday night. I’ll over cook – like i always do, so everyone knows they wont go hungry.

We do mani-pedis if we want, we’ll watch chick flicks, we’ll chat, and snack and eat and enjoy each other’s company!  (oh and drink wine too!)

But, yes, i took my ball and went home!

I think it will be a fun time and hope to get some cool output form 2 full days of crafting!

Both the hubby and I have sisters that stuck with the rents, while we did not.

We then went thru all of our friends and most have the same thing, 1 child leaves the rest tend to stay put.

We had only 1 example where all the kids left home.

We were wondering if others saw this same trend and what their opinions were.

We figured out thru lots of research – basically just looking at ourselves…  That it didn’t seem to be first born or last born, male or female…

What a sweetie pie and he can just be too cute for words!