The First Thanksgiving

When I say the "first" Thanksgiving, I don't mean the one in which the Native Americans saved the pilgrims. I mean the first Thanksgiving that I've had at our new place, in which I (sorta) played the part on the Native Americans and my extended family (not really) played the part of pilgrims. They have yet to come back and demand my land, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Thanksgiving was a big deal to me this year because it was my first time cooking a turkey. Also, it was my first time hosting a party of 10+ in which the guests weren't expected to graze off a bag of chips, a vegetable plate, and whatever beer could be found in the fridge. This was a CLASSY meal and my first attempt to prove that I was in fact edging my way into adulthood.

My first issue was that I was missing some of the key classy kitchen supplies. When my husband and I were registering for wedding presents, we were living in an apartment with a kitchen the size of a broom closet. I enjoy cooking, but I knew I could not fit half the stuff I wanted in the kitchen. I had to pass on the items that were use-once-maybe-twice-a-year-if-you're-lucky types of things, so I was missing those all important Thanksgiving dinner items: butter dish, gravy boat, and a turkey roasting pan. I know I referred to this as an issue, but it was the best issue to have. It gave me an opportunity to visit Pryde's, the wonderful, local, hole-in-the-wall kitchen store in downtown Westport. They have kitchen crap piled EVERYWHERE. It's orderly, but it's certainly no Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Every inch of this store is taken up, and they have every kitchen doo-hickey you could imagine. I got to enjoy a free cup of coffee while I ogled their gigantic supply of Fiestaware. We got a lot of beautiful Fiestaware for our wedding, and I wanted to continue the colorful trend in my Thanksgiving service. I hadn't been able to find a Fiesta gravy dish in the larger retail stores, and Pryde's had them in every color of the rainbow. I got a beautiful lemongrass gravy boat, because what goes better with brown gravy than bright green (just go with it). My parents, either out of love or trying to make sure I didn't embarrass myself during my first Thanksgiving, rounded out my collection with a Fiesta butter dish in flamingo and a stainless steel turkey roaster.

Just like the pilgrims used hundreds of yeas ago.

So I had my kitchenwares; now I needed to put them to use. It's overwhelming how many different turkey recipes are out there, but lucky for me, Food Network Magazine's November issue was really an idiot's guide to Thanksgiving. I used their basic recipes to make what I think turned out to be a pretty darn good turkey. My gravy was so good that my dad said so, which is a big deal coming from a man who has worked in and around the restaurant industry most of his adult life. My husband made his signature mashed potatoes, and the rest of my family filled in the gaps with all of their delicious sides.

20lbs of beauty

Apparently making a turkey was not a enough of a challenge, so I also made my own centerpieces based on something I had seen on Pinterest. With the guidance of my husband, I (mostly him) drilled small holes from the tops of gourds and inserted votives. I don't know how safe it was to have open flames on the table as my family handed dishes back and forth, but no one caught on fire from my festive table decorations. I think I learned in leadership class and from Stephen Covey that this is what we call a win-win situation. They win by not being caught on fire. I win because something I took from Pinterest actually worked out.

Don't burn yourself reaching for the butter!

Pinterest FTW

Overall, the first Thanksgiving at our country home was a success. Both the food and the company were exceptional. My favorite part was seeing my family sitting on our porch, swinging on our tree swing, kicking the bouncy ball, using our playset, and enjoying each other's company. It's a great way to break in a home.

Fall is in the Air

Fall is in the air and so are all the leaves. Well, they're actually ALL OVER my yard. I know I should have seen this coming, but we bought our house in March when all the trees were barely getting their leaves back. I loved how many trees we had in our yard because I was getting tired of all the pansy, just-planted-because-we-tore-out-all-signs-of-life trees in the suburbs. But with so many trees comes a bajillion leaves. What are we to do? I have a fence, so I can't just wait for them to blow into my neighbors' yards. Is it really worth it to put 100 compost bags of leaves on the curb? (I've seen the houses that said "Yes" to this last question, and I secretly judged them.)

"We laugh leaves in your general direction! Bwhahahahaha!"

