happy halloween

cold, wet, pumpkin sex

Today, I braved the 40 degree morning and sprinklers to discover our first female bloom was open and ready for business...

So, I gathered up all the male flowers I could find, stripped them down to their maleness with a pair of Fiskars, and did what I knew needed to be done.

Of course, I put on some Dave to set the mood.

Our girl. After. Basking in the glow of pumpkin sex and Dave.

If it didn't work, our next girl will be ready in a few days.

no soup, squash, or apples, but still yummy

Right now I'm putting the finishing touches on my Halloween costume. This year, I'm going vampire with it. Volturi, to be specific. I'm adding a hood to my long black cape even as we speak.

My inspiration for this year's costume may also be the best 21 seconds ever recorded on film:

I know it's covering up my sidebar, but it's so much better big : )

yum

I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say I've been living off of these two dishes. I eat one or both of them every single day, not because they're good for me, which they happen to be, but because when I'm hungry one of these is always the first thing to pop into my head.

I also love the fact that they are both super simple to make, and the ingredients are easy to keep on hand. First, lets talk spicy shrimp soup. This recipe popped into my email box last week under the heading of Super Simple Soups for Busy Moms. The short list of ingredients included shrimp, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, and salsa, all things I like, so I knew the soup would hit the spot. The finishing touch of lime and avocado chunks make the soup a perfect lunch, snack, supper, or all three : ) Check out the link, you'll love the soup.

This next one is a bit different, but I cannot tell you how amazingly good it is. While I love the shrimp soup, I'm truly addicted to my Acorn Squash - Honeycrisp Apple concoction.

I say concoction because I was feeling inventive and made this one up.

I truly enjoy Acorn squash and eat quite a bit each Fall when its in season. I generally slice it open, scoop out the seeds, season, cook and eat. Simple but good.

This year, I was slicing a Honeycrisp Apple and decided the sweet but tangy apple would compliment the creamy, mellow squash nicely. So I scooped out my squash, cut up my apple, then sprinkled pumpkin pie seasoning, ginger, anise and cardamom in carved out hole in the squash, piled as much apple in the hole as I could, then sprinkled a bit more pie spice on the top. I covered the top with plastic wrap and cooked for about 6 minutes. The result was a warm apple pie-ish dish that just screams fall.

I generally cook one half at a time, but there have been days where I've eaten an entire acorn squash in one day. Acorn squash are loaded with beta carotene, so I could start to look a little orange if I keep eating them every day, but I can't help it. If you give this a try, and I hope you do, you HAVE to use a Honeycrisp apple. I discovered them last fall. Having grown tired of mushy, grainy, not sweet, tough skinned apples, I went to the produce department searching for the most expensive apple I could find. I figured eating expensive apples had to be better than throwing cheap apples away.

The Honeycrisp apple I found was huge and pricey. One apple cost me almost $3, but it was the best three bucks I've ever spent. Firm, crisp, tart, but sweet. The Honeycrisp is, without a doubt, the perfect apple. My kids love them and don't even use the word apple anymore. Instead, they ask me to slice up a Honeycrisp.

Yesterday, they gave everyone in Grace's gymnastics an apple for Halloween. On the way home she bit into it and quickly handed to me. "Mom, take this, it looks horrible, sounds horrible, and tastes even worse." It was a Red and Delicious.

I realize that's lots of rambling about an apple, but once you try them you'll understand.

fear and arrogance

At the end of Bull Durham Kevin Costner gives Tim Robbins some advice. Tim's character is getting ready to head off to the big league and Kevin's character tells him, "You gotta play the game with fear and arrogance."

Fear and arrogance.

It's been stuck in my head all day long. Saturday. Game day. An 11:00 am kickoff. Something Texas fans aren't very used to. Generally, we're more of a prime time team. But, we got of to a bumpy start this year, so we were scheduled to play Iowa State at eleven o'clock in the morning.

Which was fine with us. Our victory over Iowa State would be an exclamation point on last week's victory over Nebraska. Coming off of back to back losses, Texas had traveled Lincoln, and beaten number five Nebraska at home. It was a huge upset, and we at Texas, knew we were back.

