Haunted Houses, Part II

The girls worked for hours on their houses today, mixing colors, cutting shapes, gluing and painting. I didn't do much to mine, except color a couple panels yellow, then notice a curly footprint someone had made on one of them when she accidentally stepped on it, then take the shoe and make curly markings on both panels...

The 8yo's doorway.

The 6yo's corner, with vines.

My swirls.

Instead of shopping today, we're in the shop!

We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, even though the 6yo, worried about it being too scary, had said, "Ina. It's called 'Nightmare,' so that means nightmare for me!"

As we were watching it, the 6yo kept saying, "So far, so good." It turns out it wasn't scary, it was inspiring!

So we're making our own haunted houses...

We're gonna need a bigger paint brush...

A Modest Feast

Our modest feast, at our humble table: Turkey that I had basted with a butter/lemon/garlic/basil mixture; Cranberry sauce (just water, sugar, and cranberries); Garlic mashed potatoes (with some grated potato skins included); Sweet potato steak fries; Romaine with basil sprigs.

I had an inspiration as we were preparing the pie after supper. I had originally planned to make a pear/blueberry pie, and had even bought a little over-priced out-of-season container of berries. Then, as I was looking at the big bowl of pear slices, I decided to skip the blueberries, and instead, I added two scoops of the cranberry sauce leftover from dinner. I also added some lemon zest and some candied ginger bits. This was possibly the best pie ever! And what a flaky crust!

The 6yo really wanted to make a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin and have it look exactly like Snoopy's does in the Charlie Brown movie. When I couldn't find a sugar pumpkin this week, she still wanted to make a pumpkin pie using canned pumpkin. This is the standard pumpkin pie, except that my quarter cup measure was out on the table with flour in it left over from when I was rolling crusts, so when I reached in the drawer to grab the smallest measuring cup to measure three scoops of sugar, I actually grabbed the one third cup. Instead of three quarter cups of sugar, this pie has one cup of sugar. Yeah, it's a little too sweet. We thought we might try it with a scoop of greek yogurt tomorrow instead of whipped cream.

I am grateful for this delicious food, for my family, and for the strange cyber-family I have found here.

Peace to you and yours.

I'll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours...

As I've said before, this online community is mighty mighty. The other day at the tavern, Spocko told me of a lovely dream he'd had. It is a gift he gave to me.

ina

I dreamt last night that I was driving on the highway to a wide open place that held hot air balloon races and small plane races.

On the way to the place I saw a white 2 seat plane in front of me on the highway trying to take off. It went up about 4 feet then crashed. I had passed it and saw it crash in my rear view mirror. I was going to stop, but I saw others had already stopped so I kept driving down the road.

I came to your house. Your house was a 3 bedroom single story house that was in the middle of the open area (it was kind of desert like). The house was painted with lots of white and light orange colors almost a pastel orange.

I looked out the window and saw some of the balloons already up in the air and few small planes flying. Also there were a few that were crashed on the ground.

I noticed a basket of Christmas cards in the a bay window area and read some of the comments. They were from famous people who had stayed at your house for the balloon and plane races. The cards were from Mick Jagger, Bono, a Prime Minister and some other famous politicians. They had some personal comments on them thanking you for your hospitality.

I thought to myself. "Wow, ina knows lots of famous people! I'm in good company getting to stay at her house for the hot-air balloon races.

I'm not sure what this dream means.

I just finished reading Tim Powers book Three Days to Never and I think some of the scenes in the dream are taken from there, but why you, your house and your Christmas cards from famous people were part of the dream I don't know. Oh, and I never saw you or your kids in the dream, I just knew that it was your house.

"It's good to see you."
"It's good to be seen."

Talkin' World War III Blues

Have a cookie.

Made fresh this morning!

Seven Minutes in Heaven

Peace.

This has been another edition of...

...what Frank Rich said.

The First Family

My Family

Welcome to America.

Joyful tears

When I look at this picture, I see a president-elect who looks more like me than any other in my life time.

I can't stop crying.

Yes, it's historic for an african american to be elected, but even more powerful for me is that this is only the second administration in my voting lifetime that I elected. Clinton/Gore was a thrill for being the first. Now, after the supreme theft of 2000 and the shock of 2004, after these eight years of unbelievable, unprecedented high crimes and misdemeanors, the election of Obama/Biden is so much more than a thrill. It has revived my hope for my country, my faith in people to do the right thing.

I especially appreciate that Obama, in the midst of his poetry of an acceptance speech last night, reminded us of the hard work ahead. He was even brave enough to use the word sacrifice instead of shop! As my friend says, "Now, we just have to keep pulling him to the left!"

In other news, hoping for more signs of intelligent life in America, I stayed up 'til 3am last night waiting to hear the Franken/Coleman result. It looks like we'll have to wait a little longer for the recount. I've been walking around all morning saying, "Senator Franken" (I hope it helps!)

I Voted!

click on image to enlarge
Thank you to everyone who has worked for this day.

I was worried that the poll volunteers wouldn't want me to take any pictures. Not only was I wrong, they told the girls to wait before they put the ballot in to make sure I'd gotten their picture!

My voting booth.

Where is the arrow?

There.

It takes a lot of hands to build democracy.

And we voted, too!