Trick or Treat... smell my feet... give me something good to eat...

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This is the most festivity I can muster today.

Happy Halloween.

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More Fall Color

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Callas are one of my favorite flowers. These are a wonderful fall orange. The leaves have white specks which sort of act like little opaque skylites. You can sort of see it in the third pic, which, I have to give credit to Mister for taking.

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Vegan Apple and Cranberry Crisp

Thanks to EarthBalance this once buttery recipe turned vegan was amazing. Apples in my parent's orchard and some cranberries I found in my freezer from last year. Whole cranberries are amazing. Freeze them and they will last, depending on your freezer I guess, a couple years. Boil these two together with some sugar, Grand Marnier, cinnamon and allspice, cover it with crumbly wonderful EarthBalance, brown sugar and oatmeal. Oy! The perfect cool weather dessert. Nick, who would rather everything be covered in chocolate, actually really liked it. We topped it with Soy Dream vanilla and it was super yummy.

You might be surprised how difficult it is to photograph still life. The pictures just didn't do it justice. The cranberries made it very pretty. And when I think back to the way the house smelled while it was baking and after it came out of the oven.... mmm. Cinnamony, brown sugary, appley and toasty, warm goodness. Hungry yet?

Signs of Autumn

Autumn in the great northwest is amazing. The days are bright and sunny, cool enough to need a light jacket, crisp enough to make your cheeks pink and your nose run. The air starts to feel a little cleaner and the wind will whip up and blow the fallen leaves in a rustle making a sound only dry leaves on the Autumn air can. These last days of October 2006 are here and soon to be behind us. Last weekend was incredibly beautiful, a perfect example of the wonder I relish so much.

Nick's mom's clay pots drying out on her deck seemed at once lonely and peaceful.

These are the last of the peppers on the vine, some vine maple leaves starting their turn from summer green to yellow and oranges. The photos don't do justice to how wonderful everything looks and smells and feels this time of year. I should take some photography classes.

A date with death

Seems very strange to make a phone call for death.

Me:   dialing phone ring...ring...

Vet: Dr. McNeill

Me: Hi, Dr. McNeill. This is Lucy, my cat is One, the 17 year old orange tabby with the liver failure. Vet: Hi. How's the little stud doing? Me: Well, I think he's ready to be.... I think that I need to.......

he's, well, you know, not doing so well.....and, you know,

well, it might be Time.

You know I can't imagine how that phone call will go. What words will I actually be able to make come from my mouth? I need to make that call this afternoon. I'm still in denial about it. I will be to the bitter end. How do I tell someone I would like them to come to my home and end the life of the sweet little orange hairy love of my life. Granted, his quality of life has gone down the toilet. (I'll need reminded of that.) I know he's had a wonderful life with me. I have the scars to prove it. No, really, I have scars. He was a monster (but a lovable one) during his day. I'll actually carry him with me forever, through the scars.

Nectar

Its really the only thing keeping me going right now.

Beauty is but fleeting

Beatiful things, friends and memories can all wilt, wither and fade. Its just a matter of time and timing. My mantra this year has been enjoy life now there really isn't a second chance to do this life over. Depending on your beliefs you may have another lifetime(s) to live again, but this life, this time, this here and now are the only time we'll have to live it. Life isn't like PlayStation (or whatever the game system of the day is). There is no reset button. Live, love, enjoy, take time to help others, make someones day with a smile. Sometimes that's all it takes.

Stuck in a rut...

Its easy to get stuck in a rut. Haven't we all been there? I feel it necessary to talk about ruts this morning, because the little, orange, hairy, love of my life, my 17+ year companion is not feeling very well. I will be leaving this here space in an hour or so to take him to the vet to find out what can be done. More on that later, can't quite deal with it.

Anyway...this is the view from my desk toward the office. The world as seen by me umpteen hours of each weekday and occassionally a weekend too. Not really that exciting. You can see the b/w pics of my beautiful nieces. They keep me company all day and my scanner and, well, actually, not too many piles of work this morning. I'm in before 7:00 each morning, as a general rule. Quiet time to #1 blog a little and #2 get some things done that require my full attention. As you can see, the desk next to me is quite close. My bookkeeper sits there. We don't have a part-time person right now. Just can't quite get myself to try and replace the perfect girl we had in that position last. She decided to use her masters degree and go on to real life rather than hanging out with me filing and running errands. I have to get my own Coffee People ;-)

View from my desk

I digress (and pretty well I might add). This next view is from my desk out the window or through the door onto the deck and over the river...to somewhere equally as interesting I am certain. There's my printer (woohoo) and more piles of work and well, thats about it. The picture quality isn't that great. I've discovered that the panarama function on the camera is sort of fun to play with. The problem arises in that I don't feel like taking the time to really figure it out right now, so I sort of cut and paste and don't care that the perspective is off. We'll just call it "arty" for now.