My dad told me that if I mowed frequently enough, the mower would mulch all the leaves. I rode the John Deere around the yard a couple of weekends ago, and I was fairly satisfied to see grass in my lawn again. BUT a storm came that night and knocked all the rest of the leaves in my yard. I'm fully prepared to go back and mulch the yard again, but now I have to deal with the piles of leaves that have nestled themselves on my back porch. Mr. Deere can't get into these nooks.

Blerg.

My father-in-law has so graciously offered to lend us his leaf sucker/mulcher thingy to tackle this project, but we're going to wait and make sure the trees don't have any more leaves to throw at us. I think this will mean more compost bags than I would prefer to put out, but my only other option would be to collect all the leaves and make thousands of leaf pressings in wax paper. I'm pretty sure I'm losing country-cred either way since I should be burning all of this.

On a final note, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I'm not sure if we'll get any trick-or-treaters out here (which is sad), but we have a lot of candy (which is happy). Maybe I should give out waxed paper pressed leaves?

Hedge Apple Hell

      I have always enjoyed seeing green hedge apples strewn across open fields. In fact, I like them so much that they made a guest appearance in my engagement photos. But my love was lost when I realized I had one of those prolific trees sitting it my front lawn.

"Let's make sure to not buy a house with a hedge apple tree after we get married." "Okay, I'll try to remember that."

     When we bought our house, I noticed that there were some hedge apples around the base of our front trees, working almost as a mulch. They eventually decomposed, summer came, and I didn't see any hedge apples for a few months. 

This is my second bin today.

     A handful of hedge apples started showing up in my yard a few weeks ago, but the squirrels made quick work of them. Unfortunately, the squirrels have not been holding up their end of our hedge apple bargain (many of my other trees have nuts of them now, so I get to enjoy the gentle crashes of discarded nut shells hitting my roof in the morning). My front yard, my driveway, my cul-de-sac, and my neighbors' yards are now covered in hedge apples (it doesn't help that I live on a hill!). While I would have probably let them mellow, I felt bad that my neighbors had to deal with my hedge apples, so I've started picking them up when I get home from work. I took a page from the previous homeowners, and I've been using the hedge apples as a pretty mulch (also I'm too lazy and cheap to buy mulch). 

fml

     Picking up the hedge apples has become more of an endeavor than I expected. Every time I think my hedge apple tree is done dropping its bundles of joy, I wake up to find my yard once again covered. But after getting two bins full today, I'm convinced they're almost all gone. We'll see.......

Please let this be the last bin of the season!

  

The Spirit of Making

When you live in the suburbs, you're close to about everything your consumer-driven heart could want. Before I moved to our country home, I lived in between two major shopping centers. I could turn right OR left out of my apartment complex and be at Target in five minutes. With everything within reach, or at least close enough to be shipped to us in two business days, I think we've lost the ability to make or to even think about making stuff for ourselves. Yet, I feel that with a more country-esque environment comes a spirit of making.

This spirit of making afflicted my husband back when our country home was just a twinkle in our eye. He's a computer engineer, so his brain is always thinking of cool things to make/build/crush Windows. When he asked me a few years ago if I wanted to go to a Maker Faire in San Francisco, I agreed without really knowing what I was getting  myself into. Turns out it was a super cool two-day event where people show off the stuff they make. Yes, there were women with quilts and other crafts, but it was predominantly neat (Chill out. Quilting is neat too.) projects like a robot giraffe and a bike the draws as you pedal. There were soldering (pronounced sod-dering) stations that taught kids (and perhaps twenty-something ladies who dated engineers) to solder and make cool electronic kits. Adam Savage from Mythbusters spoke on the main stage. Overall, it was just a neat event that encouraged everybody to deconstruct and reconstruct the world around them, to know how things work, and to make. 

Who knew molten lead could be so fun?

Adam Savage is a righteous dude.

The spirit of making stayed with us after San Fran, and lucky for us, Kansas City has held its own Maker Faire twice already. Now that we're in our own home, and free to use power tools at all times of the night, my husband and I have set forth making that which we could have bought from the store or internet but preferred to try on our own.

