Happy Hallloooooweeeennnnn - Now With Photos!

So, with much anticipated (I am sure) a do...



That and the following photo were taken from the Pumpkin Carving Party we went to last weekend while Cheryl was here.
Pretty great creations were made!


Here, at this house, well, I may have been a bit over zealous in my hopes of tricker-treaters. Hey, it isn't Brooklyn anymore where someone would have to push a buzzer and hope for someone to answer. But, we do live on a small alleyway...so...it is a good thing that I only bought candy of a type that Tim and my Dad like as they have some eating to do. (Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for those of you not in the know)

Other good pre-Halloween fun was had while Cheryl was here. Mom, Sarah, Cheryl, Tim and I completed a Corn Maze which was a blast! They said the average was 45 minutes to an hour if you didn't get all the map pieces hidden within the maze. We completed the maze, with ALL map pieces, in 1 hour, 6 minutes. WE ROCK! And, we had so much fun! Here are some maze photos...


This is looking out over the maze. If you click on it the photo will come up larger and then you can see the flags out there. Each flag is a group of people finding their way through the maze.


Here is the crew after finding one of our puzzle map pieces. Gives you a good idea of high the corn was!

Tim is out of town on a job in CT right now. So, Dad came by for dinner and to help hand out candy. Needless to say, see above mentioned surplus of PB Cups. The good news is that there is no way that this holiday is getting me down considering that we are having a Christmas Tree this year for the first year in the last 5! Bring on the holiday, jolly good times!

And, just because he is black and white (holiday appropriate) and ridiculously cute...I bring you Sammy, the new terror of 141 Lincoln Avenue... look out, he might bite your face off....or just lick it a bunch. Mom's new kitty...







WHAT THE HECK (you are saying!) WHAT IS WRONG WITH KATHLEEN, MY STUPID COMPUTER, MY INTERNET CONNECTION, THE BAPTISTS PREACHING NO DRINKING AND GAMBLING IN CONWAY, ARKANSAS...(okay, maybe I stretched that last part, you don't all wonder about that!)
Apparently, everyone and their Mother and Aunt, Next Door Neighbor and Senator are trying to upload things to blogger right now so it is not letting me put photos in. I PROMISE, I will come back and fill this in, once everyone else goes to bed or work or whatever. I realize that only two, maybe stretching it, one, HI GRAM, will even see this without photos. But, whichever, I will add them as soon as technology permits.

In the meantime, stay tuned, and put down the candy.
Oh yeah, BOO!!!!

Quick Update

It occurred to me yesterday morning that I needed to post a few quick things to clarify.
"Um, Kathleen," (you say) "If you thought about this yesterday, why are you taking care of it today? Lazy much?"
To which I say to you, "HECK NO, Busy Much!"

More on that later. In the meantime, here is our fabulous new rocker WITHOUTH Cheryl in it so you can see what the chair looks like!


Here is the dining room, finished, with the track lighting. MAN OH MAN does it look nice now!


Another shot of the Hooray Cheryl is here Cactus as I decided that the first one did not properly show off the amount and beauty of all the blossoms. 19 I counted! and there are still more to open.


And, because I do the posting and the photo taking around here which = because I can...here are fun photos of Cheryl and Tim, because they are fun! These were taken after our great dinner at a local Italian restaurant, Gotchya's, where we went on Friday night.



More to come about Pumpkins, Mazes, Mailboxes and such...

And, We Went Shopping...

Putting Tim, Cheryl and I together and letting us loose anywhere near shopping and antique stores will always be trouble. Well, maybe not trouble unless you are our accountant, we were happy and the shop keepers seemed pretty happy too!

Yesterday we went to a Fabulous antique store in Ballston Spa. Here are the photos of our shopping victims.

Cheryl found all these goodies...okay, Tim helped too. I was helping a friend next door serving at her deli. The wonderful plant that Gram got us for our anniversary now has an appropriate and lovely stand on which to sit...



We also got a wonderful small rocker. The only space left in our living room for another chair was not a large space. HEY, we aren't large people. Cheryl found the perfect small antique rocker for us. OUR FEET TOUCH! It is so great. Here she is, enjoying her find...



The third thing we found was a small table that I am now using as my nightstand. It is WAY better than the plant stand I had there before and is the perfect height and looks great with our Indonesian screen that is our headboard.



Along with many other wonderful things that we did today, we went to a great shop called Schuyler Pond. www.schuylerpond.com
There we found the exact armoir that we need for our bedroom. We don't quite have enough dresser room with the small one that we have and this was just the thing. So, back to saving for furniture we go...

AND, for no reason other than the fact that it is incredibly beautiful, here is a picture of our blooming Christmas Cactus.



It is a bit of a joke in our family that all the Christmas Cactus we have ever had bloom whenever they damn well feel like it. So, we have had Valentine's Day Cactus, Thanksgiving Day Cactus, in the middle of the freaking summer because no one knows why Cactus. So, we decided that this one is a "Hooray, Cheryl is coming to visit" Cactus.
More on our crazy adventures as they unfold.

AND II, because it wouldn't be this family getting together without projects going on...here are what Tim and Cheryl are doing while I hide in the office and post to the blog...



We are getting track lighting in the dining room!!

YES! She made it!

So after a long anticipated wait, she finally came to see the new digs!
If you are in doubt, here are the photos...my Mom and Sarah came for dinner. We drank, we ate, lots of fun, oh yeah, and we drank some more. Right, and chocolate. (You should have seen this before the spell check!)

