Chili Halloween

Another busy week.  Lots of meetings after work and a chili cook off at Little Girl's school.  It was fun being part of the competition.  We didn't place but had  requests for our recipe.  The school went all out for a good cause.  This is one of their big fundraisers for Relay for Life (cancer research). 

 There was even a real cowboy band there.  They played lots of good cowboy and christian music.  Everyone dresses as  a cowboy for this shindig. 

We had our Trunk or Treat at church last night.  Our theme was Horton Hears a Who!   I thought you might get a laugh from this picture.  We counted 220 kids that got treats from our trunk.  We saw lots of princesses, spidermen, wolverines, iron men, and fairies.  There were even the traditional ghosts, vampires, and scary monsters.  There will be trick or treating at the house tonight and I can hardly wait.  I love to see all of the little kids dressed up and I have to make a comment on every body's costume.  I usually get a smile or a giggle.  Hope you have a safe and happy halloween.

Enjoying Saturday

Grand Baby spent a good portion of the day with us yesterday.  She is growing, growing and into everything.  She makes me laugh.  It won't be much longer and the cats won't be able to stop and take a break during a chase.  I don't know what Grand Baby would do if she caught one. 

We had a another great weather day.  Started chilly but turned out nice.  I spent a little time on the deck enjoying the late afternoon.  For the beer drinkers I hope you have tried Samuel Adams' Octoberfest.  It is wonderful.  You need to hurry if you want to try it because it will be gone soon.  They only brew a limited supply so once it's gone you'll have to wait til next year. There might be brewing at the house today depending on how the Head Brewmaster fills when he gets up.  I think I shared my germs. 

I am looking for quick knitting ideas.  I want to knit or crochet some quick Christmas gifts for a craft sale.  Any ideas are welcome.

Brewer Inginuity and Other Things

I am always surprised at the creativity of home brewers.  I shouldn't be, although I am.  Really if you think about it they are creative folks.  There is a lot that goes into beer recipes, the planning of it all and tons of work goes into the brewing process.  It really is a creative process.  We had another brew day at our house over the weekend.  The weather was perfect.  Pictured above is Hubby's (Head Brewmaster) latest toy.  He has hounded me for weeks for one of my 50% off coupons from Michael's (craft store).  I finally gave in and we had to make a trip to the craft store (he never wants to go there with me).  Anyway he had to purchase a Pasta Machine that is used for crafting with polymer clay.  This is his grain mill.  He had to take a drill bit to it and rough up the mill part so it would actually grab the grain and crush it.  Now that we have a couple of hundred pounds of grain stored in various places throughout the house this was a must have.  I was actually impressed.  There are future modifications planned for this new piece of equipment that will only enhance its use.  Brewers are very creative and frugal too.    

I did enjoy being the assistant brewer, knitting and sunning.  It was great. 

Here is one of my knitted dolls sunning with me enjoying the great weather too.

This post should have been made several days ago but the weekend caught up with me and I have been sick all week.  This is the first time I have touched a computer since I left work on Monday.  I believe my good friend brought some germs home with her from her Mediterranean cruise and shared them with me at dinner on Friday night.  I pretty much feel like crap and have slept more than any one human should.  I do feel a little better today and hopefully will be back to normal in a day or two. 

BBQ, Brew, and Knitted Goodies

Over the weekend we were invited to a pig pickin by one of Hubby's brewing buddies,  Bone Mop Brewing.
He cooked a whole hog in a pit and had some great beer to go with it.   I LOVED his version of Oktoberfest.  I think that was my favorite.  He also had a great Citra Lite, Summit Pale Ale and Honey Kolsh on tap that he brewed.  He also had a Cran-Raspberry Hooch that was very good too.  There was a good crowd of home brewers and hang gliders there and lots of corn hole being played.  I loved the Oktoberfest brew.

Hubby fell in love with Bone Mop's keezer - you have to look at his web page to know what I'm talking about.  It is a freezer/refrigerator that can keep your homebrew kegs icy cold with taps on the outside of it.  Bone Mop's version holds 4 homebrew kegs - great for parties!  Did I tell you I loved the Oktoberfest brew.  We had a great time and enjoyed good beer and pig - thanks Bone Mop!

