Mini Vacay to Rochester

This past Friday morning Liz and I set off on the open road to Rochester, NY to visit Katie. Katie has lived up there since last June completing her residency and we have yet to visit! Liz picked me up at 9:00AM, we stopped at Starbucks to get some Pumpkin Spice in us and off we went! It was a beautiful day...until we got to Scranton. Then it started raining and did not stop...for the whole damn day!

We decided to stop in Ithaca, NY for lunch and to poke around in the little shops. The rain seriously put a damper on this. Liz had found a place for us to eat before we left, Waffle Frolic which was delicious!
My Waffle


Liz's Waffle


Not only were the waffles delish but the hot chocolate was the best I've ever had! We looked around a few stores in the center square area but again, the rain ruined it. There was one store Liz had found online, The Kitschen Sink before we left that we had to drive to but was totally worth it!! I could have seriously spent hours in that place, it was HUGE and there was so much stuff everywhere! The lady Lizzy who worked there and I immediately hit it off. We were talking about all the wonderful stuff she had and then she noticed I was looking at all the vintage craft supplies so she showed me into a secret room in the back with all kinds of amazing craft supplies, yarn, fabric, thread, needles, pin cushions, tons of stuff! I finally decided after circling the place 3 times to buy some lovely zebra knit fabric which I hope to make a dress out of and these adorable little salt and pepper shaker deer!! Aren't they the cutest?!



We had also drove around Cornell (ever heard of it?!) a little bit. I really just wanted a picture of a big Cornell sign but holy crap it was impossible to find. That campus is like on the side of a mountain or something, it was so hilly and the roads were twisty and windey, it was ridiculous! We finally found one Cornell sign but it was so out of the way, I had already put the camera away...LAME!
Here are some pictures I did take while driving around the Cornell campus, the rain did make it feel very much like Fall though.





We hit the road again and made a quick stop into the Bellwether Hard Cidery in Trumansburg, NY. We did a little tasting and everything was great but I really liked the Hard Cider with Cherry so I bought a bottle!

Again we were off but this time, no more stops...straight to Katie's. The rain didn't let up at all, if anything it seemed to get worse the closer we got to Katie's. We arrived around 6:30PM, took a tour of Katie and Scott's lovely home and went out to dinner. We ate at a place called Tap & Mallet. The food was really good and they had 6, count 'em 6 pages of beer!! I love beer but I stick to the usual Miller Lite and PBR with an occasional Yeungling thrown in. I don't really do all the fancy beer so I just got Woodpecker Cider...mmm mmmm good!
Here we three are, Liz, me and Katie!



After dinner we went back to the house, sat around for a few but eventually we all admitted to ourselves that we were very tired and we went to bed.

The next morning Katie had to work until Noon and Scott left for wedding in Jersey. Liz and I were able to get up at our leisure, eat some breakfast and watch CNN. Katie and Scott have an adorable puppy, Lily. She's a chocolate lab who I am of course allergic to =(


My allergies were acting up a lot so I decided to go outside for some fresh air. It was an absolutely beautiful day so I decided to take some pictures of all the beautiful fall scenery outside Katie's house. She has this tree right outside her front door that I have never seen before. It has these red berry looking things all over it and was so pretty. Also, here's a gnome I gave her riding a snail in the front garden =D






The leaves were absolutely beautiful up there!







Once Katie got home we headed out to Lake Seneca, one of the infamous Finger Lakes to go to some wineries. We had a wonderful lunch at Ventosa Winery and a tasting. The scenery up there was beyond breath taking!! I got a bottle of Reisling, mmmmm.




Then we went to Three Brothers Winery and did a tasting and I got a bottle of Gewurztraminer. Their vineyards were right by where we parked so I got some pictures of grapes on the Vine, it was so pretty.






Next, we went to Zugibe Winery and did a tasting there too, I got a bottle of Cayuga White. This was a fairly new winery, only opened last November but it was beautiful inside. Lots of dark wood everywhere, my favorite! The scenery outside was beyond words. Absolutely gorgeous!! Their vineyards were close to the parking lot too so I got some more pictures.






