Carmalized

It's kinda like hynotized, but with carmel, and ya, I just totally made that up. I found a really, really, really yummy snack that, believe it or not, is not obnoxiously fattening.

Here's the recipe (if you can really call it a recipe, it really is only 3 ingredients):
Fuji apples
carmel dip (comes in a small tub)

Organic Pumpkin Flax Plus with granola (cereal)

Directions
Slice and seed apples
Dip apple slices in carmel
Dip apple covered with carmel in flax/granola
Eat

Soooooooooooo good!

I know this sounds/looks like the carmel apples on a stick, but they are just so much better. I don't like the carmel apples because they are always super messy and the carmel is hard, and I can't ever enjoy them so I just end up throwing them away. My little way of doing it makes it so much more manageable. And I'm not bragging or anything, but I am pretty much an expert when it comes to food...just sayin.

Getting My Bake On

Since it cooled down this past weekend, I got the urge to bake. I had been surfing Pinterest and found some delicious sounding/looking recipes. Motivated, I pulled out all my ingredients....most outdated...FAIL!

I decided on Samoa cupcakes (yes like the girl scout cookie samoas). Todd and I headed to Holiday Market, and $50 later, I had all my supplies.
I got to work, and it took me about 3 hours on Sunday to complete. They tasted pretty yummy, but I had problems with the cupcakes collapsing in the middle, something like a sinkhole. I remedied that with icing, but I'm not a huge fan of icing, so it was a little too much sweet for me. Todd and Alexxa liked them, but Austin and I didn't really care for them. They had coconut in them, so that probably explains why Aust and I could have lived without them.

This is what they were supposed to look like.

My sinkhole cupcake.

This is how mine turned out. BOO.

I think I am going to adjust the recipe a little and give it another shot. Afterall, $50 should produce something decent, right?

Fall - It's A Comin'

This is my absolute most favorite time of the year. I love how the leaves change colors, the air becomes crisp and you spend time snuggling up to each other drinking coffee and watching movies. If none of those catch your fancy, and if your heart desires you could always go to Apple Hill, go wine tasting, pumpkin picking and/or dress up for Halloween.

What's your favorite season? What's your favorite fall activity?



AWESOME!

Loving This Song

I'm not sure why,but I am loving the song "Home" by Kristin Chenoweth. It is not usually the type of music I listen to, I'm more the classic rock type, but I find myself unusually drawn to this song. I did some research on the song and the song was originally from the Broadway musical The Wiz, and I believe Stephanie Mills performed the song.

Kristin Chenoweth, who performed this song on Glee, is a singer/actress. She has appeared on Broadway and is trained in classical music. Another thing of note, she is only 4' 11", which is actually shorter than my mother-in-law, so I'm pretty sure Anne will like Kristin because she is shorter than her. Take a listen and judge for yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4NbPkYQtJc
(You'll have to cut/paste as my link button on blogger is broken...BOO!)

Bad Little Bandit and Other Things

The fam and I enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend at home (mostly). Todd and I were supposed to take our photography lessons, but I got wires crossed and had to reschedule...so goes life. It worked out well anyways because Todd had some Autocad work that he needed to complete, and I had house chores to do.

On Sunday morning, about 7:30 AM, we were startled awake by Sindy barking her little head off. Todd went out to see what all the commotion was about, and Sindy was busy trying to chase 3 deer out of our yard. No problem, good dog, Todd settled her down and went back to bed. Shortly thereafter, the puppies started going wild...first thought STUPID DEER. So I got up, went over to where our sink is to look out the window and little Bailey was going nuts, she just about jumped over the fence. I told her to hush, she didn't, I told her to hush again, she didn't, so me in my state of frustration looked out the window while I contemplated muzzling her, and right in my line of sight was a raccoon staring me right in the eye.


Oh hey! Howz you doing?

The little booger was treed by Sindy and the puppies were going nuts because the raccoon was still there.

I ran in to our bedroom, grabbed Todd and the camera, went outside and started snapping pictures left and right. While outside Todd noticed that there was not only one raccoon in the tree, but two. After snapping a million pictures I came inside to download the pictures and guess what - I HAD NO DISC IN MY CAMERA - no pictures. DING, DIDDY, DAG NAM IT! *Side note: Probably a good thing Todd and I didn't end up going to the photo lessons, but this is proof that I really need to.


This isn't the actual raccoon, but it looked just like this, and was even positioned in the tree like this.

Note: All pictures are not taken by me, but they should have been.

My New Obsession

Well I now have a new obsession, Pinterest. I spent most of my weekend looking through all the pages of amazing images(bows head in shame). In case you've never heard of Pinterest and have no idea what it is, it is a virtual pinboard where people paste images of all sorts of amazing things. You can "repin" these images on your own personal board, and each pin has a link back to where it came from. I have a million things pinned, and can't wait to try some of the DIY projects.

SPRAYcation

The fam and I have been enjoying our nice three day weekend. We didn't have any spectacular plans, we mostly relaxed. I did have a couple projects that I worked on (and I use the word "work" loosely) over the past couple of days. Of course, I'm not finished, as I am great at starting projects and horrible at finishing them...I seem to run out of steam and enthusiasm.

The first project that I started about 3 weeks ago, and still haven't finished is spray painting the patio furniture. I had contemplated buying a new set, but being the cheapo that I am I decided to come up with a different plan...Make the most of what you've got. So, I headed out to Home Depot and picked myself up 5 cans of Rust-O-Leum Espresso Brown Satin spray paint. The original patio set was a nice forest green, but the elements haven't been kind, and the set has become a little worse for wear with rust spots here and there. I got busy with my little cans and started spraying away, problem is, I didn't have enough paint. I have one chair and the entire table to finish, but I will give you a sneak peek at how it is looking thus far.











I do want to see if I can find some cushions for the seats, but I don't want to pay a fortune for them. If I can find a good deal I'll pick some up, if not, no big deal.

I also hung curtains (actually Todd hung them and I supervised him) in the hallway because when you are watching TV in the family room, at certain times of the day there is a terrible glare. I didn't take a picture, but you will see what it looks like at a later date because I have another project that is taking me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. It's not difficult, it's just not fun to do when it gets warm outside because it then gets muggy in the work area. I'm hoping to be finished with my big project in the next couple weeks...we'll see. Here's crossing my finger that I find some motivation to finish a project.