Latest Posts
Pumpkin carving debut
Confession time. I have never carved a pumpkin… I may have done the face bit before, but never the whole top off, pumpkin guts out bit. Out came the knives, I lopped off the top. We scraped and pulled out the seeds and flesh. Lots of pumpkin for soup here.
The orange inside glows with bright, insides smell sweet and fresh and shout ‘I want to be soup’.
It is hollow and sounds empty, in need of it’s Halloween look.
Once the soup ingredients have been scraped and persuaded out, squash four cloves of garlic, cook for a minute or two in oil, add pumpkin flesh, stir to introduce the garlic to the pumpkin.
Add enough stock to cover and boil until the pumpkin is cooked. Stir the juice and zest of a lemon. Smell to taste.
Blend until smooth and eat with the most amazing bread you can make or find.
Out come the markers and the face is drawn on then sliced into shape. Eyes and teeth pop out willingly. Orange glows right out.
Spooky Haunted House craft for Halloween
Second Grade Halloween party is coming up and I am going to have them make haunted houses as the craft section of the party. I still haven’t decided on the snack section, but I am sure there will be plenty of sugar and scary food colours!
Want to make a spooky haunted house? Here’s how.
Spooky Haunted House ingredients
tall juice or milk carton construction paper or any paper you like stickers or sticky paper to draw on and cut out scissors glue pens and crayons paint or spray paint
The first stage is wash out the carton and cut off the bottom to whatever height you want your house.
Glue the top shut, so that you have a roof shape. It is easier to glue and then clip the top shut until it is dry. If you have a juice carton with a spout, hurrah, no gluing needed and you have a ready made chimney!
Then paint the carton or cover it in paper. If I didn’t have 16 to do, I would most likely take the paper route as paint needs at least two layers on the strange plastic-y texture of the cartons.
This carton has one layer on so far, once it has another coat, you can’t see the orange juice history through the paint.
When the paint has dried, you can add stickers and make windows and doors out of paper, cut them out and stick them on. I have some white sticky back paper which I drew on, then cut that out and stuck them on. Easy Peasy.
I got a bucket of crazy Halloween character stickers from Michael’s Craft shops and used them liberally throughout. The googly eyes in the window are from Michael’s too.
This house needs a roof. I coloured a sheet of paper and cut it into strips which I cut notches into for tiles. I glued them on in layers and worked around the spout which I made into a chimney with the same paper.
When I say ‘I coloured’ what I meant was ‘I scribbled’!
All you need is a few ingredients and a spot of spooky imagination and you can make a whole village of haunted houses from lots of different cartons in all sizes!
Smiles
Today’s photo theme is ‘Made you smile’. I soon snapped a bunch of glow in the dark skelly bobs, including a headless one which always makes me smile. I can’t even remember how he lost his head, but I like him without it!
Since I took this I saw a lady walking past the Container Store hiding behind a Whole Foods bag. She could have been shielding her face from the sun, but I am going with hiding! I had a quick look into the car park, but I could see no spies or assasins stalking her. I suppose because she was hiding so effectively.
Then I got to the Y for my yoga class, and there was a boat on the back of a truck. Possibly waiting to go in the pool or maybe it has set it’s floaty sights on a river trip? Made me smile!
Of course I had to spot an irresistible Autumnal tree with glowing yellow leaves. No funny business on this photos, just yellow gloriousness! I do like to put finishes onto my photos, but none could improve these colours.
So, as I was thinking about things which make me smile, along they all came! Be sure to be on the look out, a smile is just around the corner.
Just moi, staring at the floor.
Remember in French class at school, when the teacher wanted answers to questions you didn’t know the answer to, certainly not in French? That was me, lots of staring at the floor trying to not make eye contact and worse, get asked a question. The dreaded request in a foreign tongue, the even more dreaded and expected reply, preferably using the correct words in the correct tense in the correct order. Don’t pick me, don’t pick me, don’t pick me.
So, why now, am I in the same situation, brought upon by myself, voluntarily, signed up, by myself, of my own accord? Ok, not in French, but sometimes I wonder if I might get on better if it were.
As a relative newcomer to the US school system, my kids are working through Grade school and Middle school and we have High school coming in a few years. I find myself confused some of the time.
To start with, I went to Infant school, Primary school then Comprehensive school, in England. We went to school for the allotted years and then left to go to the ‘bigger’ school. No graduating, no names for the year, just first year, second year and so on. Fairly straightforward.
I still have no idea what a Sophmore is, I just know I don’t own one yet, that, or I missed it along with many other finer points of school life here. Freshman? Not sure what one of those is either.
So, there I am all signed up for stuff in the foreign land of the Middle School and everyone around me knows what they are doing, or else they are doing a fine job at pretending. Now I thought I was pretty good at putting on the airs and graces of a person who knows her crap, but alas, not as a Middle school volunteer. There it is again – ‘volunteer’ – I signed up! No staring at the floor to avoid eye contact, actual putting my name down to do stuff. In hindsight, the floor staring would have been a good way to go. There is lots of discussion of holiday celebrations and student birthdays and the finer points of how to celebrate them as a parent volunteer, unless you are a clueless volunteer that is. Is it too late to avoid eye contact? ‘Fraid so.
I am sure you have been there, that ‘rabbit in headlights’ feeling, lots to do, but no idea of where to start. Can someone please turn the darn headlights off, my eyes hurt.
Now I shall go and take my photo of the day – ‘fruit’ and then I am making chocolate chip cookies.
