BOO!

Courtesy of Indiana Jones and Frankenstein

Carving Out a Niche

CarA bit of pumpkin carving madness - which was quickly abandoned by both boys in favor of playing and toys a sticky minute or two into the event. That's ok though. I think I can say for a fact that the husband and I had quite a bit of fun carving the abandoned pumpkins and just enjoying the season.

Showing off the finished product

Indulgence

Sometimes I have a little trouble balancing things. I’m no good at doing one load of laundry every day. I have good intentions, but I typically end up doing most of it all at once because we’ve run out of underwear. Another thing I do? I wait too long for ‘me’ time, and then when I get it, I hoard it like a starving dog, worried I may never get it again.

Perhaps it’s because for the last six + years, it has been mostly about them. Now that I have five days a week where at least one child is in school, I’m not sure what is allowed. Can I spend the entire day on my favorite introverted activities like reading and musing and being online? Do I need to be productive and clean the house from the top of the fridge down to the baseboards? Shouldn’t I finish that project? Write that book? Learn a new language? Save the world?

I’m still trying to find that happy place between living restfully and being productive.

Today, I indulge.

Nutella Crescents

Sunday mornings in our house are typically reserved for being lazy and spending the day together as a family and just enjoying each other and taking a break from all of the business and stress that life has to offer on the other 6 days of the week.

And to start this day of family togetherness off right, we typically begin with a scrumptious family breakfast.

Yesterday I broke out one of my favorite things in the world (yes, even my chocolate hating self loves this), Nutella.

Add a glob of the sweet hazelnut yummy goodness to a regular pack of Pillsbury Crescents, roll up, and bake. I promise you'll have a delicious and ridiciously easy to make breakfast that's guaranteed to be a great start to your day.

10 Things

The goal is to list 10 things that you are thankful for. The first 10 things that you can think of at that moment, plucked straight from the top of your head.

1. Steaming cups of hot Tazo chai tea
2. The wind ripping through the leaves
3. Oranges, Browns, Yellows - the colors of Autumn
4. Turning the TV off once in awhile
5. Late night NCIS marathons with my husband
6. Warm and cuddle worthy blankets
7. Oatmeal cookies
8. Hoodies, sweaters, scarves, and hats
9. Charlie and Lola
10. Energy Vitamin Water

For A Stroll

An autumn walk - complete with running through the leaves, playing in the creek, climbing trees, and being with family.

Life is Good.

Something New

Its been awhile since I've really added anything worthwhile to my much neglected etsy shop. I could pass it off on the fact that we just moved, that I've been busy doing one thing or another, or some other lame-o excuse. But the truth is that I haven't been totally 100% into the whole etsy thing anymore.

I still have my shop up and running and am trying to maintain it the best that I can, but I just haven't been as fanatic about it anymore. With all of the changes over at the site that have taken place over the past few months I'm just not sure if its going to continue to be the best place for me. That, combined with going through a inspiration block of sorts has left me severely lazy in terms of making new things.

But finally, after literally a month, I finished up my first paper banner (and have actually grown pretty excited about it!) that I'm going to be listing in the shop sometime soon. I'm also going to be making custom banners in different color combos and themes as well, I'm just not sure exactly how I'm going to be listing them though. I'm hoping that a bit of the love and excitement of making things comes back to me soon, and these banners have the potential to be the catalyst.

So anyways, here - after what seems like forever - is my first creation in quite awhile.

The Secrets to a Blissful Marriage

Because marriage is like a garden. You have to tend to it every day lest it become overgrown with weeds.

Think play, not romance.

Forget boquets of flowers, candle lit dinners, and instead play a video game, get into a tickling match or take silly pictures together. Have fun, and do it together. Laugh and smile. Alot.

Make your relationship a priority.

Especially when you have a family. What your kids need most is to be loved by parents who are happy and productive participants in the world.

Everything is a negotiation.

Remember that there are two parties in the relationship, and together you're so much greater than the sum of your parts.

Embrace imperfection.

Accept that you are both going to make mistakes, and if the mistake was not intentionally hurtful, let it go. Adjust your expectations and align them with reality (dirty socks on the floor, pre-menstrual hormone insanity), not fantasy (a pristine house, a perpetually perky disposition, constantly angelic and well behaved children).

Reinvigorate the Old.

Life's grind sometimes whittles away the parts of us that are carefree, inspired, focused or fun. One of the best things you can do for your spouse is to defend the parts of them that you originally fell in love with and married the other for. And that doesn't mean saying "You used to be so..." It means reminding them that they ARE those things; they're not gone, even on their most beaten down days and hectic days.

Discover the New.

Together, embark on unplanned adventures. Do it often.

Mornings on the Farm

A bit of frost covered the farm this morning. And Brayden and I spotted a sweet little birds nest up in trees while waiting for the bus this morning.

The simple things in life are indeed the sweetest

10 Things

The goal is to list 10 things that you are thankful for. The first 10 things that you can think of at that moment, plucked straight from the top of your head.

1. Lazy Sundays at home with the family
2. First snow of the season
3. Soft warm sweaters on chilly days
4. Living room picinics
5. A good movie with a bowl full of popcorn
6. Sleeping boys in their bunkbeds
7. Yankee Candles
8. Cherry Laffy Taffy
9. Afternoon naps
10. Good stories that bring good dreams

Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Muffin Madness

We're all so busy during the week between work, school, chores and so forth, that breakfast in our house is often overlooked, ignored, rushed, or forgotten about.