The last winery we went to was a Castle, Belhurst Winery where I got a bottle of another white wine called Neptune! It didn't look what I was hoping a Castle Winery would but it was still really neat and their view was also amazing!!





Here are all my wines together...if you look closely you can see the Reisling is already gone =P



That night we got some Mexican for dinner and then went home and played a trivia game on the Playstation which was so much fun. I LOVE trivia!! Sunday morning Liz and I got up, Katie made us breakfast and after we got ready we hit the road home. Nothing exciting happened on the way home, it was just a really long boring ride. All two lane highways, ugh!

It was a wonderful mini vacay with some even more wonderful friends!

Apple Crisp

Now that I had 15 apples in my fridge after apple picking, I had to find something to do with them!
Last year I made apple pancakes that Jeremy really liked so he requested more of those but still had 12 apples left!
At first I wanted to make an apple pie but finally decided a nice Apple Crisp was the way to go!
I looked on allrecipes.com for some recipes and found a good one but ended up altering it a bit.
This was the original recipe:

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups butter
2 quarts peeled, cored and sliced apples

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a large bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar. Cut butter into mixture until crumbly.
Take half of the mixture and pat it into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Cover crumb mixture with apple slices, then sprinkle apple slices with remaining crumb mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 to 50 minutes or until apples are tender.

Instead of 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, I did 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar and decreased the butter to only 1 cup because sheesh that's alot of butter!!

I decided to make these on Thursday night and brought them in to work on Friday. I didn't start peeling the apples til about 8:00pm and good grief it took longer than I had planned! Peeling, coring and slicing apples takes a while! The rest of the mixture was pretty quick to get together.
I baked it all for about 45 minutes and mmmm mmmmmm my apartment smelled all autumny and delish!!
Here are some lovely in progress shots...

A bunch of apples!



Isn't this one just picture perfect?!



Here they are all peeled and about to be cored and sliced up!!



I didn't get a picture of them sliced or the mixture but this is how lovely it looked when it came outta the oven!



Close up!!



I brought it into work and everybody loved it. I was slightly bummed that because it wasn't warm, we don't have an oven and I certainly can't put this metal pan in the microwave, the bottom crust was sticking to the pan. Oh Well! Everyone just scraped it up and enjoyed.
I'm really starting to enjoy baking and bringing it in for my co-workers. I don't want to keep things at home because I'll eat it all and get as big as a house and Jeremy doesn't really like sweets.
We have a Halloween party coming up at work so I want to bake something new...maybe a Pumpkin Roll??

Oh my Gourd!

Last night I finally finished my little gourd to go with my pumpkin I made a couple weeks ago. It took way longer than it should have. I put it down for about a week because there was one step I didn't understand. Last night I decided I HAD to figure it out and it was so easy, the wording was just a bit confusing. Once I figured out what the final outcome was, I understood it.

Here is where I got the free pattern.

And here he is!!



Posing with some real gourds LOL



He has a new home on my desk at work with the pumpkin I made. I started another pumpkin last night, it's working up so fast. He will be a smidge bigger and I'm going to add some vines. Can't wait to show him off!!

Wonderful Sunday Part 1

Last Sunday I had a wonderful day with my bestie Liz.
It was just a Fall Activity filled day!

We started the day off apple picking at Melick's Farm in Oldwick, NJ. There's a giant apple orchard and a cider mill. The people who worked there were so friendly and this one woman took so much time explaining all the different apples to us (we were killing time finishing our coffees). I was worried it was either going to rain or be Mud City because it had been torrentially raining almost all week! We were so lucky that the rain had stopped on Friday so the ground had plenty of time to dry up. It was an absolutely beautiful day! Picking apples was a lot of fun, we both got a basket full. The orchard was so pretty, trees everywhere. All differnet sizes and shapes and colors, it was beautiful! I also got some little pumpkins and gourds.
After getting all our goodies we hung around a while, sipping some cider and basically just people watching. We got there pretty early (well early for us) and thank God we did because when we came out of the orchard there were a million people there, all families and their giant SUV's in the country for some family time I guess.
Sheesh!!
My camera died after about 4 pictures which really sucked so I only got a few pictures.

