Pet Love

Do you think it’s weird that my dogs and cats like each other so much?

Benny (orange boy) & Joon (black girl) are the cats (yes, they’re siblings). Rosco & Tripper are the dogs.

Benny seemed annoyed at my intrusion.

Odd animals.

Pumpkin

So a few weeks before Halloween, Leah wants to buy a pumpkin. You - like me - might assume she's excited to make a jack-o-lantern. And then you - like me - might buy an enormous pumpkin for this purpose.

But we would both be wrong.

Because in fact we got home and she says to me: Okay. So. What can we cook with this pumpkin?

What??? Oh. Um. Crap.

WHY did I buy this ENORMOUS pumpkin???



So we cut up the pumpkin, we roasted it, and then we pureed it. And in the end we had 18 cups of pumpkin puree. Now what to cook was the question! (much of this is now in the freezer in baggies - 2 cups in each bag)

We made a pumpkin pie - that was fantastic. Pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin has a more mild taste so if you don't normally like pumpkin pie you might give that a try some day.

We made pumpkin ginger muffins. I never did take my own picture of those. You can click to see the recipe. I didn't have any candied ginger (which I have made from scratch before but it takes 7-8 hours. I was too impatient. lol) so I used candied pecans - which I already had in my house. They were VERY good. YUM.


We made pumpkin bars - Paula Dean's recipe - recommended to my by Camela - with warning (which I found was reflected in the reviews) that it always comes out gooey in the center. To avoid this I used a 9x13 AND an 11x7 for one batch. So they were slightly thinner than intended but they came out perfectly.

So today I think I'm going to make these from Bakerella - Pumpkin Pie Bites.

Hometown

The journal jar strikes again...

Describe the main street of your hometown.

Uh.

I don't have a hometown really. I was born here where we live now but I didn't grow up here. I lived in Georgia from 4 to 10 (in 3 towns), Missouri for a year, and then we moved to Oklahoma just before I turned 12. We moved from there a few weeks after I turned 17 to Massachusetts. I lived there for about 18 months before I headed off to college in Idaho. We moved around since we've been married too. Although I think we're settled now. At some point in our future there'll be a move to Cheyenne. Barring any unforeseen surprises, of course.

Alas I don't know what to say when people ask about or refer to my hometown.

The most continuous I've ever lived in one place is Claremore, Oklahoma but it's hard to call that my hometown when I haven't been there since I was 17 (I'm about to turn 34). And I don't have any family still there or anything.

Besides what I could describe of main street in Claremore is not likely to be true anymore! lol

But this brings my mind around to another topic...

Because of that move the middle of my junior year - I don't think I'll probably ever attend a high school reunion. I didn't graduate in Oklahoma - although I spent most of school there - and I was only in Massachusetts for a year and a half. It just seems awkward.

Now I have to go catch up on Leah's pictures. She'll be four on Saturday and I am woefully behind. Eek!

Children's Book Review - Take 2

You may or may not remember my previous book review - written last year - you should read that first.

You'd think I had learned my lesson about previewing holiday thanksgiving books.

But I have not.

Perhaps two adorable preschoolers (Leah & her cousin Elaina) were running about the children's section of the library pulling books and handing them to me and I did not bother to look. And then perhaps as we were getting Leah to bed last night she asks to read three of these books...

And maybe - just maybe - ANOTHER book was about not having turkey for Thanksgiving.

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE.

Okay fine. At least this one didn't have an ax and sobbing children but it did talk about plucking and stuffing and how scared the turkey was - there were descriptions of the process - which I did not read out loud. I said something like "Oh they want to get me" and kept on reading.

I will say that if you ARE looking for a vegetarian thanksgiving book - I'd go with this one as opposed to the other. :)

The two pilgrim boys are singing this song:

"We'll pluck him, and stuff him,
and cook him up right.
We'll gobble, gobble turkey
for dinner tonight!"

