Happy Halloween!

Greg and I had fun carving last night. I did Jack Sparrow, he did Batman! Have a fun, safe Halloween everyone!

In the spirit of Halloween...

...here's the Skull cupcakes I made for a halloween gathering we went to last night...they were super easy to make, looked great and tasted yummy too!

Happy Halloween (early)!!! ~~

No bones about it, partygoers will get a scream out of this playful treat.
RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
12 marshmallows
Confectioners' sugar
24 unfrosted cupcakes (white or yellow works best)
White frosting
Junior Mints, chocolate chips, and slivered almonds
1. Cut the marshmallows in half widthwise using kitchen shears dipped in confectioners' sugar (this keeps them from sticking). 2. Carefully pull each cupcake liner partially away from the cake and tuck half a marshmallow between the paper and the cupcake to create the skull's jaw. 3. Frost each cupcake and marshmallow, then add Junior Mints with white frosting dots for eyes, a chocolate chip nose, and slivered almond teeth.

Recipe from Family Fun

This is for you Suzy!

So, I went to a crop last night at Scrapbooks Too with a group of friends last night, and my friend Suzy commented that my blog was, well, lame because I hadn't posted in awhile. I thought that was real rich coming from a woman whose own blog hasn't been updated in several years (yes, years!). But in any case, I'm back, and this post if for you Suzy Q! So what I have been up to?

Well, I've been reading, hanging out with family and friends, enjoying the fall weather, getting acclimated to my new job and doing some deep down fall cleaning and reorganization.

The first book I finished was the Third Summer of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. Yes, it is a book for teenagers, but I have been following this series for a few years now. They are really quick reads and you can't help but just feel like one of the gang when you read these books. Definitely not high on the literary value but fun to read nonetheless.

The second book I finished, definitely more age appropriate, was The Queen's Fool by Phillippa Gregory. Earlier this year I had read The Other Boleyn Girl by the same author and couldn't put the book down. So I had to save this one for when I would have the time to read it, and could afford a few late nights. This one, I daresay, might even have been better than The Other Boleyn Girl. While this book was still an artfully woven mix of historical fact and pure imaginative fiction, court romances, and juicy "gossip" like the first book, it had an even more compelling theme. It covered the era of Mary Tudor's reign which was marked by religious inquisitions and all the ugliness that came with it including torturous means to find heretics and then the burning of heretics at the stake.

It was told from the point of view of Hannah Green, a young Jewish girl who had fled the Spanish Inquisition with her father after the rest of her family had been burned at the stake. In this novel, she struggles to deal with that trauma.

In addition she is being torn between serving Queen Mary (strictly Catholic monarch, who represents Hannah's nightmarish past) and Mary's sister Princess Elizabeth (known as the Protestant Princess, who represents the enlightened Hannah's hope for the future) who both won her loyalty and fondness. She also searched to find a balance of her own unorthodox independnce while still trying to honor her family's customs, including a rocky arranged marriage to a fellow undercover Jew.

In the end, you are proud of the person she becomes, and of course, anxious to know what happens next. But don't worry...Phillippa has solved that with The Virgin's Lover, which I'm reading now! :)

We have also been enjoying the fall weather. We went with some friends out to Emma Krumbee's with some friends and their son. We bought some squash and pumpkins to add some fall flair to our table top and porch steps. We also bought some squash to eat and picked plenty of apples to make apple crisp. Yum!

We've also travelled to see family. My cousin Melissa and I drove home to see our family and celebrate her sister's birthday. We had fun driving the six hours jamming to Hannah Montana, Eminem, and Journey, among other things.

The next weekend Greg and I drove down to see his family and celebrate his dad's birthday with good food and bonfire. It rained, but we didn't care: Greg brought the patio umbrella out the fire to cover us.

I also started my new job which I love. I went to our headquarters this week for some training, and have been getting to know everyone. It's been a great start at a great company.

And that, my friends, is what we've been up to.

A new chapter starts right here...

After a long summer of layoffs, potential buyouts, and hauling 50 years of an office down to four 20 cu. yd. dumpsters and 30+ shredding/recycling carts, I'm done!!! I finished yesterday and topped out the night with some champagne. A new chapter begins today!

I am very sad to say goodbye to my friends and colleagues. We have all bonded so well over the past year. I was also very sad to realize that I won't be working with my current boss on a daily basis anymore. But, I also know this industry is small and all of our paths will cross again, and I look forward to that day.

