Fall has many flavours and one of them is the warming taste of butternut squash soup. We made it this weekend and as I was slicing up some warm crusty bread, Mr. Michie ladled the soup in our bowls.
With this one, he somehow by magic ended up with a heart on the top that had a polka dot in the middle! That made it taste all the sweeter.
This weekend has been very cool. The leaves are starting to change, the sunlight is moving, evening is drawing in sooner and all of these little things add up to signs that we are welcoming Fall in.
So today we got up early and placed two beautiful fat little butternut squash into a roasting pan and placed them in the oven. As they began to roast to house filled with the smell of squash, its fleshy inside getting softer as its skin began to brown and caramalize in the pan.
As it roasted, we worked together outside. Pruning back a few plants and I had the chance to plant the golden mum Mr. Michie bought me as a surprise as well as the orange ornamental pepper plant by the front door, I just need a pumpkin now, but it is too soon for them to be ready!
Once the squash was finished, we scooped out its orange pulp and began to create a warming soup that is now simmering away on the stove, filling the house with the smells of autumn.
Cha-Cha-Cha-Chaa-Cha!
We made it through the first week of school! I feel like having a party! But, I am too tired, so I shall have a mini one instead in the form of date night. It is mine tonight and I am off to make homemade pizzas for Mr. Michie!
Have a great weekend everyone!
(Image found here)
Summer is a time to indulge in guilty pleasures. Be it eating dessert every day while on vacation, or going back for that second helping even though you wouldn’t normally, or sleeping in till noon…
Last Summer in the heat wave, when we could barely bring ourselves to get off the couch to get more ice water/sweet tea we started discussing old movies we watched when we were little. Some of these movies were true guilty pleasure movies, because they are so bad they are good!
There always seemed to be a slew of B-movies on, when I came home late at night from babysitting in the Summer and no matter how bad they were, I just couldn’t look away, I would watch them as I unwound from the night. Mr. Michie, an ocean away would also stay up late to watch “bad” movies when he was growing up. We kicked some titles back and forth and decided to get a few and watch them to share our teenager memories with each other.
Mr. Michie decided we should make a tradition of this and got the ball rolling this week by showing me: Fright Night. Now, this is a big thing for me, when he suggested this, as I don’t watch horror movies, I can take the old cheesey scary movies, but I don’t watch real horror, it just doesn’t do it for me. Lucky for me this was just a cheesey scary movie!
We sat in the dark, eating popcorn and watching this movie. The 80’s music was just to die for. It was too good. Chris Sarandon as a vampire? I couldn’t stop laughing when I first saw it, how could Prince Humperdinck be a vampire?
In looking the movie up we discovered that it had been remade and was coming out this fall. That seems to be a running theme for us, in that after I showed Mr. Michie the original Piranha film last year, we found out they were remaking it, of course we went, 3D glasses and all and had a whale (or should I say Piranha) of a time!
Mr. Michie also showed me Highlander last Summer. I don’t know how I could have missed out on this one? Scotsmen, Queen singing the theme music, Sean Connery! There can be only ONE! What is there not to like?
I thought that I would compile a list of some of our guilty pleasure movies (some aren’t guilty pleasures at all, in the sense that they aren’t bad, they are just movies that one of us was shocked to hear the other hadn’t seen). What are your memorable movies, the ones you love because they are so bad that they are good? Here is some of ours:
1. Critters
2. Piranha
3. The Monster Squad
4. Fright Night
5. Tremors
6. Mr. Boogedy (an old disney favorite of mine, though it used to scare my sister and I to death!)
7. The Canterville Ghost (the good one, with John Gielgud)
8. Return to Oz
9. The Last Starfighter
10. Highlander
Tranquility itself cannot be scheduled, but empty, quiet spaces can be reserved in ink. Such spaces ought to be defended, prioritized and guarded as vehemently as any commitment and obligation. Lest they be guarded, they will be lost; swallowed by the tyrannical magic of urgency. For the sum of the matter is this: there is not a place on the planet where stress finds cessation, but only the discovery that tranquility comes in the midst of chaos, not merely as the consequence of its demise. For indeed chaos, beautiful chaos, is the order of life itself. So chisel, carve, etch — make ritualistic bulwarks, high towers from which you can view the chaotic world from an Adirondack chair, sip on a piña colada, and revel in the enlightened awareness that tranquility runs concurrent to chaos, not linearly after it.
Found via Mr. Michie via:Ideas, Footnotes & Revelations by James Shelley on 7/26/11
(image by: Sandra Dieckmann)
Today we have had a quiet lazy Sunday in and around the house. I have caught up on laundry, read a little and listened to music. While, Mr. Michie has done a little reading himself, worked on writing a paper and a new blog post. What could be better than a quiet day to just be?
We made tomato salad for lunch on grilled bread:
We played in the garden and made sure everything was happy:
We made ice-cream sundaes and watched the afternoon thunderstorm from our couch:
Happy Sunday!
It was a lovely sunny 4th of July weekend here! I put on my new Cath Kidston skirt and the sweet little moccasins he surprised me with and went out on a date with Mr. Michie.
(P.S. My skirt was ironed, but I started doing things around the house and got it crinkly before we left, so please excuse the crinkles)
I love S’Mores. They hold within those cookie walls the best of Sumertime nights. The freedom of being little, running through the grass barefoot, eating grilled hot dogs, chasing lighting bugs and roasting s’mores over the open grill.
For those of you who are not familiar with a s’more, it is a toasted marshmallow that is laid upon a piece of chocolate and they are both sandwiched between two graham cracker cookies. We didn’t always use graham crackers in my house though, my Mom would buy the Keebler chocolate covered cookies and we would mush our roasty toasty marshmallows in between those! HEAVEN!
Unfortunately, our little cottage does not have a space that allows us to grill, but that doesn’t stop Mr. Michie and myself. We simply spread our ingredients out on the coffee table and light a candle, which acts as our “grill”. So, you too can even make delicious s’mores indoors as well as out!
Here are a few S’more recipes or variations on the theme that I came across as I was blog reading this week, so they must be a hot topic! Click on the name to be taken to the recipe:
(all images copyright their respective blogs)
WOO-HOO!!! Today is my Birthday and I am having a wonderful time! Mr. Michie brought me breakfast this morning, a chocolate muffin and a chocolate smoothie with lots of whipped cream and a chocolate stick and lots of surprises waiting for me on the kitchen table. He said I should be eating nothing but sugar today, so breakfast was a good start!
After we got in from work tonight, we started watching the lunar eclipse, it is amazing to watch. The commentary is so interesting, they said that the Algonquin Indians would call the June full moon a “strawberry moon”, I like the sound of that.
We are about to grab some dinner and watch a movie! Then on to Birthday cake, I can’t wait….
This week is a big week! It is the week of my Birthday! I am so excited. I will have a mini celebration during the week, but Mr. Michie is taking me out at the weekend to celebrate however I wish, although I know he has a few ideas of his own up his sleeve.
I have asked to go to Camden Market, eat some lunch, sit on a “vespa” seat and watch the water go by and do a little antiquing. There is a stall there that sells vintage suitcases and I have had my eye on a few! I can’t wait.
Tomorrow, I plan to work on making my Birthday cake. Goose Girl & Foxy have asked if they can help, I would love their input. I am busy working away on their new blog, with their help of course! I have put up the bios they gave me, however, Foxy thinks he might want to change a few things, he is very fussy. So, stay tuned I think they will want to show you their bios very soon….
(Image: Found)