Art, maaaan...

I've been painting for the last month, and this weekend I decided to buy some pencils and a sketchbook and try to see if I could dope out this whole drawing thing.  What I need is a teacher or a class, but that's not really possible right now so for now I'm just taking photographs and going from there.  I'm a complete beginner but my God, is it fun.  Why do all the obsessions I develop have to be so very financially unviable?  When will I discover a passion for data analysis or finance management?

This is a painting of my very favorite place in all the world, my lovely Aunt Jo's farm.  This is her front yard looking out across the road over to their pasture.  When our entire family descends upon her place there's always someone out here sitting in the chairs relaxing.  It's the most beautiful place in the world.  Original photo below, so you can see all of my mistakes ;) No, really it's so that I can have a place to host the pictures.  Thanks, Blogger!

Original picture.

And here is a drawing I did last night of my girls, again from a photo.

Original photo.

Totally Not My Pumpkin Crunch Cake

This was one of those obnoxious Facebook posts that has a recipe but no link to an external site, so I'm putting it up here so that I can pin it and find it later. Everything from here on, including the photo, is from the fb post written by someone named Patricia Di Bella-Sitler. If you come here and this is your recipe and you'd like credit, please let me know, I'll redirect this post to wherever you want.

Crap, there's no way to get the photo up. Trust me, it looks good.

This is my families ALL TIME FAVORITE pumpkin recipe!! I grabbed this recipe from a co-worker in 2003 and I do it EVERY year. You won't believe it didn't take all day to make it. Don't forget to share this post to your wall for safe keeping!!

◄ Pumpkin Crunch Cake ►
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup pecans, chopped (roasted, candied optional)
1 cup butter/margarine, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Pour into greased 13×9 baking dish. Layer DRY cake mix evenly on top of pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle pecans on top of cake mix. Drizzle melted butter evenly over the top. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until golden brown. Serve either warm or chilled with cream!

The Most Amazing Turkey Chili You Will Ever Eat

Unless you're allergic to peppers like my friend Meg and accidentally have an allergic reaction. But otherwise, this recipe of my father-in-law's is so easy and so, so good.

Ingredients

1 onion, roughly chopped 

1 red pepper, roughly chopped 

1 lb. ground turkey breast 

2-4 cloves garlic, chopped 

1 jar salsa or picante sauce 

2 Tbs ground cumin 

Several fresh basil leaves, sliced 

1 lg can Bush's Boston baked beans 

1 big can black beans, drained 

1 small can kidney beans, drained 

4-6 shakes original Worcestershire Sauce 

1/4 - 1/3 bottle of beer (drink remaining) 

1/2 tsp red chili pepper,

Salt & pepper to taste 

Directions

Put it all in a slow cooker, breaking up the turkey. Cook on low for, oh, 4-6 hours? That's it. Honestly, we've never used the basil leaves because I'm a terrible gardener and I've never missed them. This is an extremely flexible recipe, go ahead and substitute anything. This week I'm going to try making cornbread in the waffle maker and serve this chili on top.

Serve with sour cream and shredded cheddar.

Upon further reflection, I could probably make this without the peppers next time Meg is coming over. It's good, but perhaps not trip-to-the-ER good...

Normally, I'm against mother-daughter matchy-matchiness, but this fabric was so awesome I had to make pajama pants for both Chloe and I.

This is amazingly soft, thick, good quality flannel.  I mean it, we're talking PRIMO shit, here.  This is The Stuff, and I got it from my exceptionally-good-quality-fabrics dealer, Virginia, at the Gather Here Stitch Lounge in Cambridge.  If you haven't been and it's remotely in your acceptable range of travel, don't think about it- just go.

What's so great about pajama pants is that I didn't even use a pattern.  I based my pjs off a pair of yoga pants I have, accounted for the stretch in the yoga pants that would not be in the flannel, and winged it.  I knew I was playing with fire but they actually turned out really well.

For Chloe's, I just folded a pair of her pants in half, smoothed them out, gave myself about a quarter inch of seam allowance and cut away.  The other great thing about pajama pants is that they are so easy and quick to do, I did hers while she was napping.  Having tried them on, they JUST fit, and I'm wishing I'd added that little triangle panel I see on so many of her pants.  I may alter them to add that.

Given that my house is a mess, there's no real food to speak of in the cupboards and I'm in serious need of some clean bras, I'm going to cling to this as my only hope for a feeling of accomplishment, and I'm going to let it ride.

This is Chloe.

We made her, and got to meet her one year and three days after we lost her dear sister.

She's pretty awesome.

We went to Rockport today. It was nice.