IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FOOD

Chase gets his hugs in with Jill before dinner...

Setting up the buffet table with good stuff. Where's the ham? Must have shot this before I got it on the table.

Serving up the pumpkin pie at the end of another holiday meal.

Family & friends gathered around the table just finishing the ham and salads in anticipation of the pie!

BEST BUDS

Here we are...the Carolyn & Kathy show ramping up for another year of fun-filled activities like having coffee at Starbucks, grunting and groaning at Baxter Fitness, having the occasional lunch out and trading books to read. Well, maybe not exciting but darn good times.
This coming year we vow to make time to have coffee more often, take a get away trip maybe as far as Ashland or Jacksonville for lunch and browsing, and who knows what other kinds of trouble we'll find. So stay tuned for more episodes.

CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT THE KIDS!

And it turns out that it doesn't matter how old they get, they are still lots of fun to shop for!

Susan is posing for a photo of her new Coldwater Creek jacket...black wash denim with studs on the back yoke.

Chris discovering some handy little screw holding tools that Mr. A found for him at Medford Tool.
We also got them a big bag of treats from the Harry& David Country Store located in Medford.

PIE CRUST IDEA

I've no photo yet...I was just gonna make this and we got a call from our realtor that a showing was eminent within the half hour, so I had to put everything away for now!
I've been making pie crust and crostada crust in the food processor for ages, but never have I made them with an egg before.It's supposed to make the crust flakier.

So here's the recipe:
2 cups all purpose or pastry flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tablespoon + 1 tsp sugar
1 stick+ 2 tsp cold butter ( I usually cube it and put it in the freezer to chill)
1 extra large egg yolk with 3 Tablespoons cold water
additional cold water if needed

Combine flour, salt, sugar and butter in processor bowl and pulse until flaky
With processor running, add egg/water mixture and process until dough forms a ball. You can add more cold water (a bit at a time if the dough looks too crumbly but don't over do it).
Wrap dough in plastic wrap or put in plastic bag. Refrigerate at least 1/2 hour.
You can freeze this dough also.

THE HEAT IS ON!

Here is the "little space heater that could."



Yet another new circuit board installed in the furnace.


An Ashcraft special cover over the circuit board to protect it from condensation so it won't short out again.

Bedtime in the studio last night. We hauled in the mattress from the guest bedroom and spent the night tossing and turning but warm. The little space heater that could...did keep our studio at 68 degrees while the rest of the house was at 58. Luckily it warmed up a bit during the night because of a warm front and a rainstorm. The house didn't lose any heat overnight.

Chase and Izzy were confused about this sleeping arrangement and were very restless all night. Good Times!
The furnace is on and valiantly trying to heat up our 1900 sq ft of 58 degree air back to 70 degrees. So tonight we'll be back in our own bed. The pets will be happy. It's good to be warm!

MONK TRYOUTS

GOT MONKS?
It's 32 degrees outside and a balmy 58 degrees inside here on Grey Eagle Drive. So we are bundled up in polar fleece and terrycloth robes, huddled by the computers...with all the equipment on, the studio is the warmest place in the house.

Turns out that our furnace crapped out AGAIN...we just spend $450 to repair it last month, but the same problem has occurred once again. The circuit board gets condensation on it and shorts out, leaving us without heat. So it's been 36 hours without heat. The house was probably at 70 degrees when it quit. By the time we got the technician out, it was down to 64 degrees. Once the problem was diagnosed, no one in the Rogue Valley had the proper circuit board in stock, so we had to get it from Portland. We are hoping that it will show up today and maybe, just maybe we'll get it installed.
We went out to breakfast this morning to warm up...helped our attitude a bit and the furnace out in the shop still works so if all else fails we can move our mattress out there with the cars and sleep tonite. The high today is only supposed to be in the 40's so we can't expect any solar gain through the windows.
Hot coffee and Irish whiskey is in order today! BURRRRRRR!

I'M GETTING CRABBY!

ONE OF THE FEW SEASONAL TREATS IN LATE FALL IS OREGON CRAB!
WE MORTGAGED OURSELVES AND BOUGHT A 6 OZ TUB AT FREDDIES ON SALE FOR A WOPPING $7.99...THAT WORKS OUT TO ABOUT $21.00 A POUND...
SO I MIXED IT WITH CHOPPED ONIONS, GARLIC, MUSHROOMS AND CUBED CHEDDAR CHEESE AND A BIT OF MAYO (JUST ENOUGH TO HOLD IT TOGETHER) PILED IT ON ROSEMARY POTATO FRENCH BREAD AND STUCK IT UNDER THE BROILER.

GOOD STUFF, MAYNARD.
THE CRAB FLEET WAS LATE GOING OUT THIS YEAR BECAUSE THEY OVER-TRAPPED LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR'S CROP WAS TOO SMALL TO BE LEGAL.
WE HOPE FOR MORE CRAB AND A BIT LOWER PRICE BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

IT HAD TO HAPPEN

Retirement starts with choices. Some fun, some not so much.
Our choice is to sell our big home and find a smaller one that we can cash out and afford to live in! That takes a new mindset which doesn't happen overnight. We decided that have been delaying our decision long enough. Sure, it's not a great time...but while our home is worth less, so are all the homes that we might want to buy.

