Happy Halloween

 I hope you all have a safe evening.

And for those who are celebrating Samhain- have a blessed evening.

My middle child

Is growing up!  I14 was confirmed today at church.  He is now considered a full-fledged adult member.  He had a small class:

Only three of them.  My parents came up for the day and my brother and SIL also joined us for the occasion.
After church, we all headed to our house, joined by CR, I14's mentor, for lunch.  I kept it pretty simple, pasta with a choice of two sauces, fresh bread and tossed salad.  For dessert, pumpkin pudding and ice cream.  It turns out that my brother and CR know each other from having worked together on occasion (CR works on the planes that my brother uses to test fly equipment.) so there was lively conversation for much of the afternoon.
We still need to carve our pumpkins for Halloween and finalize costumes.  K11 will be trick-or-treating with friends and I14 and J17 will go out briefly to the neighbors when she gets home from orchestra.  Looks like tomorrow will be a fend for yourself night for food.  That's OK, we've got lots of left over pasta and quiche in the fridge.
My parents brought us some corn for the chickens, gleaned from the fields.  We traded them for some eggs.  Mom also brought some oatmeal for the chickens.  They had it in storage and moths got into it and it was quite wormy (That's why I store my extra in the freezer!).  I sealed it in old coffee cans and took it directly to the coop to ration out. There was NO WAY I was bringing that buggy stuff into the house!!  But I'm sure the chickens won't mind the extra protein...

Mmm... Brains....

And other Saturday trivia!

J17's Dungeons and Dragons party went off well this afternoon.  The brains were quite tasty!  But, boy, it was loud here!!  Seven teenagers having fun is quite noisy.  But a grand time was had by all.  They only had a few hours this afternoon since J17 is off this evening being a roving violinist at an Italian Dinner fundraiser.  Most of the time they were all together this afternoon was spent creating characters and for most of the group this is their first time with an RPG.
We had lots of snacks- including some junk that I don't normally buy.  And one boy brought a giant bag of pizza rolls that I cooked in the oven for them all.  I made the mistake of eating a few of those and some candy corn and now I feel a bit sick.  It's amazing how quickly you get 'un-used' to eating processed food and junk.  But I was heartened that the first thing the kids finished was the bowl of grapes.  And they are all getting together again in two weeks to continue the game.  They don't have school on Nov 11 so they're planning an all day game-fest.  I'm kind of glad I've got to work that day!!
I spent part of the afternoon (while the party was going on) in the kitchen.  I'm still there off and on.  I'm having a quiche making marathon.  I had over 4 dozen eggs in the fridge so I decided to make some quiche- 6 of them!  Two each of the following:  Southwestern (sweet corn, chili peppers, onions and bacon), Broccoli/ cheese and sausage/ mushroom.  Two we will work on for dinner tonight (and leftovers!) and the other 4 will be frozen for future use.  More quick meals for the freezer.  Yeah!!
Tomorrow, I14 will be confirmed.  One more entertainment event to get through.  Whew.  But I've got everything ready but dessert.  One more thing for the oven today and then I'm done.
Gotta run and check the oven.  Hope you are all having a productive weekend.

Plotting and planning

We woke up to a frosty 26 degrees this morning.  Brrr...  But I didn't have to go out in it.  Since I worked last weekend at the hospital, I had today off as a comp day.  We've got a busy, busy weekend ahead of us so this was a great opportunity to do some planning and prep work.

Tomorrow afternoon, J17 is having some friends over for a game afternoon (RPG, not video games) and she gave me a list of requested snacks for the party.