Here's my apples in their basket!



And here are the cute little displays of gourds, corn, pumpkins and hay they had all over.





These are the cute little pumpkins and gourds that I bought to decorate my apartment...



And this is what I did to the little white ones. I poked holes in the one and dripped paint out to make it look like a vampire bite. The other one I just dripped blood down the creases and around the stem. I did it last year and thought they were so cute, I had to do it again!



Apple picking was a great way to start the day!
On to Part 2...

Happy Autumn!

Happy first day of Autumn!! Let the Fall Activities begin!!

"Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive Autumns." - George Elliot
(thanks Aunt Stephanie for this quote)

Prompt 28

Journal Prompt 28: What are you most looking forward to? This can be something tomorrow, in a month, a year, or way into the future :)

I can not believe there are only two more prompts...I have totally been dragging this out for more than 30 days!!

Anyway...the thing I am most looking forward to, as always and I'm sure you guessed is...AUTUMN!!
It's my absolute favorite time of year, not only is it my birthday but I make sure it is jam packed with "Fall Activities".
"Fall Activities" started 3 years ago with Jessie the year after we got our apartment together. We went to bon fires, corn mazes, haunted houses, carved pumpkins, Halloween parties, the works. This tradition has carried on every year and I intend to keep it going for the rest of my life!! I always like to end it with Lonnie's amazing Thanksgiving dinner (my step mom can cook her ass off!!)
I even went to haunted houses and hobbled around a few months after my accident, it kinda sucked because I was in pain but...I had just met Jeremy so...that of course made it all better <3

Wanna Make Wednesday

So this week I have had Fall on the brain alot. It started at the Haskell on Sunday and everyone discussing Halloween costumes. I have a few ideas roamin around in my head but nothing is definite yet. Then the coffee at work on Monday was Cinnamon Sticky Bun and it smelled just like Autumn. Today I discovered that I have 9 days left that I can take off this year, not including holidays. I had the brilliant idea that Jeremy and I should take a long weekend in October and go to Salem, MA for some serious Fall Activities!
I asked if he would be interested in going and he said he would but I would have to pick either going to Salem or getting my birthday gift.
Back Story: My birthday is September 28 and Jeremy already has my gift, or at least knows what he's getting me. Which was a pleasant suprise to me when I found out because he's always asking what to get me when it comes to Christmas, Birthdays, etc. and I don't want to tell him. So...he said the gift is so good I "might cry", Jessie agreed with this statement and Liz said I'm going to "looooove it".
So of course I picked my birthday present, Salem will be there next year!

Anyway...Fall and Halloween have been on my brain and I want to start making some stuff for my apartment for the season and I found some great stuff over on Etsy. When I searched "Halloween Pattern" on Etsy I found so many amazing things!!

First off, I had no idea that people made these Primitive dolls. Alot of them are very Country-ish which remind me of my ex's mother's house, she had that whole "Country Cluture" thing going on. Some of these are very creepy though and kind of remind me of a Tim Burton movie. I like these ones and now HAVE to make one.

This Raven is absolutely amazing!


from The Goode Wife of Washington County

I definitely need these bats on my tv stand in the worst way!


made by Homespun Heart Primitives

I also love these 3 Ghosts with the tombstone rubbings on them.


from Sassafras Hill Primitives

I can already see this Haunted House cross stitch hanging in my apartment. I would love to see it on some old faded aida (cross stitch fabric).


from Bella Stitchery (Who also made that sweet Owl cross stitch from last week)

This crocheted skull is absolutely amazing!! It looks pretty advanced for my basic crocheting skills but it's definitely something to strive for!


from the Design Shop

And last but not least, who doesn't need severed fingers laying around the house?! I know I do!!


from CrochetSal

I can't believe it's already August BUT I still can't wait for Fall. It's my favorite time of year!! Hoodies, leaves changing, my birthday, haunted houses, bon fires and Halloween!! What's not to love?!