Please Bare With Me

I'm sorry to tell you that between work and packing to move I only get about an hour or so before work on the computer if I get up early enough. After that, once the move is complete I'll have dial-up internet access but hopefully more time.

Today is going to be an interesting day I'll tell you! I start work this morning at 8 and yet here I woke up at 5 for absolutely no good reason, I'll probably be working till shortly after lunch but will be back to work for 5 this evening working till 8. I've never worked an evening shift in the restaurant before and so don't know how to make any of the dinner antrees. Oh well, gotta learn something new every day, right!?! Trouble is I specialize in breakfast, more specifically omelettes and quiche, that's where I shine, funnily enough, I don't like either! 

Anyway, while I'm away at work today, the kid is going to puppy-sit Lucifer while he baby-sits her and Silv will be moving a bunch of the big stuff up to his place, (lawn mower, BBQ, that kind of stuff). Yep folks, I'm taking the plunge and moving in with Silv. Up till now we've had our own homes which suited us just fine. We are always together either at our country home (Silv's place) or at our town-house (my place), but we are both sick of the travelling between homes and town life so we're giving that up for a more relaxed country life. Yeah right, like country living will be more relaxed! Bigger yard to take care of, wood to collect all summer and fall for winter heat, snow to try to clean up all winter, no neighbors driving us nuts, (YAY!!!), no sounds of traffic all night and day, a BIG yard for this BIG dog to run around in, fresh air, nearest neighbor is a half mile away as the crow flies, space for a garden to be able to have fresh herbs and vegetables, and so it goes. Ok ok so it will be more relaxing, just a little more work!

So saying, I'm really looking forward to this move even if it does mean a 20 mile drive to work every day as opposed to 4 blocks, but the pro's definitely out-weigh the cons!

This Years Pumpkins

Ok so, the kid is getting to be as good as I am at carving. Yep, she carved all of those up above. Didn't take her long either! I however only did two and they are as follows. Take a wild guess at which one took me ten hours from start to finish!?! 

The witch you say? Well for that I'll laugh at you, just as you're laughing that I would waste 10 valuable hours on one pumpkin. Yes, The Green Man is the one that took me 10 whole bloody hours! I had some other templates I had wanted to do, but damn having spent so much time on one carving took all my interest in doing detailing out of me for the year. To be fair the 3 I showed you from last years carvings each took me longer, but that's because I designed the templates and I count that into the time spent as well. These I just took some templates from the net that I had found and went with them. So the time spent includes everything from hollowing out of the pumpkin all the way through the transfering of the pattern to the peeling and then the deep cutting. No, not one of my carvings (or Becca's) are all the way through the gourd, they are all just peeling areas and cutting different depths for brightness. 

To preserve our pumpkins so they last a little longer than normal, after carving we wash them with a bleach solution to kill off bacteria. Even our scalpels and knives are sterilized before we start. Then, once washed and patted dry, we coat them inside and out with vaseline so they don't dry out and end up "peeling" back in the carved areas, enlarging cuts that shouldn't be enlarged any further.  Another tip for future carving success is to never open the pumpkin at the top. If you look at the witch with the cauldron, you'll see a glow at the bottom of it. That's where I opened them up and hollowed them out from. The reason for this is simple, when you light up a pumpkin you heat it, that heat causes moisture to evaporate out of the pumpkin. What happens when water evaporates you ask, well it goes up into the atmosphere. If there are no cuts through the pumpkin at the top, the moisture has no place to go other than to run back down the inside getting reaborbed into the meat of the pumpkin, thereby helping it to last longer and not dry out so quickly.

Now that you know my carving secrets I hope to see you put them to use next year and show me your carvings!

Cheers, and I hope you all had a safe and wonderful night!

Coming Soon To A Blog Near You

 Well now that Halloweens over I'm not spending all my time carving pumpkins and decorating for Halloween. I still have to take some pictures of the pumpkins that Becca and I carved, but they will be posted up here soon. I hope you all had a safe and fun night!