View toward the world

Well, here's the last pana for today. View toward my desk. Its a kind of still life representation of my world. I sit and work and blog occassionally and rule with tyranny (just kidding).

View toward my desk.

That's my rut for now. Well two of them, my office life, yeehaw and I'm stuck in panarama mode. So, excellent weekends to all. Go do something new and exciting or new and boring or old and exciting, but don't do the same old thing. Live life now. It can't and won't wait for us.

xo

Ack!

Blog layout troubles. Bear with me. This black background is not exactly what I was going for, but, its growing on me. Crap!

Switch

Ok Ms. A. You've got to switch to Beta so I can comment on your Blog. Everybody's doing it. I'll be your friend. No pressure.

Ms. A: Comment ~ You look great! But, I understand so, much luck to you. Not that you'll need it :-) Hope all is fantastic. How's Fall in Phoenix? w/b f/f (heehee)

Carrot Cake

This weekend was a joint celebration of birthdays. Nick's mom and our best friend (Nick's sister's boyfriend) Aaron. I made the cake. I usually do. I like to bake, I don't really care for store bought cakes and I'm a control freak. I want to know what's in my food. This is especially true since Nick and I are both non-dairy. Its really difficult to be non-dairy and eat in public, especially desserts. Next time you are out and are looking at the dessert menu, just for kicks, check out how many have dairy and how many don't. You als

o have to remember that even if it is cooked in, like buttermilk pancakes (yummy!), its dairy.

My sister is an amazing cook and baker. Forever ago (literally, something like 20 years ago) she gave me this reci

pe because, well, she made this cake and it was stupendous and I had to have the recipe. Its been sitting in the archives for lo those long years because the thought of making carrot cake sounds just like a lot of work. Who has the time to shred carrots? Certainly not me. And, well, its carrot cake. You look at it and you know its difficult and time consuming.

Back to the present... F

ran's favorite cake is carrot. She's the mother-in-law which has it own connotations, but she happens to also be Amazing and I truly enjoy her. Need I say more. So thanks to kitchen gizmos and gadgets amassed through the years ...

I'd like to take this time to thank my food

processor for shredding the carrots in no time flat, my stand mixer that has been so good to me over the years for mixing the cake batter and the frosting and for my food chopper for making chopped nuts a breeze

... the cake making task was really way easier than I thought it could be. I have to say, this was, to the delight of all who partooketh, a pretty flipin' delicious cake. As you can see by my scratchings on the recipe card above, I've modified slightly my sister's recipe to suit my own tastes. The result... delicious. Here is now a random photo since the photo originally here has been removed from my Flickr stream and hence unavailable any longer.

We now return you to your program:

I did not make cream cheese frosting, non-dairy remember, and I added a drizzle of brown sugar frosting and toasted coconut for prettiness. I thought it looked almost professional. But, I may be a little biased.

So, here's an easier to read than the original recipe card above version, my version. Enjoy.

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Carrot Cake Preheat oven to 350. Grease and lightly flour two 8-inch rounds. 2 ¼ c flour 1 ½ c sugar 2 tsp baking soda 2 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp salt 1 tsp allspice 1 tsp ginger 3 eggs, beaten ¾ c mayonnaise 8 oz crushed pineapple w/juice 1/3 c molasses 2 c finely shredded carrots ¾ c nuts 1 c yellow raisins Combine dry ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and mix for at least 3 minutes until well incorporated. Bake in two 8-inch rounds for approximately 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Frosting: Mix together until smooth – 2-3 cups powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons softened butter, 6 oz softened cream cheese, ½ tsp vanilla and a dash of salt.

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Enjoy!

The last of this summer's beauties

The last of the loebelia. They were actually volunteers this year. They sprung up late in the summer and sort of took over a little patch of ground in the lower yard then spread upward to beneath the yellow daisies. It was a wonderful little purple treat. I wish I had just one ounce of design capability. I know there's possiblity for great wondrous beauty in my yard, but, alas, very little creativity exists in my head for this type of thing. I know what I don't like, but am not quite sure what I do like until I see it. That's just the way I work.

Some of the last, and actually pretty beat up, daisies. Not sure what kind. Now that I think of it, they were volunteers of a sort also. I had a can of mixed seeds, you know the ones you buy and sprinkle around hoping to get something to come up, anything at all. I think these daisies must be semi-perennial. They weren't here last year, but may have been the year before. Anyway, not important. Just yellow loveliness.

