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Hello all you wonderful people! Thanks for visiting my site, that’s pretty swell of you. (Side note: last time you used the word swell?)
If this is your first time here, welcome! Take a peek around and enjoy your time here! Maybe you’d like to subscribe?
You can think of this blog as a giant story. A story about me. A story about my life. A story about…poop. Poop? Gross! Well, as I’ve always said, (and what I mean by that is I’ve probably said it once or twice in my life) “you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do!”
So bear with me as I tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly of my life. It’ll be fun, I promise! Just buckle up folks and hold on to your hats and glasses. ’Cuz this here’s gonna be a wild ride!
Hm. Can you tell I’ve been to Disney Land a few times in my life? (Props to those of you who actually could by that last part.)
 Ahhhh Sunday, how I miss you. Sunday is a day where Mike is actually HOME for once and we get to spend time together as well as do things around the house. Last Sunday we cleaned everything and our place looks great! (And yes, I did go overboard on the use of Disinfectant Wipes!) Mike also went and picked up the necessary things to make homemade pumpkin pie. I must say, it was much easier than I thought it would be and tasted great!
 Ok, SO. Let’s not pay attention to my hair/glasses/pjs/etc. and focus on the pumpkin pie, shall we? No? Well, what can I say? I’m classy. I also seem to have a tradition of wearing my monkey pajama pants for WFMWs. Not on purpose, mind you. It’s been completely coincidental! Now that I’m noticing this trend I’m thinking it would be terrible to break this tradition and I may have to continue it. Stay tuned.
So first off you need to get a specific type of pumpkin. It’s that eeeety-beeeeety pumpkin that is sitting next to the pie crust. (Dangit, now I can’t pretend I made the pie crust too! More about that later…) They’re called pie pumpkins. Original, eh? I guess sometimes they’re called cheese pumpkins which just confuses me. They sell them at grocery stores which is where we got ours. They really are as teeny as they look so if you’re making a pie bigger than 9” or more than one pie, you should probably get more than one pie pumpkin. I don’t know what constitutes as a good pie pumpkin but I do know they’re slightly sweeter than Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins. Sorry I can’t wow you with my knowledge of pumpkins.
ANYWAY.
Cut the pumpkin in half, and start scooping the seeds out but be sure to save the seeds if you want to roast them or plant them later. You can throw the pumpkin vomit, guts, innards away as it seems with this type of pumpkin there is a very minimal amount of…erm…glop.
I think I’m a rather excellent pumpkin cleaner-outer wouldn’t you say?
Let’s skip forward a bit. Line a cookie sheet with foil and spread a thin layer of oil on the foil. *Takes a second to giggle at the rhyme.* Place the clean pumpkin halves face down on the sheet and toss them in the oven. You know they’re ready when they look something like the above picture and when you stick a fork in them it slides right in.
Let the pumpkin pieces cool enough so that you can handle them with ease and scoop the pumpkin…um…substance(?) out of the skin. It should come out without struggle whether you scoop with a spoon or peel the skin from the…not-pumpkin-guts-but-kinda-pumpkin-gutish-stuff. Now you can either toss all this in the food processor or go old school and use a masher. Got a lot of stress/anger you need to release? Go old school. It won’t disappoint.
Mix the not-pumpkin-guts-but-kinda-pumpkin-gutish-stuff with all your other ingredients and pour it into a pie crust. You can either make your own or if you’re running low on time and are totally impatient and really really really just want to eat pumpkin pie super bad, buy it. There are many different kinds you can make and that you can purchase. In our case we went with a graham cracker crust.
Pop it in the oven, take it out, slice it up, and it looks like this! Mmm, mmm, mmm!
Whip up some heavy whipping cream and scoop a little (or a lot) on a slice. I sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top just to make it look even more delectable (as if that was even possible! I mean look at it!)
So maybe it’s more difficult than, say, using pumpkin pie filling from a can…but hey! It works for me and it was delicious! I think I might make another one with a homemade crust or possibly even a different pre-made crust, we shall see!
Click here for the recipe I used.
What works for you? Head on over to We Are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday!
This is my first time participating in To-Do Tuesday, and I think it’s a great idea! I’m starting off slow as this is my first week of this and I’m hoping to accomplish everything then tack more on the next week. Well, here it is!
