Spooky Times at Starlings

There hasn't been much time but we have managed to do some spooky things this month to celebrate the season. We decorated, no new decorations but with a new house it was fun to find new places to put them.




















We had  Third Annual Spooky Stories and Carmel Apples Night 


with Los Dominguez.


It was a hit even though I bought poor apples.

My spooky story recommendation  for the year is "The Dream Woman" by Wilke Collins. (Scroll down to #18-22)

 There was pumpkin Carving And last but certainly not least the costumes.

 

Camrock as The Grim Reaper with a homemade paper mache scythe.  He made it all by himself.

 

Boba Fett as Harry Potter.

And Nutmeg as Tinkerbell. 

 

I think might just start referring to her as Tinkerbell.  When the folks at Disney were imagining Tinkerbell in 60 years ago I am sure that they had Nutmeg in mind.

She looks just like she stepped out of the movie 

 

complete with the attitude.

 

This is not Tinkerbell doing the Robot  but Tinkerbell measuring her hips

This is Tinkerbell being really mad at Wendy (the redheaded pirate lass) because Tinkerbell isn't winning a cake in the cake walk.

She has been flitting about for two weeks doing her Tinkerbell imitation and it is good, really, really good.

 

Making the Tinkerbell hair bun was a feat of engineering that I am particularly proud of, it involved mohair yarn, Styrofoam and lots of hairspray.  I made the wings and sewed the costume from a pattern I had in my head but the Disney Store made the light up Tinkerbell shoes.  The only decent thing I have ever seen at that store.

Pumpkining

I got my 2nd BlogHer check, and again I made about 11 cents a day, and even though I should have used that $25  to buy shoes for the kids, Moose said I could do whatever I wanted with it.

Things have been happening on the selling the old house front.  Good things, bad things, disappointing things, stressful things, but things, things that require risky decisions to be made.  All choices are equally risky and safe.

I am not going to say just what because I don't want to jinx it.  I believe God is in control  and has a plan for us that we can't always see but I also believe in jinxing. ( I totally jinxed myself out of getting a big calling recently.  I was certain that it was going to be a BIG one, one with a LOT of responsibility but because I told people that I jinxed myself into one with very, very little responsibility. SWEET!)

I can however relay facts. 

• Fact one, we still own our old house.  
• Fact two, said house is empty.  
• Fact three, we can not afford to pay 2 mortgages next month. 
• Fact four, rental management properties have been spoken to.  
• Fact five, someone is interested in buying said property but since no paperwork has been made it is still only interest and interest doesn't pay the bills.  
• Fact six, November is coming quickly.

So last night as I tossed and turned in my bed while I tossed and turned decisions in my mind I knew exactly what I was going to do with my BlogHer check.  Buy pumpkins.  What better way to soothe mid autumn nerves than with big orange squash?

This morning I put the situation to the kids, I had a $25 limit for pumpkins and the pumpkin farms charge a lot of money for the attractions and the pumpkins and as far as I can tell none of them do what they used to do which was pay a fee to do everything at the farm which includes a pumpkin. So we hashed it out and decided to buy pumpkins at Winco (17 cents per lb.) and go to a pumpkin farm that had free attractions.

 

The main attraction was the "Hay Pyramid"  I even managed to get some pretty decent pictures from the broken camera.

 

 And just when you think it isn't possible to love Boba Fett any more than you already do, I give you....

Boba Fett the Basilisk, complete with hissing.

On the hayride Camrock spun a tale about  how it was really a vehicle taking us to a Zorg prison camp.  In this picture he was singing a song, presumably a prison song?

As we left we bought some apples for a snack and corn for dinner and a full hay bale.  The hay bale will serve 3 purposes; first, Halloween decoration for my porch, second, a target for my avid archer son, and third, dry matter for the garden.

The best part is I still have $5 left over.

Knit One, Purl Two

Today was the first day of the Springville Ladies' Knitting Circle. I taught 3 to knit and purl, 5 to cast on and 1 needle felting. It went so well that we decided to do it again next week.

Later, my friend Kristen (who is also my visiting teacher AND we recently found out that our parents were friends back in the high school days) and I took our children to Multnomah Village to do some wool shopping at NW Wools. A great time was had by all, even Boba Fett who smashed his finger in the car.

Later, still giddy with knitting euphoria I carved a ball of yarn jack o' lantern.