 Peanut butter cookies were requested by one of her friends.  I dug out my grandmother's recipe.  Yum!
And what's a role playing game without some brain food:

Yes, we're some of THOSE people who have a brain jell-o mold.
Jell-0, evaporated milk and just the right blend of food coloring

 and into the fridge it goes.  I'll get some more photos tomorrow when it's unmolded and completed with gummi-worms.  The perfect thing for Halloween weekend.
Then, in addition to other cleaning and party planning (I14 is being confirmed this weekend and we'll host a family lunch on Sunday) I spent some time thinking about an apron.
Susan at e-i-e-i-omg! is hosting an "Apron Sew-off"!!  How much fun is that!  I seem to have misplaced my apron during the kitchen remodel and had to can tomatoes this year with a towel pinned around my neck- efficient but definitely NOT stylish.
So, first I pulled out the apron patterns that we have.  Not much to choose from... we've got historical:

and not:

I'm not up for a full length apron- although the pinafore looks lovely it takes 3.5 yards of fabric!
I've got a fabric in mind- one that I picked up with an apron in mind a while ago:

But I've only got 1 yard, 6 inches.  I really liked the fabric and got all they had left on the bolt which wasn't much.  I really love batik and hand dyed fabrics!!
But I"m thinking...  The apron in the middle takes 1.5 yards.  I don't have enough

But, what do you think of my pick from the scrap box to coordinate?

I've got about half a yard of the dark fabric in an odd shape - it's a charcoal gray with orange pinstripes and green viney bits.  I was thinking of doing the center bodice panel, waistband and ruffle out of the dark.  I think it's a plan- it may not work but- it's an apron.  I can't wait to get started. I've got a November 21 deadline!  What a great project to jump start me into sewing again!!

Ewww...

I saw something this afternoon that struck me as wrong on so many levels.  While K11 was at band this evening, we stopped at the grocery store for milk.  While walking through the produce department I saw a display of apples.  Crazy apples.  Flavored apples.  Apples that taste like tropical fruit and bubble gum.  EWWWWW.  What is wrong with apple flavored apples?  i understand the hope to get children to eat more fruit but REALLY???  That is just wrong.  And of course, there was the price.  $4.99 for a package of 4 apples!  No, thanks, I'll pass on those.  I'll stick to the local orchard.
I did manage to get to the farmer's market this evening.  I14 had to meet with his confirmation mentor before Sunday so I dropped him off and hit the last half hour of the market.  The last market of the season is on Saturday morning and there were so few vendors left this evening.  But, I did get some good deals, especially showing up at the end of the market at the end of the season.  I spent a total of $12 and got 4 giant butternut squash, a buttercup squash, a long island cheese squash and a HUGE head of organic broccoli.  Since my squash did pretty pitifully this summer I wanted to make sure I had some for the winter since I LOVE cubed, roasted squash over pasta with some parmesan.  Mmmm...

Oh, No

Say it ain't so.  Mattel is purchasing the parent company for Thomas the Tank Engine.  How sad. I do hope they keep those lovely wooden railroad toys going.  How sad it would be to see those wooden toys go to be replaced by only plastic Barbiefied or Hot wheeled garbage.  sigh.  I know that the plastic Thomas toys are already there but the wooden ones were so great for little hands when the boys were young.

Domestic Tranquility

It was a lovely day to be at home.  Except for some early morning fog, the weather was beautiful.
As much as I usually pack into my days, today seemed rather laid back. Oh, I was busy but I spent most of the day doing domestic things.  Laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning and a little outside stuff.
I was doing J17's laundry for her.  She usually does her own but has been so busy recently that she hasn't had time.  So, this morning, after they all left for school, I ventured into her room to retrieve her hamper.  It was a great day for line drying but I still didn't get all of her laundry done.  But, at least she has some clean stuff to wear.  I even got a great big hug from her this afternoon... awwww.....
My stash of green tomatoes is quickly ripening and I made a big batch of sauce that I'll freeze.  It will be so sad when the last one ripens.  No fresh tomatoes for 9 months!  sigh...
V was busy writing most of the day but after lunch we set out on some errands.  Chicken feed was purchased as well as some re-bar and six 80 lb bags of concrete mix for the deck pier.  V was really hoping to get to mixing and pouring that today but he has a deadline coming up for one of his jobs.  Maybe tomorrow- it is still supposed to be warm tomorrow before the bottom falls out of the temps in the next few days.
Not really much to say.  I was busy but not hectic today.  It was awesome.  I even took a little time to read while waiting for laundry and sauce to finish.  Amazing.