Small Successes!

 

Small, and not so small accomplishments this week:

1)  Today I returned our bathroom sink to a state of full functionality.  It has been draining slower and slower for months, and I finally found the motivation to address the issue.  In the process, I learned a little bit about plumbing, since I found I needed to take off the... (I don't know the real name of it, so I didn't really learn that much) u-shaped section of pipe and clean it out.  The only fitting word (blog appropriate, anyway) for the nastiness inside is what my daughter is currently saying about everything: guck.  Anyway, task accomplished, drain finally actually drains, and I shouldn't have to deal with that kind of guck again anytime soon.  I hope.

2)  We're on track to accomplish my goal of having all the Christmas shopping (or at least everything except for presents for each-other) done by December 1st.  Before you think that I'm either super type-A, or jumping the gun on the season, you have to understand my motivation.  I live in the Northeast (and in one of the snowier parts).  The months of October and November have a fair chance of being relatively snow free; December, on the other hand, does not.  Plus, I hate Christmas shopping.  I like buying gifts for people, but I can't stand trudging around in slush to a multitude of over-packed stores manned by overworked employees.  I hate fighting to find a parking spot, and then spending forever trying to get back out of the mall.  So, once I had an additional reason to try and avoid all of the above (the added complication of dragging a very small third person to stores, which she hates, in a car, which she hates), I finally made a resolution to just get it done earlier.  By taking my time in October and November, I'm able to make December a lot more pleasant and stress free.  And this year, it gave me time to make a substantial percentage of the gifts (which is part of the reason it has been awfully quiet on the blog.  I have lots to share, after the holidays, when I can post pictures of various projects!)

3)  In light of having gone nearly a month without any real sort of post, my third small success of the week is simply having found the time to post my small successes :)  'nough said.

Christ the King Sunday is this weekend!  Here's to the end of the liturgical year; may you all have a blessed beginning of Advent :)

At least I'm blogging *somewhere*...

Daylight savings time has ended, taking sleep with it, and my daughter, with new teeth coming in, wants to nurse non-stop day and night.  The end result of these two things is I'm pushed to the limit just to get my work done each day, without much "extra" time kicking around (trust me: I have projects a-plenty piling up on my craft table; I keep eyeing them longingly but not longingly enough to do them at 10 pm, which is about the only time leftover at the end of the day).  So I haven't been around here much.  But, today I'm not completely silent: you can find me over at Catholic Mothers Online, with my latest guest post, Five Frugal Suggestions From Yesteryear.

I promise I'll try to be back here soon, with thoughts, updates, and hopefully the continuation of my "A Horse and Her Girl" story.

Pumpkin deliciousness

I only have a minute, but I wanted to share a fabulous recipe that I heard about on the radio the other day, and which I made for our dinner tonight.  I try not to post recipes unless they are really dynamite ones - ones that I would make regularly because they are just that good, or ones that have some sort of special significance (like the St. Lucia day bread I'll post a link to in a couple of weeks), but trust me, this pumpkin recipe is worth a try.  It's not for the diet conscious, and is rich enough that you wouldn't want to eat it every week, but it's going into my repertoire for "special fall foods".

Here's the link (and the name really does tell the whole story):

"Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good" (from NPR)

To whet your appetite just a little: think bacon, cheese fondue, and roasted pumpkin, all in one.  Yum.  For bonus points, the whole thing took me less than 20 minutes to throw together, then went in the oven for two hours, at which point I just pulled it out and served it.  Little mess, and less fuss.

I have a theory, which I plan to test at some point, that it would make a fabulous dessert as well, if made sweet instead of savory with cinnamon raisin bread, cranberries, walnuts, and lightly sweetened cream cheese...

It's also a great way to use up leftovers for a cheap and fabulous meal: I used the stale remains of a loaf of french bread (from a spaghetti dinner earlier in the week), half a package of bacon that we'll have with "brinner" on the weekend (which would otherwise sit in the fridge and go bad, because we don't use bacon that much), and the tail end of a brick of cheddar cheese.  Definitely seems like a recipe that would well accommodate many different sorts of leftovers, though.

Anyway, try it!  Bon appetite!