Community Autumn Fair at Bethany

Yesterday, we took Nutmeg to an Community Autumn Faire, it was a fund raiser for a local Waldorf school. Knowing that "Waldorf" means nature, fairies and handcrafted goodness I was happy to go.

I have been looking for an Autumn fair to go to ever since Moose and I went to The Feast of the Hunter's Moon back when we lived in Indiana. They are so friendly and gentle. There is nothing like decorating with pumpkins and hay bales with the smell of cider in the air. The fair we went to yesterday was full of families who knew each other and we chatting and having a great time together as a community.

I wanted to do that for my community. So Bethany, Portland, Oregon I want to have a community Autumn Fair next fall. Will you support me in this?

I am thinking about crafts for the kids, apples, pumpkins, hay and cider. Music from people in the community, performances of all types. Maybe the Indian dancing group will preform. Food stalls, and items for sale. Booths hosted by our local shops and institutions. Stalls for learning, places to sit and chat with your neighbors.

I don't know yet if we will just try to break even or benefit a local charity but whatever we do the main point will be becoming a community.

I want to celebrate our community because I LOVE living in Bethany! So what do you say Bethany? Will you support a Community Autumn Fair (and me) in Bethany in 2010?

There is a poll to the right of the blog. Let me know whether I want to jump into this big, scary and wonderful commitment.

A Motley Crew and a Terrifying Tale

These are our Thanksgiving pies, a sad display, I know. We were a sight to behold, Moose strumming on the guitar, Boss Moss teasing Nutmeg, Commander C stirring the lemon Pudding at the stove, Boba Fett stirring the pecan pie, Grandma Whitehouse making the meringue and Samurai Mom getting ingredients for two pies at once. Mom put the crusts in the pans so they looked much nicer than when I do it and I thought that was an auspicious start. But alas it was not to be.
The pumpkin had this funny bubble in it that split and then sunk, the lemon meringue has questionable pudding and a flat split meringue. And the Chocolate pecan, well it boiled over in the oven making the pie look very sad indeed and in smoking up the kitchen right now and the corn syrup burn on the bottom of the oven as the turkey roasts.

Let us hope that they taste good and that the smoke alarm does not go off.

Before I tell the terrifying tale I will mention that I made a Chocolate Pecan for the ward pie contest this year and I was robbed. First, I looked at my pie after the judging and there is NO WAY 3 judges tasted the pie, there was a half teaspoon sized bite taken out, that is all. Secondly, the judges were all men and the winners were all fruit pies, obviously they were not qualified to judge a chocolate pie. I had sufficient praise from others however. Now, on to my tale.

It was Thanksgiving 1997, London.
Our abroad program was an American school, with American students and British instructors.
Happily, the director of the program arranged a Thanksgiving day feast at a small French restaurant. We all convened and while the dinner was not quite a traditional feast the basics were there and it was acceptable. Then it was time for desert. The servers went around the room taking orders apple or pumpkin pie. Some ordered the apple but most drooled at the prospect of some pumpkin pie and ordered that in their southern drawl (most of the girls at Hollins abroad were from the south.) The instructors did likewise on our recommendation. The pies arrived and those who had ordered pumpkin were a bit perplexed. The pumpkin was not a custard pie but a pie like an apple pie, with little slices of pumpkin in a syrupy filling! I am not joking people! We were appalled but tasted the pie with trepidation followed by disappointment, it was gross. No rich velvety delight for us. We vehemently declared to our British Instructors that THIS was not pumpkin pie and tried to explain it though none of us knew enough about baking one to do it accurately.
Ironic that in England we could not get a custard pie.

(Proof I was there at the infamous Thanksgiving feast, I have no idea who these people are, but the woman in the center was our Shakespeare instructor and the man sitting was her partner. I thought that was SO shocking and metropolitan.)

Temporal Prime Directive be Hanged!

I generally stick to the "I wouldn't want to change anything" comment when asked what I would change if I had a time machine. But I have finally, finally changed my mind. If I had a time machine I would go back to my self 6 or 7 years ago a la Janeway in the last episode of Voyager and tell my self to institute a policy in our household that only adults get to carve pumpkins and children must wait for the day when they are deemed old enough to carve a pumpkin at around 10 or 12.
- Don't worry, they were those pumpkin carving knives that are not even as sharp as a butter knife.

Acorns and Pumpkins

I whipped up these little acorns last night. I am pretty pleased with them. Wondering if I should sell them on Etsy.