Yesterday Tim and I hoped to have fun at a local vineyard's harvest day, where they had pumpkins for sale, hayrides, and donuts and cider...when we got there, it was POURING rain and us being the lazy people we are didn't really feel like getting out of the car...so we went into town instead to find some pumpkins.

We went to the produce market, and they were asking for way too much. Guess where we ended up finding the cheapest pumpkins? Yup, the grocery store. $2.99 for these bad boys (yes, I felt dumb writing that).

 We also went in search of Halloween decorations and walked out with this:

 Today we carved the pumpkins :)

 A pumpkin-scented candle and The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack helped us get in the Halloween spirit (that feels weird, normally it's the Christmas spirit. whatever.).

Tim's pumpkin was a little dirty.

Of course we had to make our cat one :) Turns out, pie pumpkins are not meant for carving and are insanely hard to cut into, so we drew on hers instead. She seemed to like it.

 After carving the pumpkins, we relaxed with some apples and homemade caramel dip (a little time consuming to make, but to die for...especially on ice cream :D).

Now I just need to stay away from everything else that's sweet-I've already opened up the three HUGE bags of candy we bought for trick-or-treaters...

Leaving our apartment

We've now been in our home for two months, and it finally feels like home; however, the first month in our new home was pretty difficult. When we were finally all moved in, Tim and I spent a day at our apartment cleaning, then I walked around taking pictures. We slowly walked through each room; and holy crap, all these memories started flooding in...I mean, this was our home for four years!

Walking out of the bedroom, I accidentally touched the door and it creaked-that's what started my crying. Every morning that door annoyed the crap out of me because I tried so hard to be quiet to not wake Tim up, and that door never failed to make a noise. I never realized until we moved out how homey that noise was...our new home doesn't have any creaky doors :(.

Walking into the bathroom-while I never particularly cared for the boat decor, I loved the natural lighting, easy for putting on makeup. We have two bathrooms in our new house, but one of them seriously needs updating. And the lighting SUCKS so bad.

Walking into our living room reminded me of how cozy it was. And actually how fricken' hot it was up there in the summer because we couldn't open the windows! Other than that, I loved the living room.

Our kitchen was the worst. The best memory I have of our kitchen is that Tim proposed to me in here. It was sad we had to leave behind the place where that happened, and we can't go back to visit.

The last "room" that had the most memories was our deck. It definitely wasn't anything special, and they should have used wood instead of roofing so we could actually set foot out here in the summer...but the thing I most remember were brisk mornings coming out here and sitting on one of our deck chairs with a blanket and tea and a magazine; and it's still a mystery, but there was usually the smell of donuts being made (we didn't live near a bakery)?

Our new house slowly turned into our home. We've had problems with bats (another post), and I absolutely hated our kitchen, downstairs bath, living room, dining room, and bedroom when we first moved in :). Very slowly, it started feeling better. I am happy to say our cat is finally eating again too! She took this move very hard and hid under the couch for like a week straight. Poor girl. Now she won't stop running around/slipping on our wood floors haha! She sounds like a horse galloping-great for when you're trying to sleep...

Learning from mom

I grew up on a farm. My family had rabbits and chickens and a massive garden. I remember as a kid hating to have to go out on my summer vacation and weed. My mom also used to can everything. Peaches, pears, applesauce, beans, apple pie filling, tomato sauce, pickles...you name it? She canned it. Us kids had to help with that too. We also dehydrated a lot of fruit-bananas, pears and peaches for fruit rollups, apples..etc., we helped with that too. And we picked strawberries, blueberries, peaches, apples, beans, peas, cherries, tomatoes, and much more :) As a kid, I absolutely hated doing this. I'd much rather have laid around doing absolutely nothing.

Now that I'm older, I so appreciate everything about food that my mom did. This fall, I've dehydrated some bananas and apples (with cinnamon...mmmmm!); and last month, I finished up washing some peaches, cutting them up, and adding them to my freezer stocked full of strawberries and blueberries. I didn't realize at the time, but not only was my mom teaching us the value of hard work, she was also teaching us how to be frugal and healthy! I can finally appreciate everything she did, and I'm doing it now in my own home. It's hard work!

 My mom gave me a super easy recipe for pesto as my basil plants are going crazy!

Basil Pesto

1 c. packed fresh basil

1/3 c. grated parmesan

1/3 c. olive oil

1 T cold water

2T either pine nuts or almonds

1/4t salt

1/8t pepper

1 clove garlic, peeled

Add all ingredients to food processor (in my case, a blender). Mix. Put in ice cube tray. Pop into freezer bag once frozen.

To thaw, put it on top of warm pasta. DO NOT HEAT (otherwise everything will combine weirdly). 

Enjoy!