snowflakes

Victorian salt clay is perfect for making Christmas decorations using cookie cutters. It doesn't puff like some salt/flour clays, keeps well and can be embellished with pretty much anything you can think of: paint, sequins, glitter...

My daughter and I made snowflakes last Christmas. This year they're hanging in the window as well as on the tree. You can get the recipe I used here.

Chickadee-dee-dee

Tucked under the lilac bushes, the feeder offers seeds to the chickadees and cardinals who come calling this time of year. I love watching them and hearing them call to each other. Today the sun is shining and the birds are darting in and out; taking a moment or two to watch them turns into minutes and I need to get the camera. The cardinals hid in the lilacs but the chickadee are bold. Their cheer brightens my day.

Rainy Mondays...

A hard morning for all of us, but a hard morning for my boy especially.

It's Monday and back to school. He doesn't want to go. I hurry him along and he complains. I say (shout) you're going to miss the bus. He says it's not his fault. I say back "yes it is". We get out the door and just a I say watch out, it's slippy (freezing rain), there he goes down on his bum. I catch him but still...he goes down again at the sidewalk. We walk on fallen leaves to try to get better traction. The bus is late so we stand in the rain.

I tell him I can't change the weather, and I can't change school; but I can make peppermint hot chocolate for him and his sister when they come home.

Apparently, I can't take pictures today either...but the kids enjoyed the hot chocolate. Now just waiting for my man to get home and all will be well.

Baking Monday

On a chilly day it's so nice to warm up the house with the oven and smells of good food baking. Today I got a few things in the oven: bread, pumpkin muffins and chocolate chip cookies, my man's favourite. And just to get a jump on tomorrow's breakfast, I mixed the dry ingredients for pumpkin scones - yum!

The bread recipe is from my mom, just simple whole wheat with brown sugar and milk. It's got a slightly chewy texture and makes wonderful toast.

I used pumpkin from our Hallowe'en jack-o-lantern that I'd baked up and froze. If you're careful with the candle, there's no black from smoke. If there was, you could always scrape it off before baking the pumpkin. It's not quite as sweet as pie pumpkin but the flavour is still very good and works well in baking.

I have tried for years to make cookies like my man remembered from his mom, the best ever I've been told. I've used recipes from magazines, from friends and the same recipe that my mother-in-law gave me but never quite got it right. (They were all good, especially the ones made with butter.)

It comes down to the fat. When I used golden crisco (normally makes me cringe), the chocolate chip cookies were finally deemed perfect. And it is the recipe from the box, although if you're not so picky as to buy Crisco, use butter and the recipe found here. They are good cookies...

So much for good intentions...

Hallowe'en has come and gone and my plans were mostly just that, plans.

• I never did make a raven or try out the mole recipe
• My pictures from Hallowe'en didn't turn out - camera setting perhaps? I need work on light settings...
• I was such a slacker not posting what did get done...

On the up side:

We made sugar cookies in the shapes of witches,  pumpkins and ghosts

We had  a great time out at the pumpkin farm, getting apples and pumpkins, and looking at their Hallowe'en shop

I did make my boy his dragon costume and update my girl's vampire costume

We did decorate the front yard with a fresh grave, tombstone and candles, spiderwebs, etc.

well, onwards and upwards...

Not for the faint of heart

I had my own little horror show last night when I sought relief from the cough that has been keeping me awake for over a week. I don't normally take over-the-counter medications because of an underlying health issue but when desperate...

I went to the drug store to choose some cough syrup. I read lables. I tried to stay away from ones that would target a broad range of symptoms. I avoided non-drowsy formulas. Finally, I spotted on with a warning in big letters: May cause drowsiness. I grabbed it. Didn't really read the label any further...(to my subsequent peril!)

At bedtime, I prepared to take the medicine. I read the dosage. I found a medicine cup. I opened the bottle. I was overwhelmed by the smell. Oh my god! Oh my god! As I'm repeating that out loud, I hear chuckles from my man upstairs. Apparently he knew what I was in for. It smelled like a bottle of Vicks Vaporub. Only this was Buckley's Nighttime formula.

It may as well have been melted Vick's: thick, creamy white liquid smelling strongly of moth balls. The box proudly boasts that each teaspoon contains 22mg menthol. The non-medicinal ingredients include camphor and pine needle oil. The minimum dose is 2 teaspoons.

Was I really that desperate? Could I get it down without it coming right back up? Yes and yes as it turns out. I pinched my nose and got it down. I breathed out moth balls. I felt a little like one of the homeless men I knew when I worked at a shelter who had a preference for drinking Aqua Velva.

Oh please god make it work...

Well, I did get a full night sleep so I guess I'm happy about that. That said, I think it will take many more sleepless ones before I go for the Buckley's cure again. Oh the horror....

Favourite Hallowe'en Tales

When I'm laid low with a cold (like this week) I like to curl up with a mug of tea and a good book... or snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. This time I got to thinking what are the best horror flicks and books?

Let me qualify that by saying that I'm not into gore so slasher flicks like Hallowe'en and Friday the 13th need not apply. I like the Omen series though...perhaps because I watched the first one on a black & white set alone in my bedroom when I was a young teen. Scared the bejeezus out of me!



I like some good suspense, to get a little scared or creeped out. Here's my list; I'd love to hear what would be on yours!

Books/Authors

• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Stephen King
• Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
• Flowers in the Attick by V.C. Andrews
• Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Films

1. The Shining
2. The Omen series
3. The Sixth Sense
4. The Amityville Horror
5. Seven
6. The Birds
7. The Changeling (1980 version)
8. Alien