- Write at Least One Blog Post a Day - I’ve been AWFUL about updating this blog, but I really love blogging and plan on continuing! Stick with me, I’m working on it!
- Get Rid of Old Couch – It’s nasty. It’s old. I hate it. The end.
- Take Comforter to Get Dry Cleaned – I haven’t had to get anything dry cleaned since we moved here, so this involves finding a dry cleaner near us as well.
- Cut Out Coupons/Throw Away Expired Coupons – Something I was really good at doing for a few weeks then started forgetting about it.
- Shop at Target for Sale Items this Week – Need to get Mike some $5 sweatshirts and $3 or $4 tees!
- Crochet at Least Two Pairs of Socks for Christmas Gifts – Figure I’ll get an early start and have lots of socks for people!
- Find New Veterinarian for Lola – Lola had pneumonia and she isn’t any better. New vet it is.
- Clip Lola’s Nails – Uh…they’re long? So that means they need to be trimmed…
- Return Emails – I’ve been slacking and it must stop.
- Make Apple… – We have a TON of apples so this week I’d like to put them all to good use and make applesauce, apple crisps, baked apples, dried apples, and apple pies. Mmmm. Doncha love Fall?!
So there you have it ladies and gents! My first To-do Tuesday! I hope you enjoyed reading my list. Have a To-Do Tuesday of your own? Send me a comment and I’ll check it out! Have a blog but don’t participate in “To-Do Tuesday”? Now seems like a good time to start! Head on over to Crazy Adventures in Parenting to participate or just browse other’s lists!
Happy To-Do Tuesday! 
Since we got our new dog, Lola*, my mom had this great idea that I could be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for Halloween. Lola will be my Toto and maybe I’ll even carry her around in a picnic basket (depending on how cooperative she is). ANYWAY! So I went on some Halloween costume websites to browse the selection and found a few I really liked. (Who knew there were so many styles of Dorothy costumes?) Then I decide to look at shoes because, um, duhhhh. What’s a Dorothy without her ruby red slippers? Browsing around, lots of ruby, lots of sparkles, then….oh. OH.
“FIFTY DOLLARS FOR A PAIR OF DOROTHY SLIPPERS?”
Ouch. That hurts. That’s about as much as the dress alone! So I start brainstorming and the crafty side of me started to creep out. What was stopping me from making these shoes on my own? I’ll tell you what, nothing. Nothing was. So here we go:
Here I have a nice little step-by-step diagram for you to follow along with! Now you can see what truly works for me.
Step 1: Buy shoes from local thrift shop for $10. Take them home and place them on your bed.
Step 2: While still on bed, start to cover shoes with glitter glue. Get it all over your index finger. (See lower right corner for example of how index finger should look.)
Step 3: Put some monkey pajama pants on and continue to make a gooey mess of the shoes. (See lower left corner for monkeys. Cute, comfy monkeys.)
Step 4: After finishing the first layer, decide that letting them dry on your bed overnight is not such a great idea and relocate them to the table.
Step 5: Add another coat of glitter glue while shoes are still on table.
Step 6: Add one last coat (or more if you desire) and TAH-DAH!!! You’ve got yourself a mighty fine lookin’ pair o’ Dorothy shoes!
 This is the glitter glue I used. It’s around $3 a bottle at WalMart. And the best part?
It only took one bottle to give both shoes three layers!
So there you have it, folks. In the end I spent $10 on shoes and $3 on glitter. $13 for a pair of Dorothy slippers? It DEFINITELY works for me and hopefully it works for you! (Monkey pants optional…I guess.)
Head on over to We Are THAT Family for more WFMW ideas!
*I promise, promise, PROMISE a post about Lola is coming soon. She’s an adorable Yorkie that’s about four months old and came with a bonus when we got her….pneumonia! Tell-all coming soon to a computer screen near you.
 Pismo Beach, CA
I know, I know! All these pictures of Pismo make you feel incredibly bummed that you’re [insert where you are here] and not bathing on a beach under this beautiful sky. Hm. Maybe this is why I’m losing readers!
“Boycott PeasAndCoos! Nothing but false hopes of getting out of the workplace and vacationing on the beach!”