And look at this review I found:

“Two pilgrim brothers set off to hunt up a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. "We'll pluck him, and stuff him, /​ and cook him up right. /​ We'll gobble, gobble turkey /​ for dinner tonight!" Their song forms a refrain throughout, but the smaller pilgrim brother begins to have second thoughts. He most certainly sees a terrified turkey a number of times, but he always leads his brother in another direction. Meanwhile, Turkey tries hiding in a tree, a gopher hole and a pond-with disastrous results. Then small pilgrim brother helps Turkey hide in a woodpile, and the two boys take home a huge pumpkin for dinner instead. Vegetarian storytellers now have an excellent companion to Dav Pilkey's Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving (1990) for their cruelty-free holiday storytimes. Wickstrom's high-spirited hunting brothers and the most expressive turkey in recent memory are a perfect match for Archer's sweet hide-and-seek story. Even the most carnivorous listeners will enjoy this yummy addition to any collection.”

I can't believe it even mentions the last book I reviewed on this very topic.

What is with my luck? You know there are TONS of thanksgiving books for kids in the world. Probably even with perfectly innocent people eating turkey.

The message from this book? Let the turkeys live.

I wonder if I can accidentally check out one next year?

And as you can see - we still go to the library every Friday for more books. :)

I have another one we haven't read called Turkey Bowl. There's people playing football on the front. It might be safe...

Halloween

Okay. I'm a little late with this but I have my laptop again - all in working order - and it's not so much work to get a picture from my camera to my blog! lol

Leah was Fiona for Halloween. We were looking at costumes a couple months ago online (www.costumesupercenter.com) and we got to this dress and she did a full girly gasp and clapped her hands over her mouth. It was too adorable.

A couple hours before it was time to go she tells me "I want a long princess braid."

Um....

Sure. Okay.

And then I had a moment of mommy GENIUS. I went to my craft stuff and found some brown yarn. I cut a ton of pieces - then I french braided her hair and attached a grouping of yarn to each end of the french braid and then just kept braiding. It turned out so cool! She thought I was hero.

I know, I know. Hold the applause.

A little make up - a princess should get to where
make up... even an ogre princess. lol

First Crush

So in my search for an idea to post today (NaBloPoMo!), I decided to go pull out this journal jar thing I have. It has these little curled pieces of paper and a question on each one.

So what do I get?

Well first I got tell about your grandkids. Right. Not helpful.

Tell about your first love/crush.

Hmmm. Okay. I can do that.

Oh wait. He's on my facebook. These posts are imported into my facebook. Hello? A.w.k.w.a.r.d.

I think I can do this without saying his name.

But what am I supposed to tell about him. I totally loved him from like 7th grade on. I got mostly over it during our sophomore year but really I just didn't see him very often anymore. There were other crushes before him, during him, after him but he's my most intense memory of childhood/teenage-hood love.

You know how every once in awhile you meet someone you're attracted to but in some kind of "your mind and body have some chemical reaction of their own" way? I'm sure there's a fancy name for that. I didn't really know what that was when I was so young but through junior high school and beyond I have these memories of him coming up behind me - but not touching me - just to walk by - and knowing it was him before I turned and saw him. And thinking that was so weird - was I psychic or what?

We moved away from there the middle of my junior year but the months before that he was mean to me a couple times and I was not really all that enamored with him anymore. I am - as I always have been - a very sensitive person - and really he didn't KNOW me at all - and I didn't know him - but oh I was ever so in love. Funny though - there were other guys during that time that really did get to know me very well. Two I can think of specifically - also both on my facebook. I guess I won't go there either. LOL

I have as an adult met other men that you have that kind of moment or connection with - not frequently - but it always makes me think of.... "he who will not be named". (no he's not Voldemort. Or evil - well as far as I know he's not evil. He seems rather benign on Facebook at least!)

