Happy Halloween

This is what I found on my front porch this afternoon. And these little sweet peas are 12 long hours away.

Have you ever seen anything cuter?

What a Guy

When I got up this morning these were on the table. What a great start to my birthday.

Thank you honey.

Poppy Seed Muffins

I baked some poppy seed muffins over the weekend and they were a big hit. I was asked for the

recipe, so here it is Natalie.

3 c flour

2 1/4 c sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp almond extract

3 eggs

1 1/8 c vegetable oil

1 1/2 c milk

2 Tbsp poppy seeds

Blend dry ingredients in large bowl. Beat eggs a little and add liquid ingredients and poppy seeds to dry mixture. Stir only til moistened. Too much stirring makes them tough. Spoon into well greased or paper lined muffin tins. Fill almost full. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Yield: 24 Freezes well

Sunday Sayings

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their message can be timeless.
Mother Teresa

Slowly But Surely

We have been working on Mimi's Cottage this week. The mister and I are slowly but surely getting some things done. I was slowed down a lot by an emergency root canal on Tuesday. Much pain, much pain pills, much amoxicillin, much better now. On Tuesday night I had a baby shower at my house and I don't remember too much of it and totally forgot to take any pictures. I'm blaming that on the pain medication. Anyway, here's some of the things we've done.

We added a cement walkway from our driveway to the front porch. I planted a climbing rose that I want to train up and over the garage door. One of our neighbors gave us some black eyed Susans, coreopsis, ajuga, mums, and a few other plants that she was thinning out so I stuck them in the planting beds. I bought some burning bush and a river birch and they got planted too...

Since we have no curbs or gutters on our street we added some rock for a parking strip and driveway approach. Hopefully this will cut down on the mud mess this winter.

We did a little fall/Halloween decorating.
Slowly but surely.

Rootbeer

I thought I'd post the yummy rootbeer recipe since I got several requests. It looks so cool because the dry ice makes that fog when it hits the liquid. Kids love it. OK I love it.

Mix together 1 gallon water, 1 lb sugar, 1 oz root beer extract. (I use a large plastic container but you can use a metal container like Tif did.) Then add 1 lb dry ice. Cover with plastic wrap or the container lid. It takes about 45 minutes to make carbonation. Also, I get the root beer extract at the grocery store by the vanilla extract. Have fun and make memories with your kids.

Halloween Hoot

I have the most adorable neighbor. She has the cutest little cottage and the cutest little twin toddlers. They are almost 3 years old, a boy and a girl. They moved into their little cottage about 3 years ago and have done some amazing and darling things to it. She doesn't have a blog but you know it would be the cutest if she did. I'm going to ask her if I can take some pictures of the inside of her sweet little cottage and put them on my blog. In the meantime she had a Halloween party for her little kidlets and I took a few pictures. She called it the first annual Halloween Hoot...

These cute decorations hanging in her pine tree from, who else, Martha Stewart.Gourds and little pumpkins strung on the fence...Her adorable front porch, check out the banner it's made of cute halloween fabric...

She had face painting, bobbing for apples, a beanbag toss, cookie decorating, and card making.

She even made homemade root beer. I'm telling you, she's the cutest...

Sunday Sayings

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Cowboy Wisdom

Cruisin

Today my son's stepson, (he's 17 and a computer whiz), came over to help me figure out what was wrong with my computer. He sits down at the computer, I explain what the problem is, he clicks on this he clicks on that and voila the computer is working again. Total time, 12 seconds...
OK, I feel like an idiot. I spent 4 days trying to figure the stupid thing out. Well, maybe the computer isn't the stupid one. I'm just sayin.

