~Yummy salad

I made this lovely spinach, edamame, shrimp salad just now with balsamic vinaigrette and then proceeded to put my "fancy" salad in a used coolwhip bowl! So classy eh? I had just rinsed the bowl out to recycle and it was the closest thing to me LOL I just can't bring myself to take a pic of my lovely salad in it's equally lovely bowl :-) anywho, here's a really simple basic recipe for the vinaigrette (below). I sauteed some shrimp in olive oil, threw some spinach in my bowl and grabbed some edamame out of the freezer and threw it in the pan when the shrimp was done (which helped defrost them + cool the shrimp off quicker) then ta-da! it's lunch. Easy breezy! I also had a spinach/mango/strawberry smoothie - no, I take that back - I had 2! Cody's not here and he usually halves it with me. So I HAD to drink it all heehee. And now I'm full as all get out!!! (whatever that is!)

Roast Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette
1/2 head garlic
1/2 t. honey mustard
1/2 t. honey
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T. olive oil
salt and pepper
2 T. water
Heat oven to 400. Slice 1" off top of garlic. Exposing cloves, wrap i foil and roast until soft and fragrant- 40-45 minutes. Cool slightly. Squeeze cloves into a mini chipper or processor. Add remaining ingredients and 2 T warm water blend until smooth. Refrigerate up to 7 days.

I have to admit tho, I was in a big honking hurry today, because it was already 1:30 and I was starrrving, so I just grabbed some minced garlic out of the fridge to make the vinaigrette :-) It's not considered cheating if you're starving to death. Didn't you know that?

~Tis the season....Deer season!

Now that D is back from SC it's time to go over some safety lessons, lessons in climbing a tree. This was during the day of course. I'd love to see Cody doing this in the dark at 3am while trying to be quite LOL So far he doesn't have a really good track record at sitting still, so hopefully he'll have it down pat this year and get a deer. I love how every time Cody hit the practice target he'd grin at his Dad as tho to say "aw shucks". And I love the utter concentration on his face, hanging on everything D was saying to him :-)

~I'm ready for Halloween!!!

Can you guess what I am, huh? huh? Can ya?! heehee I'm a Vintage Housewife!!! LOL Which isn't such a stretch from my daily title of "housewife" except I prefer to go by the term of "professional homemaker" or "housewife extraordinaire" :-) I should be good at it, I've been on the job for that past 15 years and haven't been fired yet. When my sister gave me this dress that she found in a vintage shop I just HAD to try it on. When I discovered it fit, I HAD to run and tease my hair and give it a good flip, then find my pearls and my "L" pin and pencil in my eyebrows. I just wish to heaven I had time to make a frilly white apron. Then I would wear my ensemble to Courtney's Fall party on Friday. I would definately look the room mother part, a room Mom that showed up 50 years late :-)

I even had my "L" on but it's for Lori not Laverne and I don't like milk with my Pepsi.

~The floor is almost dunzo :-)

Back in September Duane layed tile in the kitchen and mud room. He got some of the grout done while I was in MI but neither of us cared for the grout (that HE picked out) that dried to a whitish color. Did I mention that D's color blind LOL So he ground all the grout out and I volunteered to do the (re)grout. Ya, I know I'm crazy, but it was fun, like icing a really large cookie :-) Mixing the grout stinks and all the wait time and wiping wasn't fun tho. D's been gone to SC for a month now and I still haven't gotten the sealer on OOPS! He'll be coming home soon so guess what I'm gonna do today? I gotta get this finished :-)

~Fall Party

Last weekend the kiddos from Good News Club had a Fall Party. I'm helping out this year, so I got to go too :-) Marcia did a good job! We carved pumpkins in the toasty warm garage and had loads of pizza and lots of games. Marcia can make a game out of anything. She was my Sunday school teacher when I was little too so it's kinda cool to pass her on to Courtney :-)

ooowey gooey pumpkin guts

Courtney's Kitty pumpkinBible story

acorn collecting contest
Nort and Kristen could have stayed on the trampline all day

~Nie Nie update

If you read my blog about Stephanie and Christian Nielsons plane crash last month, here is a beautiful tear jerker of an Update on the family. And a video of their girls singing at a benefit concert.

~Happy Fall!!!

~Ramseyer Farms~

Help! I'm SOOOO tired & I'm lost in a cornfield!!!!
Good Job - you found wooster!

