Mushroom Season 10-23-09

It rained all night, and look what's all around the yard today! I spotted these in the turnaround when I got home today, and ran back to get a picture - just wandering around the house I found the rest of these too.

These guys are about 6" tall.

From above...

This was a jumbo mushroom, near the top of the path that goes to the mailbox, nestled in maple leaves.

Don't these look toxic? In the back yard.

This looks like a potato, but its a mushroom - about the size of a small potato.

I may try to find more tomorrow.

After I got home, we went to a new restaurant for dinner - El Nopal. It used to be Taco Time! We had beef fahitas - very healthy and Phil actually enjoyed all the onions and peppers in with the meat!

Then we went to Borders for decaf coffee (can you believe it?). Its Friday night but I am looking forward to going to bed early and sleeping relatively late (like until 8:00 a.m.).

10-22-09 Thursday

Here is our dinner guest, I mention her later in my blog. The ceramic device in which she sits was a birthday gift to Phil from somone who loves it when he cooks!

I love to be served a cup of coffee! ahhh - Trader Joes! Phil makes the coffee every time these days. His coffee is very good too!

I had a great telephone visit with Walker this morning too. After school today he was off to two after-hours lectures and a haircut by a girl from another dorm.

Have you ever cooked a Jerusalem artichoke? I bought these at the Farmer's Market today. I got a recipe too that contains butter and heavy cream - to make a product like mashed potatoes. I'm going to try it, but maybe not so much heavy cream. The people I bought it from also had "burdock" which I thought was an herb, but it looked more like a tuber. She claimed it was very tasty and earthy. Vicki did buy a little piece of it ($1 worth).

Here is my coffee maker. Doesn't he look all retired and relaxed? This was taken on the Sunday hike around the lake.

Today I went to Greek class with AJ and we learned to sing the Greek National Anthem. We also got to hear original Aesops Fables type stories by the other students. AJ and I wrote one but we were too shy to read it out loud. It was the best story through.

Phil is cooking a whole chicken on the grill tonight. I'll try to get a shot of it. It gets grilled upright in a special ceramic device.

October 21, 2009

I had a busy day, worked 7 hours, but I also did the following:



This is my first of 10 "S" cards for the Sharin'Memories "Give Thanks" banner project. 10 people are each making 10 of one letter - we will meet on October 28 and exchange letters so we will each have a banner that reads G I V E - T H A N K S



I also did a little sketching in my sketchbook. This is just copied from a magazine advertisement for pinkeye medication! I use a black ink pen and don't erase anything!

I went to ORLA with AJ today, and these are his feet in these beautiful leaves. The first class today was cancelled so we had an hour to spend doing other things.

More leaves - this tree had leaves of every color in it.

A different tree - I love this dark pink color.

Here is AJ at Animal Services doing his volunteer job - folding towels and blankets for the animals. I helped so we got done pretty quickly Afterwards we visited the cats and dogs and rabbits.

Who wouldn't want to adopt this little guy?

Almost retired! 10-19-09

This must be what it feels like to be retired! Today Phil and I went to Tacoma, went bookstore shopping and went out to lunch. We went to half-price books and on a Monday it is a very peaceful place to go. I got this little book called "When Food was Fun" and this is a picture out of it.


I also bought this photography book that has tons of great snapshot ideas in it.

And then to back up a little, I wanted to take a picture of these beautiful beaded appetizer skewers that my friend Vicki gave me a couple of years ago. We used them at Pop's birthday, with a plate of cheese cubes and summer sausage - they are so beautiful and everyone loves them. So, while I was washing them up afterwards I decided to take a photo.

This is not a great shot - a little out of focus because I think I was in a big hurry to snap it and didn't wait for the auto-focus. But it is still a good picture of Alan and I think Victoria is eating something here...(olives)...

I took this one on our walk yesterday - see the geese framed with the out of focus leaves? On Capital Lake.

This is a thank you card from one of the rubbermaids. Just a double-paperdoll - so cute. I need to think of something really creative for my thank-yous next month!

Well, I'm not really retired, but I had a nice day. I will be working every day the rest of the week, but generally doing interesting things so I am not complaining.

October 18, 2009

Today is a lovely fall day. We are celebrating my dad's 82nd birthday!

This is MY flourless chocolate cake. I have these cute stencils which I have never (successfully) used before. This time was a success (hurrah!). I also made a lemon cake with a glaze type icing on it. We had lots of yummy finger-foods too - cheese dip and chips, cut up cheese and beef stick and salami. I think the birthday guy appreciated everything - we had 10 people stuffed into their parlor, celebrating.

We three girls went together and bought this desk chair for our pop. Phil put it together before we left so we could get a photo. I know you can't really see the chair, but you have to trust me dad is sitting on it! I don't know why I look so short - I think I was trying to scrunch down to be nearer pop's head.

Afterwards Phil and I went for a long hike to the Tumwater Historical park, under the bridge, around the lake, all the way to Marathon Park, and back! It only took about an hour, even with me stopping to snap photos every few steps. I felt really tired at the end though!

Tomorrow is Dad's actual birthday! XXOO

Can't stop celebrating! 10-17-09

Today was a nice play-day for me. My Rubbermaids group meets once a month on Saturday and either we have a planned project or we each do our own project. Today's event was that we each brought a project "kit" for everyone else to make and everyone would go home with a variety of cards: birthday, thank you, sympathy, kid, friend...etc.) This was my card. It looks simple but it took me forever (right up to the last hour) to develop the idea!

Here are some of the ladies working on card projects. We are very serious, but never silent!

Our youngest member -- He stayed for lunch and left at naptime!

This is me working on a card. Claudia took the photo. I looked at her and said "hey, you have a camera just like mine!" duh - it was mine!!!

This is the cake that last month's birthday girl made for me. It is a flourless chocolate cake! Very good - maybe we should call it fudge! (recipe follows)...

This is the card one of the ladies made for me from the group. Isn't it cute and creative! I love it.

And here is the inside. It made me very happy.

Next month, I make the card and the cake for the November birthday.

RECIPE:

Flourless cake

Preheat oven to 300 degrees - grease an 8-inch cake pan and dust with cocoa powder. (line with parchment paper).

Melt 8 ounces semisweet chocolate with 1/2 cup butter

Remove from heat and add:

3/4 cup sugar

3 beaten eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Pour into prepared pan; bake 30-40 minutes

Cook in pan at least 10 minutes before turning out onto plate.

Serves 12 - moderate but satisfying slices.

Enjoy!

October 16, 2009

OK, here is my "tag" embarassing story: It just happened today! I was driving in to work (the 16th) when I suddenly remembered I forgot to do the payroll! Yikes!!! I didn't even go in to work yesterday. I was in my own little birthday world enjoying all the attention and ZAP - back to earth lady! My co-worker was very nice and accepted my apology. When I gave her the envelope with the check in it I put on a note "remind me to buy ginko biloba" arrgh. what an embarassing thing to do! That's why I put in this picture of my doggie wearing my reading glasses - he sits on top of my computer and that's where I keep my glasses so I always know where they are (except when they are on MY nose!).

I was trying to get drippy leaves in this photo, but its still pretty isn't it? You can see the top of my car and the wet roads and the trees in their fall colors all around.

Another angle on the vine maples. Oh, I see some droplets of water there.

This is my lovely blueberry, yogurt, banana, milk drink. Doesn't it look nice with my Clara Bear Cup?

Tonight we are having friends over for pizza and a movie night. I'll have photos tomorrow hopefully! Also, I bought Walker's plane ticket for Christmas break today! I got him the last seat on a really good deal flight.

Still rainy here, but our home is oh so cozy.