pumpkin spice

If something says "pumpkin spice" on it, I HAVE to have it.   You have already heard me gush on and on about Pumpkin Spice Kisses and my Pumpkin Pie Cake (which I will be making this evening for a pot luck lunch tomorrow at the kids' school.  I'm volunteering to work the Field Day event in the morning and then the volunteers are having lunch together.  Might be the only time I get to bring something homemade to school.  Crazy "store bought only" rules.) Oh - this season I have discovered Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows.  They are as good as they sound.  And, I am not a fan of regular marshmallows, so that is saying something.

Well, the other day I had a phlebotomy event.  It warrants the 'event' status because I was in oncology for 3 hours!  To put that into perspective, I filled the bag with blood in under 12 minutes!!!  The rest of the time I sat there waiting for them to locate my orders.  I go through this every.single.time.  I asked them if I was the only patient they see who comes from my doctor.  "No, but all of them have this much trouble."  See, he is in a different building.  Same practice, different address.  And that causes a breakdown every.single.time.  My BP was only 130/82...  I was surprised it wasn't higher.

Anyway, after this full morning of crapola, I deserved a treat.  So, I stopped at the local coffee house for something sugar free.  Probably my favorite Raspberry Iced Coffee with their sugar free syrup.  Mmmm.  Well, of course, it's fall and unless you have been under a rock for the past couple weeks, you have heard someone (or several someones) talking about Starbucks Pumpkin Spice lattes.  Sure enough, my local coffee house had one.  I asked the girl if the bottles had nutritional info on them and she brought over the pumpkin flavoring.  Sure enough, there were 20 grams of sugar carbs (ha ha ... were you expecting fiber carbs?) per shot.  The Pumpkin Spice Latte had 3 shots... one pumpkin, one cinnamon an done vanilla.  60 g carbs for one little latte.  Now, Vanilla did come in sugar free, so you could knock it down to 40g.  Still, too much for me.

So, I settled for the Sugar Free Caramel latte.  It was delish!  I am not usually a coffeehouse girl - only the occasional iced coffee.  I was shocked to pay $4.01 for a small cup (that had some Italian name making it sound larger than it truly was).  I still earned it after the morning's fun, but I couldn't stop thinking about people who stop there daily on their way to work.  $20 a week???  Let's say your husband stops too.  $40 per week?  I like a treat every now and then, but mostly, I prefer to spend my money on tangible things.  Once, when I was in first or second grade, I got a grab bag gift at a Girl Scout Christmas party. I even remember who gave it:  Heather, the daughter of one of our leaders.   It was one of those storybook packs of Lifesavers.  I cried when I got home.  I had brought Crayola modeling clay which, wouldn't get eaten and be gone.  The idea that I would have nothing after my present was very sad for me.

But.....   I found the following link to another blog today and she has a recipe to make your own Pumpkin Spice lattes.  Pumpkin Spice....mmmmmmmmmm

Pumpkin Spice (syrup) Latte recipe

You need to look it over.  And maybe make it.  And maybe put it in a travel mug and drive around looking at leaves.  Al Roker was just  talking to a lady on the Weather Channel about the 5 Best Leaf Drives.  Check here for the best in your area of the country.


________________________________________________________________________
PS - just saw a commercial for a Healthy Choice lunch... Pumpkin Squash Ravioli.  I may or may not be heading to the groecry store soon.

World Wide Photo Walk

Yesterday I took part in the 4th annual World Wide Photo Walk.  Basically, there were 1100 different cities around the world, organizing groups of photographers and walking through their cities shooting pictures on Oct 1st and 2nd.  There were officially 1117 walks and 28,109 photographers involved in this event.

A quote from Scott Kelby's (the event organizer - you may recognize his name as being a big Photo Shop book dude.  he is also founder and president of NAPP National Association of Professional Photographers.) blog about the event:

"This weekend, we shared in something very special: over 1,100 walks all over the world, from Tusla to Oxford, Jakarta to Tehran, from Pakistan to the Philippines, from Finland to Malta, and from Qatar to Denmark—all coming together as one big community to share our passion for photography and people. What an amazing day!"

You can click here to see the flickr account (photo album) of some shots that people from all over the world are contributing to.

We met on the steps of the federal building downtown at 3:30.  One request of the organizer, Scott Kelby was to take a group photo before you begin the walk.  So, we posed on the steps, then were given a map of the route and basically told to meet at 6:45 at the restaurant at the end.  A show of hands gave our leader the head count for the restaurant and we had reservations waiting for us in 3 hours.

We had a map that took us through the downtown portion of the city and then up along a couple streets with historic homes.  We wandered in groups, or alone.  Sometimes, the people you were with held back and you moved ahead faster.  Other times, you stopped to set up a shot and they wandered off.  And you met up 20 minutes later looking over some ivy growing on the steps of some beautiful building.  Or, you never caught up with them and just joined a few other friends to talk and walk for a few more blocks.  We ended on the water at almost sunset, but it wasn't very pretty... so we headed in for great company and some great food.  I should have taken a picture of my dinner.  Mmmm!!

Each person participating can submit one photo to the contest.  One photo will be chosen from our group of 50.  That person will win Scott's latest book.  And, then be entered into the grand drawing for some pretty major prizes. 

I have no idea what I will enter.  We had 7 very open categories to keep our shots within.  Not all walk groups had themes like this.  This was just something to try to unite our group.  One was "Look for a window.  Through a window.  Out of a window.  Or at reflections in a window."  I won't enter this self portrait, although, it is kind of one of my favs of the day.

Just liked this through-a-window shot, too.

