Happy Autumn, y'all!

As far as I'm concerned, October 1st is officially Halloween. But it's already Autumn and I am so very much in the spirit that it hurts. Tonight I'm making baked cinnamon apples using apples that I got from an orchard last weekend. I got the recipe here, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

If nothing else, it looked damn tasty when it went into the oven, and the house smells heavenly.

Now, I'm trying to hold back on going full on spooky Halloween house until at least Tuesday. But I had to do SOMETHING. So I put up some "candy corn" lights in the front window. It's not much, but it's enough to let the neighbors know that my crazy Halloween-obsessed self hasn't gone anywhere yet.

Halloween Party Prep

Halloween is by far my favorite time of the year. I love it. For me, Halloween isn't a single day about getting candy. It's a whole season of creating and creativity! Every year, my husband and I host a Halloween party and I can't wait for it to get here this year (only 39 days left!)

Whenever I see websites like this with adorable tablescapes like that over to the right... I really really want to emulate them. Does that make me a middle aged housewife? I hope not. I'm not ready for that.

But really, how cute does that look?! I'm going to try to make something like that this year. I'm going to go ahead and brain-dump here so I remember what I'm thinking for my Halloween party setup this year.

Dining room:
This is going to be the main area for food. I'm thinking I'd like to keep it black and orange, kind of like that picture up there. Hot foods, appetizers, snacks. No desserts.

Kitchen:
This is the drink station. I'm sort of thinking a Halloween-glam, New Orleans voodoo, type of theme to the area. Sort of like what you see to the left, from this blog. Lots of glitter, glam, feathers, chandeliers.

What's nice is that these two stations won't totally clash with each other. We have an open floor plan in the house, so the kitchen and dining room pretty much open up into each other.

Last but not least...

The Basement:
I want to do the whole basement like a zombie apocalypse safe room. Quarantine signs. Biohazard tape. Yellow and black.

Oddly, I'm not seeing anyone that has done any sort of quarantine, zombie, or biohazard tablescapes for Halloween yet. Come on, bloggers! Zombies are SO 2013!!! Let's do this! I guess I'm on my own planning this area out. That's okay, I can do it. I know it. I'll be sure to post pictures as I craft and try out recipes.

Cheers, lovely monsters!

The Story of Hope

There's an important part of every animal's life that most pet owners won't, or can't, think about - the end. When we adopt our new furry friends as cute kittens or puppies, we never think about what’s going to happen down the line. And if we do, it’s usually that image of our best friend with the salt and pepper muzzle finding a quiet place in the house and falling asleep for the last time. And while I hate to call the death of a best friend romantic, compared to the reality that we usually face, the ending I just described is a rare fairy tale.

One day, your best friend is going to change. Even though he was perfectly house trained his whole life, an accident is going to happen. And then another. And another. And then the accidents become more frequent than when he waits at the door for you let him out. While they do make doggie diapers, and I know people use them, those diapers don’t help when your pup can’t fetch the ball anymore because they’re falling down with every step they take. Or maybe it's asthma. Cancer. A brain tumor that causes them to switch between their usual self to a creature you've never met before. 

And yet, they live on. We watch, tears in our eyes, feeling helpless as our best friend of so many years starts to become nothing more than a shell of their former self. And this is where many people face a tough decision to make: what next?

Most people choose to endure. They continue on, cleaning up the messes, helping the dog up the stairs, hoping those tumors popping up all over his body aren’t hurting him. But there comes a point when it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself “Is my dog still alive because it’s the best for him? Or because I’m afraid to lose my best friend?” And it’s hard. I've lost a lot of pets over the years, and the worst are when you need to decide to put them down because although they might still be alive, they're not really living. There is no shame in giving your friend a dignified and humane last moment. Sit with them, stroke their ears. It’s over before they know it.

But then there are the owners that will decide “that’s it” and drop their friend off at the pound. After a decade of mutual love, many games of fetch, lots of treats, and lots of love – they aren’t cute anymore, they’re going on the carpet, and they can barely walk. Someone else’s problem now, right? Except that dog that you have just dropped off at the pound is probably not going to die with someone they love. They’re going to sit on a broken, moldy mattress, watching families come in looking for a friend and leave with a cute new puppy. Your dog is going to be alone. Your dog is going to cry at night because that warm comfy bed is just a memory, and he has no idea what he did to deserve this. And then after so long, if he has made it this far, he’s going to disappear into a back room. Maybe he’ll be put down by someone who cares. But he won’t be with his family. His final moments are going to be spent wondering what he did wrong.

