We made Halloween themed chocolate sugar cookies this evening. Damian got to use the new cookie cutters (the silhouette cat and pumpkin) that he got from Grandma Lorie this week. Mostly he ran off with them (he doesn’t quite understand the concept of the cookie cutter) but he was fascinated with the process.

He was also pretty interested in the cup I filled with flour to dust the table before I rolled out the dough. Michael noticed the theft.

An adult would not be nearly as cute getting this messy.

Pumpkins and cats and spiders oh my!

Do you make any special treats this time of year?

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” — Denis Waitley

We decided to spend this past weekend at home. It was nice to disconnect from the world for a little. We caught up on some much neglected yard work and Michael replaced one side of the van’s headlights (gotta love old vehicles…)

He also put together what will be Ivy’s crib. Damian was more then eager to help.

I made a Dutch Apple Pie with apples from last weekend’s Harvest Festival and loaded up the dehydrator even more apple sliced. Half a bushel to go… I also made two baguettes and a skillet full of roasted red potatoes and meatloaf. Autumn inspires me to cook.

You know that your husband knows you well when he brings you 36lbs of organic pluots home instead of flowers (a pluot is a plum/apricot cross and my favorite stone fruit.) I’ll be making fruit butter with these, though admittedly, we ate about 9lbs of them over the weekend…

And let’s not forget, Sunday night is football night!

On Saturday we will be having our annual winter solstice gathering. So far it is looking like we will be fitting a record 15 (maybe 17!) people into our townhouse. I am use to at least a few people not being able to make it but I don’t think it is going to happen this year. I don’t mind really, just a little daunted.

I have so much left to do. I stayed up till 22:30 last night making snowflake pretzels and I still have one or two more batches to make. I have three kinds of cookies to finish for the gift plates and one kind of fudge. We will be feasting on pot roast, yams, a vegetarian/gluten-free dish, a pumpkin roll (or two,) egg nog, mulled cider and hard cider from Greenbluff. Most people are bringing a side dish to contribute too.

I don’t know if I have enough chairs… Or mugs…

I also need to finish my solstice cards (just need to glue them together,) ship some stuff to my mom, finish laundry (any ideas for getting red wine out of ivory jeans?) learn a ritual and finish a podcast. Well Michael has to just give it his magic touch, I already recorded it. I suppose I should find a moment to shower between now and Saturday too… Michael will help me clean Saturday morning (gathering starts at 16:00.) I suppose I also have to make dinners for us during this week too. And of course time for Damian, he makes me stop and take a breather.

I am making this all sound a bit stressful aren’t I? It is not that bad really, I kind of wish I had a hand but with some good music to motivate me I know I can get it done. I really enjoy having people over to entertain. Poor Damian though, he is watching mommy fly around doing a million things and I keep missing his potty cues for EC. Monday we had a tough day, I don’t think he was feeling very well and he cried so much and for so long that for the first time Daddy had to come home for a bit and rescue Mommy’s sanity.

Damian has been a bubbly happy little man since though and is cruising! That means he gets up against something (like the futon) and walks all along it using it for a bit of support. He grins huge when I look at him and gives lots of hugs when I need them. I sit him in his high chair with some toys so he can see what I am doing on the counter. We have started solids, he has had apples, carrots and yams and potatoes so far.

Kim (my mother-in-law) and her parents stopped by yesterday to pick up Lydia’s gift (Michael’s youngest sister) and drop off a few early gifts. Grandma Stott made us a really pretty appliquéd angel decoration, Kim made us caramel and gave me a little book, she also made Damian a stocking. I’ll get pictures of all those things later, probably on the Sunday. I’ll be making another big meal on Sunday for the Solstice and we will open our gifts. Sunday will be more relaxed though, since it will just be Michael, Damian and me.

