My holiday list

I have notes and list all over, and a few ideas in my head, I need somewhere where I can keep an overlook over it!!

So; buy Xmass cards.

Check how much the calendar cost. Great price! Next; make signs for the dog, take pics of her, decide which will do, (OMG, I made such awesome shots! I can’t wait! ))and take it to the photo studio.

Friend 1; Bday; flower and eyeliner  (Buy pot, pot the plant, buy eyeliner) ((done!)      Xmass; slippers

Friend 2 Xmass; calendar, flower, sweets, toothbrush; slippers

Friend 3 Xmass: callendar, photo frame for the new baby???

Friend 4; calendar, pocket calendar? eyeshadow, board game? curl creme

Secret Santa; sweets, cheese),(nixed the cheese because it need to be kept under certain temperature, and since it can’t if it’s in the box, it would arrive non edible) salad oil, chocolate money, liquor,  lace (found it in my secret drawer of gifts! Saved money!!)  and mail it!!!    ((it’s packed, I realy only need to carry it to the post office and mail it! )) Done! Sent!

Brother; Bday; ????????? Xmass; Slippers I know where to buy them, that is almost half of buying them!)

Mom; earings, lipstick, callendar II

Friend group; hand creams for ladies, ?? for boys – I need it this saturday!!

Needs to happen asap, done)

Bday lunch I

We were at our favourite slow food restaurant, and I ate everything from ox tail to cows brains, grapefruit ice cream on…Don’ t be afraid of tails people, this one was delicious, I had no idea what I’m eating ( that rarely happens, I am not very fussy, I stop at frogs and bugs, but most other things, bring it on ) and it was really good!!

Let’s hope this is just a beginning of a good streak (still deciding on what to cook for my party!)

Testing claning my face with oil

I was immediately excited about testing the so called Oil cleansing method after reading about it! Heard about it here, and read more here and here.

Than…I read this, where it’s says this is just bad. Also, Here, in the comments, there is some unnerving news from the homeopath about castor oil.

I knew from the begging that I don’t want to use it as an every day method, but as a cleansing every two weeks or so. The method that sounded the best was the one with steaming my face, not just using a cloth (bending my head over a pot of steaming water )

I bought castor oil, and the lady asked me if I am using it for constipation, and to be very careful if I am, because it’s very potent. I said no, that I’ll be using it on my face, and she said oh, ok, for your lashes than. I just nodded.

My fist try…it went ok, but there was no blackheads coming out of my pores as I hoped 😦 So I’ll try longer next time…I mixed it with sunflower oil, just because we have it for cooking, and I’ll try with almond oil next time, I heard it’s good for removing makeup, too, so it must be great for the face.

Second time was not much different, and I admit I was very discouraged afterwards, and I haven’t done it yet (it’s been over a month).

Since I have a whole bottle of the castor oil just sitting here, I googled what did the pharmacy lady said about the lashes, and again, read that even though it’s not scientifically proven, it’s supposed to promote lash, nail and brow growth, and even  though I can not complain about my brows and lashes, pampering them can’t hurt them, so for the last two nights, I apply the oil on them. I read about girls using empty& cleaned out mascara bottles for application, and it sounds practical (my favourite thing is to groom my eyebrows with cleaned mascara brushes) but I just apply it all over my eyelids, because eye area can always use moisturizing!

If I try to forget about the homeopathic warnings, it can’t hurt; what I don’t like is the oiling of my fringe (duh; I’ll just do the brows every two days, skipping the day when my hair is freshly washed!!) and getting it on my pillowcases, but since we do own a washing machine, and you should change your pillow cases very regularly, it’s survivable.

As for the nails, they are brittle and slow growing as always.

My first brownies

We don’t call them that, we would say something like chocolate dessert…

I had a surprisingly hard time finding a good recipe, and in the end, I found this three( by Gluten free diva, by Gluten free goddess and from a recipe site) , and made something in between.

I added a little bit of chopped and watered down dates.

 

I will bake this again!! ((even though I am not a big chocolate lover. I’ll always add some sort of fruit in, to liven it out! And use a “small! dish, rather than a large one like this time, because I like y desserts high rather than flat.

Simple advice

After you slave away at the garden in the spring to prepare the soil, and then put the seeds in, and watch them grow, and water them, and weed them, and make the soil lighter around them, and you get happy to see the product grow, and you fight a war with the snails so they don’t eat it away, and you see it come to nice, big, orange pumpkins, I would advise you not to leave them outside to show everybody what you grew for weeks, because it will rot, it’s better to take them inside into a dark, dry place, where they will wait for you for months, and you can actually cook with them.