Cereal and frozen waffles are fine Monday through Saturday but every Sunday we always try and take some time out to enjoy each others company, slow down, and have a homemade family family breakfast.

The best part of this time of the year = breaking out all of my totally scrumptious Pumpkin recipes!

On our table this Sunday morning will be:

Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Muffin Madness

Ingredients:
8 ounces of cream cheese
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups of sugar
2 1/2 cups of flour
1/4 cup of mixed walnuts and pecans, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons of butter - melted
2 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoons of baking soda
1 1/4 cups of solid-packed pumpkin
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Lightly coat muffin tins with oil or use muffin liners if preferred and set aside.

3. Mix the cream cheese, 1 egg, and 3 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl and set aside.

4. Toss 5 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 cup flour, nuts, butter, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon together in a medium bowl and set aside.

5. Combine the remaining sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and remaining cinnamon in a large bowl.

6. Lightly beat the remaining eggs, pumpkin, oil, and vanilla together in a medium bowl.

7. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, pour the pumpkin mixture into the well, and mix with a fork just until moistened.

8. Evenly divide half of the batter among the muffin cups. Place two teaspoonfuls of cream cheese filling in the center of each cup and fill with the remaining batter.

9. Sprinkle some of the walnut and pecan mixture over the top of each muffin and bake until golden, 20-25 minutes.

10. Allow to cool and droll over them while you wait.

Yields roughly 24 muffins.
(Goes GREAT with a big cup of coffee!)

Unswept.

This morning as I sit here and sip my coffee I am reminded of my unswept kitchen floor.

There is still a shopping bag, with the most adorable quilted placemat in it, sitting in my living room, unpacked, from two Sundays ago. My dryer is full of clothes waiting to be folded and my dishwasher is full of dishes waiting to be put in the cupboards.

But here I sit, with a mug of coffee in front of me (with the most delicious Tiramisu creamer in it), and blogs in which to read on my computer screen and I am in heaven and am in no hurry to rush to the things that I know are waiting for me.

Life is short, and the laundry will still be there in an hour or two. Today I'm slowing down.

Faranda Farm Fun

We have a fall tradation around here, and long before the leaves start to turn, the air starts to chill and the hoodies and long pants are removed from their dresser drawers, Brayden and Gage (but mostly Brayden) start begging and itching to take advantage of it.

Autumn to us is pumpkins, colorful leaves, sweet desserts, and Farandas Farm, complete with a Hay Bail Maze, a Corn Maze, A Hay Ride, and tons and tons of other fun, games, animals, and food. Its pretty much as good as it can get when it comes to a family seasonal activity.

10 Things

The goal is to list 10 things that you are thankful for. The first 10 things that you can think of at that moment, plucked straight from the top of your head.

1. Autumn walks and leaf crunching with the boys
2. Maple Candy

3. Family breakfasts on Sunday Mornings
4. Getting utterly lost in a book for a few days
5. Sleeping in
6. Making my husband sit up and watch Twilight with me

7. Getting my hair brushed
8. Sunshine after a weeks worth of rain
9. Dairy Queen Pumpkin Pie Blizzards
10. Having a whole day with absolutely no plans

Playing Catch Up

I've pretty much abandoned my blog this week, sorry about that.

I'd like to tell you that I spent the time crafting and making lots of new goodies for my shop and such, but the truth is that I've just been reading and burying myself into books, and I'm the type of reader that gets totally lost in a great book and lets it consume my life until I've finished it, thus pushing everything else (like my blog!) to the back burner.

I did have a bit of fun, and a small spark of creativity over the past weekend though, so I'll share that because in all honesty, I lead kind of a boring life, lol. Nothing really happens worth sharing when you've spent the past 4 days with your nose in a book.

Over the weekend a few friends and I spent the day in Pittsburgh having lunch and going to the Scarehouse (which is a horrifically scary haunted house). We didn't really necessarily go for the haunted house itself, but rather to meet the guys from the tv show Ghost Hunters, who were there signing autographs. But after 3 1/2 hours in line outside in the cold we all figured that we'd do the series of three haunted houses seeing as the actual autograph signing only took maybe a minute and a half. Yeah... lets just say it was a good thing that I had a drink with our lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. I'm too old and too much of a one panic attack away from a nervous breakdown train wreck for haunted houses nowadays, but it was really fun.

I've been working on the possibility of adding paper banners to the etsy shop for a little bit now, making a test one that I'd like to list. But truth be told, its autumn now and cold, grey and rainy outside and the weather has just been too uncooperative for me to go outside and photograph the darn thing. But here's a sneak peek, (aka a crappy picture taken with my cell phone camera on my green carpeted craft room floor). Now all I need is a bit of sunshine, and hopefully along with some light it'll bring me some inspiration as well.

xoxo,

10 Things

The goal is to list 10 things that you are thankful for. The first 10 things that you can think of at that moment, plucked straight from the top of your head.

1. A great nights sleep
2. Relaxing cups of hot tea

3. Cuddling up in blankets with the kids on chilly mornings
4. NCIS marathons on tv
5. Family CiCi's Pizza dinner dates
6. The smell of autumn in the air
7. Craft fair lemonade

8. Matryoshka Dolls and the memories they bring
9. Big comfy sweaters
10. Long car rides where I can look at the colors of the changing leaves

I Love Everything About Fall BUT...

... I sure will miss the beautiful flowers of the Summer.

Its been chilly here lately, and these two little lovlies are all I have left of the Summer of 2009.

"So Long Sweet Summer"

♥