There, that is a start. I will put on my bunny sunglasses and bounce out of the way of the glaring headlights…
Sunny, rainy, windy Sunday
I bought this hat yesterday for Bodhi and it makes me laugh everytime he puts it on, especially like this!
We very happily managed to buy trousers which reach ankles too. So I am feeling a little more prepared for the Autumn and winter now! Of course the boys have no winter boots yet, but as they are virtually growing before my eyes, I am holding out.
I decided I need to make Millionaire Shortbread today which is a complete faff. Nothing difficult about it, but lots of ‘make and cool’ stages, and lots of stirring hot fudgey-ness. Worth it though! I will now have to freeze it, hide it or tie my hands behind my back to stop myself eating the darn lot! Don’t underestimate, I really could eat the lot! I could, but, I won’t. Might.
I also make this today, not the pumpkin, the bracelet. Another catseatdogs wrap bracelet/necklace/anklet. I feel I should invent a new jewelry name for them…brecklet?….anklacelet? (worth mentioning here that auto correct thought I wanted to write ‘ankle celery’ there, I quite like that).
These wraps are one of my favourite things to make as they almost develop by themselves, I am never quite sure how the colours, textures and shapes will get along together. I like this one.
After the warm couple of days and a good dousing of rain last night and today, the garlic is peeking out to see what is going on. We have some garlic in the veggie beds and the boys have some in pots to see who can grow the biggest garlic bulbs! Have to wait about another 8 months to find out.
Ten on the tenth
It is time for ten photos on the tenth day….of the tenth month, I only just realized that!
Here are todays comings and goings in my neck of the woods.
I made Blueberry muffins for breakfast. No, this is not normal! It is Gary’s birthday today. Unfortunately I didn’t plan well and the muffins were not done in time and everyone had cereal and raced off to school.
Bodhi and I walked to school in the chilly sunshine. The trees were luminous in the sunshine.
My neighbour has great Halloween decorations including this guy! He is also my ‘photo of the day’ which was emotion – I thought he looked a little fed up!
On my street walking home, I spotted lots of leaves with delicate dew on them, so I snapped this one.
Home for coffee and a blueberry muffin.
I made a little pan of beads to make a knotted necklace. Pretty pinks and greys with a hint of amethyst.
I had a request to make a Longhorn choker, so here he is. I think I need to make me one too!
This one is the ‘Hipstmatic’ photo of the day – archive. These drawers were the best I could come up with.
Chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting for Gary’s birthday! Pretty good, if I say so myself!
Orange and blue, we love you
We were at the pumpkin patch, the squash were orange and fabulous, the sky was picture blue. What else is there to do except take photos and photos and photos while the kids run round and round and round the hay maze in the ‘Tower of Terror’ ……..eeek.
I can just imagine when they made the sign for the ‘Tower’ someone came along and pointed out that it was a great sign, but they had missed out the of. Never mind, Sharpie to the rescue!!
Kings of the castle (ok, pyramid of hay…..)
Our Pumpkin haul!
Pink Pumpkins
Twenty five cents worth of joy
Up this morning in the dark and cold, freezing – dig out gloves and hats and boots cold.
Two days ago it was 84 degrees, this morning was 40, so the gloves had to be hunted down.
We set up our yard sale as part of a city wide sale extravaganza! Boxes and bags of toys were brought up from the basement. Toys and books were wrestled over –
‘Let’s sell’
‘No I want to keep it, it’s sentimental’
Why is a toy which hasn’t been seen in two years suddenly sentimental when someone else might buy it? It maybe came from a yard sale in the first place!
Eventually everyone agreed on yard sale stock and customers arrived.
Coffee was made and pumpkin syrup added and off we went into the Brentwood yard sales.
First stop was a sale right at the end of the street along from us. After avoiding ‘Big Game Hunting’ magazines by the pile (I nearly ran away at the mere thought) I spotted my 25c wonder.
He was wobbling on his little weighted base on a ladder in the garage of the garage sale with a sticker on him nearly his size (he is only a couple of inches) which said 25c.
He was mine all mine! I tucked him in my pocket, paid my quarter and off I went, a happy girl with a teeny penguin in her pocket!
We went exploring some more and came up with earrings to chop up for their vintage glass crystal beadiness, Marvel superhero books and a wonderful architectural stamp set (I can’t wait to make some buildings…..I got it for Bodhi really…)
We admired from afar, a whole pile of yard sticks and a pair of bunny candles!
My new friend in glorious profile!
Reasons to go to spin class
I went spinning this morning.
Please don’t be impressed at my verve to stay fit and spry. There are many reasons for my attendance and non of them indicate a desire to become a healthy human! I went because I would have gone straight back to bed if I went home. I had my gym bag ready at the door before we left for school so I might as well use it. I wanted to take my daily photo, theme today was ‘This happened today’ and I wasn’t planning on going anywhere else so I needed a remotely interesting photo. I know, really, I think a photo of a spin room is an interesting option…..
My friend who was also planning on taking the class kindly guided me to the YMCA after school drop off, so what choice did I have. Spin class completed, I sweated like a leaky water fountain and had wobbly legs afterwards, but I felt good dammit!
I am now standing in the woods writing this on my phone while I think of it because if I don’t, I will have forgotten what I was going to write by the time I get home!
My destitute shoppping bag full of pumpkin bread ingredients and kids socks, waiting on the woodland path while I type into my phone!
In the end, I didn’t use the spin photo, I used one of those annoying feet photos instead!
‘This Happened Today’ – I went shopping and took one of those feet shots!
Clare Davis Etheridge 