Source: pumpkin-k1sses
This week we have:
Cinnamon Pecan Banana Muffins
Baked Honey Mustard Chicken
Strawberry Cream Cake
Strawberry Cream Cake
For today, Sept 15 ...
Outside my window... We've had two glorious weeks of cooler temps (even down to the 40's one day!!) but it's back up to 80's this weeks. It doesn't matter, I got my taste of Fall, and I'm hooked. The trees are just barely starting to change, and that bit of crisp coolness in the breeze isn't going anywhere!
I am thinking... I get the award for blogging flakiness this month! Thank you, thank you, no applause please... Just kidding. But seriously, sorry for bailing on you two weeks in a row! I promise, cross my heart, unless I get sick AGAIN, that you will see all three of these fabulous recipes this week. They're seriously too awesome not to share, I'm really excited! I'm always a little afraid that when I bail on you guys and gals like that I'll come back and have lost a dozen of you, but I actually gained a new reader! *waves* Hello new friend!!
Source: Pinterest
I am thankful... This week I am particularly thankful for technology. I made a new friend, chatted up a storm with my sister, who just started college, watched lots of internet TV while sick and abandoned by my backpacking Geologist, and kept in touch with my nomad parents, who are up in Canada getting snowed on, all through this awesome technology stuff. In fact, Mom sent me a picture from their snowstorm... their THUNDER snowstorm!! I didn't even know those existed!! It is now on my list of life experiences, I must be in a thunder snowstorm. Best weather event EVER!!
A peek into my day... My house needs to be vacuumed. I should probably go to the store. I'm pretty sure we're getting low on laundry... but I'm having so much fun sitting here, listening to music and blogging, that I think I'll keep being irresponsible for a while. Just discovered that Bracken tore one of her booties to shreds... I can't really blame her for hating those things... all of her feet are healed of infection except one, the jury is still out on the auto-immune thing. Totally had apple crisp for breakfast this morning. Apple crisp makes really awesome breakfast. My French doors are open and a breeze is blowing through the whole house... I haven't shown you the finished doors and window! Memo to self, reveal post this week.
Source: Pinterest
In the kitchen... It is apple time!! Despite the fact that half of my family doesn't like cooked apples in any form other than apple butter, I'm going on an apple-baking spree. Apple butter, check, apple crisp, check, I'm thinking Irish apple cake, French apple cake, apple muffins, apple pull-apart bread... I'm going to having an apple party over here all to myself! Little Stephen will eat some of it with me, and I'll save some for breakfast, and the rest will go to work. Where all those apple-appreciating people can share! I used to think that Honeycrisps were my favorite apples, but I am now head over heels obsessed with Gingergolds. I need a Gingergold tree. YUM!! This weekend I demanded that we have a family outing to an apple orchard. We found the most adorable apple orchard ever, specializing in heirloom varieties (that you have to have a reservation to pick) and you better believe I'm getting reservations next year! This year we had to "settle" for two bags of Gingergolds, half a dozen apple cider donuts, and a visit with the most adorable baby Percheron (draft horse)!! I might even take the boys back next weekend... I'll be out of apples by then... And the Geologist is leaving one last time, so maybe I'll just drown my sorrows in apples... I like this plan.
I am looking forward to... Cooler temperatures, colored leaves, lots of sweaters and jeans, it's like my natural uniform. Morning walks with Bracken, leaving the doors and windows open, watching my yard and garden change, harvesting those stubborn tomatoes (that did NOT freeze this weekend!) one at a time... My parents returning from their adventures, a Broncos game in October (yay free tickets!!), OCTOBER, everything Fall everywhere!!
Meet Diva, my crazy hummingbird!
Around the house... A long, long time ago I told you that I am a crazy bird lady. I love birds. But I haven't been getting any visitors to the feeders in the backyard, even though I see goldfinches and hummingbirds flitting back and forth between the huge trees in all of the surrounding yards... So we moved them up front. The thistle feeder is now in the cherry tree so the shy little goldfinches feel safe, and the sunflower feeder and hummingbird feeder are hung right in the middle of the front garden patch, just a few inches from the bay window. In just a few days I've had a swarm of house finches, 2 very shy goldfinches, a nuthatch, a handful of chickadees and one very, very brave hummingbird. In fact, she's claimed the hummingbird feeder for herself, chasing off wasps and fellow hummers, even going after a inch three times her size once! She likes to just hover around her feeder, spoiling for a fight, or sit there fanning her wings and looking around... I've named her Diva, she cracks me up. I spent 2 hours curled up on the couch taking pictures of the little show-off.
I am going... I'm not going anywhere, except choir practice. I didn't make it into the new choir, but I'm back in the old one. It has gotten quite the makeover and is lots more fun! I just couldn't imagine the holiday season without singing, so I jumped back in. The Geologist is off to North Carolina for a week for his last training of the year! It's going to be a very long week, but at least he isn't leaving again anytime soon! Besides, more opportunity to make apple treats. :)
Source: Pinterest
One of my favorite things... Maroon 5!! I'm a little hooked lately...my Maroon 5 favorites are all on repeat, and when I say repeat, I mean like a dozen times a day. I get that way with music... and food... Anyway. Generally speaking, the Geologist can't stand Adam Levine's voice, BUT our favorite semi-reality TV show is The Voice, which returns next week, and Adam is our favorite part of the show, because he's hilarious. Well, he and Blake are. I'm not sure if either of them would be quite as entertaining if they couldn't play off each other... Anyway, I can get him to listen to Maroon 5 while the show is running, so I'm going to make the most of it! REPEAT!! :)
Try your own Daybook! Get ideas here!
Love your daybook April. I always do. It's nice catching up with all of your goings on. Your apple week sounds delicious. I am finding it a real challenge having someone else in the house and trying to fit her tastes into ours. She is spanish so she doesn't like eating three squares a day, but rather snacking about 7 times a day, and she doesn't like cooked fruit, any kind of dried fruit, peas, potatoes, etc. I have discovered however that she likes eating my baking nuts, which is driving me a little nuts, every pun intended! lol Love you! Miss you! Glad you are back in choir. They would love having you here in our ward. xxoo
ReplyDeleteI do love reading your blog(s) and staying abreast of what is happening in my niece's life! We have sooo many common loves fall, apples and choir being just 3. Glad you're back in a choir! Our fall concert is this coming monday (my birthday!) and I have a little spotlight. I am in a quartet that is counter to what the choir sings in a beautiful oratorio called Passion and Resurrection, by Eriks Esenvalds. Anyway….wish you could hear it. Wish I could taste all your goodies, too! Love you!
ReplyDeleteApril, my husband and I are "Voice" fans too. We are constantly amazed by the people that come on the show.
ReplyDeleteMy family favorite apples are the Gravenstein. When my Grandfather was alive he had something like 6-8 of them in his orchard, along with many other fruit trees. After he died, Grandma sold the house and the new owners ripped all of the trees out and a load-bearing wall in the house that made the roof sag. We were just devastated by it. Last year I found a young easy-pick Gravenstein apple tree at the local nursery. We grabbed it right up and are eagerly watching it for its first fruits. They make wonderful pies. I was first introduced to Honeycrisps at Costco one year. I can't ever seem to find them again after that. They were added to my favorites. I have never heard of Gingercrisps, but I will have to see if they have any here in California. Take care of you and poor Bracken. I am glad to hear that she is healing up.