Trick-or-Treat

I hope everyone is having a happy Halloween!  We are wrapping up our first Halloween in our new city and we've encountered some odd trick-or-treating behavior.   Does anyone else live where a large percentage of the kids don't knock on the door?  They walk onto the porch and say 'trick-or-treat.'  Which I really couldn't hear through the door past the living room and into the kitchen where I was working on dinner... because trick-or-treaters come while it's time to make dinner.  I don't mind stopping and handing out candy, I just don't know how many kids I may have missed because there was no knocking involved. Sometimes I would check because I heard a suspicious noise and often there would be no one there and once a bunch of kids were almost off the steps heading to the next house and the grown up called them back explaining that the the door is open now...  I then made a sign for the front door to aide in communication.

This increased the knocking, mostly, but things still seemed odd.  I remember trick-or-treating following a reliable protocol: knock-- door opens-- 'trick-or-treat'-- get candy (while the resident would say their comments i.e. Happy Halloween, or Brush Your Teeth)-- then we say 'thank you' and move on.  To be honest when I was young enough to require a parent I remember we had the rule that we were only allowed to go to the houses of people we knew... which weren't that many in walking distance.  But I digress.  Here even with the help of the sign it went more like: knock-- 'trick-or-treat' -- door opens-- they stare at me-- I give them candy and wish them a good night-- they were pretty good at saying 'thank you'.  Just kind of odd to me and I wonder if this is normal other places and I'm the odd one.

Other things I noticed included the practice of trick-or-treating for the absent or infantile, using a backpack as a collection vessel, and I noticed several of the neighbors (three I could see without leaving the front door) would hang out in their yard to distribute the candy.  The last one makes a certain amount of sense if there's a rush or if you have a member of the family designated for that job-- but it never seemed quite that busy and I was trying to multitask.  We had around 75 trick-or-treaters over a 2 1/2-3 hour evening.  All in all it was fun.  Yay Halloween.  And yay for not having too much candy left over.

Happy Halloween!

I'm interrupting the summer recap posts to wish everyone a happy and festive Halloween!

These are our jack-o-lanterns for this year. We were joined last weekend by our very good friend, Bill. Anyone who knows Bill would agree that he's pretty awesome. I could go on and write a huge post about the great friend he's been but I know he wouldn't really like me to do that so I'll just sum it up with the words: roll-on turf. Needless to say we were pretty happy to have him for the weekend.

We had a great weekend of frisbee golf, cider mills, waffles, donuts, a corn maze, a ham steak, movies and nature walks (sorry no pictures... having too much fun). This has become a mostly-annual tradition starting in Connecticut that I look forward to keeping! My only complaint is that the weekend was too short. Thanks Bill!

Doing Well

We have been enjoying our visit with my husband's mother. Yesterday I took her to Old Town Lansing where we got to look at cute little shops and walk along the river. and for dinner we roasted a turkey and had biscuits and mashed potatoes along with some other goodies-- It's been great to have Lois with us-- we really like her! (I have some nice pictures of her, and I'm glad to have them but I think she would be happier if I didn't post them on the internet even though the pictures are nice and she looks very nice in them)

So far we've gotten out of house every day and I hope that will get to continue as this afternoon we sticking to rainy day activities-- because today it turned into a rainy day.

Rainy day activities have consisted of sewing and reading... but mostly sewing. Between the two of us over two days we've finished 5 quilt blocks which is pretty sweet as I have many more to do and it feels good to whittle down the number of unfinished blocks.

"But Kristen, where did these quilt blocks come from in the first place?"

I'm so glad you asked! These are all from 'quilt block of the month' programs-- which are very fun and get you to try new things. It basically works like this: your local quilt shop sells you a pattern and fabric to make one quilt block (about five bucks) with the idea that you come back the next month with that block completed to receive another pattern w/fabric which you finish and bring back the following month so in theory you can make 12 coordinated quilt blocks for $5. This is great and fun... and just the beginning. Once they get you in the store there are all sorts of things they sell at you (it's a store, I don't hold it against them, I just don't have the cash). The most common, aside from all the little things you can buy that do one thing really well, is the "finishing kit" which gives you instructions and fabric to turn your block into a quilt top-- these typically cost at least $60 (so I never buy them) which sometimes does not contain the batting backing or binding that you will also need to truly finish. They also get you with 'bonus blocks' which cost a little extra and often look so nice and if you don't complete your previous month's block then it will cost another $5 to start up again.

And then sometimes you can get behind (like me right now) because inevitably life gets in the way. This problem is compounded by the fact that I still have blocks to do from last year's block-of-the-month program in Sacramento that I didn't get to because we got married and moved out of state (but I still had very nice people pick up my blocks for me). It's fun to see how different shops run their block-of-the-month programs. All in all I'm having a good time of it and learning new things but will probably take next year off with the hopes of finishing some of these quilts.

Since this afternoon I've felt considerably tired... a little more than I think is normal. We'll see if this is the beginning of the downhill slope or just a lazy rainy day.

Trying Something a Little Different

With no internet at the house my blog posting has… well... stopped. This will not do. So my new plan of attack is that I write my post on the computer at home and process any images I may use and plop it all on a thumb drive then make my way over to either the local or not-quite-as-local library (the one that opens before 1pm and has double the computers and more than double the books) and cut and paste.

If I didn’t have to drive then the internet would basically be free. So that’s good and kind of exciting however it presents it’s own special sort of hassles to be sure. …I have mixed thoughts about limitations on time on-line. I find I waste less time when I think I only have 30 minutes but if it’s slow and the pop up window asks me if I want another 15 minutes I can’t say no. Then if it asks me again… well, since time on-line is limited it makes it harder to walk away whereas when it’s at home and I know I can come and go it makes it easier to leave it alone because I know if I think of something I need to look up later I can. Lists help but they’re not fool proof and inevitably I find myself later in the day I think of something I forgot to do on-line. There are times when for business I’ll really need to have the internet more accessible so I see the library as a temporary situation. ::fingers crossed::

Now for things I actually wanted to post.

First the toads!!

These three turned up while my beau was mowing the lawn a couple of Saturdays ago. Not wanting to hit them with the mower he brought them inside (one at a time as he found them) and put them in a pace picante sauce jar.

These guys are small and soo cute! The biggest one was about the size of a gumball. So that little was pretty bitty! Of course when the mower was put away we released the trio wishing them well and for them to get fat on the hundreds of crickets in the yard.

I’m not sure what makes so many amphibians fall into the cute category—but there they are.

Next...

STEW! (maybe it’s not best to write about toads and stew in the same post… could make the tags look funny but here we go)

The weather has been cooling off (it’s raining now) and with that comes stew! It’s one of the reasons I can let go of summer and embrace autumn and winter… it’s cozy!

This was the first stew of the season (we’re currently finishing off our second-- a lentil and sage sausage number that illustrates that I need more practice but has become quite tasty). What I was excited about was the pound of Adirondack Blue potatoes I scored at the farmer’s market that week. As I understand it, any food with naturally blue or red flesh is a good source of anti-oxidants… which makes me wonder why not eat more blue potatoes since they’re just as delicious, healthier, and much more fun?

See? Pretty!

This was taken before cooking. The potatoes didn’t stay this purple, the surface turned white but they were still purple on the inside. I like. If we ever garden as much as we discuss wanting to I would love a row of blue potatoes. I’m enamored.