An Example of the Gingerbread House I'll Never Make

Along with the cookies and candy I plan on making every year, I decided to make a gingerbread house this year. I probably won't.
One of my favorite things about the holiday season is Clasens European Bakery.

Clasen's Gingerbread Houses

Cookies and How Not To Make Them

The idea of making Christmas cookies has become more of a tradition than actually making them. I love shopping for new baking supplies and pretending that this is the year I'm going to make a gingerbread house and it's going to be from scratch.

It's fun to collect recipes and new ideas and to convince myself it's going to be like that one year when I  added fudge, toffee and popcorn balls to the mix.

There is a chance I'll make these peanut butter with varied berried jelly cookies again this year. There isn't a big chance, but it could happen (it won't).

I'm thankful for the years I made cookies and for all the times I'll just watch The Great British Baking Show and eat Oreos. 

Crapshoot Christmas Cookies

Not made until the second week of January

Pickle Toothpaste

Neither a pickle nor a food, why not round off Thanksgiving dinner with a tube of Pickle Flavored Toothpaste?
I need to know what bacon flavored tomfoolery is pictured behind the toothpaste and ends in "NTURE." Denture? Furniture?
And why is the bacon wearing a yellow bow and holding a... giant hotdog? Whatever she's doing there's some bacon dude behind her cheering her on. I might have to bring this photo in to the National Mustard Museum and ask them.
I've always been thankful for this type of idiocy, thank you, Mustard Museum.

Pickle Flavored Toothpaste

A Peck of Peppers

Their colors cheer up sizzling pans of sausage and farmer's market photos. I can't wait to test new lenses and cameras on this vegetable which reminds me of home and the holidays (in a good way).
I am thankful for peppers and Italian sausage, peppers and eggs, and pepper and egg sandwiches.

Multi-Colored Peppers

Homemade Dog Biscuits

I'm speaking for the dogs when I say I'm thankful for these unnecessary but appreciated treats.
If humans can have cookies like Chocolate Covered Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreos, why not a few baskets of homemade biscuits from the farmer's market for our loyal friends? You think the cat would show you that kind of love for a cookie?
This just in from the cat: "No. And get me some yogurt."

Farmer's Market Dog Biscuits

Old Favorites New Flavors

I'd be happy with a plain old Oreo but am happier still with flavors like Berry Burst Ice Cream. Huffington Post ranked some of the flavors back in 2014 where they disparage Chocolate Covered Berry Burst Ice Cream and after reading about them now that's all I want.
When I looked up the regular Berry Burst flavor today, Apple Pie Oreos came up instead. Now I want those.
And I think Oreo is as thankful for its customers as we are for their cookies because they have some enticing recipes on a fairly lively website (I'm looking at you, Oreo Cupcakes).
How's the diet going?
Quite well, thank you.

The Many Flavors of Oreo

A Cuppa

There's nothing like a cup of tea, and this blooming tea flower from my nephew who apparently is too good to text or call me anymore is a thing to take in with all senses. There's a whole website called, "Teabloom" and why not.
Although better with baked goods, I'll take a simple cup of tea with a spot of milk any time and for this wonderful tea flower I'm even more thankful.

Bloomin'Tea

Thanksgiving Gumballs

These gumballs are as close to the TV dinner Violet Beauregarde chewed in Willy Wonka and I'm sorry I didn't buy a tin of it or the Bubble Gum Franks and beans.
Maybe I should be thankful I didn't get it.

Novelty Gum

Now Comes In Boneless

Cupcake Stealing Retreivers

Labrador retrievers walk around in a constant state of munchie hysteria so little boys eating cupcakes within arm's length of one is tempting fate. It was also tempting Hobbs who is pretty spry for his age which I'm guessing is about a thousand years old. No, really, he's old.
This is one of my favorite moments I didn't quite capture but am thankful to have witnessed. I'm thankful for being there that time when Hobbs strolled by and snatched a kid's cupcake in a single beat.

Denied

Scene of the Crime

Grape Dogs

Many of us are thankful for dogs but a few disgruntled readers say dressing up your pet is mean to which I say, "Pffffftttt."
I'm thankful for any costumed pet with a special place in my heart for dogs that dress like fruit.

