Goodbye Dominic

Last week Monday we were asked to watch Dominic again for a few hours so his foster parents could run some errands in Anchorage.  I'm glad we did because we hadn't seen him for a few weeks and we were supposed to watch him again for a few days in November, and I wanted him to stay used to us.

While he was here, he took the opportunity to "play" with Kiska since she was dumb enough to sit there and take it.

Notice how his little fist is tightly clasped onto her fur?

Dominic got his little pickers nipped at a couple times, which of course resulted in a few tears.  But, I guess that's one way for him to learn.

After giving us the evil look, Kiska finally did the smart thing and left the room.

Another reason I'm glad we got to watch Dominic that day is because, at the time, we didn't know it was going to be our last time.  The day after these pictures were taken, we got the news that he was leaving us.  His "parents" brought him over to our house on Tuesday night so we could say goodbye to him because they weren't sure exactly what day he was leaving. It was nice of them to think of us - they know how much we love that little man. It turned out we got to hold him through the sermon one last time yesterday in church, but now he's really gone.  He left this morning.  I sure am gonna miss that widdo guy.  (sniffle, sniffle)

Thankfully, although stressful as it can be, I have the distraction of my Halloween dinner, which is this Friday already.  Now that Dominic's parents will be "free", I invited them over to be this year's victims. Hopefully, it'll be a good distraction for them cuz I know they are having a really  hard time.

So I have been staying busy trying to get things ready.  I made my giant tree, which looks really pathetic.  I'll post a full view of it later after I get the room fully decorated.  But here is a picture of the sign that I put on it.

You have to read the book to understand some of the stuff I'm doing.

Since Ichabod was a school teacher, I wanted one of my walls to resemble a school, so I made this chalkboard:

I don't know if you can read Ichabod's schedule, so here is a closer look at it:

I wanted it to be clever and funny, but I'm not very good at coming up with clever and funny, and I didn't want to waste a lot more time trying to get my empty brain to come up with anything better, so that is what I ended up with.

I'm only halfway done with my decorating, so that's all I want to show for now.  But here is my skeleton sitting in my living room, waiting for the festivities to begin.

Kiska decided his lap was comfortable enough to take a nap on.

In the evenings, if I have the luxury to relax, I feed my Halloween mood by watching a movie from my Halloween collection.

There are a few that I absolutely HAVE to watch every year!!  And then there are some that I watch because they somehow relate to my theme and I can get ideas from them.  But I have too big of a collection to watch ALL of them.

My Halloween dinner is only 4 days away.  Yikes.  I am so thankful that my friend Tammie is coming all the way up here from Michigan to help me with it.  Well, actually she's coming up here for a different reason, but she timed it just right to help me with the most hectic part of it. She is even going to stay at my "Bed & Breakfast" for a few days.  BWAAHAHHAHAHAHAH!!!

I am so looking forward to her being here!

Fun times ahead.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

Halloween cometh.

A few days have gone by since I last posted, so I thought maybe I better sit down and say "hello, I'm still here".  My brain has been getting a lot of exercise lately, being so preoccupied with the coming festivity.  I'm starting to get that nervous panicky feeling because my "Bed & Breakfast" is only 2-1/2 weeks away, and I have SO much to do.  I'm still trying to figure out my menu, which is the worst part because I can't finish my flyers until I know what my menu will be, and I am really STUCK.  But here is a little taste of what my flyer cover looks likes.

I am making 10 of them.  Eight of them will get sent out in the mail, which is why I feel rushed to get them done.  After I get those done, I have all the decorating to do.  Oh my, there's so much to do!  Stephanie, I need you!!

In line of trying to figure out my menu, I came across this little book in the commissary:

Chuck always snaps his tongue and protests every time I buy another Halloween recipe book, but I had to have it because:

#1  I am doing a pumpkin theme this year and want some ideas

#2  I have all these pumpkins to play with:

And I'll probably buy more pie pumpkins if I see them.  Walmart is usually the place to buy them, but they sell out real fast, so I consider myself pretty lucky if I can get any. The general manager is a friend of mine, so I have that going for me - she knows I'm looking for them and will let me know when she's got some in stock. 

So, I am planning on trying all kinds of new pumpkin recipes in the next couple weeks.  Some are good, some not so good.  I tried two different recipes for homemade pumpkin pudding and both turned out of to be bombs.  The first one (made with chia seeds) wasn't that bad, but Chuck didn't like it.  Maybe he's like it better if I toned down on the spices. The second recipe, made with cornstarch, didn't taste good at all, so I chucked the whole batch in the garbage.  What a waste, I know.  But the way I look at it, if I learned something from it, it wasn't a total waste. 

I give up on making homemade pumpkin pudding.

Time to move on to something else.

Today I'm going to try making a pumpkin coffee cake.