Which btw I'll just say - I love facebook. I love knowing how people turned out and what they're wives/husbands/kids look like. Although I really just want them to be happy. There is another guy's family on there - he's not - who I adored for many years and I've learned he's gotten divorced and doesn't sound happy and it made me cry. I wish he was on facebook too so he could tell me he is happy and I wouldn't worry. Of course maybe he's not. I suppose EVERYONE isn't happy. Even the happy faces I see on facebook. I want people I love/loved to be happy even if I don't get to know them anymore.

And the other thing - I'm so surprised how much I still care about the same people. If facebook didn't exist I'm sure I wouldn't think about it. But I care about those same people - even though I don't know about their lives now - or really them for that matter - certainly I'm not the same person I was at 15! haha. But I love that facebook gives me a glimpse into them. Very cool!

Anyway - that's about all I can say about him I suppose. I think I can do that without revealing him. Except I suppose he'll know if he remembers any of it.

Both in 9th grade -

Once he was sitting next to me in the hallway during lunch and we were talking - and this other girl walked by and smiled at him - he just kind of ignored her - but then a guy across the hall (his best friend I think at the time) says "Hey! She got her braces off! Now you can kiss her without hurting yourself!" - or something like that. I thought he was going to faint. He yelled at his friend to shut up. It was very funny.

One other time - I was talking to another guy and we were kind of flirting and the same best friend walk by and says to the guy I'm talking to - you should stay away from her. He's gonna be mad. I still to this day don't get that. We weren't together or even really talking at that time. Was there some kind of decree I belonged to him? Boys! lol

There. I did it. That's an odd pointless blog post.

All for your entertainment.

It was either that or I post the Gummi Bears Theme song. I do love that song....

Paper Bag Puppets

From Oct 15th - this has been sitting in my drafts file.

Paper Bag Puppet Ideas

Halloween Set (pdf) - this is the ones we did. Leah thought this was great fun. I cut them out but she did the painting/coloring and 90% of the gluing.

Good times :)

She really thought these were the best thing EVER.

The Thankful Jar

I got this idea from Connie's blog - who got it from someone else's blog - who got it... you get the idea. It appears to have originally come from sugardoodle.net - Thankful Jar

Here you can see a pic of someone's jar and papers. I did the same thing to the papers but not the jar decoration. We did glue a picture on the front of the jar. I suppose I could take a picture - and I probably will - but since my laptop is off in some Dell service place - I'm using Drew's little mini laptop and... well... some things are just too much work!

Leah loves any cutting and gluing so she loved the process of course but this morning when we got up this first thing she said was "Let's go do the thankful jar!" So we started the morning by pulling out a card - it said I am thankful for sisters - which I had written Aunts under because she has no sister, of course! So she decided we should color pictures for the Aunt she selected. I printed out some Thanksgiving coloring pages and we colored and now they are in the mailbox. She also loves that process - stamps, envelopes, putting in the mailbox.

The thankful jar is fun! Thanks for the idea Connie!

I'm off to do some Wii Fit Yoga now. Woohoo! lol

Clingy Part 2

She's still clingy. Just in case you were wondering....

No really. That's not what I was going to talk about. lol

Last night Drew & I talked about it and I was really upset (she was sleeping). Upset about how to handle it, upset about what's going on in her head, upset about how he hasn't been home for a whole day in forever and that's taking a toll on Leah and I. Just Bleh.

But Drew is a good sounding board and as we talked about Leah and how she's feeling and I was crying and he was soothing me and asking why I was so upset and pointing out I wasn't even breathing right.

And as I'm babbling, something comes to the surface... I can't fix it.

Oh. My. Gosh.

So then for a minute I sob into his chest.

"I can't fix it. I'm the mommy, I'm supposed to fix it. I can't fix it."

Her little heart has realized that some things in the world are not safe. She has to have this realization but it's a realization that can never be taken back. Once you know, you can't "un"know it right? It makes me ultra sad.

I can only comfort but I cannot take it away or fix it. It's done.