There was absolutely no doubt in our minds that we would win this game, win the rest of the games this season, and head to a respectable bowl game. Some would call this arrogance. But we Longhorns don't really think of it at such. Or, at least we didn't.

We choose to think of ourselves as magnanimous. Generous. Forgiving. Free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness. Showing a lofty and courageous spirit. That's us. We're better than everyone else, but we're not going to hold it against you.

Ray and I have traveled far and wide and been insulted every way football fans can possibly imagine. I've been flipped off by old ladies, yelled at, spit at, cursed at, you name it. Once, I even had an OU frat boy walk up to me and shout right in my face, "Bevo doesn't have any balls!"

I smiled, and replied, sweetly, "You're right."

People are always pissed off that Texas can go anywhere and beat anyone. But we can't be bothered by angry losers. We are always gracious in our victories. Because we're not just good at football, we're good at pretty much everything.

Texas is at or or near the top of just about every list out there. Even lists that seem to contradict each other, like being academically top notch while at the same time being one of the best party schools in the country. We're Texas. We're that good.

Ray and I woke up bright and early Saturday morning, got ready, and picked op our friends Ellen and Tony. They both graduated from Iowa State and had never been to a Texas football game. We were excited about showing our Ellen and Tony our school, our stadium, our football team.

I remember staring across our huge stadium at their tiny little strip of red shirted fans near the south end zone just before kickoff. Smiling, I asked Ray what he thought would happen if we lost to Iowa State. His response included a quick muffled laugh and something about Austin completely melting down. I laughed too, I was kind of thinking it might be a shut out.

Several hours later, we were sitting in the afternoon sun, watching the last few seconds tick off of the clock. UT had just turned the ball over on downs and Iowa State had magnanimously taken a knee for the last play of the game.

Walking out of the stadium everyone had the same what-the-fuck-just happened look on their faces. We were all completely stunned. Numb. We had just watched helplessly as our team got their asses handed to them by an opponent that we all considered completely inferior.

Arrogance. Clearly, we're well acquainted with arrogance.

Now, we at Texas, are going to have to finish the season getting to know fear.

big cats love 'em too

There are a few scenes in this amazing video where you just know the cats are saying, "Yeah, it's my pumpkin."

pumpkin carving - girls vs. boys

Today, the kids and I decided we needed to have a girls vs. boys pumpkin carving contest. So after school, Grace, Carter, and I gathered all of the necessary supplies, and as soon as Ray got home from work, we commenced the carve off.

Grace chose the pumpkin design entirely on her own. I merely helped with the carving.

Ray designed the (frat) boy pumpkin and used a Dremel tool to carve it. While I can't condone pumpkin vomit on my front porch, I do respect the innovative use of a power tool.Grace's kitty pumpkin turned out great and I think it has a lovely glow. The pumpkin on the right is the giant pumpkin we carved a couple of days ago. We weren't certain if he was scared, or sad, but now we're pretty sure he's disgusted by the barf.

while i wasn't blogging i was...

Camping at Enchanted Rock.

Painting pumpkins with Jennifer.
Heading up 35 for a visit with Susan.

Carving 'the big one.'

And, hanging out with strange men at Gattiland.

tuesday - hatch day

Today was the day Carrey and I had marked on the calendar as hatch day.

Tuesday, October 12, twenty-one days after we placed the eggs in the incubator.

Carrey turned the eggs for the last time on Friday, day 17. And, on Saturday, day 18, the eggs started hatching. Go figure : )

Here they are: The black banty is Tiny Chickie, the big chicks are called Hook, Stripe, Daisy, Cinco, and Sunshine.

where else would we go to celebrate columbus day?

Today, the kids and I hit our second pumpkin patch of the season. First United Methodist Church in Georgetown is one of my favorite pumpkin patch settings. The church is absolutely beautiful and the pumpkins are always plentiful. Because it was a holiday, I let the kids wear their Halloween costumes. Grace was patient and posed all over the patch.
She even took pictures of me, happy amongst the pumpkins.

