It's SNOWING in Pennsylvania!

It is SNOWING here this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Many of the trees still have their pretty leaves and little snowflakes are falling and swirling around in the wind!

I adore snow, do you?

I can't sleep.

I can't sleep. So... here's a photo of blood! ??? From my finger! I took this a few months ago using a very old Fisher brand microscope and my littlest camera, and 'stained' it red using GIMP. I think it's quite appropriate for Halloween coming up and for the book series I'm reading!

I meant to space out reading the first three, but I bought the first one on Thursday and from there couldn't put them down! I did manage to set it aside for schoolwork on Friday, but this weekend was mostly taken up by reading. Now I need to hunt down a copy of the last book... I'm hoping they have a copy at my local used bookstore.

How was your weekend?

I've Been Tagged

I've been "tagged" – a great way to introduce yourself to other bloggers. (JMcGuinness tagged my blog, so now it's my turn to tag a few other bloggers.

Here are the rules:
Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
Share seven facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.


Here are my seven random facts:

1) My favorite holiday is Halloween; love to go all-out with decorating for that and Christmas!

2) I know all of the words to every song in "Enchanted" by heart

3) I have to coordinate the appropriate glasses with drinks - for example, I like coffee only out of a thick mug, tea out of a thin mug, apple cider out of a short glass...

4) My computer is never, ever plugged in - in fact the battery is dying right now... again.

5) I still love reading children's books - so imaginative!! :)

6) I have an amazing ability to lose things. I lost several important things just in the past few days, and found 2 of them... as well as a santa hat, plastic Easter egg, 1 black boot, and a mini sketch pad. If only I could find the watercolor pencils I lost!!

7) One of my hobbies is growing unusual plants; I have an interesting collection including annatto, dawn redwood, a South African blooming tree, papyrus, and many others. The J.L. Hudson seed company is FANTASTIC for unusual tropicals! My latest favorite from there is my baby furry pepper plant.

The blogs I am tagging are:

B at East to West

Teri

Tiffany

Plaidfuzz

Jen at 10oneworld

Melissa at MelissasCrochet

T at LanaePhotography

What EASY dessert should I make for class?

I need to make some EASY dessert(s) for a class on Thursday - 21 people - what should I make?

I have already done:

apple crisp
rice crispy squares
chocolate chip brownies

So what should I make this week? I'm partial to things you can pour into a pan and cut once they're done - time-saver!! :)
THANKS!!!

Freezing Tomato Sauce

After some experimenting, I decided this was the best way to freeze homemade tomato sauce: spoon it into silicone muffin cups, freeze those for a few hours, dump them out into a sealing freezer bag thingy and vacuum seal them in batches of 3 or 4!

We had an enormous crop of tomatoes this year. I made red sauces and yellow sauces! The main ingredients were:

onion (sauteed for a few minutes in a tsp of olive oil)
green pepper (also sauteed for a short while)
pepper
fresh basil
fresh thyme

Then for the yellow sauce I used various types of yellow tomatoes and added in some dry sherry...

for the red sauces I used several different red tomatoes (whatever I picked that week - roma, cherry, various heirlooms, etc.) and either dry sherry or a dry red wine. I also added some balsamic vinegar and rosemary to one of the red wine sauces.

I did not add any salt; it actually tastes really good without it, but sometimes if it needs a little bit of flavor I add a small sprinkle of salt when I heat it up after defrosting.


What did you do with tomatoes this summer/fall??

Impressions of a recent stay at a very old New England Inn...