Claudette and Jack put up the sign on December 7...hopefully NOT "a day that will live in infamy" for us. We've known Claudette for over 20 years...we met when she was an account rep for KTVL here in Medford and we did the advertising for Crater Lake Ford. She went on to real estate, luckily for lots of happy sellers and buyers through the years.

I've known Claudette from Soroptimists also. We roomed together at the regional conference in Kalispel back in 1989 or so. She is always full of enthusiasm for any project she tackles.
So here we go again embarking on yet another new adventure. We're hoping for a clean, quick sale and finding a nice place here in SW Medford.

TREED

I was all set to put up the BIG Christmas tree this year...one of those 8' Costco jobs that we've had stored in the attic for 3 or so years, since the last time we felt like going "whole hog" at Christmas. After all, Chris and Susan will be up so we want to have the place look festive. But then we remembered...right after Chase chewed up one sleeve on my pajamas..."Gee," we said, "maybe a big tree that would have to sit on the floor isn't such a good idea...do you think?" It's not easy having a puppy again...how soon we forget! Chase never saw anything that he wouldn't chew, if given the opportunity...

So we found a small "entryway" style tree and set it up on the marble topped sideboard. With the mirror behind it, the light from it fills the room with enough "festive-ness" we think. The Izzie can still get up there and bat around a few things, but so far so goooood.

Turkey Dog Day

A nice breakfast on Turkey Day...poached eggs with cheese sauce & bacon with our tomatoes on the side! Yummm...who needs turkey?

We gave Chase his "turkey" to play with...the squeeker in it sounds just like a chicken cackle!

It was fun for a dog...for awhile.

Ho, hummm...where's the real turkey?

SNOWDOG DAYS

So the camera quit just after I snapped this inspiring shot of Chase's butt. We figure it is the first time he has ever seen snow, as it doesn't snow much in Fresno where he came from (as far as we know). He is NOT a big fan of snow!

We only had a couple of inches which had melted off by the time I got out there. Supposed to be down to 16 degrees tonite. BURRRR!

EYEBALL MAGIC

No, this isn't a fried egg...it's Jack's right eyeball as the surgeon goes in to take out the cataract. I got to watch on a flatscreen mounted very high up on the wall, so folks in the waiting room who didn't want to watch didn't have to crane their necks.




Here they are using a funny little sharp hooked tool to loosen and tear apart the old lens and then they suck it out with a mini vacuum.

Then they just blow in the new lens through a little tube. It just uncurls

The surgeon plays with it to make sure it goes into place where it should. The actual surgery took 15 minutes. The entire visit took about 2 hours.
Nice touch with the tropical flower photos on the wall, probably taken by one of the surgeons.
So Mr. A is taking it easy...no tango dancing, heavy lifting or golf/tennis/ racecar driving for a week. Things will be quiet and even more dull than usual for a few days.

DOGSATIONAL FALL!

CAN YOU SPOT THE MOVING OBJECT IN THIS PICTURE?
Chase evidently has never seen falling leave before, so if he sees them coming down he likes to bark at them. And he's found out how much fun it is to run through them.
These leaves are from the ornamental pear tree in the backyard that is over 30' tall!

FALL FOLIAGE FOLLIES

It's been a busy fall what with dancing, teaching dance and working on the latest Saab books! I keep thinking that Mr. A will run out of Saab topics to write about, but NO! WAIT! He has managed to "squeeze out" 2 more tomes this fall. We did manage to get a few drives in to view the Rogue Valley Fall splendor. We had a spectacular fall this year.

Across the street at Cathie Davis' home, her Sunset Maple looks great.

Our Jacobi birch in the front yard looked like someone had spray painted the leaves gold. To help with WHAT COMES NEXT I purchased a new rake designed for removing leaves from the bushes. I'll be needing it!

ORANGE SEASON!

Our friend and fellow dancer Len Dombras has a great Nikon digital camera and took these photos of us at the Orange & Black themed Halloween Dance at the Senior Dance Club. Of course many folks had costumes, but this worked for us!

As you can see, we were decked out in all the orange we own! So now we can put away our orange tops until next year!

UP TO NO GOOD WITHOUT A PADDLE

No photo for this, just to let you know that in the 4-week "rowing contest" at Baxter, I managed 67,600 or so meters of rowing! The champs were rowing 400,000 meters plus, but to me those 67,000 seemed liked allot! So to celebrate, I took off this week to do yard work...no photos of that either, but here's some of the results.

I came out of the pucker bushes in our front yard with some residue of the oat grass stuck in my visor. Mr A thought it was pretty funny.

A raised bed covered with shade cloth and lattice for the winter "rest".

My indoor garden work area...love having a dry place to pot up. Skylight is very nice since there is no electricity in the building. But I'm always trying to turn out the light when I leave!

Part of my menagerie of garden characters...those wabbits just keep multiplying. My garden fairie Sonia keeps watch over them all.

DANCE FEVER

Here we are at the 4-Mayor's party on a very slippery dance floor.

