Fluffy, Puffy, Cupcakes

Nothing super exciting today, I did get to go hike up Maple canyon with my friends this morning. I wish I had brought my camera there. Beautiful. Most of the leaves were on the ground, but were still orange and yellow. Personally, I like seeing just the shapes of the bare branches of the trees. I like all the browns and tans with the dry grasses and bushes. Suppose I've been in the lone and dreary world too long. Maybe it's because I like to dress in these colors, I like my house decorated with these colors, I like these colors. Anyway, a lady (really nice lady) asked me to make 5 dozen cupcakes for her son's missionary farewell on Sunday, so that's what I did the rest of the day. I got pictures of one of these, I forgot to get out my camera when they were all on the counter, so not too impressive pictures this time. Go back and look at those Kuidaore cookie pictures if you want impressive!

They did look kind of flowery all put together. Like white peonies. Sigh. Peonies. Spring is coming back right? In spite of my love affair with browns, spring is SPRING!

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Cooking cookies

I really thought I did a pretty good job on my cookies last year, and was looking around for some new ideas for this year's cookies. I'm afraid I found the goddesses of cookie decorating. Too bad for me. I thought Martha with her entourage was worthy of emulating, but these people have got some real talent. Jocelyn of Kuidaore is located in Singapore and teaches classes at Shermay's Cooking School . The Mad baker is also located in Singapore and really does some impressive stuff. The pictures I chose from her blog are only the tip of the iceberg.

Mad Baker

Kuidaore

Kuidaore

Kuidaore

Kuidaore

Mad Baker

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Options for ivy

A little while ago, The Nesting Place did a post condemning the use of ivy on the cupboards. Now I knew I needed to take some action there, but didn't have the cash to buy all new stuff. The pictures above and below were my mantle and cupboards when I read the post. Pretty Ivy-y.

Then I realized I had a yard full of ornamental grasses, a dozen dried artichokes from a catering job that I couldn't bear to throw out, and some clearance Christmas garland from last year that was all red and brown. Now I'm not saying I'm some decorating genius, but hey, all of this stuff was FREE and in my house already (or at least in my "yarden" as Kai would say). Here's some after shots.

Here I still have any ivy planter in the middle, but it's painted brownish -red so it's not SOOO early 90's. Better than before at least right?

I know this mantel still needs work, any suggestions? Ones that preferably won't cost me much (or any) money? Maybe I should paint the grasses brown to match the curly willow better? What do you think?

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CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!!! (and you can't stop it Jeff)

Gingerbread cookies, and presents, and an excuse to spend lots of money shopping, and parties, and FAMILY parties (which are a whole other genre --my favorite), and did I mention TREATS, and decorations, and Christmas carols on the radio (24 hours a day for me all through December --even the sappy ones --I love 'em), and church music programs. It's all coming, and as much as Jeff moans and groans, he can't stop it or even slow it down. "you always need something to stress about" he says, and he's right, but this is my FAVORITE stuff to stress about! I even bought my Christmas tree today. I got skunked last year because I waited too long, and the big ones were all sold, so I jumped on it this year.

Isn't it pretty? Pre-lit, and 12 feet tall. Bye bye personal money for a month and a half, but it's worth it. Stunning. Stunning. I've got to have something big in my front window, because both Jeff and I refuse to climb our Matterhorn of a roof to put up lights. "I choose life". (Although I wish HE'D be braver).

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I'm ranting!

Do you ever want to vote for the straight Democratic ticket just to annoy all the smug idiots that scraped by and won the Republican primary in Utah by 2 votes and so won the state? I believe more Republican stuff than Democratic stuff myself, but jeez. One guy didn't bother to put out a statement at all for his platform, OR a website, and another guy put on a cowboy hat for his fliers and called it good. There was another one who said he was "good at making speeches" while his opponent in the primary was only good at legislating. He won the primary. I wanted to kill him. I hope I don't offend too many people, but my point is you ought to have QUALIFICATIONS for an important public office. OK, enough with the armchair quarterbacking. Better them than me I say.

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Let's hear it for the boys!

I should have done this post first, because it happened a couple of months ago, but I'm just getting around to it. Kai had been playing outside with his friends, and then the doorbell rang, and they were all here! I felt so popular! I thought, hey, maybe I DO have cool toys.

So I take some pictures to commemorate the event --they looked so cute all of them, and I kid you not, the doorbell rang. Couldn't have been even 3 minutes since the kids came over. It was Dennis the neighbor on the next block over.

He said all of the boys moms and half of the rest of the neighborhood was all outside looking for these guys, and so maybe they should go home. So much for us having the happening place. I ended up looking like a child abductor instead.

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Oh the golden leaves!

In a vacant lot just a half block from my house, there lives one of the most beautiful trees I've ever met. I'd buy this lot for the tree. I tried to get some pictures of it, but it's so huge and lovely, the camera can't seem to catch it. Garrison Keillor just did a "News from Lake Wobegon" segment about a group of crazies that follow autumn from Canada down through the southern states to Argentina to worship "the golden leaves". I could join them today. Who was it that called autumn "the second spring" where every tree is a bloom? I pulled in a couple of tree/autumn poems by Robert Frost for this post. I wish I was on my back in a hammock reading these poems looking up at the foliage, but we can all pretend right?

The Vantage Point

If tired of trees I seek again mankind,
Well I know where to hie me--in the dawn,
To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
There amid lolling juniper reclined,
Myself unseen, I see in white defined
Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
The graves of men on an opposing hill,
Living or dead, whichever are to mind.

And if by noon I have too much of these,
I have but to turn on my arm, and lo,
The sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow,
My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze,
I smell the earth, I smell the bruisèd plant,
I look into the crater of the ant.

October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

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