Happy Halloween

I've always enjoyed Halloween. I always had the coolest outfits growing up. I remember being a princess, an Indian, a ghost, and a 50's girl with a poodle skirt - each handmade. Jason, on the other, has never been impressed with the holiday. But either way, I wanted to have a nice Halloween in our new neighborhood, so we tried to make the best of it.

Here's a few pics of our day...

Jason's Happy Halloween sign and our bowl of candy. Jason made fun of the candy I got - he said I got the fancy stuff.

Lunch - butter chicken, rice, and veges.

Cuddle wompkins.

We headed to Ferryn & Steve's to hand out candy.

They ordered Chinese food for us.

Jason & I.

Our posse - Christian, Hannah, Steve, & Jase.

Gertie joined us outside for a bit and behaved very well.

So people from the surrounding neighborhoods all come to our 'hood to Trick or Treat. They literally were lining up.

Hannah passing out candy.

And here are some views of the traffic and crowds... isn't it crazy?

Little of this... little of that

Second post of the day. Whew.

One of the joys of owning a house is getting to take care of all of the little odd & end issues that need attention. Today, we spent time catching up on some of those odds & ends. Our list included:

-Installing a weather strip to the bottom of our side door.
-Weather stripping our attic door. Although I think the weather strip I got is too thick and I'll probably have to re-do it.
-Installing an insect screen to our back window. We actually built the screen - and it was surprisingly simple.
-Fertilized the lawn.
-Added more lattices to our garden for the peas to climb up.

After all of that, we decided to stay in for the evening and grill.

Jason, the expert griller.

Waiting for the meat to finish cooking.

Oh, like I mentioned yesterday, it was time to harvest more of the Swiss chard so we added it to the grill as well. Once again, it was very good.

Din-din. Steak, pork chop, Swiss chard, grilled veges. See that little pepper? It grew outside. It looks so non-threatening, but jeez louise it was hot!

Radar being a lazy bumsky like always.

Houston Re-Market

Our friends Paloma and Mike, who own and operate Greeni Recylcing, debuted their first ever Houston Re-Market event this past Saturday. The event, which will takes place in Midtown, promotes local artists and vendors, is a drop off for recyclables, and is a venue where you can swap your old stuff for someone else's. It also features great food and local entertainment.

Main sign.

View of the market from across the street.

Paloma working the Information booth.

Bikes were encouraged.

Grilling food.

P.S. Have you noticed the cool art on the side of the building?

Local entertainment. This guy was playing some experimental violin music. Rad.

We picked up this little guy from one of the vendors, Janice Cookston. Check out her other work on Etsy.

He now resides in our guest bathroom.

I was very impressed with the event, especially considering this was their first one. I encourage you to stop by next month if you live in the area. I'm always a sucker for markets, especially if they promote local artists and vendors.

Another Garden Update & Photography Reflections

So you're going to get another garden update, mostly because I just wanted to play with my camera and needed something to take pictures of. For some reason, I've decided that I would like to spend a little more time when taking pictures instead of just doing the normal point and shoot thing. I've thought a lot about getting a digital SLR camera, but I figured I might as well play around with the settings on my current digital camera before I drop a lot of money on a fancy camera. (BTW, does anyone have a digital SLR camera that wouldn't mind me borrowing it for a few weeks to see if I would enjoy using it?) So anyways, here are a few shots from this morning...

Those broccoli and cauliflower have really shot up, huh? I'm just waiting them to actually fruit.

Close up of the cabbage.

Our peas, beets, and onions are doing great as well. It's about time to harvest some more Swiss chard too.

We have a few green peppers over here.

Me being a dork.

Red peppers.

Okay, you are also going to get some more Radar pictures. I really need some more picture subjects. Good thing I'm gonna be an aunt soon... I'll have a really good subject when that little booger arrives.

Straight out of camera. (SOOC)

After playing with the edit tool that came with my computer. (Does anyone have Photoshop? Should I get it?)

SOOC.

After editing.

No editing to this picture. I just thought Radar looked cute trying to get me to play ball with him.

October 16th & 17th

Saturday

Saturday started off pretty slow. Did some cleaning and yard work. Then we got some tacos at East End's own Brother's Tacos and picked up a compost bin through the one day rain barrel and compost bin sale sponsored by Buffalo Bayou ArtPark.

Compost bin all settled into our backyard.

Leaves from the yard work.

Jason stirring the mix.

Later, we headed to dinner at Beaver's and then Hairspray with our friends Quinn and Michelle. Dinner was great. Beaver's is kinda neat... Texas cuisine and interesting drink offerings. Also, the BBQ is made on site and when they "run out of BBQ there ain't no more 'til tomorrow." We kinda lucked out... the brisket was taking longer than normal, so we got a free appetizer and two free cups of their famous mac and cheese.

The show was really fun too. The law firm that Michelle works for sponsored the play, so we had awesome seats in the orchestra section. Seriously, I don't know if we'll ever be that close to the stage again.

 

Sunday

Sunday morning we decided to try our hand at carving the pumpkin I bought last week.

Pumpkin innards.

Jason concentrating on drawing the face.

I see a striking similarity between the two.

Me trying to carve the face.

Jack's new home for the next couple of weeks.

Boo.

Later we worked in the garden a bit.

Me planting some more peas.

Thirsty plants.

Then we met our friends Sal & Nicole at the Monster's of Beer festival in Midtown which featured Texas breweries.

Entrance.

One of the breweries.

Jason enjoying a sip.

Us.

Jason & Sal.

My score card.

And finally I'll leave you with the favorite part of my day. I call this...

Portrait of Radar on a Sunday morning.

Hope you had a great weekend and wishing you a great Monday.