I have to say, I adore October. Just imagine if you loved, I don't know, say roller skates. And, one month out of every year, complete strangers imported thousands of roller skates from hundreds of miles away, put them in fields on the side of the road, then, let you come, whenever you wanted, and do pretty much whatever you wanted with the practically unlimited supply of roller skates.

Such an event would be amazingly cool, right? Well, that's how I feel about pumpkins and October. It's like a dream come true. Carter, however, was not feeling the love. For some reason, he was incredibly difficult the entire time we were at the pumpkin patch. It's no coincidence he was holding a 'grumpy' pumpkin in the picture below. Despite Carter's troubles, we did manage to find a spectacular pumpkin. We never leave a pumpkin patch empty handed, and always try to find one Great (big) Pumpkin every season.

Here it is! Our Fall 2010 Great Pumpkin, and a slightly happier Carter.

warming up for halloween

After we returned home from our first pumpkin patch visit, we were all feeling very halloweeny. So, I pulled down the halloween boxes and started adding some orange twinkle lights to the front yard.

While I was knee deep in the hedges, Grace and Carter were scurrying around in the garage. I wasn't worried about their costumes because I have both of them tucked safely away in the back of my closet.

I was a little surprised to see that they had scrounged around in the halloween boxes and managed to put together two costumes from old costume scraps.

Grace was a spotted cat, with tail. And Carter was a wizard. He would want

me to tell you that that's a vampire cape, not a witch cape.

They even went for a long walk around our neighborhood in their costumes. I guess you could call it a halloween practice run.

if happiness was a color i think it would be orange

Saturday, we drove by one of the biggest and best pumpkin patches in our area and saw the empty pallets and tents, but no signs of pumpkins.

Sunday, Grace was happy to report that she did, in fact, see the pumpkins had been delivered when she rode by with my mom.

Today, we knew it was time to hit our first pumpkin patch of the season.

Seventy-three degrees and sunny, it could not have been more perfect pumpkin weather. And the patch did not disappoint. The first few days after pumpkin delivery are important if you are interested in the biggest and best pumpkins. The big pumpkins sell out fast, but they were everywhere today.

The kids and I worked our way up and down each row, carefully inspecting each pumpkin pallet.

Carter decided that the bumpy pumpkins must be grumpy. He figured the one in the pic below was in an incredibly bad mood.

We also noticed something we've never seen before. There were quite a few pumpkins, some large, some normal sized, but all with incredibly huge stems. I'm not kidding. We've been hitting the area pumpkin patches since Grace was old enough to stand up and I have never seen pumpkins stems anywhere near this enormous.

The pictures don't really do them justice, but looking at the stems, I couldn't imagine how huge the pumpkin vine must have been. Seriously, look at the picture above and the two below. Have you ever seen such big pumpkin stems? I would sooo love to see the vines they came off of.

We spent a beautiful afternoon in the pumpkin patch. We're already planning our visit to the next patch on our list. And, boy, after all of these years, do we have a list.

If happiness was a color, I think it would be orange.

If happiness was a fruit or vegetable, I'm sure it would be a pumpkin.

my $2 garage sale jackpot

Saturday morning, armed with coffee for mom and doughnut holes for Grace and Carter, we set out to conquer a neighborhood garage sale.

I love garage sales. To me, searching for hidden treasures at garage sales is just like dropping quarters into a slot machine waiting for the triple 7's to line up. If one garage sale stinks, there's always hope at the next one. The kids don't share my enthusiasm, they generally peter out a few minutes in. So, I give them each a few bucks and let them buy whatever they want. This way, we're all happy.

After searching the entire morning we wound up with all kind of used kids crap and one dingy, dirty copper bucket.

The kids couldn't imagine why I wanted this dusty, spider web covered container with the green, slimy goo inside, but I could see that the bucket had real potential and couldn't believe it only cost $2.

I was amazed at how easy it was to get the goo out and make the copper shine.
Once I had the bucket shiny, but still weathered looking, I added some pumpkins. It's a known fact, pumpkins make everything look better. See...

I think the bucket makes a great addition to our fall front porch. And, yes, the terra cotta pumpkin was also a garage sale find : )