Super busy!

We are super busy this week and have been since last friday, will do a detailed update when I get a shower, a moment to relax, and my head to stay on one concise thought!

Until then.... Enjoy

I am in love!

I really, truly have fallen in love with Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin body spray and lotion from Bath and Body Works. I saw an ad for it on my facebook and made sure to check it out and picked some up when I went to visit some friends a few weeks ago. I liked it instantly but after a day or so, when we got home, I wasn't so sure that I liked it. But I decided to give it a few days and yeah, I really do like it. In fact, I love it! This is probably the first and only lotion and body spray that I have ever gone through so quickly. Well, okay, I'm not out, but the frequency in which I use it is greater than the others I have. Apparently they also have a creamy pumpkin lotion. But I am heading back soon to check it out. And I have a list of other scents I want to sniff and see if I like. 

A Sunday well spent

Unlike a good majority of my fellow Americans, I do not like foot ball, in fact I detest it. I won't go into the reason why just be satisfied that I hate it. So, I decided that I would find something constructive to do this past Sunday. Of course I had some writing that I could have been doing, library books that need to be read, but I just kind of wanted to play in the kitchen for a bit, move around for as long as my back could stand it. There were also some vegetables and some fruit that needed to be used up. I will be sure to share pictures of all the food I made on my Crafts and Culinary blog after this.

I started out making a beef stew and pumpkin bread. Then I began the work for Kaiser rolls and decided, after all that I did want to try out a recipe I found for pumpkin butter. However, we don't have apple juice but we still have lots of apples. So I decided to make mulled apple cider from scratch since apple cider is supposed to go into the pumpkin butter. So after I got the mulled apple cider done I made the pumpkin butter and since I had the apples from the cider left over and I didn't want to waste them, I just put them in the blender and made apple sauce.

So we now have Kaiser rolls (most of which have been eaten , pumpkin bread, apple sauce, pumpkin butter, mulled apple cider, and a little of the vegetable beef stew (what's left over anyway).

After all was said and done I cleaned up the kitchen and was hurting pretty bad. So I sat down on the sofa, watched Once Upon a Time and 666 Park Avenue. I really like Once Upon a Time and I'm semi-hooked on 666 Park Avenue. I want to see what's going to happen next week and probably give it a couple more episodes before I decide if I really like it or not.

And Vampire Diaries fans, remember this Thursday the 11th is the start of the new season on the CW.

It's smokey!

It's been so long since we've had rain that I can't remember when the last time we actually had it. How sad. And because of that and the forest fires over in Washington State, we are under a "no burn" ban. We're not supposed to have any open flames going because it would just too easy for a fire to start.

That puts a tiny damper on our plans for Halloween, but that's okay. We've found alternatives for light for what we are planning.

Also with the smoke blowing over from WA, it's very hazy here. A lot of people are dealing with the Fall allergies on top of some trouble from the smoke. 

Happy October!!!

Finally! October is here, one of my favorite months of the year! All the leaves up here in the Northwest are turning, Halloween decorations and candy are filling the store shelves, and we have been loading up on apples and pumpkin!

I've been reading a bit about the history of Halloween/Samhain and I've found it really interesting. But I will be saving that for a later blog post because this one is just a short update and I need to get to bed shortly.

So much will be going on this month. Two of my cousins have birthdays this month, a friend has a birthday, my parents' 30th wedding anniversary, and Skoora's cousin's 25th anniversary as well as our 5th. Of course this is Halloween itself. I think we will be having a small party after all!

At some point, when I feel up to it, I need to get out to take some pictures because there are some really beautiful tress and bushes turning.

Can you believe that I bought 4 big cans of pumpkin today?! We'll be having pumpkin bread out the wazoo! I also found a pumpkin spice coco and a pumpkin spice coffee creamer. What I didn't find was more of the sweet harvest pumpkin tea that we picked up last time we went grocery shopping. I will be looking for that online.