Meet Hope. Hope was dropped off at a kill shelter at 12 years old with tumors the size of softballs on her legs, smaller tumors all over her body, and fleas. She had one owner her whole life. I cannot fathom what kind of person - and I use that term loosely - would do that to an animal they raised for over a decade. On seeing the picture above on a rescue site, my mother took action to help out this poor dog. And I couldn't be more proud of her, even though sometimes I think I need to remind her that she can't save everyone.

This is Hope just days later. In a home again. On a warm carpet. Being loved. Getting ear scratches and fresh water. Taking walks in a yard.

I wish I could say that Hope went on to live many more years, but Hope was put down last night on September 16th. Her sores were healing, her tumors didn't seem to be bothering her, and her fleas were gone. She seemed very happy. But something wasn't right - one moment she'd be happy and sweet, the next she'd be aggressive and attack.

The vet thinks a tumor was affecting her brain.

My mom did a good thing for Hope. She didn't die in a shelter's back room at the hands of someone who didn't want to be there. She didn't die thinking she was alone. She went to Rainbow Bridge knowing that she was loved.

And even though I'm glad she was able to go the way she did; she should not have needed to. Her previous owners should have stepped up, recognized the problems, and taken care of her themselves. Not abandon her.

If you can't afford - financially or emotionally - to take your pet to the end of its lifespan, you should never own an animal. Period.

Twitterpated with Yardwork

First, let me say I haven't felt as alive as I did this morning when I walked outside in the sun with a light mist going on. I was wearing flip flops, so the little blades of grass were tickling my toes, and everything just felt so... Incredible.

I love spring. I love the smells, the sounds, and temperature  It's the perfect time of year. But our house doesn't really have a lot of spots that are very outdoor friendly... So I really wanted to make it my goal to make some good outdoor spaces that we can use.

First up... We have this corner of the house that is just... Terrible. Everything about it. There's some trash, the AC unit and heating oil drum. But there's so much potential! It's a little nook that you can look out into from three different rooms in the house! 

 

Never mind the peeling paint... We'll have to fix that at a later time. But this is what I'm working with. My first thought was to get a lattice and some vines and create some sort of barrier between the world and the AC unit. Frankly, it didn't feel like it did that much. But I'm hoping that once the vines start really growing up and sprouting flowers that it'll look nice.

So what I think I'm going to do next is take some nice outdoor pots and find some pretty flowers to sort of bookend my vine situation. Not sure what to do along the long edge of that space just yet... Maybe a bench.

I also worked on this little fella' over the weekend. Meet the world's ugliest picnic table. It lived in our backyard since we bought the house. I have no idea how old it is, and it was fully covered with this ugly tearing tarp (you can still see it on the seat in the picture above). So we ripped all that off, and started spray-painting it. I know we should have sanded and primed it and done it the right way... But... Well... We just don't do things the right way sometimes. And after a few coats, it's starting to look a ton better. 

Have you ever seen cushions on picnic table seats? I feel like that would be really cool and comfortable. I also have this crazy idea of painting something on the top of the table... but I'm not sure what yet. We'll see!

I'll post more updates as we de-uglify our outdoor spaces!

On Being Midsized

I am a midsized woman.

This means that I wear anywhere from a L-2X depending on the store.

Everyone I know has a complaint about their body. And most of those people have complaints about how their body relates to clothing that typical stores carry. The plus sized girls can't find anything cute in their size. The stick-thin girls can't fill out the butt of their jeans. The big chested girls look too top-heavy. The small chested girls don't look top-heavy enough. And the petite girls that have to hem every damn thing they buy.

We all have issues. That is something we have in common.

But I want to take a moment to recognize the midsized women out there who may not always experience the common shopping dilemmas that other women face. Or may experience those, in addition to a plethora of unique experiences.

