This Book Will Make Your Family Feel Normal

I've had a chance to do a bit of reading over the past few weeks; managing to finish something like 4 or 5 books which is a lot for me! I love reading but with little free time and a habit of reading only a few pages before I go to bed means that books get read very sloooooowly.

I recently finished this book called The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Oh. My. Word. What a fantastic and yet crazy book. And to top this, the book isn't fiction- it's the memoirs of the author's childhood.



The book recalls moments and memories from Jeanette Walls' youth and tells them with the innocent approach to life that only a child can have. The events are recounted just as the author remembers them and are unspoiled by adult reasoning or any bitterness towards the past. You feel like you are a child alongside her experiencing all the craziness and taking life in stride. Her family was completely dysfunctional and they lived in absolute poverty but I couldn't help but laugh alongside the author as she told stories of dramatic hospital escapes and cardboard bunk beds. It will make you feel blessed by your own "normal" life. I seriously couldn't put this book down!

Bye Bye Tomatoes

Okay, I finally did it. I ripped out my tomato plants. Yes, they were already dying (dead!) but it's a step in my garden that means summer is officially over and I like to live in denial every autumn.

This year I planted a variety that I hadn't grown before called Lemon Boy. They are a fairly common yellow tomato. I think I got them at Canadian Tire of all places.

I had them planted in the large herb box on my deck where they got regular attention and sunshine. They had a bit of a slow start with our cool summer up til about mid July but eventually they took off and became very happy tomato plants. Here's a photo from when they were just starting to produce.



The fruit was a beautiful colour and had a great taste to it! My only gripe with them is that they took forever to make fruit and ripen. I planted them as 8" tall seedings back in April/May but they didn't really start to produce until late August and September. They should have been producing by late July so I think that the cool summer put them back by about a month.


Below is the info on the tomato variety.

Lemon Boy tomato
Indeterminate- 72 days
yellow flesh- 6-8 oz size
heavy producer

Mmm Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

October is lovely for so many reasons; beautiful colours in the trees, fresh crisp air, a break after the craziness of summer and September, and PUMPKINS!!!!

I love driving by fields of pumpkins. There's quite a few of them on the island; especially on the highway towards the airport. They always bring a smile to my face. Green fields with orange polka dots are just so cute!

I, personally, am a fan of pretty well any recipe that includes pumpkin in it. Today, I have been trying a new roasted pumpkin seed recipe. I got this recipe from a friend at work and it's so delicious that I wanted to share it. Recipes are made for sharing after all so enjoy!

Jack-Be-Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

1 cup (250 mL) pumpkin seeds

2 tsp (10 mL) soy sauce

1 tsp (5 mL) lemon juice

3/4 tsp (4 mL) chili powder

3/4 tsp (4 mL) hot pepper sauce

1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt 1 pinch cumin

Preparation:

Toss pumpkin seeds with soy sauce, lemon juice, chili powder, hot pepper sauce, salt and pinch cumin. Spread on baking sheet; roast in 250°F (120°C) oven for 1 hour until dry.

A New Mug for Tea

I had posted about this on facebook a while ago but finally got to blogging about it now--oops!
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A few weeks ago, I went with my parents to the cute little artisan community of Cowichan Bay. I had never been there before and I loved what I found. This little seaside town has an awesome fromagerie (mmm cheese) and bakery, and a great pub, cute little clothing shops and lots of different artist studios.

One of these artist studios is a little pottery shop called the Mud Room. It's owned by a lady named Colleen, who happens to be my second cousin. I didn't know this until the day we went up there and it was really neat. I guess artsy-fartsy-ness runs in the family!


Colleen makes all kinds of wonderful pottery and her skill at the pottery wheel is amazing! The day that I was there, I came out with beautiful a new mug in Colleen's signature yellow colour (she mixes the colour for the glaze herself) with a dragonfly. I love it!


Someday, I would like to get a teapot and more mugs to match mine. Isn't this teapot just awesome? She is just so talented!

Photos from Mud Room website

Blessings Painting

Okay, maybe I'm weird but when I create art, I tend to get a little attached to my creations. It's as though each piece of art holds little snippets of my life. Memories of places where I lived, or life lessons I was learning or emotions I was feeling at the time. To me, it's more than just a visual stimulation. There's stuff going on in the brain too. I don't know if that makes any sense. It may be one of those "it made sense in my head' moments!

While there are some paintings that I will never ever sell, I've decided to put my Blessings painting up for sale in my Etsy shop. I really like this painting, and as much as I may feel an attachment to it, I feel that if it can bless other people then that is more profound than if I just keep it selfishly for myself. So, here it is, listed at HornCat Creations with some more photos and a better description. Feel free to have a look!

Some New Paintings

I've been reading Kelly Rae Roberts' book Taking Flight and getting my creativity engines going. I promised a few folks some pictures of my latest creations so here they are! (Apologies for the darkish photos. I didn't want to wait until tomorrow morning to take photos with natural light.)

The first project is an altered book that I've been working on. I'm enjoying this project. I like making artwork that is somewhat functional as well as different from the norm. I'm still not decided on whether or not I will keep the book when I'm finished or if I will try to sell it.

I used the theme of a robin and the word Believe. I realize that these are a bit unseasonal right now seeing as it's autumn but lots of my friends have been commenting lately on how autumn is their favourite season. I agree, the colours outside are very pretty but spring is my favourite season. I love how everything comes back to life and quietly promises that summer will soon follow.




The second project was done on a canvas that I got from work. The canvas had been labeled incorrectly and the front was splattered rendering it unusable for our projects at the studio. I took it home to do something creative with it. I kept with the robin theme and used the word Blessings and some Bible passages.

Fondant Class

For the last 3 1/2 weeks I've been taking a weekly Wilton fondant class at Michaels and I can't even say how much fun it was. It really surprised me how much I liked it. I enjoyed the first course too, which is a prerequisite for doing the fondant course, but it involved a lot of piping and mixing different consistencies of icing. Working with fondant was a lot more tactile; at times it reminded me of working with clay or sculpture.

The first three weeks of the course covered a lot of flower-making. We made all kinds of pretty flowers: daisies, roses, calla lilies, carnations and mums. We also made a large bow, like what you'd see on a birthday present and covered a cake board in fondant.


For the final class, we learned how to cover an entire cake with fondant. I really wanted to take advantage of having a Wilton teacher present so I brought in a square cake which is slightly more difficult to cover than a round cake. It ended up not being as hard as I thought it would be. After rolling out the fondant and flipping it on to the cake, I had to start with the corners of the cake (not the sides). And then trim along the bottom.

It's amazing what a coat of fondant will do to a cake! I wish I had taken a photo of before and after. My cake had had a little accident before the class so it was a little lopsided, plus the butter cream icing was starting to melt (not to mention that I hadn't smoothed out the butter cream icing very well and in some places it wasn't thick enough). Throwing on a coat of fondant made it look so smooth and pretty!

Here it is after decorating!




Some final thoughts after the course... I would never put a cake directly on to a fondant covered cake board again. It sucked all the moisture out of the bottom layer of my cake. Also, if I ever do a ball border again, I would prep the balls ahead of time. It took 45 minutes to get all of that border done and then I ran out of time to finish my flowers.