Anyway, the mister and I have been on a little trip. Well, it was kind of a big trip, actually. We went on a cruise to Mexico. We went with two other couples that we've known forever. Since 1977 anyway. We all have kids about the same age and when we were younger our families went camping together, the kids went to the same schools, we went to the same church, we basically raised our families together. Now we all live apart so it was good to see them again and catch up on all their new grandchildren and how retirement is going.
This was the ship we were on. The captain called it "the Wision of the Seas" I think he had a Norwegian accent. Note the climbing wall? I decided not to climb it.
Our first stop was Cabo San Lucas where we ate chips and guacamole right on the waterfront.And these guys serenaded us. Please ignore the bald head in the foreground. It couldn't have been one of our husbands. Ha
At every port we were greeted by this welcoming committee. We weren't sure if they were watching out for terrorists or guarding Mexico from anyone illegally entering their country.Our next stop was Mazatlan. The weather was hot and very humid.
Puerto Vallarta was our last port. We took a van tour of the city. Hot and humid again but what beautiful beaches and gorgeous coastline. We also made a stop at the open air market in the middle of town.

We had a great time on the cruise with our friends. We laughed, we talked, we danced, we watched the entertainment and the movies, we played games, we made new friends, we karaoked, we held hands and watched the moon rise, we swam, we laughed some more, but mostly we ate, things like this....
Yikes....

Technical Difficulties

I've spent four days trying to post some pictures and for some reason I'm not able to. Extremely frustrating. My computer did a bunch of updating and I'm wondering if that had something to do with it. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get some help. Someone who actually knows technical stuff is coming over to have a look see. Hopefully all will go well and I'll be back in business. See you soon.

Sunday Sayings

Fall Fun

I decided to do a little something different to my front door this year. Not very original but quick and easy, my kind of project. Bought some Indian corn. Wired three of them together. Tied a ribbon around it. Hung it on the door. The end.

Sunflowers

We had a bumper crop of sunflowers this year. They are in our side yard and can be seen from the street. I didn't plant any they all self-seeded. The birds love them. The bees love them. I love them. I'm leaving the remains of them there to feed the birds over the winter and I hope next year we'll have another bumper crop.

Sunday Sayings

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
Unknown

Barns, Sheds, and Coops

I just love little outbuildings. We actually have an old chicken coop in our backyard. We think it was probably built in the 1920's. It's in pretty bad shape. The roof leaks, the cracks between the boards lets a lot of wind and cold in, there are all kinds of bugs, wasps, and spiders that think it's their home. Everyone in the neighborhood thinks it needs to be torn down. But I love it, even with all it's defects.
We're going to build a brand new shed. I want it to look like it's been here awhile. We've talked to some shed companies, we've looked at the kits from the depot, but the mister wants to build it himself. Which doesn't surprise me one bit. So I've been out taking pictures of some vintage sheds and small barns. I love the quirkiness of this one.

Love the color on this one. I'd have more storage in it because it could have a loft. We want to use it for storage of summer stuff during the winter and maybe a place where I could paint furniture and do projects in the summer. So what do you guys think? Anyone have any pictures of barns or sheds or coops? I know you all are creative so help me out here. We are pouring the slab for a 12 x 20 foot building next week. So we've got to figure out something pretty quick.

Halloween Tree

Well, as you know I haven't had an original idea since 1987 so I decided to jump on the halloween tree bandwagon. These trees have been seen on many blogs all over blogland. It might have started with Martha, no, it probably started with Martha and then kind of branched out from there. Ha ha. Susie made a really cute one and so did M.L. there were a few more but I need to get a few things done today so I need to get off the computer quick. Anyway, it just so happened that a couple of weeks ago a big limb from one of our big trees in our backyard fell down. So the mister and I cut it up and took most of it to the dump except I kept a few little branches for the project. I found this urn at the thrift store quite a while back. I spray painted it and the little branches black.
I took florist foam and stuck it in the urn, added one of my little Christmas wreaths turned black, stuck the sticks in the foam and covered the foam with spanish moss. I tied some orange and green ribbon on and wired a crow from the dollar store on one of the branches. These pictures are bad. Dumb camera, poor light, bad photographer... That black wall pocket thing looks like it's hanging from the tree but it's really hanging on the wall behind it. You get the idea.