I do have my next position lined up and for that I'm grateful, and also very excited. I will be joining a firm close to home, with great leadership, 3 people I already know really well (two of whom are former colleagues, the other was a groomsman in our wedding). In the few times I've met this firm prior to my interview I've always perceived them as a fun, hardworking group that's excited about what they do, and they do it well. How can I not be excited about that.

Until then, I have the week off and I plan to:

• Sleep in
• Work out daily
• Take a card-making class
• Participate in a Euchre tournament
• Do lunch with some friends
• Read
• Shop
• Scrapbook

And I start it all off today with a massage with my sweetie.

:)

The Office and Scrapbooking

Did anyone else notice on the second episode of Season 3 of the office (when they're at the office supply convention) there is a booth for "Glue Dots"? So cool...

9/11

Six years ago today, I was sleeping in at my apartment in Ames, IA. I didn't have classes until late morning that day, so took full advantage of that, as most college students do. Greg (my now husband, then fiance) had gone to work that morning and called me on my cell phone. He said, very seriously, "Get up and go turn on the TV. A plane has hit the World Trade Center in NYC."

"What?" I questioned, Surely he couldn't be right. Then I said, "How could an accident like that happen?" By this time I had fumbled around and got the TV on. It was all live shots of NYC with scrolling words at the bottom. He responded, "They don't know if it's an accident or something else." Not long after my old TV had finally warmed up to reveal the footage, the second plane hit the tower. It was then that my heart sank and my stomach dropped. It my heart of hearts, I knew that this couldn't be an accident. But I still kept hoping that it was...that perhaps something had gone wonky at the control tower, or something wasn't right on the navigation system. But deep inside, I knew. I sat glued to the TV most of the morning, breaking only to jump online and see if classes had been cancelled.

They never did get cancelled, and so I went. The one class I had that day had a very strict no-skip policy, and when I got there we only spent the first 10 minutes or so discussing the attacks. By the time I had left the apartment for that class, very little was yet known, so most of our discussion was based on speculation. None of us yet realized the enormity of the situation. How else could we have sat there and discussed the finer points of fluid mechanics if we did know? Once class was over, I headed home and stayed glued to my TV the rest of day. As the day went on, more details and images became available.

My mom called me to let me know that her work (in Omaha) had let them out early and she was at home safe. She also told me that my grandma, who was on a tourbus on the East Coast got stuck in Canada. They were scheduled to cross back into the US that day to go to NY. Needless to say that didn't happen. She was fine, but shook up. My mom called again later that day to check in again, and we talked about President Bush coming to Omaha because that's where SAC (Strategic Air Command) is. Greg watched from work for awhile then came home early. I greeted him at the door with a huge hug.

I think I remained glued to the tube most of the next three days, breaking only for class. I know I didn't cry those first few days, I know I didn't believe it those first few days. How could someone intentionally do that to innocent people?

Nearly 2 years ago, Greg and I had the honor of visiting both the WTC site and the WTC Memorial in Battery Park. I still get goosebumps when I think of those experiences: the relatively unscathed, salvaged sculpture; the eternal flame symbolizing the thoughts of all of those old enough to remember, "We will not forget!"; the surrounding buildings still missing glass nearly four years later; the still huge hole in the ground and the still huge holes in our hearts. It was during this visit, that it finally hit home to me. I cried. Hard. The reality of the situation, the braveness of those fallen heros, the sadness for the victims families, the thankfulness for those who fight to defend our every freedom...it all finally hit, harder than it ever had.

So this September 11, I salute those who keep us safe each and everyday, I send prayers and hugs to the families of the victims, I send up prayers for the victims, and I thank each and every person in my life for bringing light to my life. Life is to short to not appreciate what we have each been given.

It's officially fall in my mind...

Yesterday we went out to one of our favorite little spots, the St. Croix Vineyards. The weather was cool (almost sweater weather), the grapes and apples were ripe. Anyway, this weekend was their annual grape stomp competition. We took my brother-in-law (David) and he got be in this competition, and he won! He stomped with two other people and they ended up putting on quite the show with their dancing and bucket swapping! Some friends from work joined us as well and we enjoyed walking around the vineyards, orchards and the tourist attractions. Greg and I picked out a couple bottles of wine that we haven't tried before, so it will be fun to break those out sometime. We learned a couple things yesterday: stomped grapes look quite disgusting, but cool at the same time (it'd be a great witches brew at halloween) and don't eat plants in planters, even if they look like lettuce. It will give you a swollen scratched tongue. Sorry I dared you to do that, David!