Weekend project

This is the Autumn view of my deck as I lounged last Friday afternoon. (Yes, those are my feet.) Autumn is my second favorite season. The first being Spring, which I won't go into now since this post is not about Spring.

Autumn air has a wonderful aroma, its like homemade bread thats been sitting on the cooling rack for a couple hours. The warm smell (of Summer if you're sticking with me) is lingering and subtle. The days are still nice enough to not need a jacket, but the evenings are cool enough that you need an extra blanket on the bed. The air feels more crisp than it has in months and you'll wake up in the middle of the night to the patter of a lite rain that will have gone by morning but left the ground damp as a reminder of it having been there like an elf of the shoemaking variety. Halloween is coming and soon pumpkins will be carved, apples will be bobbed, cinnamon'd cider will be warmed and sipped from large mugs which usually hold only coffee or tea and you feel a little more like snuggling in on the weekends, and weekdays unfortunately. It becomes ok to sit on the sofa in the middle of a Saturday afternoon even when chores beckon because maybe its sprinkling outside or maybe you just feel like being warm and cuddly with a kitty and a movie rather than outside in the pale blue which is starting to turn more whispy white and grey than possible in the Summer sky. Ahh, Autumn is wonderful.

This next panorama is, obviously, taken from below the deck area. You can see the lounge chair in the upper right where I was sitting when I took the photo at the top of this post. My little yard won't be winning any contests but its relaxing and its mine and I enjoy being there.

Just Read: Antarctica on a Plate

Author: Alexa Thomson

I seem to really enjoy adventure books lately. Adventures of all sorts,

• historic adventure ~ Bill Sloan: Brotherhood of Heroes,
• tragic adventure ~ Bernie Chowdhure: The Last Dive (on my 'to read' list),
• mysterious adventure ~ Robert Kurson: Shadow Divers,
• humorous adventure a la Bill Bryson: A Walk in the Woods,

basically all types of adventures. Am I living vicariously, well, a little. I don't have unlimited resources to do all the things I'd like to do so I get a book and peek in to the adventures of others. It's all part of the bloggish voyeurism we blog readers understand. I've read some interesting stuff lately. I recommend Laurence Gonzales: Deep Survival , I won't think of adventure quite the same again, a good thing, trust me.

I enjoyed this book for what it was. If you are looking for something with history and reckless treks across the sastrugi you won't enjoy this. If you are looking for one woman's three month hiatus from 'real life' this is the book for you. Her writing is cute and funny and, I think, she succeeds in getting her point across. As I take her point to be that life is now and maybe not exactly what you thought it was 'supposed' to be. The storyline is novelesque and her style is quirky. She can be a little whiney, but then, sometimes that's just life. What an adventure, Antarctica. Not many people will get to say they spent any time at all, much less three months in probably the most remote place on earth. If you're ready for an adventure that can make you smile and that isn't too serious, this is a fun book.

Project Numero Deux

The other project my wonderful boyfriend decided would be a good idea was moving the deck. Yes, I said moving the deck. We picked it up and moved it 3 feet from the house creating a walkway. Truth be told, the deck was in serious need of repairs. I think we figured it was actually only sitting on like 3 of the 6 supports and teetered just a fraction when walked on.

This is a pre deck move pic for perspective. It really isn't that helpful now that I look at it.

Here is the deck hoisted into the air ready for repair. A bigger job than what you may think, trust me on this. I helped. I did!

Finished product as of this very weekend. We (I helped!!) put in some 4x4's at the far end, which, my photography doesn't really show. It was sprinkling when I took the pics and didn't want to wander around in the wetness. Anyway, 4x4's about 3 feet off the far end with a step and the entire area filled with quarter minus. (I told you I helped. How else would I know what quarter minus was?) Also, a couple flagstones selectively stolen from the front path to bring some cohesiveness to the landscaping.

Procrastination, I'm making them wait...

I'm a procrastinator. I don't really want to be this, but, I can admit it. In fact this blog thing is a wonderful procrastinating tool. I have some annual reports I don't particularly care to do. As I lament the work sitting on my desk, my bookkeeper reminds me that "they" say the things you hate to do most are the ones you should do first. "They" obviously aren't procrastinators. "They" don't have a clue what an incapacitating affliction this can be. I guess its good some people aren't procrastinators.

Free Whine and Wine

Can I just say Blogger, even in the new BETA, is rather irritating when it comes to some things. You write a paragraph or two, and think, "Hey, this really isn't a bad post. In fact, this is really good stuff. I may be getting the hang of blogging in a way that will draw hundreds, if not thousands to my blog." And then you try some normal editing and **POOF** its all gone. Big, irritated Sigh..... Start again. And just know, the original of this was amazing and intriguing and you'd have been awed.....I digress.