I don't know of many stores that do this, but DEB splits their store right down the middle. Plus size is off to one side, and non-plus size is off to the other. But what about me? I am sitting right on the line between plus size and non. The plus size items in this store are a little above my range. And the non items are a little below my range.

Waaaah!!!

And then of course we've got stores out there that only cater to one size demographic, but have another store that carries similar clothing in higher sizes. Think Hot Topic and Torrid. This means that I have to go to not one, but TWO different stores with nearly identical items and face double the amount of "why don't they carry my size" than the average woman.

I am grateful to stores who carry plus size options because generally it's easier for me to take a plus size garment and get it altered than it is to add something to something that is too small. But I just wish the middle group wasn't forgotten so often.

When things go horribly wrong

One of my cakes from 2008

Husband's birthday was last week, and like a good wifey I decided I'd make him a cake! When I was in high school and college, I made cakes all the time and they were always pretty tasty and beautiful.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to put the cake together for his Saturday evening birthday party, so I decided to stick with boxed mix and canned icing - not that that's a bad thing. I got white cake mix and added some almond extract (1 tsp per box), and got strawberry preserves to mix with the icing. It was fool-proof.

I even went out and got a brand new square cake pan. Everything was set. Saturday afternoon comes around, I mix up my cake mix and pour it in the greased pan. Little while later, cake was done. Let it cool for a few minutes, then came issue number one...

Cake was stuck.I finally got it out of the pan, but it was pretty damaged. Well, shit. That's okay. It's salvageable. No problem. I went ahead and cut the cake down the middle so I could put a nice thick layer of delicious strawberry icing in between the two pieces. No big problems yet. Iced the bottom half. No issues. Went to put the top half back on...

And it fell apart. It just crumbled.

That's okay. That's okay! I can just use icing to even it out...

Nope. Didn't work. It was awful. The icing was just making it crumble more and I had a major cakedown. I started crying, asked Husband what I could possibly do about it because it was so ugly and awful and I had already spent the money on the cake trying to make it. He tried his best to soothe me, but sometimes there's just nothing you can say.

And then I went crazy.

Just kidding. Sort of. I did go crazy, but I also had an epiphany. I could smash up this ugly horrible cake and make cake balls! I had never done it before, but I watched a friend make them once and it seemed pretty easy... I wasn't sure if my ratios were right at all (turns out the balls were a little moister than usually prepared due to too much icing).

Turns out it was fine. Rolled up the cake and icing into little balls, covered it with blue and green candy melts - which, by the way, I couldn't find a good way to do to get a smooth surface... Everyone loved them. I was surprised! But also happy my disaster didn't ruin the night.

My cake balls and some other snacks for the evening.

Weekend Challenge: Sunroom

Our sunroom has always been one of our most used, and yet most neglected, rooms in the home. Every party we host, the sunroom becomes the music and dancing center, and so it was important to us to keep the room open. On a daily basis, the sunroom has always been our cats' favorite place to lounge, and I have slowly been moving my crafting supplies into the room...

Step 1? Clear out everything.

Unfortunately, this room evolved into a space to store all of our wedding goodies until we found real homes for them. Cutting boards, picture frames, a deep fryer, glasses, car repair kits... A little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

Step 2 - deep cleaning. Something I learned - vinegar is a seriously badass cleaner. I have a spray bottle of 2 parts water, 1 part vinegar that I use as a general cleaner. The old owners of our home were smokers, and vinegar has done wonders.


Step 3 - My first rule when redoing a space is to only bring things back in that you want to live in that room. I know it sounds like common sense, but this is something that most people forget. And once you end up with a pile of stuff that doesn't fit in the space anymore, it becomes a lot easier to purge the items you don't need.

I'm really happy wit how the space turned out, even though a lot of the changes are temporary. We're going to need to drag everything out again to repair the walls and paint, but damn. Already a big difference.

And you see that horrible ugly light fixture? I'm so blessed to have an electrician for a husband... He put in a beautiful new light on a dimmer switch, which is going to be awesome for entertaining!

I found these pillows at Home Depot in the garden center, but they really helped me figure out my vision for this room. Once I do a little more and get the paint on the walls, I'll post another update!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!