So, here is the beginning of a fun filled week...we will keep you posted!

Okay, I'm a Slacker

So, it has been 10 days since I posted last.
Wow, is this a Catholic confession or what? I am not even Catholic!

What has been going on, WOW, what hasn't.
We sent our first mailer out for Spire Restoration and Construction, Tim's new company.It went out on Saturday and we have had 2 calls already. That is good news.
The job that we had to move up here with starts excavation tomorrow, so that is now moving forward.I have started looking for something for me as well...will keep you posted on that one.

Tim went fishing on Saturday and came home not feeling well. Has been battling that since then. Thought I was doing well, but am starting to feel achy and feverish now. So, don't mind me if I ramble and have incoherent thoughts. Figured you deserved some sort of update by now. (Hi Gram!)

In order to compensate, I am going to give you photos from our apple and raspberry picking from this weekend and some super yummy recipes that we tried out. Figured that since our "About Us" talks about cooking we might as well try to make you believe that we actually do that occassionally.

Here is Amy (formally Lucey, now Cantinucci, for those of you who don't know, this is Tim's cousin) with her daugher Payson.

Here is an image of a beautiful upstate New York Sunday afternoon in the fields.


And here is our Tim, the champion raspberry finder. It was sort of late in season so the bushes had been pretty picked over, but, if there were berries there, he found them!

After this we headed to the Tommell's for Kyrek's 8th birthday. HOLY SCAMOLLY!! How in the heck did he get to be 8 years old???
Here he with is many desserts...

And, what good is only half the sweetness...here is Kiegan.


Now, onto the stuff I know you are all waiting for...the recipes:

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup with Pancetta (whatever, use bacon, it is easy to come by, less expensive and tastes just as good.)
1 1/2 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 lb. bacon
2 med. onions, thinly sliced
3 lbs. butternut squash
1/2 tsp. salt, to taste
1/8 tsp. black pepper
2 tbsp. chopped fresh thyme or 2 tsp. dried
2 tart apples, granny smith, cored, peeled and cut into chunks
4 cups veg or chicken broth
1 1/2 cups water

Okay, here are the instructions with my spin:
Cook bacon and set aside. Shew Tim away from eating it.
Heat some oil and cook the onions until translucent. Some oil, I don't know how much, till it looks right. Open bottle of wine.
Add squash, salt, pepper and thyme to pot. Did I say this should be a largish pot? Cook stirring for 5 mins. Pour wine into glass.
Add apples, broth and water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, 15 to 20 minutes or until squash and apples are tender.
Remove from heat and cool slightly.
Refill wine glass. What do you mean it isn't empty. I didn't think I had to tell you to DRINK the wine.
Working in batches, puree the soup until smooth in a blender. (Hold the top of the blender. This is very important unless you WANT to clean all the facing of your cupboards!) Add the soup back to the pot and stir in half of the bacon. Oh wait, crumble the bacon before adding, don't just go throwing the full strips in!
Reheat all of this and serve with rest of bacon as a garnish on top.

*the above recipe was totally stolen from a Hannaford's recipe flyer, Sept. Oct. 2006

Crumb topped Apple Raspberry Pie
For Pie:
1/2-2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 cups thinly sliced peeled cooking apples (about 2 pounds)
Pastry for Single-Crust Pie
2 cups fresh or loose-pack frozen red raspberries
For Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

RECIPE METHOD

FOR PIE: In a large mixing bowl stir together sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Add apples, tossing to coat. Set aside. Prepare and roll out pastry as directed. Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry. Trim and crimp edge of pastry. Transfer half of the apple mixture to pastry shell. Sprinkle with raspberries; add remaining apple mixture.

FOR TOPPING: In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cut in margarine or butter till crumbly. Stir in pecans or walnuts. Sprinkle topping over pie. To prevent overbrowning, cover edge of pie with foil. Bake in a preheated 375 degrees F oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 20-25 minutes more (30-35 minutes if using frozen berries), or till top is golden and edges are bubbly. Cool on a rack.

*Ummm, yah, completely stolen from the Cooking.com site.
** I don't bake, ever. I made this and it was YUMMY. AND, I didn't screw it up, so, you won't either.
Here is the photo...no of theirs, mine has pieces missing now!


So, lots of other things going on in life.
Some of them I am just not prepared to talk about right now.
Others, my face is just too hot to continue.
SO, go try these and let me know your results.
And, HAY! Don't think this is a free for all. If you find a good one, I would like to know about it!

Continuing to unpack

Some of you may know about all the crazy things that Tim and I have accumulated. Our "Solar System" was a purchase to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. There was only one spot in our new home for this as it is large and needs to hang from the ceiling.
In Brooklyn, it was over our coffee table as we had 12' ceilings. Here, they are 9' so it was going to be trickier.
Tim, fixer of all things needing to be fixed, was able to hang it yesterday.
MAN, does it look great.
The center is glass surrounded by copper tubing. From the tubing are smaller pieces of stained glass, copper wire and various beadwork. The artist is a woman from Brooklyn.
Here it is in its new home.

We are short. Only our tall friends like Chuck, Adam and Jason Tommell might have to duck a bit walking up the stairs.

It is a rainy Sunday. So, looks like the stair risers may get painted today. AND, now that there is no longer a huge box on the floor in the guest room, we may be able to get in there and tackle that. It is a bit of a catch all right now. We are on countdown to C-Day! Happy October! 18 days till Cheryl is here!!