Pumpkin Pie and Knitting Stuff

My parents arrived for Thanksgiving and we all survived.
This was the first time I was not working during the holiday.
I invited my parents to eat at our place on the actual day for a change.
I think it was very difficult for my Mom to actually let someone else do the cooking.

This proved a trifle too difficult for my Mom, so she instructed her captive audience on how to make a pumpkin pie:


Reno is the only one who actually knows what went into this pie.

And he is not talking.


The visit might have proved too much for my parents. Little Man scared the crap out of them with a preview of his Halloween costume. Upon their return home, their doctor questioned their dietary habits of recent days because the blood levels were a little off. I guess when you are used to eating food prepared with little to no spice, the body gets out of whack when things like garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper are added.
The parental unit did say the food was very good, just they cannot really eat as much as they did. Good thing we don't do this too often.

Since I booked off this week in celebration of Halloween, I have been doing all the weird little things that I enjoy.
I cooked my Halloween costume:


Selected some pumpkins:


Baked a Tarte Tatin with those apples we picked a little while ago:


Did some knitting:
My So Called Scarf


Holding Hands,Feeding Ducks complete.


Op Art Blanket is almost complete


Now I am catching up on television.
I started watching Ravenswood, which is a spin off from Pretty Little Liars. I love creepy television. If they ever bring back Twin Peaks, I'll be in my glory. I'm also caught up on Walking Dead and Revenge. I started Watching Marvel Agents of Shield. and The Blacklist. Wow! Has that show ever left me with so many questions.

I just have a few tweaks to work out on our Halloween costumes and I'll say this holiday has gone perfectly well for me. After things are put to rights, I'll put up a few pics of our Halloween adventure.

Ritalin

I had a ten minute break this morning at work so I turned to the Journal De Montreal.
I was reading an article that was discussing the usage of Ritalin in Quebec amongst children is much greater than in all of the Canadian provinces added together.
The author was questioning why this would be the case.
Are the Anglophones more tolerant of their youths? Are Francophone children more hyper than their Anglo friends?
What I found interesting is the lack of information about the different parenting styles.
From my own personal experience I can easily note the differences.
Look at the school system.
Wherever your child attends school, are they allowed to call their professor by their first name?
I have spoken about this on a previous post.
To recap, I was trying to figure out this new little friend to which Little Man was constantly referring. Turns out, it was his teacher.
There goes an easy step to clearly defined boundaries right there!

Another notable difference, Children will be children!
Oh really?
So because they are simply a child, they get to call all the shots.
We have to be careful not to stifle their creativity.
We need to talk with them.
Cannot use punishment because my parents used punishments on me and I did not like them.
You are afraid your children will not like you?
Why?
Do you not have any friends your own age to talk, laugh and joke?
Honest truth.
If you tell your child no, I swear they will not self destruct.
they may scream, call you names, say they do not love you anymore, but I swear they will not die.
In fact, when they hear that little word no in their adult life, it will not come as such a shock to them. They will even be prepared to deal with the aftermath by actually finding alternative solutions.
They may even learn how to form persuasive arguments.
Wouldn't that be a blast?
A high functioning adult able to look after their self in the real world.

All of that takes a lot of work.
We want things now.
We hate to wait.
Short cuts are big money makers because of this attitude.
Instead of reading the book we buy Cliff's notes.
Instead of writing the essay, we google, copy and paste.
Instead of trying to create high functioning young people, we pump them with drugs so they can be better controlled.

Yeah, I don't see this exploding in our face 10 years from now.

Apple Picking!!

and Comiccon!
We eventually made it to Comiccon in Monteal the other week end.
It is very difficult to explain to someone what Comiccon actually is if they have never had it a part of their culture.
At first I was just trying to describe the experience:
Well, it is a lot of like minded people coming together in one huge ass room to fawn over things that we grew up with and participate in discussions with people who are currently in that industry.

OH
Like when I go to my tool convention?

Do you have people who dress up in costumes at tool conventions?

No. That would be weird.

Get ready for a whole lot of weird then.
Evil Grin.


We should follow them! I'm sure they know the way to Comiccon.
...and we have not even been inside yet!


The coolest vehicles evvvaaarrrr!


Nature even visits Comiccon.

Hawkgirl, Wonderwoman, Master Cheif were there as well, but we were a little to shy to have our pictures taken with them.

For some reason we were not too shy for these two.

So? How did you like your first Comiccon?

Next year can we dress up?

Absolutely!


In our region, it is apple season.


This was the first time I ever participated because usually I have to work.


It does not take long to fill two very large shopping bags.

These are Honey Crisp.


I see a lot of baking in my future.
See you all later.

It's Three AM..

You cannot sleep because the shifts are work are just totally messing with your system.
What do you do?
Apparently I bake and vacuum.
The Hubs sleeps like a rock. Not like I will wake him up unless I light off a firework under his pillow.
The little man was at his Mom's.
I finished watching the first season of Game of Thrones.
Then I had a craving for banana bread.
Not just any banana bread.
Special 03h00 banana bread.
No. I did not have access to weed.
I did however have access to Nutella.
This stuff turned out awesome!!
I used a recipe called Nutella Swirled Banana Bread.
It actually came pretty close to the picture.

