Fall is upon us

OK I know that it is still summer....

The temperature is still way up there....

But I smelled it.......

There is a smell of end of summer in the air.....

Downtown is swarming with teenagers and students shopping for back to school.....

And at Indigo (my fave bookstore) they pulled out ALL the stops!

                                                   Pumpkin and Ginger candles!

                                            I have NO idea what this one was but it smelled great!

                                I know the Moscow Mule has been a really trendy cocktail in the U.S
                                and I have a feeling it will be really big here in the fall and winter

                                I am not the let's buy a plate because of the saying type but these
                                made me feel like cooking a batch of chili! Or soup!

                               I would love soup!

                               Sleep tight!  

Another 'Seen Around` post

 

 

To tell you the truth I wanted to blog but had no idea what to write about.

 

So I lookd in my picture folder for some inspiration....

 

 

                                I spotted these seasonnal beauties at my local grocery store...Pumpkins
                                make me happy, they are so bright and cheery!
                               

                                          I remember when this chip n dip was all the rage in the 90's.
                                          I also remembered how I resisted buying it . I had a co-worker who bought it along with other pieces, like a soap dispenser...I wonder if she still has them or they ended up in
a yardsale.

 

                                          AAAaaahhh no visit to the Value Village is complete without a Pyrex
                                          sighting !

                                          A cute Shenandoah casserole circa 1980's

I couln not resist taking a picture of this English Pyrex with a stunning ressemblance to Old Town Blue!

                                I always was a secret Bedazzle lover so this made me smile!

                                         And last but not least this plastic bead lampshade.
                                         it both enchants and repulses me....It must attract dust like the dickens...

                                         We are still getting the house ready for winter , caulking , prepping and purging (of course)....I am still working on the shed and some patio furniture needs to be brought inside. I am hoping for some drier weather to get ahead.....

Yummy in my Tummy!

I subscribe to Kraft's What's Cooking magazine and generally I don't really like their recipes even if I know they are crowd favorites.

TOO MUCH CHEESE! TOO MUCH PROCESSED FOOD!

 But I have to admit that in their quest to make us buy their products they come up with pretty interesting recipes.

Like this one

Make-ahead pumpkin french toast

Of course i had to bend the recipe to my specs! First, I didn't have any canned pumpkin in the house, nor cream cheese...but I think it would've been overkill

My bread was pre-sliced and way to thin so I didn't soak it overnight,I made the liquid part the night before with  3 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, 2 TBSP of sugar, a good glug of maple syrup, some vanilla and pumpkin pie spice.

Which I did not have, but I was so sure I had some from my last trip to Maine. Well anyways....I made my own! I had the ingredients, so no money spent there.

I dipped the bread maybe 45 minutes before then browned it in a pan.

Here's the link for the recipe  Pumpkin pie spice

Here's the result

I made enough that we were able to bring some the next day for breakfast!

                                 So good!

Finally!

Finally!

I finally found the camera ansd downloaded some Maine pictures!

                               Sunrise over Saco Bay

                                Seagulls fishing

                               It was magical as usual. I love going to Maine late in the season, when it's not in season anymore. The hotels and motels are opened (most of them) and only a few restaurants and shops are opened.
                            The tourist factor is low and the locals come out.
                           

                                  I had plenty of opportunity to drink Pumpkin Pie Spice coffee! YUM!
                                   

 

                                  I was even able to find......

                                 
                                        Pumpkin beer! Pumpkinhead is delicious, smooth and spicy.
                                        The perfect drink for a Fall afternoon; after you raked all those leaves!

                                       But most of all we chilled out, did the usual: Shop,eat,walk,sleep,walk,eat,
                                       sleep,eat,shop,walk,walk,shop again,sleep...and then it was time to go home
                                       again.

                                       We scored great deals at the outlets....Why would anyone buy full price running shoes in Canada? This always fascinates me, here it's $120-$150 and in the U.S outlets you can get the same pair for $50-$75.
                                       Are the taxes this high???