We spent the day at Ramseyer Farms with friends, Tiffany, Sawyer & Tanner. What a blast! There is so much to do. There were 2 corn mazes (5 acres each). The birthday cake maze looks really difficult, and it was, but we had a picture to guide us so it was bit easier. I can't imagine trying to doing it without a lil help tho. Funny thing is the kids still swear that THEY are the ones that got us out of there. It probably had nothing to do with Tif and I saying "go right" "go left" "that's a dead end up there, come back" nope, probably not. We couldn't have had a better weekend! After it's been in the 50's + 60's for the past few weeks, the 80's were a welcome surprise. It started getting awfully warm running around the maze, poor Tanner was so hot he started strippin LOL We were REALLY happy when we found the end of the maze (see Sawyer celebrating?).....

The Ohio maze "looks" easier than the other maze, as long as you can find the Indiana state boarder you could find your way out - no prob. But it actually ended up being a bit harder because the kids wanted to find the stamps for the back of our paper. All 6 stamps formed the great seal when complete. So we ended up running all over the state (literally) because the stamp stations were hidden - finding them was suppose to be 1/2 the fun. We spent a long time looking for the last one, but I finally called it quits. It was just too hot by late afternoon, I actually came home with a sunburned!

I think the kids favorite thing was the hay bale obstacle course, followed by the spud slinger :-)

I think the slide that ended in a ton of corn was cool. There was a wagon train pulled by a john deere. Tanner really liked the John Deere made out of hay bales. And the bunny village with the "hare solon" was adorable. They thought of imaginative way to feed the goats. There was a mini corn maze for the smaller kids and several box mazes that were pretty impossible to get lost in (for adults anyways) The Akron zoo had some critters there. There was a big Cornbox (instead of a sandbox) There was live music & some farm animals to feed. Lots of games. And of course a hayride & LOTS of pumpkins.(we didn't buy ours there, we get our from the amish neighbors for $1 or $2) And lots of food like pumpkin donuts, chili dogs, ice cream, cider, fresh chips and fries from the farm potatoes :-)

spud shooters

Jeez how can he be that tall already? He's going to catch up with his Dad soon!!!!

~Findings

#1 I've been having trouble finding a whole wheat bread recipe I'd like to be loyal to. So this morning on the Today Show, Mark Bittman made an Easy, Fast, No Knead version that I'm going to try this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes...........


#2 Goodwill has their own freaking website! Whoa--now you can buy other peoples junk, ebay style!

#3 I found sweet potato chips that I love (and so does the hamster!) at Walmart. We don't have a Whole Foods store within 50 miles of us, so when I find an item like this I get happy :-) Ya for only having 2 ingredients!!! Farm fresh food is easy to come by out here in the country during the summer/fall, but winter is creeping up fast, I'll have less access to the store and fresh foods so I'm turning into a lil chipmunk and stocking up on food, at least I put up some beans and corn already so I can have that 'straight out of the garden, yet slightly frozen cuz it's winter' taste during the snowy weather :-) I have a feeling I'll be eating alot of these....



#4 I found this super comfy dress yesterday, so in true Kasmira style I had to try it on a couple different ways and take piccies. I'll be honest, I've got brown patterned tights to go with, I was just being too lazy to put them on over my pastey white legs :-) And I plan on getting black fishnets to go with the black boots, I actually had my leggings on in that pic because I was getting ready for bed LOL Did you notice I have on 2 different black boots? The one on the left is regular tall boots, the one on the right is my warm cozy snow boots-at least I can dress them up and still get out in the snow this winter. So what do you think, love it or hate it? (let me repeat: it's SUPER comfy) It also comes in grey, black and dark purple.



#5 Left over chunks of chicken/mushrooms from last nights wraps taste mighty good with cucumber and swiss. LOL can you tell that was an after thought and I'm eating right now ?

~Another Cold Friday Football Game :-)

Another Cold Friday night football game starring ....... the oh so shy Courtney! (wearing the red skirt/black gloves) The little kids cheered with the high school cheerleaders at the Homecoming game last Friday. My child (who doesn't talk to big people) had quite a good time cheering to a large crowd of big people. I was shocked!!!! I was one proud momma :-) Can you tell she's having a blast?!!?

Nort & Mi

~Baby Gracie

Back in April I had a prayer request post about Gracie. I couldn't even bring myself to post this yesterday. Baby Gracie lost her battle to live Wednesday morning. I'm am completely utterly heartbroken for Amanda & Todd . (Todd and I go back about 25 years). They just might be the bravest people I know. They have been so strong in their faith thru all of this. 7 months of having their little baby in the hospital on the brink of life, brink of death, whichever way you want to look at it. What they've been thru makes my daughter, Courtney's open heart surgery seem like a tonsilectomy. I just can't even imagine.

Todd & Gracie

From Todd and Amanda:
The last few hours have been a whirlwind!! But, please do not be shocked and saddened--we are rejoicing. Gracie has been given the victory! We were fighting to keep her here and she fought with us each minute of each day without looking back....back when the Lord Jesus called her name, she obeyed and everlasting peace and comfort began for her--to never end!!