Can you guys see my updates when I post to access list only?

Saw this poster on a pole downtown today:

Halloween was fun! My feet hurt by the end and I was disappointed to not gorge on more candy - the kids are SO onto me at this age. I ate: a mounds, an almond joy, a pack of smarties, Reeces minis, butterfinger crisp, 2 bull's eyes, 1 piece of a neon twizzler that was so gross I threw the rest away, box of dots, box of lemonheads, a crunch bar, mmm I think that's it. Haha, writing it out like that it seems like quite a bit of candy doesn't it. Hahah, so ok I tried to pay attention to how I was feeling with unfettered freedom to eat candy and will talk with Cathie about that today. Let's just say I'd rather cultivate an attitude toward candy that looks more like this:



And less like this:



I love you Little Chrissy. :)

I have so! much! to do! this was supposed to be a list! Ha!

Man, Monday comes so fast. Stupid Monday. The girls were fighting this morning so I kicked Mander out of bed to deal with it. If *I* get up to deal with it, we just replace their screaming with mine, so she gets up, bless her heart. I really do need to wake up "just so." Has to be my idea. :)

Think I also peeved Mander this morning when I found her looking at pigs for sale, which I have said over and over I do not want to raise (the only up side to raising a pig is the meat, and we have friends who raise beautiful, clean pork and nothing will convince me it's actually cheaper to raise one, plus all the certain headaches of having it) and said, "Please. There are limits, don't waste my patience." Because seriously woman, that would be a waste of my patience when everyone around me needs me to have a reservoir of patience. Am I right? Heh, you know the answer is YES. :D

Yesterday was sooooo lovely. Church was great. Darcey preached at our church, which satisfies my "see Darcey preach" seasonal aspiration right off the bat with no effort on my part, yay. Tons of people commented on how much they appreciated the sermon too, which is always nice to hear about your friend. Saturday night we had a potluck at their house with our friend Drew so he came to church too and knew one of the ladies. Turns out she is a great party date so we made tentative plans to get her involved in a dinner sometime too. I learned she taught Italian at Cornell back in the day and begged her to offer lessons at the service auction. Not how to speak Italian, how to CURSE in Italian. :D She goes, oh we can just do one a week! And taught me to say Shit! (phonetically kay KAT-zo.) She confirmed that my mother's favorite swear in my childhood is Italian but didn't tell me what it means hahaha. That one is stut-AH-zeet. Then there was a champagne brunch to celebrate making budget (I had a sip during the toast, no urge to go get shitfaced, yay) and I got to talking with Camila, who lives right around the corner from us.

I think I've mentioned Camila before, her partner has early-onset Alzheimer's. Sucks. But she mentioned it was harvest time for the grapes and that she's only canned once before and it didn't come out and naturally I volunteered to help her out. So we all went over to help them pick grapes and then stayed for a lovely dinner of their own chicken, veg from their garden and truly just *lovely* conversation. They are such nice people. Linda is so witty, even when she's grappling for words and struggling to remember stuff. (We walked her through the sermon and being at church at one point, she didn't remember being there. So sad.) Camila is just a doll. She likes to paper craft too and we have schemes to get together and do that. She can't leave Linda alone really anymore, so we're considering how/whether the girls could hang out with her sometimes when Camila needs to do stuff.

I brought most of the grapes home since I have a steam juicer and could get a head start on making juice for jelly. Linda mentioned several times that she used to make a grape pie that was to die for and she'd dig out the recipe, etc. I happen to have a pie crust ready to go so last night I deskinned and deseeded the needed grapes so when I go back today to get the jelly going and harvest the last, etc. I can bring the pie with me. I hope that makes for happy.

I know and love:

You are awesome, don't take any shit.

You are insanely beautiful, don't ever question it.

You are whole and solid, don't let anyone doubt that.

You are big and amazing, bigger than they know.

You're going to do amazing things. You. Because you are you.

Don't let the turkeys get you down. And them? They're totally turkeys.

HEY!



We did it! We got not one, but two count 'em two goats! Ebony the Alpine and Obelia the Saanen. They are sweet and wonderful and rode home in the car without a hitch.

I must say though, it is a rather sickening sound hearing a goat pee in your car. We're leaving it air out over night. It's a stinker!

But you don't care about that! You want to see goats!!

Ebony and Mander:


Jason with Obelia and Mander with Ebony:


Two two two goats in a car!


No smellovision, but this:



Listening to myself I think I sound a little deranged. It might be true. We were starving and stopped to get Arby's. Except that we both needed to wash our hands and such, the drive through would have been GREAT! The people in the parking lot were pretty amused.

I'm surprised so many of you find it hard to believe one can make too-hot sauce accidentally!

Here's how you do it: take 2 dozen hot peppers... a nice variety including Vietnamese black peppers, Habaneros (still green,) Long Johns, Jalepenos, Hungarian Wax, etc etc. Basically all the not-red hot peppers I've acquired in the last 6 weeks from CSA. (The red were dried and crushed.) Add vinegar, a tad of sugar, spices and cook until soft. Puree and get your wife to taste it. Say you're sorry when she's still having intestinal pain several days later. Then try again.

The 2nd incarnation got a whole messa green tomatoes, cabbage, sweet green peppers and carrots. A bit more sugar. Assure wife it's better this time. Apologize profusely for your lack of trustworthiness and judgment. Then, catch Princess Jeanne on the IM and beg for guidance. Here's what we came up with.

First I cubed and sauteed 2 giant butternut squashes with about 4 heads of roasted garlic and a couple of apples. Then I added 1, 2, 3 spoons of the sauce. Mmm, nice and spicy. Add 2 more spoons. WHOOO SPICY! I have all sorts of ideas for this concoction. Add some curry and chick peas, over rice, yum! Blend into soup! So since I had a GIGANTO POT of it and it's too spicy for the kids, hmmm. So I slathered it over a baking sheet and have frozen it. I'll bust that into chunks to throw into other dishes.

Then I was left with a quart minus 5 tablespoons so I found a nearly empty Sriracha bottle and constructed a funnel from an aluminum pie plate (this is where the eye thing comes into play, shoulda worn goggles) and stored 17oz of the hellfire. I imagine we'll still be worrying about that killing Mander's intestines next year. Or even the next. Anyway, it's there for her.

With what remained I had what I think is a brilliant idea! I spread the rest out on the fruit leather trays of my dehydrator and I've got it out there crusting up. When it's dry I will grind it for a dash of hot in whatever we want. Now THAT I can make good use of. Killing Mander's intestines. Or, just very very lightly hotting up pretty much anything. If it really works out well and tastes as good as it smells, it could become part of spicy herb mixes for Christmas. If it's superb then I might dry some of the 17oz.

L'amandita, Suzette, if y'all want some of the unadulterated hot, let me know and I'll make sure some is saved in liquid form, should I decide to dry it all.

And that's how you do it! :D