                                      I thrifted but didn't buy a whole lot...and I still haven't got pics of my finds....
                                     
                                      It's getting late and my brain is mush....

                                       Night night my friends!

Man oh Man I miss blogging!

Hi everyone! I'm still on vacation and the weather has been BEAUTIFUL! No kidding! The kind of nice Fall days people dream about!

The house is something else too! Really big and clean and 4 bathrooms! The internet access is in my Dad's room...It was supposed to be WIFI but I tried and I tried and could not get it to work! So I plugged it in old school, which cuts down big time on my internet use. I sneak maybe 15 minutes everyday; just enough to scan my emails and check to see if the house sitter had somekind of disaster.

Thank God everything is well. Minimal use of the internet really puts things back in perspective...I read a lot and took MEGA long walks on the beach with Dan looking for some sea glass...I also gorged myself with the Travel channel....Anthony Bourdain, Man Vs. food, extreme you name it, Bizarre Foods....Also some Martha on the Hallmark channel (by the way we don't get any Martha in Canada anymore) and Beverly Hills 90210 on Soap channel. Dad is always asking what's playing on TCM (Turner Classic Movies).

Today we had some kind of big storm and some streets were floaded. What do people do when the weather is MEGA crappy? Shop of course!

We had another run of the Christmas Tree Shop and I actually bought a Xmas decoration for outside my house!

I saw those beautiful pumpkins outside a supermarket in Scarborough....Everything is pumkin spice flavored here...fudge,coffee,desserts,salt water kisses....

Also I want to welcome my latest follwers! Yippeee! 92 followers! I should reach 100 by Xmas!

Thank you for joining  hope you'll enjoy your visits. I should drop by as soon as I can!

Have a great weekend!

New Week

OMG time flies sooo fast! Another week is starting!

I had a lot of fun this weekend! On saturday I went with my BFF DeeBee to a Sew Basics sewing course. Yes I can sew a bit but I get intimidated a lot by the whole process!

We arrived early to choose our fabrics...

 

My selection is on the left and DeeBee's on the right.

Here's the finished products

Mine.

The pic doesn't do the fabric justice. It is much brighter.

Here's DeeBee's

Lovely!

We had a lot of fun and it was the perfect girl's afternoon out! Next time we just might learn how to change a zipper!

 On Sunday we were supposed to hang out with good friends of ours and go for a drive in the country and grab a bit to eat. Well that didn't happen instead we did yard work. The yard always looks so much better when everything is tidy!

Do you remember this?

Now it looks like this...

And it's official it is a pumpkin. It's starting to turn orange...

I believe this one is Son of  Last Year's Pumpkin. I had a lot of squashes and  2 pumpkins last year; we ate one and the other started to rot before I could get to it....So I threw it out in a border....and nature took its course!

One of our cats has constipation problems lately and I decided to grow some cat grass to help him.

It looks so much better in Pyrex! Heck, everything does!

Have a great week everyone!

1 year anniversary!

One year ago yesterday, I logged in to Etsy and created my little shop! I'm really proud of that because I learned quite a lot and met wonderful people! The positive experiences quite outweigh the negative ones...Oh Canada Post why are you fast overseas and slow for the U.S? Is it a political thing? And those prices! Oï!
I just noticed it was the shops anniversary quite late last night...I'm not really good with these things. I just realised that I wrote more than 200 posts in this blog and haven't celebrated....

I'll have to think about a giveaway....lol

On the culinary front, I had the very,very strong urge to cook with pumpkin. Funny because usually when I do, it tastes like crap! And in all the cooking magazines all you see is pumpkin this, pumpkin that even on Rachael Ray last night she was cooking ravioli with pumpkin!

My Mom made this terrible tasting pumpkin jam (eurk) and my experiences with pumpkin pie were disastrous (taking a bite and throwing the whole thing in the garbage!). I found this recipe for pumpkin loaf with cream cheese, sounded delicious and is delicious! It won the Dan's seal of approval!

Here's the link! http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Loaf/Detail.aspx

Enjoy!