All Hallows Eve

My little witch



and Lucy from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe





hope you had the spookiest of All Hallows Eves.

-dana

Hi Ho A Merry O

A hiking we will go.


To gather the last of the peppers.





And run across green fields of grass.








And run and play and dance.









And find mysterious totems along the way.









And gather bittersweet vine for fall decorating around the house.

I do so love this season.

-dana

Breathing

This past weekend extended into Monday for us. The girls were off of school for the day and Razor had taken the day off to recuperate from the adventure race. So, for three whole days I managed to simply breathe.



Hence the dirty dishes after making . . .



more of these.


On one of our walks we followed the old train track that runs behind our house.




It's in no condition for trains to run on but we do see this guy every now and then.

























Breathing is such a simple luxury. I'm glad that my busiest show schedule for my soap company for the year is over . . . for now there can be more breathing. And baking. And hiking. And giggling. And sewing. And cuddling. And puzzle-putting-togethering. And all the things we love to do as a family.

-dana

Podcasting

I mentioned back in late August that a crew was at my house filming a segment for pod cast.

You can now see it here.

-dana

Adventure Racing Man and Monster Mash Mama

Razor is adventure racing again this weekend at the Upstate Adventure Race. Leave his team a shout out here by selecting team Paradofobia. They get these messages at checkpoints throughout the race. Even cooler than that is the GPS Tracking. They are team #18 and you can see exactly where they are and even put it on Google Earth from the site and see what kind of terrain they are facing. How stinkin' cool is that? (In case there is any confusion about what I'm calling "stinkin' cool" let me be abundantly clear. I think it is stinkin' cool that I can know the exact latitude and longitude of my husband at any given moment in time. I think it is stinkin' cool that I can see if he is going up a mountain, down a mountain or paddling on a lake. The whole draw of adventure racing is a mystery to me. I mean, let's carry everything we need on our backs for 30 continuous hours of grueling, treacherous, sleep-deprived racing?? I would never in a billion years classify that as "stinkin' cool". But to each his own.)

On the home front, the girls and I are in full on Halloween mode.




We've decorated our pumpkins for the contest tonight at the school's annual Monster Mash Bash.





Later we will adorn ourselves as well.







Add a little sugar high to the mix and you have the makings of a rip roaring Halloween party!


-dana

Poor kitty

We have three cats that I've talked about before. Jezebel is the youngest and smallest and sweetest (Don't tell Truman I said that because, truth be told, Truman is the sweetest. But for the sake of this story I want to declare to the world that Jezebel is the sweetest. That is unless you include Sweetie Boy in the mix. I mean come on! With a name like Sweetie Boy you know he's sweet. But again, for this story we will put all of that aside and agree that Jezebel is the sweetest. Well, maybe anyway.)



All the cats are barn cats. We go outside every morning and find them all waiting for us to walk to the barn and feed them. It's quite the ritual. But last Wednesday when we went out in the morning Jezebel wasn't there. Hmm. That's odd. But then again Sweetie Boy once went missing for over a month so how odd is one morning really. Right?

Well, that afternoon we still hadn't seen Jezebel all day. Razor went to look for her. Luckily he knew a few of her favorite hiding spots and found her high up in the barn. She purred and purred and was very happy to see him but he knew instantly that something wasn't right. Her back leg was clearly broken.

Come to find out she had a compound open fracture of her femur. And it was already infected.






So our vet recommended amputation.

::blink:: ::blink::

Come again Doc.

We now have a three-legged cat. Wait, wait. We now have a three-legged indoor cat. Furthermore, we now have a three-legged indoor cat that has already pulled out her stitches and the subsequent staples. So really when you break it all down, we now have a three-legged indoor cat with a lamp shade on her head.


And she is such a trooper that the only thing that really makes her mad about the whole thing is the lamp shade.






I know sweet girl. I'd be upset about the lamp shade on my head too.

-dana


P.S. Aren't you glad I didn't include pictures of the amputation site. It's not all that horrible actually. The worst part of it is the shaved fur and the metal staples. Poor, poor sweet girl.

I love these

-dana

Happy family

Yesterday evening I was lucky enough photograph this enchanting family. I think they were a bit nervous and didn't really like being the center of attention. But after awhile they started to relax.

Lovely don't you think?

-dana

Sugar Snap

I've mentioned before that I'm getting three quilts ready to give away here all in one fail swoop. Three quilts to three different winners. I can hardly wait cause two of them are done and I'm loving them. I stare at them fondly on my sewing table. Every now and again I give them a gentle stroke. I dream of summer picnics and cuddling at Christmas time . . . and then I remember that I'm giving them away.





The third quilt is now at the long arm quilter's house. This one is equally as extraordinary as the first two and has special meaning to me.







You see, Melissa has a blog that I stalk called Yummy Goods. Several months ago I contacted her and asked if she would even remotely consider giving me some of her debut fabric, called Sugar Snap, to make a quilt with and give it away on my blog. I thought I'd never hear back from her but, lo and behold, I did. And, she agreed!





The fabric arrived about a week ago and it is marvelously beautiful. I could get lost in the one above. I have been dreaming of a brown/pink/orange quilt for ages and this fabric is bewitching in it's perfectness.

And, doesn't this one below totally remind you of your Spirograph drawing toy from when you were a kid?




Dude. Don't even get me started.





I've had trouble parting with other quilts but surrendering the three for this giveaway will be a nearly impossible feat.

Perhaps a bait-and-switch is in order . . .

-dana

Perfect autumn cookies

Razor makes the most delectable cookies with the girls each fall. Lucky for me, they made them this past weekend and he took photos along the way!












Click on the recipe above to make it larger.

And then march yourself to your kitchen right away and commence baking. You are so gonna thank me.

-dana