-Overworked Olivia
“Mass amounts of readers unsubscribe to PeasAndCoos for fear of being brainwashed, dropping everything, and leaving for vacation!”
-Feedburner Fred
“Sky pictures at PeasAndCoos to blame for causing significant amount of children pulled out of school for vacations to beach.”
-Principal Petunia
ANYWAY.
For those nice readers that still come to my blog despite the fact I torture you with these pictures, doncha love this one? It was such a weird looking afternoon that day. Turn your head to the right and you saw completely clear and sunny sky. Turn your head to the left, however, and it was looking pretty angry. This picture is smack-dab in the middle and I love how it looks like the clouds are just creeping on over to the right.
A proud SkyWatch Friday post.
Disclaimer: If your name is indeed Overworked Olivia, Feedburner Fred, or Principal Petunia, then I am very sorry for pretending you said these things without your permission. Forgive me.
 Life’s a beach.
Pismo Beach, CA
So here we find ourselves at SkyWatch Friday once again and with another Pismo picture from yours truly. I couldn’t help but take a memory card full way too many pictures of the sky when I visited. I definitely have more sky pictures than I do pictures of people.
But really,
can you blame me?
SkyWatch Friday
 At the MIL’s house in Wisconsin
Ahhhh the sunrise. Not something I see very often as I am not a morning person! But this particular morning was more of a night for me. My sleep schedule was completely out of whack, and I happened to still be awake when the sun was rising. Mike and I were crawling into bed and then…
Ah! The sky! Wait, wait, where’s my camera?!
That’s exactly what I said as I leapt out of bed scaring the piss out of Mike. I grabbed my camera, sprung out the door, and went onto the upstairs porch to take some sunrise pictures.
The bright side is Mike isn’t so startled anymore when I go OMGTHESKY! He really gets me. And my need to have pictures for SkyWatch Friday. That’s love, my friends.
 After moving into our new apartment we had our cable put in. And one of our cable boxes…has DVR. Okay, so maybe you’re not as excited as I was, but c’mon! It’s great! Especially for anyone one with even a semi-busy schedule. Going to leave for work before your favorite morning news show is on? DVR it! Great cooking show on during the day that you don’t want to miss? DVR it! A show that’s on once a week that you always manage to forget about then kick yourself for it? DVR it!
It’s so convenient and easy that Mike and I find ourselves filling up our memory way too fast! It’s amazing to see a commercial for a show I’d like to watch later that night, go into the guide, hit record, and I can count on it being there to watch whenever I please!
It really reminds me of the days of recording things on VHS tapes with VCRs. Wow, I barely even think about tapes anymore! But I think everyone remembers what I’m talking about when I bring up putting tape over them to protect what’s on there.
Traveling back to 2009, what do you love? Head over to The Diaper Diaries for more Things I Love Thursday.
After moving into my new apartment this month, it was time for some…change. I wanted a new sofa. Expensive? Yes. Unrealistic? Not at all. The current couch we have is a tad on the rugged side. We got it a year ago from Goodwill. Decent condition, just…used. It was a little ripped up and worn in areas. Not a big deal, but in our new place I wanted our things to look new too. So, off I went to Target to buy a King size sheet set for $19.99. We had some pins lying around and I used them to attach the King sheet to the couch. The pillowcases I used to cover two of the cushions, and for the third I used the fitted sheet and just cut it. Simple and VERY cheap!
Head over to We Are THAT Family for more WFMW tips!
I’ve neglected you, I haven’t kept you updated with things, I haven’t told you how I feel in quite some time.
I suck.
But really, I’m sorry to my readers who have, well…wanted to read! I went on a spur-of-the-moment vacation to California and was without internet. THEN I got back to Wisconsin and moved. That’s right, out of the MIL’s house! Once again, no internet until today when it got installed.
Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.
I have lots to tell you.
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To all my faithful readers (eh hem, all of you!) who don’t want to miss a single post from me, I’ve gone and done something fantastic for you. I know, I know. I’m such a giver. Well, this little “gift” I’m giving you comes in the form of websites. You can now subscribe to my blog through an RSS reader* or your email. What?! Sound too good to be true? Yes, ladies and gents, you will get my posts RIGHT TO YOUR EMAIL. Fantastic, isn’t it?
