Reunited.

I don't really know what I'd like to tell you about. I could tell you about the smoke coming from under the hood of my car. I could tell you about how I accidentally waxed off half my eyebrow last week. I could tell you about how I made this recipe for 2 single cupcakes, but I used baking soda instead of baking powder so they tasted like chemicals.  But...I don't really feel like it.  So, I'll tell you about this other thing instead.

I picked this awesome little thingie up at Goodwill for a few dollars a while ago.

I thought it was cute.  And it went along with my collection of pretty white things. And then I saw it on the Nester's china buffet in her book page decor post.  And I realized it was a two part little stand thingie. And I thought that was neat.

And then, I went thrifting with Freya, and found the second tier!

Originally priced at $1.99. Luckily, Salvation Army has a 50% off deal once a week. So, it only cost me $1.00 to reunite them! Umm, score.

The smaller one has the little brackets for yet another tier. I don't think I'll be so lucky as to find that one too. But you never know.

Little Punkins

Lara decided we were going to be super cute and fallish and walk her dog down to the pumpkin patch by her apartment for a girls night of pumpkin shopping.

The sign used to say "The pumpkins are coming!" For some reason I have to say that in a british accent.

Her friend Karen had two spare dogs she brought along. Dogs all around! 

It sounds cute on paper, but it wasn't going very well.  The chocolate lab is only 5 months old, and she was going nuts. She was barking, and jumping, and attacking, and growling. She was going to scare the children. 

We were at a loss. We thought she'd calm down on the walk, but it just made her worse. We were just about to turn around and walk home because there was no way we could bring the dogs around little kids when they were acting like that, but then I decided to try one more thing.

So I got down, and I looked deep into her eyes. I told her we couldn't have fun if she continued to act badly. We'd have to go home, and she couldn't see the pumpkins.

She behaved perfectly the rest of the night. I'm serious. It worked. We even got COMPLIMENTED on her behavior. 

Just call me the Dog Whisperer. 

I bought 4 tiny pumpkins. The cost me a whopping $2.00. I played with them for a while to figure out where our little burst of fall would make the biggest difference.

I finally just lined them all up on the kitchen window sill.  They look good with my new window treatment, yes?

The window "treatment" involved a large leftover piece of canvas dropcloth, three tacks, and two strategically placed staples.  I was planning to sew it, but the tacks and staples worked so...yea.

I asked Cory what he thought about it.

Without looking up he says,"I think they're beautiful my love. You are sooo fancy."

I am so fancy.

Desperate times/measures

Yesterday I wrenched our steadfastly closed kitchen window open, and let the fall breeze blow in. It made me kind of giddy. And I did the dishes, and wind blew in through the window, and  I stared outside for a while. And noticed there were leaves in the gutters. And this surprised me. The weather has been increasingly lovely, finally somewhat cool and comfortable. The first "official" day of fall was last week (or so I heard from friend's facebook status reports). That should have tipped me off, yet, I'm still surprised to see the leaves falling. 

We don't really get a crazy riot of colors down here. Everything just goes kind of brownish from Octoberish to Februaryish, and then perks back up in March-ish. So I took a walk, and enjoyed the new brownishness of a Northern Florida Fall.

After my walk I was feeling rather motivated and decided to tackle a problem we have. We own approximately 23 cups. And we've developed a very, very bad habit of using them. All of them. I've been irritated/impressed with it for a while--two people should not be flying through 23 cups a week!--but had yet to do anything about it. We'd fill up the dishwasher with cups in 3 days. Things were out of control.

 I mentioned to Cory a while ago that we should limit ourselves to one cup, that we rinse out and reuse. But neither of us followed through with that.

So, I hid the cups. Well almost all the cups.

So far its working!

General Conference Weekend

It feels so good to just step back and listen to the wise words of the prophet and apostles. 

So relaxing, inspiring, and very much needed.

Yesterday we streamed the session online, and my hands painted while my mind listened. 

(You can see the painted project here, if you're so inclined)

One line I just can't get out of my head: "It's okay to scrimp and save." 

It's more than okay! Get with it.

It's a huge weakness I have, but luckily Cory is what I like the call the "Anti-Spend."  So I'll follow his lead.

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