The local news is calling for 4 to 7 inches of new snow by tomorrow. One benefit to renting is that we don’t have to shovel our walkway! Anyhow I am going to grab some breakfast and start on some chocolate chip cookies…

Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture – I ran across this article yesterday and loved it, so I thought I would share.

I also thought I would share some stuff from my weekend::

I made cinnamon rolls from scratch:

They were yummy! Next time I am going to use different icing though, maybe just a milk/sugar glaze.

Michael had to be at work from 4am to 8am on Saturday, so he napped with Damian while I made them:

I made labels for some things in the kitchen:

The olive oil bottle says “Olive Oil (now with extra virgins)” because… well, it just amused me.

I got some new shoes at ShopKo (on clearance and 50% off, so $30 shoes for $3!)

We also picked up my diaphragm from the midwives and bought storage bins for my 25lbs of bread flour and sugar. But you don’t need pictures of those.

I got some reading in.

If you are into herbalism I strongly recommend Family Herbal by Rosemary Gladstar.

Last night be went over to Shannon’s and she gave us some organic produce from her garden, yum! Five cobs of corn, lots of green beans, a couple Anaheim peppers, a cucumber and a few more zucchini! I think I am going to be making zucchini relish with them this time.

I’ll probably be dehydrating some zucchini as well, for future use in pasta sauce and maybe to take camping in a vegetable soup mix.

And to end my sharing post, I wanted to share an amazing speech by Archbishop Tutu! What will happen when the last of our great leaders die? Do we have new ones within our generation? I hope so. (On a slightly amusing note, Archbishop Tutu refers to “ubunto” in his speech, defining it is “the essence of being human.” The Linux distro that I use is also called Ubunto!)

I have a buttermilk cinnamon raisin loaf in the oven right now and I can hardly wait for it to be done cooking. Oh my gosh it smells sooo incredibly good! T-25 minutes…

It is a glorious day outside, 45F! I have the windows cracked to let some of the fresh air goodness in. My patio windchime caught my eye this morning, the central glass piece was positively glowing in the midmorning sun. Spring fever has hit strongly and I feel the overwhelming urge to to indulge my nesting instincts, the equinox is only 22 days away! However, I promised to take it easy until this sciatic thing eases up, so sitting down I am.

Still, it is nearly impossible to stay put with all this gorgeous sunny day energy filtering into my home. I really want to get outside and garden (though it is wayyy to early in the season for that, this warm up cycle is just a tease) so I have tried to content myself with planning what I am going to do with our patio, (which is 3/4 concrete, 1/4 dirt.)

The dirt portion looks especially dejected right now, the snow has mostly melted off it revealing the few miscellaneous and mostly useless plastic pots I have out there. I see this area of our home as the biggest challenge, the soil is horrid – I can hardly call it soil. It is compact and full of gravel. It also receives very little sunlight during the day because our proximity to the next row of townhouse. Maybe 2/3 hours of morning sun and then 1.5 hours of partial shade on either side of that, so 5 hours of workable light, maybe 6… So it will most certainly be shade garden as well as very simple this year with the main focus on improving the soil. Can we say compost? Perhaps I will seed it will some prairie legumes (like Purple Prairie Clover) which fix nitrogen in the soil (improve soil quality.) I would love to grow some kind of shade loving vine on the wooden fence, not sure how much my neighbors would love me though if it turned out to be a prolific grower… I am not very well versed in shade plants (I have always been more of a vegetable gardener) so this is all a unique challenge.

As for the rest of the patio, 3 feet of the other side is taken up my Michael and my bicycles and a storage shelf, leaving about 7 square feet of concrete in the middle. Long and short term plans here remain very simple, a kettle grill, a small patio set (probably from a thrift store, I will know it when I see it!) and a few container plants.

Garden space has always been very important to me. I hate the hard edges of the city and even though Spokane is pretty green, I still feel that I am a million miles away from Mother Earth sometimes. Even the smallest gardens help me reconnect and as I nurture them, in return they nurture my soul.