Woodsmoke Over Misty Mountains

                                                                               {Harvest Moon}

Well here we are, the first day of Autumn. Not that you would know it here in Tucson where it is still in the 90s. Lately (okay, so almost the whole summer actually) I have been quite homesick. I yearn for forests and mountains, rain and the sea. Oh Oregon, how I miss thee. But being trapped in the desert all I can do is turn up the AC and dream of cooler days.

This Is My Jam: The Parish

I think a new goal for this blog, or possibly old goal that I have just remembered again, is going to be writing shorter and/or more focused posts.

I always get bogged down by really long posts. I go to write something and there are like a hundred photos I want to share and then it always takes for freakin' ever. That leads to me never feeling like I have time to post, which leads to longer amounts of time between posts, which in turn leads to a million things/pictures to share the next time. It is a vicious circle.

I am also going to start a semi-regular segment called "This Is My Jam." This will be a (relatively) short post on a place or thing that I really enjoy. Sort of like a "hey you should go check out this totally rad thing because I think it is totally rad" kind of post. These will of course be based only on my own opinions. No one is paying me to say nice things about them, that would require businesses actually knowing about my blog.

So let's combine the lots of short/focused posts idea and this new segment right now (yay!).

Thanksgiving

This year Mister B's parents were in town for Thanksgiving (they live here, but are generally gone this time of year), so we had a full out Thanksgiving instead of our traditional Thanksgiving pizza (which I am pretty sure I have talked about in past blog posts, but you are likely to see it here around Christmas this year I think). That meant that his parents made all the major components, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and I got to contribute whatever I wanted. And what I wanted was sweet potato pie and buttermilk biscuits.

Pumpkin Everything

Yes, I am one of those people that loves pumpkin everything. What's that you say? It is pumpkin flavored? Why yes please, I would love some! This weekend I realized that I had a little sugar pumpkin left over from Halloween, so of course it was destined to become soup. I have been a bit obsessed with soup lately. It is so delicious, so warm (even though it is in the 80s here right now I am firmly in the fall mindset), so comforting, and there are so many possibilities! It has become my new favorite thing to cook because it is one of the few things that I feel comfortable just whipping up on my own without a recipe. If you have never made something without a recipe, you should seriously try it. If it turns out and tastes delicious, you feel like a total badass for having managed it all on your own without anyone else's help. If you are one of those confident people that have been doing this for years, then you already know what I mean, but if not you should go for it. Believe me, if I can do it you can do it!

The 4th And Food

I hope everyone had a happy fourth of July! This post is going to be pretty food heavy so if you don't want hear about all the things I have made lately then just look at these pretty fireworks and go about your business.

Going Home To A New House

A couple of weeks ago I went home to visit my parents and friends in Bend, OR. My parents have just finished renovating an old craftsman style bungalow from the 20s and I was super excited to see it. It was totally the best! I am so happy that "we" now live there!!! The house is super cute and has an amazing garden with tons of flowers and edibles. So basically this post is going to be a bunch of photos from the new house. Here we goooo....

So many yummy things you could eat right out of the garden.

The amazing fence my dad designed an built all by himself!

Weird conjoined twins tomato.

The kitchen is extra lovely. It has a great apron front farmhouse sink which I love, but of course forgot to take a photo of.

"My" bathroom, one of my favorite rooms.

Lemonade sold to us by little girls down the street (they guilted us into it by saying all the money went to saving elephants), I added the lavender and maybe just a splash of vodka.

Another one for the freak show.

Mm mm, egg in the hole breakfast with tomatoes and raspberries picked right from the garden.

And that pretty much sums up the wonderfulness of my trip home. Bend is so nice in the summer it is always tempting to want to stay, but I just remind myself that winter is coming (to quote the Starks) and then I am happy to come back here to AZ and another two months of summer!

Catching Up

Well I just got back from Comic-Con 2012, woot! It is seriously so much fun and so many amazing things happen. This year I got to meet Joss Whedon! Anyway more on that later. In this post I just want to share a few things that have happened since the last post.

First of all if you are wondering what happened with Lewis, why he turned into a beautiful butterfly of course!

I also went to Texas for a work trip (saying I went on a work trip makes me feel all grown up!) Anyway I ate a lot of delicious things there like these:

A huge baked potato with pulled pork on it.

The best margarita I have ever had, seriously. They said it was cucumber, but I think it had pineapple juice in it too.

A hamburger with pulled pork on it. Notice a theme?

Also a few other summery things happened.

My front area is doing great, the bougainvillea is growing, the oranges are ripening, and the best part is my flower seeds are flourishing because of the storms we have been having. I am super excited about these seeds because they were sent to me by Miss Vanessa from A Fanciful Twist. They are from her very own garden and so are extra special!

That is all for now. I will try to get back soon with Comic-Con photos and such!

Soup, Bread, And An Etsy Sale

Things I accomplished today:
-wrote a paper
-took down Halloween decorations
-made a delicious loaf of bread
-made the most cobbled together soup ever

I am actually pretty proud of my soup. I had two little sugar pumpkins hanging out. I had one red onion. I roasted them and then added them to some garlic sauteed in butter. I didn't have any plain chicken broth, but I did have a can of chicken and vegetable soup, so that went in the pot. A little, milk, salt, and pepper. A few wazzes with the immersion blender (my first time ever using it, yay!). And viola, one yummy, albeit random, pumpkin soup!

All in all it was a very pro active day!

So I am totally tired of my blog's look. I want it to be prettier with a cute header or background or something. I know you can download free ones, but I want something simple, but personalized to my blog. I have neither the time nor skills to do this so I am asking for help. I know a lot of you out there have cute blog stuff that you made yourself and I would be willing to trade art and or tea stuff for some assistance! If you are interested please let me know.

Also, everything from the buried series in my Etsy shop has been marked down ten dollars! and on top of that, if you use the coupon code PIRATES you will get free shipping on anything! Seriously, I just want to get some of that stuff out of there.

A Halloween Party And Pumpkin Carving

My Halloween Party has finally arrived!

The reason I couldn't post until today is that I had an actual party last night that I wanted to use the photos from. It was sort of a pre-Halloween pumpkin carving party. The photos aren't great because I was so busy I kind of forgot to start taking them until half-way through, but I had a really great time and I think everyone else did too. We had dinner, watched Hocus Pocus, and carved some awesome pumpkins!

I did some decorating for the party.

This is what I made for dinner (I didn't get any before pictures) the first photo is of a steak and Guinness pie from my Jamie at Home cook book, and the second is pumpkin and ricotta stuffed giant shell pasta from the October issue of Country Living.

More decor.

Pumpkin carving!

Hot spiced cider on the stove.

The finished product.

And this one is mine!

Thanks for stopping by I hope you had some fun carving pumpkins! To visit more parties head over to A Fanciful Twist.

ps. You may have noticed that my pumpkin here looks the same as the pumpkin in the title photo of my blog. That is because I carve the same face every year on my first pumpkin. Mister B makes fun of me, but it is a pumpkin from the movie Sleepy Hollow and I love it!