Pup, Plates, and Puffs

Stopped by Rite Aid and ran into this precious animated pup. Squeeze its paw, music plays, and the little fella bounces around and shakes his head. Half-off so couldn't resist picking one up for little Hazley.

Here's Hazley in all her glory at 14 months. Isn't she sweet?

Christmas is coming so started some holiday crafting:

Air dry clay snowman.

Gnomes.

Picked a couple of Santa vases for a quarter each at a garage sale this past summer. Snagged some Christmas plates and made a couple of treat plates.

Picked this up from Goodwill but for the life of me can't figure out a scene for it.  Glued a candle stick to the bottom and hoping inspiration will hit.

Bought three glass transformers and added battery tealights to them. They needed a little height so snagged Dollar Tree candleholders, painted them gold, and they work perfectly. 

Have some Tim Holtz vintage looking black and white paper people to use. 

Decided to make a painted air clay moon then embellished the vintage girl to sit on it. Added lights and done.

Decided to funkify a pair of my beat up jeans. Cut up silver metallic fabric and used E-6000 to glue them behind the holes. Happy with the result.

This weekend had the baking urge, probably due to the fact I was binging the Great British Baking Show. I decided to make cream puffs which didn't seem so hard. I last made pate a choux decades ago but figured they were like a bike - once you made them before, you were golden. 

Well not exactly. I made the dough, beating in five eggs by hand until it reached the smooth, letter V dropping consistency.  Filled the piping bag then squeezed them on the tray. Quarter of the way through, nozzle slipped out of bag and it was a mess. Ended up plopping the dough into attempted circles and let them cook.

They looked done, although a few had baked into each other. Marked a hole in the bottom of each to let out the steam. Turned to make the frosting, looked back and my pate a choux had turned into flat mini-pancakes! Plowed ahead and attempted to fill a few of the puffs. It was a disaster!  Saw the writing on the wall so dumped the whole batch into the garbage can and bid adieu. Merde!!

Thankfully, dinner of fish and copy cat KFC coleslaw turned out much better (and edible) than the demon puffs!!

Weekend over and Monday will soon be here!  Thankfully, it's only a 3-day week due to Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the holiday everyone and stay away from the cream puffs!

Flat Tires, Gray Skies, and Birds

These gray skies and rainy days are not good for my disposition!  

After getting a cold while I was on vacation in September, ended up getting another worse one last week! Congestion, coughing, headache - even had to take a sick day from work for it. Super bummed that my cold prevented me from participating in the Halloween shenanigans!!

On top of that, got a flat tire on I-5 as I drove Sam to the Castle Rock park-n-ride in the early morning for work. Put on two new front tires in May and now the time had come to put two new ones on the back. Thankfully my insurance includes roadside assistance; however, the service truck (coming from Kelso, a 10-minute drive to Castle Rock) was going to take 90 to 120 minutes!! WTH?!  Sam would of changed it but the spare was jerryrigged stuck in the back and there was no jack. Thankfully he stayed with me, the service rig finally arrived and we were back on the road. Had two new tires installed a couple of days later.

Despite the rainy weather, we've continued to feed our birds and squirrels. My pigeon friend Mildred let's me pet her on the regular and has even let me pick ?

her up a few times. Couple kf the blue jays have landed on my knee to day hello and even a little bird flew over and landed on my elbow as my arms were crossed just to say hello.  Pretty darn cute!

Even though my cold has kept me sweaty and stuffy, I've pulled through for a few crafts.

November is here so Happy Birthday to both Mom and bestie Lynn in Heaven. 

Let's all hang in there this week and try to adjust to the time change. And can somebody grab me the bottle of Nyquil???