Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Thump in the Night...

Another fairly normal weekend at my house. I have begun to get ruthless with my clutter purging. I'm building a pile of clothes that I put on in the morning and for whatever reason take off. Either it doesn't feel right, look right or match. In just a few weeks if I don't pick the item back out and wear it, it's outta here. 

 

Cookbooks are also on my chopping block. I'm actually going through them and if I don't see recipes I'll make or feel inspired by they are outta here, too. 

The other night Rob and I headed upstairs. As per usual, Gladys went downstairs to get her toys. The usual whining during the attempt to gather all of them in one mouthful drifted upstairs. Then a weird sound, a slow thump, pause, thump...repeat. She was dragging a huge rope tug toy and it hit each step with a thump. The picture is her enjoying the toy as a pillow. 

The other picture is raspberry frosting that was going to go into cake pups I made for the Vet tech program at Rob's school. (They work for food, as in they used Gladys and Gertrude's surgeries for training and the promise of treats. Nice deal.) But, I had to make more because while I was busy doing something else Rob was putting our dinner on plates. We had Gardein stuffed cutlets that came with gravy. So with my back to him,  I gestured to the little plastic gravy bag and said, "Hey, there's gravy for those." I turned around as he was smearing the frosting from the bowl on his cutlet. Oops! 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Scribbling

Sunday's sermon included a simplistic explanation for a very frustrating scenario. The scenario? The attempt to live a Christian life. I say attempt because I mean that so many of us (I've got more fingers pointed at myself) just try to live better, do better, be better. A truly authentic Christian life isn't going to have much of me in it. My attempts at living that life are me. Me trying, me doing, me fixing, me. Me. Me. 

In case you are wondering this book is in my shopping cart.  Not sure how it has not entered my radar field it was printed in 2003. My pastor's copy is well used. 

Little Miss 3 year old's idea of beauty. 

"Most of my life I heard the message loud and clear that Christianity was all about coloring within the lines and coloring well. If I was a good Christian, if I loved Jesus and wanted to please Him, if I read my Bible, prayed, and went to church, then I would get better and better at coloring. And if I lived a long and godly life, I would eventually be able to draw close to the perfect drawing. "

"Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines. Christianity is about the joy of coloring. The grace of God is preposterous enough to accept as beautiful a coloring that anyone else would reject as ugly. The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler." Mike Yaconelli - Dangerous Wonder

Scraps and Snippets ~ Pumpkin Pasta Salad

Pumpkin Pasta Salad

16 ounce box of macaroni cooked according to package and rinsed

3 TBSP minced onion

2 TBSP minced celery

1 Cup pureed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling with the seasonings)

1 Cup mayonnaise

1 ½ teaspoon garlic powder

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoon sage

Mix pumpkin, mayo and spices together with chopped veggies. Toss in pasta and stir well. In addition you could add some of the following. pepitas (toasted pumpkin seeds), diced mushrooms, chopped kale, fresh chiffonade sage instead of the dried (use 3 Tablespoons)

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ This is

 what my introverted brain concocted on Picmonkey on a bitterly cold winter night after spending the past few weekends with loads of fabulous people and while listening to the Norah Jones Pandora channel. 

Just sayin....

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Numbers and Nuggets

 My getting rid of project is clicking right along. My count is at 534. I love the fact that I've got space in most of my drawers and closets. Don't worry. I can still keep going and make my 1,000. I decreased my Christmas decorations even further after Christmas. Why? Because what I didn't put out lots of my stuff. And I needed to assess why that was. Most of it went. I also haven't missed a single thing I've gotten rid of.  Every day I've managed to find a handful of items slated for the get rid of pile. 

And my new additions (just 2 items, except the toys....some of which have already had the squeakers excised so I'm not counting them) winter coats for the girls. Ha. Ha. How cute are those? I need to make some adjustments the neck velcro is a little tight and keeps popping.  

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Told You There Were Videos....

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Flirty Pups

I went to Minnesota for the weekend and came home with a handmade toy for the pups. 

Michelle sent me this link and wondered if I wanted to make one while visiting. Since the temperature high was in the low 20's and low was wind-chill-minus-20-something I thought that seemed like a great idea. That and the fact that the little misses at my house always need a few sources of entertainment. Gertie has very sensitive feet and doesn't care for the snow, and neither of them should be bored since they come up with ways to entertain themselves. This thing seemed like a win win. 

Michelle's dog is a Boxer, her grandpup is a Dachshund and Gertie and Gladys are small Beagles so we each made different versions of the stick and I think have play more so in mind than training. But training is actually something I'm going to put on my radar.  We went to Home Depot for the supplies. Twice. And managed to have some fun in both stores. We even got scolded. Ha. Ha. Apparently, me trying to slip a dangle of rope hanging 10 feet over my head into a 1/2 inch round PVC pipe to see if it fit constitutes me trying to hit people with a stick while my partner was filming me. Granted, I was laughing, I'm sure it looked ridiculous (it did, I saw the video) she was filming, and anyone coming down the aisle could've been in danger...but it was all legit. And when we explained what we were doing we even made a "friend" (Kinda. He was a wee bit starchy, if you know what I mean.) 

Of course the rope we got was "wrong" according to her husband. 

But I digress. We went with 1/2" PVC because the 3/4" called for in the recipe was HEAVY. However, if you want an upper body work out,  go for it. Michelle made hers long, slightly less than 6 feet. I cut mine down to 3 1/2 feet because I'm clumsy. Seriously. I have enough trouble just walking sometimes. Arthur's was 2 feet. 

I chose to have double 1/4" nylon (that's the proper one, see above) because I wanted to be able to tie the toy on. And since I'll be watching the entire play time I'm not super concerned about the dangling rope. This also lets me tie it high or low on the end of the rope. And of course we found cute duct tape at Michael's. The toy was clearance at Petsmart, a real bargain if you don't consider that I also bought some other clearance items. 

All told, without the other "deals" factored in and with the rope oops we spent less than $10.00 each. Gertie and Gladys, once they got over the barking at the stick, began enjoying the heck out of it. And it's no longer a Christmas toy since the Santa hat was ripped off the head of the two squeakered muskrat/squirrel/beaver thing.

I'll share a video tomorrow. Consider yourself warned.