It's Always Something

Halloween landed on a Friday this year. When I was a little kid, one of the best parts of Halloween was wearing your costume to school. Although, one of my most tormented memories in school happens to be from our Halloween costume parade. As my 3rd grade class took a spin around the playground in our costumes, I swear I could hear the older grades poking fun at my princess Leah costume with mask and all. That night, before the Halloween Festival at school, mom was kind enough to get me a new costume. I emerged that evening as another princess, but the kind in a fancy golden dress and no mask. Who knows if any kids were making fun at me or whether it was all in my head. All i know for sure, is that mom made it better. *smile* Bumble Boo! Pocahotness + The Good Witch On Halloween night, one of Brookie's classmate's father hosted a Halloween party at his house. We played games, had a costume contest, decorated pumpkins, and went trick or treating. Brooklynn has SO much fun...

A family pumpkin carving night has been a tradition ever since Brookynn's first Halloween. On this day, we spend hours and hours designing and carving our masterpieces. Stencils are not allowed. Everyone must carve their own pumpkin. No one is allowed to stop until the entire pumpkin is carved and lit. It's been a great way to spark creativity, enjoy eachother's company, and stay focused on a task until completion. Brookie's favorite part- pumpkin guts! I decided to make Pumpkin Jack from A Nightmare Before Christmas this year. Brooklynn created a pumpkin pirate. Pumpkin Jack O' Lantern Arrrrrr! A Pumpkin Pirate

Our tomato plant, named Sweety, gave us many tomatoes almost immediately. Brooklynn + I were so excited to make our first meal using vegetables from our balcony garden. We've waited almost a year for Oscar our Meyer Lemon tree to produce, but he's taking his time. Sweety is the first fruit of our work that we can enjoy. Although, we didn't have to work very hard on her. We chopped the tomatoes to make fresh pizza sauce using the basil from our herb garden. The rest of the tomatoes were used in a fresh gorgonzola salad with bacon + feta cheese. We were quite impressed with how both turned out. You can imagine the difference fresh ingredients make while cooking. We can't wait to expand our garden with aspirations of one day being able to live off the food we are able to grow. Not likely, but we've got to have dreams, right???

"Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live." "When people are laughing, they are generally not killing eachother." "A man is not poor if he can still laugh." "An optimist laughs to forget, a pessimist forgets to laugh." "It is impossible to be angry and laugh at the same time." We all have our own defense mechanisms. While growing up in my house, laughter + jokes were a common way to address serious situations, comfort ourselves, break the ice, lighten tragedies, or confront another. In my adult life I have learned to appreciate this quality tremendously. Some pretty serious stuff happens in life. It's nice to know we can still laugh.

As you know, hiking is one of our favorite past times. Today, we invited our friends Shirley + Mila to join us. It was their first hike together, so we had intended on an easy hike; however Brooklynn accidentally chose the more challenging path. Whoops! Shirley + Mila were such troopers! After an hour hike uphill, we found a cluster of large boulders for our break. Here we enjoyed some snacks and the breathtaking view. The kiddos were pretty amazed to see how far we had hiked in just over an hour. They felt accomplished (and excited to go back down). While we all rested on the boulders, we found an abandoned metal box hidden in between the rocks. It had been covered up with brush. We contemplated whether we should investigate the contents of the box. Shirley preferred we leave it alone, but the girls insisted this was an adventure... After weighing the pros + cons of opening the box (pro = fun, con= boring) we removed the box from it's hiding spot and opened it up. I must...

Brooklynn and I enjoy doing nice things for people. It makes us happy to make other people happy. Since I am currently not working, it seemed like the right time to start up a small organization to foster this interest that we share. And The Bstar Project is born. The idea behind The Bstar Project is to help Bay Area families by providing little amenities that make life easier in some pretty substantial ways. Some of these amenities can, but are not limited to: back-to-school supplies, umbrellas, movie tickets, books, greeting cards, clothes, etc. We chose to give little luxuries as opposed to the necessities such as food, clothes, and shelter because we believed in spreading happiness. There have been so many times where we felt like giving up. It is during these times that we need a little sunshine to help us keep going. We wanted to help improve the quality of life of these families experiencing such hardships- especially the children. I am not sure how to run this type of org...

Brooklynn + I have always wanted to go to Half Moon Bay's Pumpkin Festival, so after Chinese this morning we set out to brave the traffic with friends. We made it about 2 hours into the grueling bumper-to-bumper traffic before we called it quits and retreated. After reenergizing with some good old fashioned fast-food, we were ready for pumpkin patch part deux. We ended up at the Ardenwood Farms pumpkin patch. It's a small family-owned farm where the kids can take crop tours, play in a mini-maze, and climb a haystack pyramid. In previous years, there had been haunted train rides and corn mazes, but due to the increasing vandalism by Fremont's youth, those amusements have been discontinued. Another reason I need to move us to "better" area. Once I shook off the disappointment of missing the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival, we were all able to pick out the perfect pumpkins and enjoy ourselves. The crops tour helped as well. There's just something refreshing...

Look alike much?

Today was the first storm of the season. High winds and pouring rain that didn't stop for hours. It was beautiful. The rain always has a tendency to come at the right time in my life. It comes when I am sad, in the midst of an argument, going through a change, and also when I need reminding to slow down. Today's storm encompassed all of the above, which to me, was the real reason it poured so much. *wink* Rain enables me to recall that I can't escape or ignore important matters. When I do, whatever needs to be addressed just accumulates over time, like a rain cloud, until it can no longer take the pressure. Everything gushes out to force me to pay attention and address matters NOW. Taking care of sensitive and important matters can be tough. Doing so causes stormy conflict with voices of thunder and words that can pierce like lightening, but after all is said and done, the storm eventually passes. Soon the clouds move away and a rainbow of hope appears. I'm le...

Making caramel apples was SO easy, that Brooklynn was able to do it herself. We're not super cool enough to have melted and rolled out the caramel ourselves (this time). Instead, we used some store bought caramel wrappers ($2). After the apples were washed, Brooklynn pre-heated the oven to 200 degrees. She wrapped each apple carefully and placed them on the baking sheet covered with wax paper. The apples only have to bake for 5-8 minutes. Just enough time to melt the caramel and soften up the insides of the apple. This allows the popsicle sticks to slide in pretty easily. Once the apples are removed from the over, she jammed the sticks into the apple tops, and covered them with orange sprinkles for her personal touch and... ... ta da! The proud baker.

I decided to make some changes to the love painting. As I evolve, so will love. "Don't let the darkness of the past cover up the brightness of the future."

I finally finished the NYC painting I have been working on... I think. I may add more to it when I feel like it, but for now it's done. *hi5*

Shortcake, our strawberry box, hasn't bore any fruit yet. We are anxious for the berries to come out so we can make fresh jam for our bagels and toast. Mmmmm... Oscar, our Meyer lemon tree, has been growing for almost a year now. We had hoped she would produce enough fruit to make fresh lemonade, but it doesn't look that way. We'll have to settle for using the lemons on fruit salads, guacamole dip, and any zest needed in recipes. The only plat to produce so far is Sweet T, our tomato plant. She's been producing ever since we were given her. Brooklynn just picked off 12 little tomatoes tonight. We'll use them to make salsa and ketchup. We really dream of having a real garden some day and planting according to the seasons. Doing so isn't so easy on a balcony of a condo, but we're trying to make do.