Lots of folks got out on the floor and attempted dance. The band was good but too loud, as per usual. We didn't take our db meter, but it was at least 100+ db. Oye! My ears are still ringing today.

DANCE SHILLS

Not only is it "high season" for dance...it's high season for fund raising events, apparently. Since we've been back in the valley, we are getting offers of freebie tickets to events that have a dance component.
The Mayors United event is our style...wine, beer and munchies, but NO boring, too-filling banquet and not too many speeches...well, since 5-mayors are involved, SOME speechifiying will be in order. But we're there to "salt" the dance floor. We get up and start dancing right away when the band starts and others will join in. Since the event planners are going to the trouble to rent a dance floor and hire a band, they want folks up and dancing, so they'll remember WHAT FUN it was and come again next year. Works for us! Maybe we'll even get someone to snap a photo of us dancing...stay tuned!

LAYING LOW TODAY

Our black & white, carbon-based unit (as they used to say on Star Trek) is taking it easy today after a too-close encounter/territorial dispute with the new cat on the block. (We think). Got a good claw hit above her right eye. Like some of us here, she's not as fast as she used to be. Luckily we have good antibiotic ointment, but it bears watching for infection, which kitties are prone to. A nice cat weekend indoors will suit us, even if it doesn't make her happy!

TOMATOED

I happened to look in between my tomato cages yesterday and I found this one stem with 6, count'em, 6 ripening tomatoes. These are the Brandy Boy hybrid (a cross between the heirloom Brandywine and Burpee Big Boy tomatoes. So they are as yummy as Brandywine and far more prolific like the Big Boy. You get the best of both! So it's tomato glut season here in the Rogue Valley...not quite frost time but getting close, so we are picking most all the red ones we find. Still lots of green and pinkish ones remaining. We keep the tarps close at hand for threatened nighttime frosts. So far, so good!

PEPPERY, PEPPERY!

We finally got some ripe pimento peppers. There are still many green ones left on the plants. We hope they'll ripen before the first frost.

I like to grill them to get the skins off. Makes the eyes water, but the skins come off so easily after you "sweat" them in a plastic bag. Then I pack them in EVOO, vacuum seal and freeze 'em. Bon apetit!

WE CUDA DANCED ALL MORNING!

The results of having a great time and showing off for the spectators!

This year the Medford Jazz Festival organizers finally figured out that dancers are people too! We were able to have a great dance venue with a large floor.
Our favorite band (16-piece Southern Oregon Jazz Orchestra) was scheduled to play at 9:30AM (for pete's sake). We got ourselves organized and headed down to the venue by 9AM. TURNS OUT WE WERE THE ONLY DANCERS THERE. It was just too early for most of 'em I guess. So we had the floor to ourselves...good for having lots of fun and entertaining the folks, but grueling for dancing for 2-hours straight. You see, nothing makes a dance band more unhappy that NOT having anyone dancing, so naturally we felt obligated to dance EVER SINGLE NUMBER THEY PLAYED! OYE! So we put on a good show for the sponsors (Anna Maria Creekside - a retirement residence). They loved watching us and we loved performing for them! So we Fox Trotted, Waltzed, Rhumba-ed, Swung, West Coast Swung, Cha-Cha-ed, Salsa-ed and even Tango-ed ourselves right into oblivion.

This year's event hosted 16 musical groups with over 150 performances.


Happily for us, our dance students (Tom & Joy Lowell) sponsored a venue, so we got free badges! That's a savings of $140!

So, yes, we DID have to show them our s--- badges, frequently. So you're wondering why we don't have any photos of us dancing? Photography was not allowed unless you were an "authorized photographer" for the event. We do know that many photos were taken of us performing, but we don't know if we'll ever see them!

BIRTHDAY BASH

Yes, it's that time again when our chitlins have birthdays...both are October kids. Since they showed up last weekend, we had an impromptu party for them.

Susan is showing off her new top from Coldwater Creek...yes, they do have petites!

Now the "Doctor is in" in Chico, too, as Chris has his very own engine stethoscope!

Happy birthday to you! A triple chocolate loaf from Freddies made a good birthday cake.

FUNGUS AMUNG US!

Our 8' x 10' plastic storage building developed a severe case of floor rot, complete with mushrooms up to 10" across. We put off fixing this problem until the fall when the weather wasn't so hot and we weren't so beat up for all our other projects to rehab the house. Luckily this building is modular. so we were able to disassemble it quickly.

Rotted MDO floor

Mark & Jack taking down the roof in a large piece. We ripped up the floor and also the subfloor. Here Mr. A is spending some quality time re-leveling the whole damned frame...we splurged and treated ourselves to a real level from Harbor Freight.

Wall is behind Jack...they used duct tape to keep the plastic panels in one big piece. Here he is putting on the NEW plywood floor. It took 2-1/2 sheets of plywood which we sealed with good old Thompson's Water Seal.

Putting it all back together...ooh good, the doors will fit again! How lucky is that!

Yeah, for the first time ever, I have an indoor potting area. I'll be able to store all my stuff and pot up in style in the spring. Thanks, men!