Hmmmmm
Wonder what else I can do with Nutella?

Catching Up

I picked up another shift at work.
An evening shift.
I go to work in the daylight.
Like some common day-walker.
Some days I like to pretend I'm Blade.

As a result of the partial shift change, I'm working a few nights, then a few evenings and back to nights again, I am missing out on a lot of interesting tidbits.
For starters,
Miley Cyrus.
Apparently she did this thing at the video awards and caused a lot of people, mainly women from all the posts I keep reading, to clutch their pearls and tsk tsk.
I watched the video.
I don't really see the big deal.
I'm reminded of Madonna.
Remember that book she put out a little while that caused everyone to talk.
It was wrapped up in tin foil and called risky art.
Lady Gaga is another female that raises eyebrows.
Something about Spiritual Totatema.
Careful. There is a lot of see through mesh ensembles if you happen to google that phrase.
Then there are all the "accidental" sex tapes being leaked.
I guess the difference is Cyrus did not pretend to leak her moves.
At least she did not bite the head off of a bat.

Personal stuff,
We had the first day of school last week.
Someone was so happy to go back he was awake at 0600, dressed, back pack on and waiting eagerly for the bus.
I do not remember being that happy to go to school ever.
Mom was a difficult negotiator so I hardly missed any days when I was in elementary school.
I think I finally wore her down when I started high school.
As long as I did not miss anything important like exams, projects etc. and not make my absences too obvious, I was ok.
Reno was very confused about this whole school concept.


I am still working on my OpArt Blanket.


While I'm working on my blanket, I started watching the first season of Game of Thrones.
I was right.
This show makes my eyes water in a few scenes, just like the books.

I also made a blueberry dessert for someone's birthday.


In Hubs defense it was quite early.


I just thought of another person that likes to makes headlines.
Kesha

Careful folks.
You might see nipples.

Things To Do While on Holiday

Discover interesting things about your home.
We have learned that most of these walls have three layers of drywall.

That is a picture of the living room wall and ceiling.
Hubs decided to tackle the big task of fixing all the wiring.
When he opened up some of the walls and ceilings, he found there were a lot of old wires that were so dry they just disintegrate as you touch them. In other situations there is just a bundle of wires that go absolutely no where.
Rebel was very interested in the wiring phase.


We also decided to replace the ugly carpet in the bedroom.

Good by ugly carpet!


This is that Styrofoam type matting that goes down on the old floor and under the new floor.


First piece of new floor!


Halfway there!


Good bye ugly carpet, hello new shiny floor!!!!!

Besides being all Do-It-Yourself Home reno edition, I've been knitting and watching a lot of television.

I've started my OpArt Blanket for a friend.

I love this blanket! It does not take much brain power. I can watch Revenge and Breaking Bad and not worry about missing anything important by concentrating on the stitches.
Little Man chose the colours. He has taken quite the shine to this blanket. I will most likely knit one for him as well.

I was reading the posts on facebook and it said something about a blue moon last night.
Well, I waited and waited and then waited some more.

It does not look blue to me.

I am going to continue to work on my blanket and watch Pretty Little Liars.
I will see you all later!

Two Days Later

We scrubbed and sprayed and then scrubbed some more. We have finally completed battle of the fleas 2013.
For Now....
Two weeks from now, we do more scrubbing.
Friday, early afternoon, my patio furniture arrived.
I am thrilled.
It looks like something out of a magazine.
Friday we went to the pet shop where there is a guru for all things in the pet department.
We brought home our arsenal.
We have used the products from Zodiac before and found them quite effective.
So as I said before, Friday night, we vacuumed and bleached everything and everywhere the cats tread.
They manage to explore a lot of places.

We thought we would try the spray this time around because it does sound easier.
Napoleon we bathed first, then sprayed.

Napoleon actually tolerated the bath really well. Usually it sounds like we are ripping off his little arms.

Reno was the most receptive to the spray.

My only complaint is that the spray takes a lot longer than the shampoo. This is no problem if you animals like Reno that will sit there for as long as needed, but, when you have an animal like Rebel, that is another story altogether.

He tolerated the spray treatment for all of a minute.
Then he makes really scary sounds and our little photographer went outside to hang out on the patio.

We don't even have photos of Tom because we were covered in too much fur to touch anything let alone a camera.
We were lucky with the ferret.
Not one itty bitty flea on the little girl.

After everyone is treated, we all go outside with Hubs uses the flea spray to kill off the rest of the nuisances.
It must have looked funny to the neighbours. We were eating outside to kill some time and even had the fish out there.
We take eating together as a family really seriously.

Bluette the Beta is behind one of the chairs in a shady spot.
I learned in another lifetime that Betas are not supposed to be in direct sunlight.

That is Bleutte in his actual habitat.
I swear he really is in there.... somewhere...

Sunday we applied a topical applicator that goes just at the base of their skull, back of their head. It makes their hair all spikey, but it is really effective.
In two weeks from now, we will vacuum, bleach and put that topical applicator all over again.
Right now we are all going to relax in a nice cool corner, watch a little tele, knit and veg!