Project #1- The Cat Tree

We got out a wooden ladder to replace a light bulb in our living room in our apartment one day. The ladder is now and has been a (semi) permanent fixture in all my living rooms. Why? My cat LOVES it. She races up and down the rungs, sharpens her nails on it, and sits on the "This is NOT a step" section while watching birds out the window. As you may imagine, I'm not too stoked about a ladder in the main area of our house, so my husband agreed that we needed a cat tower. When we looked at the ones at big chain pet stores, we weren't excited about the designs or the prices, so my husband decided to build one himself. Not only was it cheaper (if you don't count all the tools he bought to create it), but it had all the elements that our cat, Dharma, would love: a ladder, a hammock, and plenty of looky-outy places. Behold the awesome cat tree:

Note the ladder right next to it. We're slowly weaning her off it.

Dharma tries out her hammock. My husband  made that too!

Project #2- The Necklace Holder

I joined Pinterest around the time we moved. It has been an excellent resource for cool country-inspired crafts. One of the things I saw and liked was a necklace holder made out of a scrap of wood and door handles. I found some beautiful (and well priced!) handles at World Market. With the help of a drill (and my husband), I had a cool necklace holder in minutes. 

Follow me on Pinterest by clicking on the link on the right hand side of this page. You may enjoy my board "Country Home."

There are still a lot of projects we have up our sleeves. My next project (c/o Pinterest) will be to turn a mason jar into a soap dispenser. I'll let you know how that turns out!

SPEAKING OF MAKING Bike MS is less than two weeks away! I made my goal (thanks to some lovely people), but I'm trying to help my dad make his. He's only $45 from his goal, so if you have a few dollars to throw his way, he and I would certainly appreciate it. Donate here!

We (sorta) Bought a Zoo

I thought the deer that wandered behind our apartment were pretty amazing, but our new house is Wild Kingdom in comparison. Yes, we also have deer at the house, but we also have so much more!

During my first few days at the house, I noticed a rather large bird in our backyard, and I had no idea what it was. I described it to my dad as pheasant-looking, to which he replied, "It's probably a turkey." A turkey?! This bird did not look like the five-fingered, colorful drawings of my childhood. It was brown and boring. I was not convinced it was a turkey until a couple days later when a male turkey with one of those red things I used to draw on my Thanksgiving turkeys' necks came tromping through my yard. He looked more like a turkey. We have had tons of turkeys come through our yard since, and nothing is more entertaining than watching them awkwardly run away from you. Don't worry - I'm not chasing them. They run away even if they see me move in front of the back windows.

Dharma and turkey have a stare down.

 Another fun guest we have had in our yard is the box turtle. Both my husband and I have a love of turtles that stems from our youth when we brought box turtles home, fed them strawberries, and cried when they (surprisingly) ran away. I have a knack for intruding on turtle nappy times in my garden. My favorite moments are when I look out the kitchen window and see turtles trucking through my yard.

Ahhh! He's so cute.

"Gotta go! There are some strawberries in your garden calling my name."

These are just a couple of animals out of many. The rest have been too fast, stinky, or scary to take photos of. I have seen a raccoon explore my backyard and then climb the tree right next to the house. I have smelled skunks and had the pleasure of finding skunk body parts in my front planter (if it was skunk fight club, no one would tell me about it.) I saw two cute skunks running euphorically side by side in a neighbor's yard, but I did not see a live skunk in my yard until a couple weeks ago. He was cute, but I didn't pet him.

One of the most curious and elusive findings was the skink. I had no idea that there were lizards in Kansas. When I saw lizards on walls in Puerto Rico and Hawaii, I thought, "Wow, we have nothing like this in Kansas." FALSE. We have skinks with blue tails. They're fun to watch on my back patio as they chase bugs.

This is an artistic rendering of what a skink in my backyard might look like.

Other fun reptile findings include small toads and large snakes. I have found small toads enjoying the mist of my garden. I have also found them stuck to my front windows at night. I've just seen one snake. I got out of the car one day and saw a gigantic snake sitting in front of my garage. He looked a little disfigured, and I was worried he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when my husband left for work that morning. However, the snake was gone when I checked on him later.

Other than all the animals I have seen, I have heard howling outside my window at night and have yet to figure out what it was. I'm pretty sure it's Jacob from Twilight, but Kansas is pretty far from Washington.

So if you're ever bored and hankering to see some animals, come on down to the Smuber Zoo. Admission is free, and we take no responsibility for what you think is okay to touch.