Grape Dogs

I think we're supposed to be underwear

Pumpkin Seeds

Not the salted kind but the kind you rip out fresh from a pumpkin. Mmmm, pumpkin innards. One of my favorite things about the fall, I'm especially thankful for their tasty roasted seeds.

Pumpkin Seeds

Wishes it were filled with cheese

Macaroni Pizza

Whenever I think of the death of progressive politics in Wisconsin I think of Ian's Mac n' Cheese pizza.
I'm thankful for the peaceful protests of 2011 that when you think of it were a harbinger of the present state of White House buffoonery, and of course for all the free pizza.

Ian's Mac n' Cheese Pizza

I won't be able to afford paper plates after this

Big Fondue Pot

Yes, I'm thankful for this mammoth vat of cheese aka the Big Fondue Pot. It's one of those things that looks better than it tastes but is still pretty damn free I mean good. What is it about delicious vats of melted Swiss cheese that beckons us?

Giant Vat of Bubbling White Cheese

Served on a piece of soft white bread you can hear it bubble, bubble toil and trouble

The Kindness of Strangers

I was thankful to meet this guy with whom I shared beer and cheese pairings along with pleasant conversation of cameras and macro photography.
I'm also thankful I didn't urp when I decided what a fine day it was for a bike ride on the Sugar River Trail.

This Cute Photographer

May your beer be from New Glarus and your cheese be from Monroe

I'm Thankful For My Irish Aunts and Free Candy Although Not Necessarily In That Order

Gun to my head I guess there are things I'm thankful for although it's a lot more fun to complain. In the spirit of the season or not since I dread every second of it from the day after Halloween until a week after New Year's, I thought I'd post some food related photos more meaningful than skilled.
It's all leading up to Thanksgiving or as it's called in my family "I Can't Take Another Holiday With You People I Really Can't."

My Irish Aunt Em

She still lives on the same street she grew up on and her house is bursting with kids and cats. She's there to offer a cup of tea and lend an ear with Irish baubles and gimcracks adorning her home inside and out. I dropped off some free Twix courtesy of my candy blog and she thought it was all totally hatchet. Am I saying that right?

Halloween Countdown 1: Halloween

I don't know why this got so many hits on my flickr photostream, but I think he's shedding.

Finally a guy with no excuse not to clean up after himself

Halloween Countdown 2: Leather Gloves

"Why no my dear I'm not an elf, but the gloves used to be."

Halloween Countdown 3: Green Screen Stalker

Short range creeper. Eww.

Halloween Countdown 4: Dissonant Teabag

Nothing about this Hasidic Popeye-wearing teabag seems right. Is it the hat, the pants, choosing "Lipton" instead of "Stash"?
I get the feeling he's been tea-bagged without knowing the Urban Dictionary definition.

Shouldn't he be wearing a Peggy Lipton t-shirt?

Halloween Countdown 5: Dem Bones

I hope I'm still have the energy to shop for socks at the campus Walgreens when I'm this age. I was half hoping she'd turn around and half afraid she'd plotz if she did.

Halloween Countdown 7: Toot Sweet

An enticing vat of sugary corn enticing despite this guy's dupa pointed at the mixing spoon.

Sunset Double Rainbow

Mother Nature ended the day peacefully after she was done dumping cold water on us all Sunday. The weather had been (yes I'm one of those people who constantly talk about the weather now) fantabulous all week and then rain and gloom. But wait, how about this sunset double rainbow?
It was 76 and now apparently it's winter so enjoy the sky and dig out your winter boots.
Someone was talking about snow at the Hy-Vee bakery today. I almost punched him.
Millenial Pastry Clerk: "It was snowing when I came in, but that's okay, I like snow."
Me: ~Thwarp~

By way of apology for today's weather and the upcoming five months

Forget the pot of gold just find me a blanket

I'm calling that spot behind the clouds, "The Moon" rather than a raindrop stain on the lens

Color My World

I found a little fall color after a gloomy Sunday so made a few more day trips when the weather turned bright and warm. 

Looking at Halloween decorations with my mother on a mostly gloomy Sunday

The trees seemed prettier in Lake Mills, maybe because we were high on fast food

Dexter and I had a fire alarm scare when I got home. I was the only one that brought out their cat (still the same guest cat I've had since April).

