Halloween at Work

This was my 2nd Halloween at work and we do a safe house trick-or-treating event for kids and show Halloween cartoons. This time it was "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" I love it...

This is the group of candy givers, minus the werewolf. I LOVE the costume on the far right!

 

Here's a close-up...LaDonna on the right, Fallon on the left.

 

Nichole and Mae! Nichole is a volunteer and Mae works at the park next door.

 

...and I came up with a real costume this year too. It's mostly from stuff I already had in my closet. The gold earrings came from the dollar store and the boots came from the thrift store in Yerington for $2! At least it's better than the footie pjs I wore last year!

 

Out of Pumpkins (Fall Cooking Part 2)

Well... I finished my 2nd batch of pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins and they worked! The first batch I don't think I added enough cinnamon (and pumpkin pie spice) but for the 2nd one I added a little more cinnamon and ginger.

 

I still have some cooked pumpkin left so I'm going to look for a pumpkin bread recipe to use up the rest of the pumpkin and the chocolate chips. Then I can go buy another pumpkin or two, and start over!

I'm sure I posted this link somewhere on here but I couldn't find it. Here it is again: the BEST (healthy) muffin recipe I've ever used. The recipe is for carrot-spice muffins but I've used the same basic recipe (wet and dry ingredients) to make different kinds of muffins including apple/pecan, cranberry-orange and pumpkin! I even used it once to make blueberry muffins for Dave...but his review was: "These would be great with chocolate chips instead of blueberries!" This time I subsituted pumpkin for applesauce and the yogurt. I ended up having to add 1/4 C of milk for more moisture but it worked great otherwise.

If you try these let me know what you think!

Fall Cooking

Today was my last of 3 days off this week so instead of moving...like I was supposed to be doing...I ended up cooking ALL day! I keep buying squash and pumpkins because it's fall and I like them, but I decided I should actually do something with them instead of letting them just go bad!

This is butternut squash soup. I would normally cook everything together and just puree it, but Dave likes "chunks" in his soup, so I baked the squash and pureed it. I roasted an onion, potatoes and sweet potatoe in the oven, then decided roasted garlic would be good too. I roasted four cloves of garlic for about 10 minutes and took them out of the oven. One clove decided to explode, so I had garlic all over me. I'm not sure where the rest of it went!

 

 I added the garlic, then added roasted potatoes, onion and sweet potato. I also added parsley, more garlic, salt, pepper and paprika...and half a jalapeno just for a little spice. I liked it a lot but it seems like it needed something else. I'd bought frozen rolls to go with it, but then discovered (when we were almost ready to eat) that it takes 1 1/2 hours to bake the rolls. I think those will be for tomorrow night.

 

I had bought a small pie pumpkin so today I decided to make pumpkin pie(s). I found a recipe here for how to make pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin instead of a can. I used this same recipe last year and it worked great. Once, I made pie from a butternut squash just to try it out and it was pretty good. I don't think anyone knew the difference!

 

I cooked a pumpkin a while ago and froze it so I could use it later (what I really wanted from it was the seeds...). I thawed it out today, planning to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins but I left the muffin tin at the other house (6 miles away). I decided it was worth it to make the trip for the pan, got home to make the muffins and discovered the flour and other ingredients were still at the other house. At that point I gave up and decided to make them tomorrow night after work!

 

I love Fall! I even bought pumpkin beer to go with everything.

 

Settled?

Not yet! ...but hopefully soon. Dave has a full time job with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. My probation is over. I will be moving soon to a (hopefully) permanent house and I will finally be able to unpack all of my stuff that's been sitting in boxes in a shed since December.

October 3 was my first day on the job last year. September 20 (last Thursday) last year was my last day at Dead Horse Point State Park. I'd been there for 9 years and Moab was home. Leaving was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do...but I also think it was a good move for me and obviously for Dave.

Work's been going good. New supervisor (finally) and winter is coming, so that means more time to learn about the park and its history, and to plan programs for next year.

So hopefully soon I will be able to post that I'm finally SETTLED here in Nevada! I will have my own room with my craft stuff...so I won't have to dig through boxes to find a needle and a cross-stitch design. I'm probably most excited about that...and the fact that I'll have a couple bookshelves and I will be able to unpack all my books! ...yes, even the Garfield ones.

Wish me luck :)

My new home!!

Virginia City, NV

I was off today and had the day to myself so I decided to go up to Virginia City again to walk around.

The boardwalk on Main St. Lots of shops, "saloons," restaurants and museums.

View of Virginia City

I decided to take a tour of the Best & Belcher Mine under the Ponderosa Saloon. The family that was also on the tour was from Logan, UT.

Tour guide.

The Silver Queen hotel and wedding chapel. Each dot is a silver dollar.

The winding staircase at the Old Washoe Club. Doesn't look sturdy enough...haha.

The chandelier at the Old Washoe Club.

I've heard people call it a tourist trap but it's a great place to go walk around and sight-see. I like pretending I'm a tourist! And there's a lot I haven't seen up there yet. This is the first time I've made it up there with a real camera though, instead of my cell phone "camera." I'm happy with the pictures I got! It's up in the mountains so it's a little cooler than the valleys below.

Random Stuff

I haven't posted in a while because not much has been going on. I'll post soon about my mom's visit but in the meantime....

I met the Governor of Nevada! Governor Sandoval visited the state parks as part of a promotion, to get Nevadans out into their parks. He and his crew were very nice...I did a history talk and let him fire the cannon. I passed around hardtack, then they walked through the ruins...and headed over to Buckland Station where Mike was waiting, dressed up as Samuel Buckland.

I was really, really nervous, but our boss said I only sounded nervous a couple times...ha ha.

 The picture is from my phone, so it's not the best. He toured the museum and I opened the door to the Gaurd Room...hoping to get a picture of him locked inside. He didn't shut the door though, so this is the best I got. I'll have better pictures soon, when the woman from the Nevada Commission on Tourism sends me hers!

In other news...

I was making coffee in the morning when Dave noticed smoke coming out of the outlet! He ran outside the turn off the electricity. We ran around looking for a fire extinguisher. I was just assumed the house had one (oops!) and didn't find one (I am going to buy one this week!). Dave left, I called the landlord and then waited 2 hours without power for the electrician to show up. He said this happens all the time--the outlet got old, the wires came loose and it gets hot. He did say, "the fire stayed inside the box like it was designed to." Hm...to me that sounds like the design could be better, but I also know nothing about what electricians do!

In other news....

Dave interviewed for a full time job at the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area down the road. He should know next week if he got it or not. I'm REALLY crossing my fingers for him to get a job close by, because if not, he'll look into BLM again and could end up anywhere!

Cross-stitching Projects

I haven't done much cross-stitching lately but I'd been thinking about it a lot. Finally I sat down and finished one project and started another:

I finished this one for Dave's mom, who loves red wine as much as I do!

This is for Dave's younger sister who is expecting a baby boy in July. It's a little off-center but I think I can use the extra space for the baby's name and a little design. The Raccoon's not quite finished but all it needs is the outlining.

I've got another bib planned for his aunt who is also expecting in October and a bookmark for my friend Wendy who likes to read.