As promised, here is a picture of the giveaway goodies I sent out a week or so ago.  I heard from Urban Muser that she got her package over the weekend and now know that everyone has received their goodies.  Thanks again for being loyal followers and blog buddies!

1st Blog Award!!!!

Can you believe it!?!  My first blog award!!!!  My friend over at Implausible Yarn was gracious enough to pass this lovely blog award along to me.  Thank you Heather, you made my day!

Along with this recognition come some responsibilities and there are rules.  

So this is how it works -

Grab your lovely award and post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.

Contact those blog owners and let them know they've been chosen.

That's it - it really is that simple.  The hard part is picking 15 - there are so many good ones out there.

So here is my part of paying it forward - I am awarding the "One Lovely Blog" award to;

Urban Muser

Little Cotton Rabbits

Life of Coyote Hill

Greedy for Color

Dona Maria

Dropped Stitches

Happy Together

The Quince Tree

By Elizabeth Cat

Holly Marie Knits

The Prairie Girl

Inspired by Charm

Dutch Blue

Freckled Nest

Made by Joel

Enjoy!

Stuff in My Car

Marshmellow Man riding in the car.

I have admitted before I tend to be a slob.  I like to have stuff around me.  I have a lot of stuff in my car.   I never understood those people who keep their vehicles immaculate.  Where's their stuff ?!?  I don't get it, don't you have stuff?  There is really no rhyme or reason to the stuff in my car, it's just there.  Even when I supposedly "clean" the car out some of the stuff stays.  It stays because it's mine and I like it.  A while back I was sitting in the carpool lane at school and started to look at the "stuff" in my car and decided to take a few pictures. 

 My Little Mermaid sunglasses.

Yes, they are mine and I threaten my

children when I see them wearing them.

Dairy Queen Blizzard antenna topper.

Johnny Depp when he was a pirate.

I love Johnny Depp.

Sponge Bob Square Pants

Love him too.

Sometimes Scruffy inventories the stuff in the car.

There is a lot more stuff in the car that I just didn't take pictures of (I don't know how I missed Sock Monkey).  What you see is the stuff that gets to stay in the car all of the time except for Scruffy (she doesn't ride well) and Marshmellow Man (he lives on the mantle now).

Disclaimer - my teenager wanted me to be sure you understood that all of the "toys" in the car are mine.  She is truly embarrassed by them. :-)

Beer, Dogs and Rain

We bottled beer over the weekend - 150 bottles to be exact. 10 gallons of pale ale and 5 gallons of red.

Time to brew again soon so we can build the stock back up. 

This is Buck - a friend's dog that we cared for last week.  We had Susie at our house all week and ran over to the friend's house and took care of Buck and Dakota.  Sorry no picture of Dakota - she wouldn't be still for even a second.  All of our dog duties are done.  Everyone came home and went home safe and sound yesterday.

We had more than our fair share of rain last week, well over 10 inches.  It rained everyday.  It was nice to have some dry weather Saturday.  We had rain Sunday. 

I had a busy but productive Monday.  Hope you had a good one.



Knitting Dolls

So here is my latest addiction.  These sweet little dolls are so simple and quick to knit.  I love little projects like this.  They are fun to make and this is an easy to take with you project. These dolls are great for knitting on lunch break or while watching TV.  You only need a little yarn to knit these so they are great for using up left overs. 

I ran across the pattern for these while surfing.  I am looking for a knitted or crocheted doll pattern that would be age appropriate for Grand Baby.  She is almost 7 months old and everything goes in her mouth.  I want to make her a doll but want it to be safe.  If you have any suggestions please let me know.  Any way, I ran across these cuties at Holly Marie Knits.  This is her petite doll pattern .  I love that her pattern is written as a tutorial - excellent! 

You can see my dolls are all different sizes.  I don't follow patterns very well.  I can - I just don't a lot of times.  I kind of take patterns as suggestions.  I will follow them the first time I make something (most of the time) and then I kind of play with it to make it the way I want.  I know that's not always good - but hey, that's how I roll. ;-)  

I do love these little dolls and I think they can be so many wonderful things.  I'm seriously thinking about Christmas Angels. 

TGIF!