Out again at the beginning of the week, this time near Lodi. I was hoping that shed was a bathroom, it wasn't

After finding a bathroom at a closed campground ala Friday the 13th—seriously, it's called, "Crystal Lake"—I saw this sign reminding me that getting old had its perks

The next day I found a place I never found before, then immediately got lost

Foot Cheese

I don't know what stage of Limburger cheese they were eating at this Oktoberfest down the way, but it was unsettling to learn from the Wisconsin Cheeseman that there are three of them: Beginner, Intermediate and Hardcore, also described as "weapons-grade."

I won't have what he's having

Thinking twice about their life choices

No please no why did I—no. And I think that's Brett Favre sitting to her left

The winner. But didn't we all win by not entering this contest?

Bird Law

I was surprised to see that Bird Law has a Wikipedia entry. It not only references the comic twaddle I'm talking about but mentions the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918 which means I might have learned something.

I also learned that a bunch of turkeys is called a rafter, gang, posse or dole.*

What I mean by Bird Law is that you should pay attention to birds that are acting weird. And this gang of rafters on the dole were a questionable posse. They were hanging out near a grill and acted as if I interrupted an avian tailgate party. 

There were more wild turkeys creeping off to the side. Normally there's only one or two giving you the stink eye from the middle of the road. 

And the neighborhood cranes are still here instead of GPSing their way down to Florida. Which brings me to the ominous clouds percolating behind them.

I was looking for rocks on a humid still too warm for October Saturday because I thought Dane County ROCKS! which paints and hides rocks around the county would be a fun hobby for my 92-year-old mother and me. My cousin mentioned them when I posted about these girls selling rocks—notice the wellspring of product behind them.

After I drove past this camo turkey I wound my way back to the beach. To make a long story short (too late) a swift wind blew my glasses off the park chess table where I was texting my cousin about rocks and baseball as a tornado touched down seven miles away.

Bet you didn't see that coming and neither did anyone else since there were no sirens.

The thing about losing your glasses is that you need them to find your glasses. 

Crouching on the ground blindly taking pictures with my phone didn't work. Mostly because I panicked and tried to get to my car as fast I could before looking at the photos.

"As fast as I could" meant trying to walk to the path across the lawn. It also meant getting lost in "woods" about the size of my living room. 

I somehow Magooed my way out of the shrubbery, stumbled onto the walking path and back to the car.

I drove halfway down the walkway and schlepped over to the last place I saw my glasses using an old pair from the glove compartment and a dull flashlight I mostly keep because it matches my car.

The wind was picking up and it was threatening to pour.

Not a single warning siren went off and if one had I would have passed out. 

I decided the hell with it, turned on the brights and drove a few feet from the chess board and there they were, upside down and spotted with raindrops in the middle of the pavement. 

So I guess the lesson is to heed wild turkeys. Maybe I should have saved this story for Thanksgiving.

*From the National Wildlife Federation's Blog

We Got Lots of Them

I thought these girls were selling lemonade last Sunday, but to my delight they were selling rocks. My cousin and I would throw rocks when we were kids and it never dawned on us to go into business. In no way do I condone throwing rocks unless it's rock candy and then be careful because sugar can be dangerous.

So here's to these beautiful young entrepreneurs, long may they rock.

"Oh rocks, I got lots of them, they keep throwing and missing meeee."

Notice the tip jar

Happy to buy a rock probably found in her yard

If you live in Dane County there's a friendly group you can join called Dane Country ROCKS! that paints and hides rocks for people to find and rehide. Rock on.

Lowered Expectations

This crazy hot then pretty nice then a little less hot it will probably snow soon weather is confusing for nature. I drove 80 miles north yesterday and a whole lot of nothing— although I got the Badger game in for most of it. Honestly, I could see more fall color from my couch.
Sunday is airing out mum with a drive and a lady lunch day so I'll try again, maybe I'll give her the camera.
Meanwhile here's a shot I took with a kit lens a few years ago. I'll be trying to beat this photo, but on top of a monochrome fall, my camera is only working in auto settings.
Bitch, whine, whinge, kvetch, time for a new camera and cooler weather.