Days of our Spiders

I've been spending a lot of time at home this summer because I only had to teach one course online. When you're home alone for as long as I am, you may get a little stir crazy. One way I've kept myself entertained is by making up names and situations for the daddy long legs that have gotten into the house. I haven't seen daddy long legs in these numbers since my parents and I lived in a house in Missouri right next to a forest. While my suburban tendency would be to kill them all, I have spared them and enjoyed their bug-eating company.

There are daddy long legs all over the outside of our home, and I guess to keep warm on 100+ degree days, they have been huddling themselves together.

Spider huddle!

They also creepily look in the glass panes that are on either side of our front door. A few have made their way into the house and set up bug-eating shop on my ceiling. While my normal reaction would be to reintroduce these guys to their maker, I have become a softy and a budding spider drama novelist. These are the days of our spiders.....

The first daddy long legs we found was in our bathroom. His life was spared due to my lack of height, and the longer he stayed, the more I grew used to him. Yes, it was a little frightening that he was always hovering over the part of the bathroom I needed to use, but he seemed sure-footed. He became Aragorn after my husband confused spider and strider. A jealous daddy long legs tried to come and unseat Aragorn, but this spider, who we named Boromir, unfortunately came into the bathtub and suffered a watery death. Aragorn reigned supreme for about another week, but unfortunately, he met his end last night. He wasn't in the bathroom when I took a shower last night, which worried me. I was even more worried (ie frightened to death) when I found him chilling in my sink. I figured he'd return to his rightful place, but I found him dead on our jacuzzi this morning. Who knows if he was poisoned, batted to death by my cat, or killed off by old age. I have my theories..... RIP Aragorn.

These three are currently in my office. Notice their love for huddling. When there were just two, my husband and I referred to them as Peter Parker and Mary Jane. A third, Octavius, entered the scene and a few days later had joined the huddle. I'm not quite sure how their story will unfold, but I will probably watch as I prepare syllabi and my fall online course over the next couple weeks.

I'm pretty sure I've guaranteed that no one will ever visit my house again.......

Pumpkins...in July?

I love fall. It is the best season hands down. I love the beautiful leaves (especially the orange ones, as you will see below), the crisp weather that coaxes me into cardigans, the pumpkin spice lattes, the comfortable bikes rides, and the celebration of my glorious birth. Yet, it is not TRULY fall until I see pumpkins showing up in front of grocery stores. I have had a love affair with pumpkins since I was a child; I can't get enough of their orangey roundness. But something has happened this year that has thrown my seasonal clock out of whack. THIS happened:

Pumpkins in July? Does not compute.

I started pumpkin seeds in the apartment after we had decided to buy our house. We went away for a few days to visit a friend in Ohio, and when I came back...BAM! A pumpkin sprout had punched a chunk a dirt out of the way and was greedily taking in the sunlight. By the time we moved in the house, the pumpkin plants were becoming so tall that they couldn't hold themselves up anymore. After I cleaned up the garden space, I immediately transferred the pumpkins to their new home. They went crazy! I had no idea how much space they could take up.

"Watch out!" says that tomato plant. (If you haven't seen the Honeybadger video, this comment isn't funny to you. Also, get some culture.)

Kansas has been unseasonably warm (which is why those leaves are so droopy, don't judge) which has caused a lot of crops to show up earlier than usual. My pumpkins have been no exception. As of last week, I have picked THREE pumpkins. THREE! And they aren't even advertising pumpkin spices lattes yet...

Needless to say, I'm experiencing an existential crisis that only a person who is just teaching one online class this summer (and mostly watching Korean romantic comedies) could have. Pumpkins used to bring me so much joy, but outside of fall, they seem out of place. I even question if I'll grow them next year because I've taken away the need to go to a pumpkin patch, an annual tradition for my husband and me. But on the less emo side, it was fun to see them grow, and I know they will last and be beautiful until Halloween and beyond. You might be thinking, "Can't she just put them in her basement until fall?" The answer is no. That's sad. 

Until fall comes, I'll just have to appreciate the pumpkins and find something to pass the time.......

The many things in my kitchen that are orange, i.e., passing the time.