Here are a couple smoothie recipes that I tried out of that little book:

In case you're interested, you can try them yourself.  I thought they were both pretty good, and as you can see from the ingredients, they are also good for you.

I think I like the bottom one a little better.  I added some coconut water to make it a bit thinner.

Here is another idea that I've been playing with:

This is a slice of acorn squash.  Usually I just cut them in half so they are a bowl, but that is always too much to eat in one meal.  So I tried making slices and it was just enough.

So basically, I've been awfully busy with visions of pumpkins dancing in my head at almost all times.  

So it's nice to think about non-related things once in awhile.  Such as our first snow:

It's not much, but it came early.  We woke up to this on the last day of September.

Kiska's summer adventure days are starting to wane:

"Hmm...should I or shouldn't I?"

 

She LOVES to go outside, but when she saw the snow, she hesitated.  She did finally go out there, but only just long enough for her paws to get cold.  She wanted no part of it.  To her benefit, the snow was all melted by the afternoon, and she disappeared for several hours as usual.  We haven't seen any new snow since then, except for what falls on the mountains.

That's about it.  Gotta get back to wracking my brain on those menus again.

Back2DaCabin

Today we were "supposed" to go to Knik Glacier again with Bob, but we decided to go to the cabin instead.  I'm glad we did cuz today's weather doesn't look like the kind of weather that I'd be very happy in on a trip like that.  Too wet and cold.  Brr.

Chuck had the day off work yesterday so we went to the cabin yesterday and spent the night.  I was looking forward to bringing home some rose hips and high-bush cranberries, and went there armed with empty containers and my new Alaska Berry Book! (I found it at Fred's for $10.)

But I came back home with the containers still empty.

All the berries must've been frosted multiple times already cuz there weren't any left hanging on the bushes.

No rose hip tea for me this year.

Bummer.

I forgot about those bird houses that we had left there to dry last time until I saw them again, still right where we left them on the front porch.  Chuck hung them back up in the trees.  Now they are just waiting for their new occupants.  Maybe I should've put a realtor sign on them.

This one almost looks like it could be haunted.

As you can tell, we were having wet foggy weather.  This morning when I went out to the outhouse, the temps were in the 30s, but it didn't feel that cold.

Inside the cabin, it was a toasty 80 degrees.

It was too wet outside for Chuck to work on trees, so he went up in the loft and tried patching up some insulation.  Yes, I know it still looks "bad" up there, but hopefully next summer, that will be improved.  The important thing is that it holds the heat in.

It gets really hot up there, which is why I keep pining for Chuck to take that upper level off, and just let the cabin have a low ceiling all the way across, so it'll heat up better in the winter.  But of course, he's not gonna do that.  He likes having that loft, and I suppose it does come in handy for people who borrow the cabin and they have more people with them.  But I feel sorry for the poor souls who have to sleep in that oven.  Chuck was sweating when he was working on it; it's must've been in the high 90s up there.

That is why we sleep in the bunk bed below:

I know this post is super boring, but I don't know what else to write about.  I'm just updating because I know my mom likes to look for something new to read when she gets on the computer at the library.

(Hi Ma!)

So anyhoo, even though it's cooler on the lower level, it still gets pretty warm.  When it gets that warm in there, I have to be careful not to get up too fast so I don't pass out again.

After Chuck was done with that, we went outside to practice our shooting.  

It was hard to tell if I was hitting the target or not, so we set up an empty can of beans.

And I hit it with my first shot.

But we won't talk about all the times that I missed.

Let's just say, if I was ever home alone and got intruded upon in the middle of night, I can just imagine myself saying something like:  "Who are you?  What do you want?  Get out of my house! I have a gun, and I sorta know how to use it."

Just ask Mr. Van Camp.

Swiss beans, anyone?

Gun practice didn't last very long because it started drizzling, and Chuck didn't want the guns getting wet.  And since the weather was preventing Chuck to do any work outside, we decided to pack up and go home.

Every time we leave the cabin, we always stop at the gas station just a few miles away (to go pee, and to buy something warm to drink for the road), and this time it was good that we did that cuz after we got there, Chuck discovered he had a flat tire on the trailer.

How in the world did that happen?

I know this post is painfully boring.  Sorry.

Let me digress.

Here is my first pumpkin spice latte for the Fall season, accompanied by some double-chocolate fudge cookies.  Now that pumpkin season is here, I will be drinking these lattes almost daily.  The ones at Starbucks are okay, but I like mine better, for taste and for health.  Ask Starbucks to make it with REAL pumpkin and add some ground flaxseed to it, and you will get a weird look.  At least mine doesn't have that chemical after-taste that you get at Starbucks.

Here are a couple of pumpkins that a friend of mine gave me.