So there's the gist of my angst. Sometimes it takes awhile for me to work my way around to what's upsetting me about something - but there it is.

She's just hit upon something I can't make better.

Ouch.

Well, that and the constant clingy-ness. lol But that's easier to deal with when I've recognized my own angst in the situation.

Whew.

Clingy. Ultra Clingy.

So Leah has been clingy. Well, let me be clear - clingy doesn't quite describe how it has been.

For example, Thursday morning I was making her requested breakfast (grits, fried eggs, and toast - her favorite breakfast these days) and as I'm standing at the stove cooking - where is she? Sitting at my feet. And every little bit leaning over and kissing my calf. Seriously.

This is very sweet but that's the deal with this stage of clingy for her - it's all in sweetness. If she was being a brat it would be easier to deal with but she is just glued to me with love. And if I were to get too upset with her constant attention her little heart would be broken. If she even starts to sniff out that I'm getting frustrated her feelings are hurt.

So the gist of this is: I'm drained. It's been two weeks of this. She's waking up crying at night and coming to me. She normally gets in my bed at some point in the night - which I don't mind at all - but going back to waking up to all this wailing is not my favorite thing. She won't leave the room I'm in. She won't go to the family room and watch cartoons while I'm in another room doing something else. In fact, she's hardly watched any cartoons in the last couple weeks. She keeps requesting that we watching cooking shows together. I did have her cousin come spend the night Friday night. Blessed break. They played in the family room downstairs and I spent some blissful alone time in the living room.

Several people I've talked to about it have asked me if I knew what brought this on - because normally there is something of course. But alas. I have no idea.

Until today - today I have gotten some clues.

All the sudden today she starts telling me about a dream she had where she was with Daddy and these people came and they hit daddy with a stick and daddy was laying in the street and she was so scared. I told her that was terrible and scary and I was sorry she had that dream. And she told me she'd had the dream several times. eek.

Then she told me that today she didn't want to go in her room because it was scary. WHAT? I thought. She loves her room! She said she's scared of the hole. Hole?? The hole behind her door.

Well. okay. Once I opened her bedroom door and the doorknob made a hole in the wall. Most of the sheet rock is even still attached. It's not even a whole hole.

But. I remember I was watching something - Criminal Minds - that was it. Anyway. I had tried to watch this show in like 6 sittings because I didn't want to watch it with her around - so I was seeing it in 5-10 minute bursts. It was driving me crazy. Finally I wake up way earlier than her one morning, come downstairs and turn it on. And as I'm watching them knock open a wall to find a skeleton, Leah came in the room. Lovely. (You see where this is going?) I hurriedly hit pause and turned off the TV. Off with our day. No big deal at the moment.

But now? Leah is afraid a skeleton is going to come out of the little hole in her wall behind her door.

She's having dreams about things happening to her parents.

Generally speaking, I think she's hit an awareness that somethings in the world are scary and sad and uncomfortable. And she's clinging to me while she adjusts to that.

Hopefully having an understanding of it will help me be sane while she works it out and help me to guide her through it.

***

So two nights ago is when she first told me about the "skeleton in the hole" (but not that it was the hole in her room), she said she couldn't sleep because of these thoughts. And I talked to her for a little bit about it and then said she should try saying her prayers again for the night and ask Heavenly Father to help her think of different things and when she was done to choose a song to sing in her head to help push the thoughts away. She said "that's a good idea, mommy!" and trotted off to bed again.

The next morning I asked her how it went and she said "I prayed two times and sang a song and then it worked and I fell asleep!"

Heartwarming little girl! Love her!

***

PS During typing this I have had probably 20 conversations with her (leaning against me the entire time) and she is just now off to go take her nap. A few moments peace... here I come. Whew.

ETA: I put tape over the hole in her room so "nothing will come out of it". I will be ordering one of those things that attaches to the wall to go behind a doorknob.