 

Yes, mine got caught in the minus degrees like 4 times, I finally transported them in today, I hope they won’t mind, because I want to make more soups and strudels out of them!!

Shufling

Yesterday, I shuffled manure.

Not sure if it can be called that, maybe soil-to-be is a better term, lol:)

So, we have a garden a compost pile, which we use to put the mawned grass in, kitchen waste  (peels etc)  -I am the only one who does that in our home), and other garden stuff that belongs there. I am sure there are some rules for having a good compost, but I only try to make sure that only what is supposed to go there goes there, and when we have a lot of fresh grass, I pour some water over it, to make it decomp faster. The soil that we “create” there is supposed to be used in the spring, when you prepare your garden for planting. We only do that every couple of years, we forget most of the time, lol:)

It was a nice, sunny fall day, we have a lot of leaves around the garden, so I decided to take the pile apart, to mix it up a bit, to air it, and to mix some of the leaves and herbs in between ((My technique for dealing with fall leaves is to put them in a  pile, than mawn over it, to make them smaller and decomp faster – and the rest we give to our neighbours so they burn it)).

So, I did that, and my back muscles are letting me know that they are not used to work as much!!

I also found out that grapes, egg shells and orange peels take the longs to decompose. Go figure!

Gluten free quince cake

It was not easy to find a recipe.

This looks yummy, but you only need 3 ingredients, and that I’ll do some other time, I think.

I followed this recipe. I used some different flours, but otherwise, followed the recipe. I cooked the quince first, for about one hour, and let it cool down.

All went well, except I put butter in the cake pan, put it in the oven, to soften it, and took it out so I could “oil” all the parts of the pan. That went well. BUT the butter started to leak out of the pan on the bottom of the oven, and the whole things started to smoke. Ugh. I just used a kitchen towel and swiped it. Lesson – always use baking paper!!

Mine didn’t really raise, so I would suggest to double the ingredients. It’s good, it’s moist, it’s just not a cake, it’s like a one centimeter thick omlet!

BTW, you need two or three quinces for this.

Ones

I’ll always remember 11.11 at 11.11, because I was at by Bff’s, and we just sat at the computer to look at some pics on Fb, and she says “look, it’s 11 and 11 minutes” and I said “now we’ll always know where we were at this time – together!”.

Some people got married, some people gave birth, and we just shared a moment. Lovely!

 

The change in the series

So I am listening to Anita Blake books, by Laurell K Hamilton (would you belive I read 11 books without even googling the author?? Good thing I didn’t , because if I saw in the begging it’s about one major heroine and not a series where every book has its own heroes, I probably wouldn’t start it! Oh my, she has another series!! Yipee!) ) , and it has turned an odd angle; in the first few books, she is celibate; than she has two boyfriends, and only kisses them; than she has sex with both of them, and now, by the book 12, she is having sex with 5 guys!! And threesomes! And is into dominance and pain!

What I admire is that it’s written superbly. She explores how she deals with her desires, how others react, and scenes are sensual, emotional and practical. I always hate when H pulls heroines socks off and licks her feet while they have been running around without a shower for days (seriously, just hours would be enough for me – not that anything remotely happen in this books, it’s just an example), and other unrealistic stuff like that; here, when she is sore, she says she is sore. The stories do get a bit jumbled up, but that is a progression of the writer and the characters, I guess. And it’s not just the sex scenes that are so well…well, that are so great; also her emotions about life, death, killing, relationship, and all the boys, how different they all are, the handling of abuse…I only wish they all would have been a few years older. That is my only complaint!

I wish they wouldn’t change readers in the middle of the series, and I love the sound effects that were included in the few of the books, but both are very good readers. I am really enjoying the books! Probably more in audio than I would in print – I love audio books, doing dishes, walking the dog, and you “read” at the same time, awesome!

The class

Day one; no rain; I discovered one of the girls is from my town and she drove, so I knew that n day 2 I have a ride.

There were only 8 of us, so no hiding.

We did some group exercises, an introduction, a few posters…And it didn’t last nearly as long as I though it will!!

Here is hoping day two will be even better! (AND I’ll treat myself to McDonald’s afterwards!!)

_ _ _

It was! We filled out some more questioners (sp??), did a few more posters, and it ended! And I did treat myself to a McD afterwards, and…It wasn’t nearly as good as I remember it to be 😦

 

Anyhow, my duty is over! back to normal tomorrow!