A friend of hers let her pick what she wanted from their U-Pick-It farm, and she knows that I'm always looking for pie pumpkins, so she picked these for me.  Then she told me about that farm, which is only a few miles away from my house and I never even knew it existed.  So me and Chuck went there last week to see what she had left.  She still had some pie pumpkins left, so we bought 5 more for $25 (that was a special discount that she gave me because they were "rejects" at the farmer's market). Anyhoo, now I've got several pie pumpkins to keep me happy for awhile.

I need to buy some big carving ones though, for Halloween.

They can get quite pricey, so I am just buying them one at a time, whenever I happen to be in a store that sells them.  We'll see how many I end up with by the time Halloween gets here.  So far I only have one.

Speaking of which, one thing that I've been getting ready for is my Halloween "restaurant".  Right now, all I will say is that this year it won't be a "restaurant", but a Bed and Breakfast.

The Sleepy Hollow Bed & Breakfast.

As far as I know, everyone who reads my boring blog (what is that, maybe 3 people?), are people who I would normally send a Halloween invitation to, so I will not disclose any more information about that.  You will just have to wait until you get it in the mail.

I digress again.

Here is a birthday card that I made for my sister.

Her birthday is only 4 days before mine.  Weird, huh?

Karen, if you're reading this blog right now, please shut your eyes and continue scrolling.

Here is a wedding card that I made for my niece.  She is getting married only 4 days after my birthday.  Weird, huh?

Well, that's all I got.

Aren't you glad?

Hopefully, I'll have something for you next time that's worth reading about.

Fall Busy-ness

So, after we got home from Fairbanks last week, I had only a day or two to get ready for our midget guest again.  Here comes Dominic!

As usual, we had him for three nights and three days.  This time he slept a little better than usual.

But during the day was still a challenge.  To get him to take a good morning nap required a walk around the block in his stroller.  After getting back home, I just let him sleep in his stroller and he actually slept longer than the usual 20-minute nap.  But I wasn't so lucky with his afternoon naps, which meant he was crabby during the evening hours.  But at least that way he was tired enough to go right to sleep when we put him down for the night.

But he is such a good baby when he's had sufficient sleep.  

It's been kind of fun watching him every two months because I like seeing what new developmental changes he's made.  He crawls really fast now, pulls himself up on things, and a few times I caught him standing alone for a few seconds.  But when he realizes that no one is supporting him, he lets himself drop.  He has also discovered some consonant sounds which is really cute ("da-da", "ma-ma", "na-na", "ba-ba").

Anyhoo, those three days with him seemed to go a little faster this time.

We will have him again in November.

I got so used him clinging to me all the time, that after he left, at first I didn't know what to do with my arms.  They were FREE!  But it didn't take long for me to get my sewing machine out again.

I got this stack all done.  Now I have to cut them all in half.

I'm keeping the quilt update short because it's too boring.  Here is the next boring subject:

today we had a break from the rain, so after we got home from church we took down our greenhouse.  Kinda sad, but more of a relief because it's one less thing for me to tend to.

The back yard looks weird and empty now.

We moved the frame so Chuck could mow the long grass down.

Then we pulled everything out of the beds and collected some stray veggies that had gotten left behind.

And decided to just put all the buckets on top of the beds for the winter.

Then we emptied out the rain barrels.

I collected some of the dried out big stalks of corn because I might find a use for them for Halloween.

Which brings me to my next subject:  Halloween.

This year my theme is going to be.............(drum roll, please)

Actually, it'll be a combination of this story and a pumpkin theme.  I ordered the Kindle version of the book and have already read it twice to get some ideas.  I will probably keep reading it over and over for more ideas.  (it's a fairly short story)

In light of my theme, unfortunately, this is all the pumpkins I got from my garden this year.

Just two small pumpkins. They're not even big enough for a pie, unless I combine them.  I will probably just use them for my pumpkin spice lattes.  

BTW, see all the tomatoes we cleaned out of the greenhouse?  I tried making Fried Green Tomatoes with them last night.  They were good, but I don't understand the hype.

I'm getting off subject.

So, I have already been looking for ways to decorate my "Halloween room" with pumpkin vines going all over the place.  Too bad I didn't get more pumpkins from my garden cuz they are expensive to buy, and for this theme, the more the better, wouldn't you say?

So this is what I got so far, as far as creating pumpkin vines:

Green wire and fake leaves.  So far I only have one leaf attached because I did this when Dominic was here, just to test it and see how it would work out.  I bought a bag of fake leaves, and punched holes in all of them, now I want to attach them all to the wire.  I don't know how it's gonna look in the end, but I am still looking for other (cheap) ideas.  I was hoping to save my REAL pumpkin vines out of the garden, but they were starting to look like something that I wouldn't wanna put in my house. We threw them in the burn pile.

This is only the beginning stage where I get an idea and then work with it, not knowing for sure how I'm gonna make it happen, but somehow it all works out in the end.  My "restaurant" date is set for Oct 23.  Yikes, that's only 6 weeks away!

And this is where I start to panic.  

Time is never on my side, so it seems.