Free wine, blah, blah, blah. go try some. there are rules. yeehaw. good for me.... ok, one more time, did I say irritated?

If you have been doing much in the way of blog reading, you know that there are some fabulous links out there. You start clicking away and the next thing you know, you have added several new blogs to your 'favorites' list and have spent 1/2 an hour reading about people you'll likely never meet but are yet fascinated to the point that you'll keep returning. In my stalking this morning, I came across a link to some free wine from Mankas Hills Vineyards. Mankas Hills is located in the beautiful Suisun Valley, good ole US of A and has offered free wine to bloggers of a certain age. Its an interest social commentary. This vineyard is capitalizing on the Bloggin phenomenon that is gripping our nation and our world. Blogging is an amazing form of advertising in and of itself. One person hears about or enjoys something so much that they have to journal (aka blog) about it and anyone from around the world can stumble upon the blog and you can see the possibilities. Well, you sort of have to have a blog that gets read, but hey, I'm working on it. I guess I actually have to tell people about the blog though. I'm still private enough about my life that even though this blog is out there for the world, I still hold it pretty close and safe.

Anyway, go try some free wine. There was, of course, a caveat about rescinding the offer at any time, but I'm still hoping for some free vino.

Project

Home project, thank Heavens its done. Nick was amazing and a trooper.

From top left: how it was; wall torn down to the studs; sheetrock installed; grooved thinset (**fascinating**); Nick putting down Wonderboard, setting the tile, grouting the tile and finally, below; finished product.

I am so excited to have wood heat, warm an cozy this winter. The living room feels a little bigger and no more fireplace that is basically unusable and ineffective. No caffeine so no long rambling story for ya'll. That's just what we've been doing with all our spare time for the last month.

Nocturnal Visitors

So these pics won't be in National Geographic any time soon, but, that's ok. I'm working on night photography, and these little guys showed up to help out.

I think I said I was working on night photography, not mastering it. Sometimes though, my blunders intrigue me, as below. The accidental clarity of the oak leaf dangling in front of the fuzzy ringed monster. I love green.

the long haul ~ edition VIII

I'm a little bit of a hermit. I think my parents are that way and I've inherited the hermit gene. I am comfortable hanging out by myself, I actually find it enjoyable. I can do what I want and if that it sitting my duff on the sofa and watching bad reruns, then so be it. This last Saturday, it meant getting up, making the exact breakfast I wanted of biscuits and gravy. I've never been a biscuits and gravy girl especially since I gave up dairy, but when camping last with my parents, my mom made it and I've had it on my mind ever since. Now, my parents are pretty traditional in most things; Christmas presents are opened on Christmas, not on the eve; church on Sunday generally followed by family lunch; one large truck for haulin' stuff and one oversized and by some standards luxurious four-door, eight-cylinder, large Ford automobile. That said, I've had what I consider a healthy influence on their eating habits, well, once in awhile. My mom, who when I asked if she wanted a fresh fig wrinkled her nose and without ever having tried fresh figs, decided they were 'weird' and would have nothing to do with them. So you'll understand my coup when my mom whips out the almond milk, because she knows Nick and I don't to dairy - isn't that the sweetest thing - to make the biscuits and gravy. Well, it was awesome. Back to the future ~ Saturday, I made biscuits and (soy this time) gravy to start the day, then continued to fill my day alone with chores and errands, which for some reason are so much more enjoyable when done at my own pace without anyone watching and wondering why I'm working at a snails pace. Sometimes that's just what I want to do folks. It feels like I get more done by myself because I don't have to figure in someone else's needs. Sometimes I don't want to spend 2 hours at Home Depot. I realize the Home Depot trip may be completely for my benefit, but, I just don't have the patience.

This is all without caffeine, FYI

I started out as very much a loner type of person. I think adding in living by myself for the last 12+ years has given me a perspective that most don't have. I like doing my own thing and doing it with myself. It does pose a problem once in a while when I really just want to snuggle into the sofa and read and Nick wants to go out. Most of the time he doesn't care and will hang with me. We'll put in a movie and I'll be asleep in half an hour. I have a modicum of guilt when I choose this many weekends in a row.

I don't have an issue with Friday or Saturday nights alone doing whatever I want to do, even if that is mopping the kitchen floor. I think a lot of people feel if they don't go out or hang with friends or do something 'public' that there is a problem. I'm not exactly sure why that makes me sad, but it does.