oh the gloomy cozy days....

Overcast and cloudy, drizzly...I took Sunny outside and it started raining on us...brr. But here in the house, with some orange lights on the shelf with little pumpkins, a candle lighted on the coffee table, and the space heater humming...with a fresh hot cup of coffee and a low carb pumpkin muffin to nibble on...I'll take it. Coziness.


Sunny went to the airport with us yesterday to pick up Paul, who is home from India. Sunny likes the van now, she is on Crumb Control. She curled up on Char's lap and snoozed.



Miss Charlotte Claire...


Jonathan procured a battery for this long lost camera, and is having a great time taking pictures. (At our house, random handstands are the norm, btw.)



Camille made the muffins...mostly. Char helped too. When we finished up our school work, we did some fun kitchen stuff. After the muffins went in the oven, Cam prepared the marinade for the meal she is making for tonight's dinner...she squeezed the lemons and limes, added seasoning and olive oil, and put the chicken in the container and into the refrigerator. Then she made pudding cups, layered with graham cracker crumbs and marshmallows while Charlotte Claire learned how to make homemade macaroni and cheese. I cut up a head of cauliflower and steamed it while she melted a stick of butter, stirred in some flour, added the milk, boiled it up, added cheese, stirred it...Jonathan cooked the pasta...one pan of cauliflower and cheese for us low-carbers, and one pan of mac and cheese for everyone else. Char put bread crumbs on top of the Real stuff, and into the oven it went. It was cozy and fragrant in here, and our early dinner was yummy.

We headed out into the rainy 39 degree evening for Enchanted Beaver Lake, which is where hundreds of jack-o-lanterns are lit up, lining the walking paths through the nature center. It's pitch dark except for the pumpkins, which are carved all differently...animals, Disney princesses, insects, Shrek! We had fresh cinnamon donuts (I ate one bite and passed it on:)), popcorn, hot cider...

It was a really good day, which like all other good days, passed by too quickly.

And today is another one. I plan to stay home, unless Evelyn, who went to school with a headache, calls me to come get her from school. She is taking an AP class, and can only miss it a certain number of times, so it gets her to go in the morning when she really doesn't want to. She is an excellent student, but yesterday she gave blood, so she's a bit tired.

Anyway. I plan to stay home and enjoy the coziness. It is rainy still, and the dogs are snoring. They have been out twice, fed, and they have run around and played...not Duke, of course. He walks and wags and lies back down. Four year old Suri is revisiting her puppyhood now that we have Sunny. They play and romp and it's like having ten kids in the house.

Sunny is the kind of dog who sees her water dish, full of water, and thinks, "That would be fun to drag through the living room, spilling out all the water, then chew it all to pieces!" We now have a metal water dish that is hard for her to pick up.

She is a Lab though, so when she sleeps, she sleeps. Our late sheepdog, Rosie, never fully rested....she kept an eye on all activity, day and night. Sunny flops down, sighs, and snoozes.

Can you tell I love her? I am conflicted sometimes, wonder how I ended up with THREE dogs, and THREE cats. They are so much work. I like clean floors. So we have a towel by the door, to wipe paws when they come in. Four paws, four more paws, then four more...several-everal times a day. The cats are really no problem...except that we now store our bread in the refrigerator, because one of them likes to get on the counter in the night and rip into the bread.

But I love them all. They are cuddly and cute and add joy and fun to the house. When I wake up in the morning and they are absolutely beside themselves in happiness to see me...their whole bodies wag. The kitties keep the mice away, and are really no trouble. The small kitten plays with the puppy, knocks down the flowers, and attacks the lamps.

We haven't bought any pumpkins yet this year. Our garden produced butternut squash, but no pumpkins...I'm not sure if we planted any or not, of course when I say "we", I mean Paul. So we are going tomorrow to get some, and carve them up nicely, then toss the seeds in olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast them. mmm.

Tonight we might go over to the rec. center pool for a swim...we can't get lazy just because it's chilly out, right?