How to be a Witch for Halloween

Happy Halloween! Amazing, isn’t it? How quickly October flew by… This month saw cold, windy days and hot, dry days and even a little bit of rainy, cold, foggy days! (It’s rare to have a cold October in this part of California- normally it’s blisteringly hot and dry and extremely incendiary this time of year around here…)

How to be a Witch for Halloween- hmmm. I’ve dressed up for Halloween as either a Black Witch, a Black Pirate, or a Black Vampire for many, many years, so this year I wanted something a little more…lighthearted:

I like it so much, I may just wear this outfit around for the rest of the year! Mustard tights from Target, Black old-timey heels and burgundy sweater from Khol’s, green long sleeve perfect tee and stripey skirt from Old Navy. The Tree Skirt is my own creation from years back (which I love and wear several times a week this time of year!)

Here’s Tasha’s costume:

She’s going as “a kitty napping in the sunlight”. Which is what she dresses up as every year, but hey- it works, so why change it momma?

Now, I don’t want to freak anyone out- but there has been an actual Faerie sighting recently…

Want to see? I think I captured her on film:

She has just flown in for the Yule season (which, I’m told, is twice as long in Faerie-Land as it is here in the mundane world. Hmm…) and is expecting her luggage any day now.

Luggage?!

And here I thought that creepy feeling on the back of my neck was from watching too much Ghost Hunters…I’ve got a bad feeling about this! Just how much Luggage can one Faerie have?

Friday recap

Finally! The first storm of the season- clouds filled the sky as far as the eye could see:

Lovely aren’t they?

I love a good rainstorm to ring in the new Fall season, don’t you?

Today is filled with all kinds of cold weather projects:

Work on the Watercolours Quilt has begun again- adding borders to fill it out a bit…

The weekly food prep is underway in the kitchen- Roasted Butternut Squash is featured again this week. So yummy…

On the baking front- Blueberry Muffins, Buttermilk Biscuits and maybe a chocolate chip cookie or two…

The knitting needles are out in full force- a new Pixie Pouch, a hat, and maybe some socks finally…

All that, plus Christmas Crafting Lists, Thanksgiving Meal Planning, and even a Winter Solstice idea or two are in the works. Oh my, I do love cold weather!

Happy Weekending everyone!

Mother nature’s Furies

The fairies and I had to stay in this week, as Mother nature had a major hissy fit and knocked down some trees:

Our apartment complex is very picturesquely landscaped to look more like a woodland park than a soddy old apartment row. Unfortunately, a lot of the trees used are eucalyptus, which isn’t the most sturdy of trees in the best of situations. Add to that exposed root systems, decades long growth, and the extremely high winds around here wednsday, and well- some of them came crashing down. around my ears-

This one landed right outside my front door- about 10 minutes after I went out to get the mail! It took a while to come down, though, poor thing. Lots of creaking, cracking, groaning, and tearing sounds that had a lot of use peering fearfully out our windows, wondering just where was it going to land? It was a very tall tree that came down. Thankfully, a tree-trimming crew was already on the property. Some smaller branches were being shaken loose along the sidewalk out on the street, and another tree tried to fling its branches at me as I visited the mailbox, but it missed and I got away. I think that was a little pepper tree, it lost half its branches. This one tried for me too! At least, it felt that way when I saw how close it had come to the patio:

It was a sad day in the tree neighborhood, let me tell you. They finally ended up taking the whole tree out, it’s neighbor, and severely trimming three other trees in the area before they were done.

Then they came and ground down all the stumps. With a machine. A very LOUD machine. They were at it for hours. ick. So the fairies and I stayed in and worked on tables, which is lots more fun than dodging flying tree branches.
mini table top- isn’t it cute? I will show you the completed table at a later date- it’s not stained yet. I also think I may try and make it even smaller, the scale is a little off for my –ahem, our, taste. I’ve been informed that it would work maybe as a side table/banquet in the dining room, but it is certainly too big for the kitchen. Oh well, they do say practice makes perfect!

Fall Bees make winter flowers...

Here in California, we are slave drivers- we force our bees to work all winter long...

Poor dears- can you see them in there? We are having atrocious weather- hot all week, overcast and drizzly on the weekends. hehe. Seriously though- the weather in the eastern states has some of us concerned. What gives? You all are hogging all the rain! California has been in a state of drought for what seems like decades now- conserving water is no longer something just those tree-huggers do for fun.And here it is just 13 days until Thanksgiving! Actually, it is always this warm this time of year for us. sigh. I guess we make up for it with all those avocados...