Happy Trick or Treating

Cat vs. Human

adventures of skeleton cat

 what have you done to me?

Hey Sam, can you help me?

Oh. No. I just. can't. I don't. understand.

Ugh. I give up.

We are not talking.

Halloweekend Sunday!

Here we are just one day before the final day of October, and the day that is Halloween, and I haven't shared my sweet {and scary!} decorations yet. So here we go...

dining room: table v1 / spider web table runner / buffet / table v2 / spooky window / glittery skeleton

living room: fully decorated shelf / basically what it looked like before / indian corn

porch: aaaah! scary cat / spider / spider web

It's a pretty great time of year!!!

Look at that color.

Anniversary Retrospective

Our anniversary was at the beginning of October, but since we were busy with festival Matt waited until the next weekend to pull this celebration together.

{blurry} dinner table overview / lots of planning / demolished sushi / oreo stuffed chocochip cookies / books* / the most important part of the fort that wasn't. forts are hard. what's the secret? / pumpkin margaritas

all of the things Matt did for this night were things that we'd enjoyed together over the past year. i absolutely loved it. good job bebe.

*I asked Matt "what would David Foster Wallace have thought of this combo?" He said, " I hope he would be proud."

daily values...

I ran a 5k, then another. I swam/biked/ran a triathlon. I bear crawled my way through a fit camp. Then I stopped. I wasn't getting active 2-3 times a week but I kept eating like a champ and enjoying summertime brews and late night glasses of wine. Finally, I got on the scale at the beginning of this week and I'm up 10 pounds. Weight can be just a number, I know that. I barely lost anything during my six months of fitness and I was looking fierce ;), but my clothes are not fitting as well as they should be.

Instead of pledging to track all of my eats every day, like I wrote out as a goal at the beginning of the October and tend to be inconsistent with, I'd like to challenge myself to eat the recommended servings of vegetables and fruits per day. Maybe it will curb the over eating, or at least I will  have a good, solid, nutritious base.

Here they are, the daily goals from the USDA for women 19-30 years old, as you know I am 26.

vegetables 2½ cups / fruit 2 cups
(make half your "plate" fruits and vegetables)

grains 6 ounces (1/2 of which are whole grains) / dairy 3 cups / protein 5½ ounces

Today I've had a banana, pomegranate juice, a handful of spinach (purple green monster!), Oatmeal with fruit and nuts. I'm on the right track, two fruits and one veg with vegetables in mind for lunch x2.

ps.  This is how this post started.... a long time ago, over two years. So random.

I read about the One Dollar Diet Project. I appreciated their efforts for surviving on one dollar a day as so many people do in this country. One of the sacrifices they noted early on was a lack of the daily nutrients that we need.


It got me to thinking about how many people actually eat the recommend daily fruits and vegetables. I know I don't. I eat more fruit than I used to and definitely make efforts to get in yummy veggies, but my carbs and fats tend to be higher than needed.

good people.

As a generally happy girl it's surprising that sometimes I can have such an annoyed, grumpy disposition. It's something that I struggle with. All of the sudden I'll realize, oh, I was really short with that person. I wish I could have been a bit more patient. Why did I have to respond so negatively? I mean, obviously, I'm better than all of these people. So why can't they just get it? Then we'd all be happier Seriously this is how I feel I act. Do you struggle with this?

On the flip side, I have a story about people who were gracious and friendly.  On Friday I was running to a local market to pick up some things for our family get together. Matt was making brussel sprouts with bacon and maple syrup. mmm. As I'm heading to check out a woman and I arrive at the lane at the same time and I let her go ahead, her angle was better. When she saw me, she was very concerned that she'd cut. I assured her she had not. She explained that was shopping with a friend and wasn't sure where she was. When she realized that the friend was still shopping she insisted I move ahead of her in line. Thank you, thank you.

As soon as I got in line I realized I'd forgotten the apple cider I was craving. I asked the check out girl if they had some in stock, yes they did, but at that point I was blocked in on all sides of the aisle. I was going to have to leave with out my cider. Then the boy ahead of me, checking out with his mum, offered to go get me a gallon. Yes, yes please, I would love if you did that.

It was a good afternoon.

& just because

anxious sparrow
dear blank, please blank 
Sapling Press 

orange

PoppyTalk
How lovely is this orange collection from Creature Comforts?

yellow

all from previous posts on my blog. can you believe i didn't take a single picture yesterday?

oh colour week how i fail you. ;) maybe tomorrow. 

Poppy Talk

hello fall colours: red

How and why do I always miss the start of color week? 

I love colour week.  

I didn't take any pictures Monday, but I have this funny, red tinged one from Sunday. Thanks kitchen.

I am going to eat your face.

It will be fun to be on the lookout for photos simply based on the colors they capture over the next few days. Yellow here I come. 

reminder via hula seventy

swept away

What is this movie? Is it Amelie? I need to see it.

ache

squash & stout

One of my Fall goals was to learn what my favorite type of squash is. I made it to the farm before it closed on Friday to pick up a nice variety to bake up this weekend. I picked acorn, butternut, spaghetti, sweet dumpling and turban. Here's the experience in photos.

 olive oil, salt & pepper - ready to bake {350 for an hour or so, til tender}

 flipped them over, one half didn't fit. whoops. 

oh, the turban? the turban is a monster. i couldn't even begin to get into that sucker. 

no worries, he makes an even better decoration.

 ready to taste test. squash info...

and the winner was:

the acorn!!

I found the acorn, butternut and sweet dumpling all quite delicious and I'd be happy to cook any of them again. Matt made the final decision of the acorn as the winner. 

I cooked up a yummy pasta, sans the chicken sausage and obviously with squash instead of pumpkin.

topped with cheese, yes please.

yummy salad with spinach, apples, pecans, raisins, baked squash seeds, blue cheese. balsamic/olive oil dressing.

Before you go, one more thing. Squash takes about an hour to cook and it was time for beverage.

Another choice to make, this time which stout to enjoy.

 I picked up these two Rogue's Chocolate Stout and Rip Tide's twisted merciless stout last weekend at Cork & Ale where Matt bought his bottles for brewing.

I went Rogue and was quite happy with my decision. 

Arrow Shapes from Pugly Pixel