I am thankful for Stuffing and for gravy....

AND FOR ALUMINUM FOIL HATS that keep mom and ann from cheating in eucher!


and for a few great days at the cabin with the fam :)

for "the stupid face" that makes me laugh every time

for knowing that life will always surprise me - ORGANIC BATTER BLASTER - pancake batter in a can!

for stealing someone elses sweet shoes

for a husband who loves squirrels. Meet Theodore.

for the lovely day at the cider mill wandering out in the corn fields picking these stalks with Crys, Emily & Dan...and especially for finding a great way to recycle them as Thanksgiving decor!

For our "woodland harvest" friends :) Meet Humphrey...

Winston....

and George.

for the italian plums mom bought me that we got to eat on top of heart shaped waffles!

for the smell of coffee

for great freebies (near the dumpster) that can be recycled for great use! shoe rack!!!

for delicious candy cane lane tea :)

for finding the cool organic idea of using rice as a vase filler which made my soaps look soooo much nicer in their glass canister

for the delicious apple spice waffles with pecans that we found and really enjoyed one sunday together :) and for mom making sunday breakfasts a big deal so that it became a tradition in my family now too

for the ability to go for long walks in the middle of the day at the parks to watch the seasons change ....cozy.

SpOoKsViLLE

Dan and I have been in such a festive mood lately! We were so excited for Autumn and the *HoLiDaYs* to start that we made a list of festive activities we wanted to make sure to fit in our free time!

1. Visit a cider mill and eat way too many yummy cinnamon & sugar donuts and cider!

2. Buy lots of apples and make pot after pot of chunky homemade applesauce

3. Watch ancient episodes of Are You Afraid Of The Dark on YouTube on Sunday nights.

4. Sit in a graveyard with a mug of hot tea and a book of scary stories and read to each other.

5. Carve pumpkins - white ones!

6. Go for a long bike ride/walk through pretty colored trees

So, so far we have done all of those things except the one in the graveyard which we plan to do on Halloween weekend :)

Last weekend we bought a faux pumpkin from Michael's (for 60% off!) and I monogrammed it for us in spooky letters - Daniel's brilliant idea. And, since our apartment has NOOOO storage space I had no decorations here except a few I brought with me for Christmas when we moved in. So, I went to the dollar store and found these really awesome glittered black skulls, a skeleton, a corny chandelier and place mats for the kitchen... and some spiders from Tar-jay. I snagged some gnarly looking branches when I went on a walk in the woods and with the help of a few of my salvation army candlesticks and a few black candles around the house, I turned our tiny apartment into a frighteningly festive space!

UPDATES!

My good friend Emily was telling me about her favorite fruit - the passion fruit. She had them in Cambodia on a trip with her school. I was super excited to try them after her talk and so I went to the store and bought one for Dan and I to share. I thought id share what they looked like inside so you could see how strange it was! It was super sweet and tart at the same time - very yummy!

My quirky little gift to M2 for her birthday coming up!

At the apple orchard with Daniel, M2 & D2. We enjoyed wayyyyyy to much cider and donuts!! :)

Latest fun with the TA! Fixing the transmission - we did it ourselves! Big job!

this buggers heavy!This is where she came from - that's the pressure plate, i learned.

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTjMp2pmvH8

Gratitude, Love, Inspiration

Deep inside I harbor an undying spirit of hope and enthusiasm for the experience of life. I am at my most fulfilled when I am sharing that spirit and connecting it to other people's. I love the experience of seeing other's enthusiasm and spirit for life enliven and watching their tiny flame grow bigger and brighter. I am very grateful to have attracted a few profoundly passionate people in my life who have helped my own flame blaze. Here is someone I just came across who I am moved by and would love to share with you.

NICK VUJICIC
(please click above)

You are like sunshine,
heart-warming sunshine.
I feel so happy,
even when skies are gray!
I hope you know dear,
how much I love you...
Thank you for be-ing
in my life today. :)

Walking A CAT

Dan's latest spark of brilliance has us leashing our cats, Oliver and Heidi, to go on walks outside. I am extremely doubtful about having any success with this because my cats are almost always found doing this....

I think we are going to have as much luck as Sylvester the cat's owner did...(Click Sylvester to watch what this is going to be like) :)

Rearranging

Who knew such a small space could be arranged so many different ways?

My original kitchen colour was orange...very powerful. We have enough energy as it is, so when we come home we like to mellow out. So here is the kitchen at round 2 after a little different paint. This is looking out through the other 2 rooms of our apt from inside our kitchen right after we moved in. I had only a vague idea of what we were going to do with our stuff in there - the plan was, "just get it in there." And that's about what it looked like!

Version 1

After we started to get a sense of how much space we had we rearranged the chaos and made a cozier living room with a mock fireplace. The living room in the middle made sense to us because we were thinking that while entertaining we could use the kitchen and living room and close the door to out bedroom and we would have two functional spaces. It worked ... for a little while.

Version 2

Version 3
This is round 3 of the living room. After craving more sunlight during our waking hours, less noise during our sleeping hours (we had spent many nights on the pull out couch in the living room where the sounds were dampened) we decided to try switching our living space for our sleeping space. Kind of screws up our plans for a cohesive entertaining area...but hey, this whole living situation is a little funky!

Living room: Round 1
Round 2
Round 3: as our bedroom
The original bedroom setup:
After a few minor changes. I missed taking a photo of the new linens. the bench under the window the bed in the right corner and the new desk area with a mirror hanging over it. That would have been the real "round 2."Round 3: as the living room where we can enjoy the sunshine if we are home. It is much brighter than this in person. I wonder why my camera made it look this way?