One topic was about clashing colors... these don't really clash, but another theme was "Buildings are like humans and have their own character."  So, I thought this colorful attorney's office had some character.  There aren't a lot of stained glass windows downtown. 

another topic:  "On your knees, please.  Take a picture from ground level."

And, some things I just thought were cool.  One house was really decked out for Halloween already.  lots of tombstones in the back yard and decorations on the porch, concrete wall, fence, house...  I really liked the lights they had mixed with the Spanish Moss (which, ironically is neither Spanish nor moss).

I'd title this one "Yes, yes it is."

That is fig ivy vine growing on their steps. 

September family photo

3-0 Buffalo Bills edition!

ER doctor...ARGH!!!!!

Well, Gretchen's cut was still open this morning, so I decided to call the pediatrician just to ask if that was normal.  It was Wednesday night, so about 30 hours had passed.  You don't get to talk to a live person - you have to leave a message on the nurse's phone and wait for a reply.  It was only about 25 minutes this time - some kind of record for this practice, in my experience with them.

The nurse on the other end of the phone was almost frantic.  I mean, this is my kid and I was more calm than she was.  She said I needed to bring her in immediately!!  I said, "Well, she's at school and it's only a half day.  Do you have any afternoon appointments?"   "Yes, we do, but you don't want to wait!  You cannot mess around with something like this!"  I asked again for like a 12:30.  It was going to be 9:00 before I could get there at this point anyway.  Nope, she insisted that they had to see Gretchen ASAP.  Took the 9:00 appointment.

So, I called school and told them I'd be over in 10 minutes to pick her up.  I had to pull her out of computer class.  At first, she was OK with that.  She even told me, "A doctor's appointment is more important than computer class", but as the waiting for the doctor wore on, she was more and more sad about having to leave the lesson.  And, getting a little apprehensive about missing the R show and tell.  (Different letter each week.)  I brought her back to school just in time for it.  They even asked her to go next because all her friends missed her so much.  Oh, when I was driving them home, she was telling me that - and Carl piped up and said, "Sister, I missed you so much when you were gone."  I am very glad they are in the same class this year.

We got to the doctor's in time for our 9:00 appointment.  Even got taken back pretty quickly.  She weighed 49 lbs with her clothes on.  In her jammies at the ER the other night, she was 48 lbs.  A nurse came in and took our info quickly.  She asked me, "Has anything changed since you visit in August?"  and I asked back, "You mean the citywatertwocatsliveswithbothparentsnogunsinthehouse line of questioning?"  And she smiled and said, "Yes".  "Nope, no changes."  And that was it!!!  No one else asked me the gazillion questions!  Technically, she didn't ask me either.  Whoa!!

Then we waited for a PA. I liked her.  She took one look at it and said, "They should have glued this in the ER."  I told her that the doctor told Lew it was too shallow and too irregular for stitches.  She told me you will never ever see an ER doctor stitch on a child's face.  But, she couldn't believe he wasn't willing to glue it.  She said, had it been glued when it was brand new, it could have healed perfectly.

Now, it had 30+ hours to begin healing.  But, she still felt it was a good candidate for gluing.  She bopped out of the room and came right back with our regular pediatrician.  I like him, too.  She asked him if it looked like a good time for (insert really long technical name here).  He looked at her with his eyebrows all wrinkled up and said, "What?"  She replied, "Glue."  "Oh.  I always call it glue.  I didn't know it had a long technical term."  Even though he was unaware of the name, he totally agreed it needed to be glued.  He said, "We will have to clean it really good first."  In other words... that might hurt. 

She didn't cry then.  She didn't cry until the PA was almost done.  I think by then the iodine was starting to sting.  But, it looks really good.  They did tell me several times that it won't heal perfectly because it has had 30+ hours to heal already.  The edges were already healing up, so they wouldn't stick together. 

When they took the bandaid off her face, it left 2 red patches.  I had changed it several times since she was hurt.  (She came home from the ER with only a regular bandaid... today, the PA was surprised they wouldn't even butterfly suture it for her.)  I told the PA that I have an allergy to adhesives and she said it looks like Gretchen has either an adhesive or a latex sensitivity.  So, I was even happier to have the glue in place. No more bandaid.  I hope none of that adhesive got into the cut.  If something like that happened to me, it would become inflamed very quickly.  Stick-um and open cuts/hangnails/bug bites... have all left me having to see a doctor for a prescription to get rid of the reaction.  I hope it doesn't build quickly in Gretchen.  I wasn't affected until after college.  The PA gave me some cream to put on her face that should take the redness away. 

I feel bad for not bringing her in yesterday, but I was following hte ER doctor's directions.  Today's doctors even told me we did everything right.  Took her to the ER.  Followed that doctor's directions.  It was the doctor who dropped the ball when he said "put neosporin on it."  They told me not to feel bad about not bringing her in yesterday.  I had a mammogram in the morning and I didn't want to cancel it on such short notice, so I was willing to listen to the ER doctor.

Lew is pretty pissed off at that ER doctor, too.  He will be writing a letter.  He is very good at that. 

The take away lesson here is:  Always follow up an ER visit the very next morning at your real doctor.  Since it was our very first, I guess we didn't know that.  2 kids, almost 6 years and this visit was the very first.  Not a bad record, eh?

I still am not putting up the original shot.  It is not bloody, just kind of icky.  I can't believe the ER doc referred to it as "shallow".  I feel it has a definite puncture spot right in the center.  Oh, she has a pretty big bruise on her upper shoulder now, too.  Ouch!

Sporting a bandaid.  This is exactly how the ER sent her home.

Check this out.. this is after we moved her bed, tucked her in with the sheets all the way into the frame and had her sleeping right up against the wall.  Yes, she is asleep.  I often come in to find her sitting up, slumped over and sound asleep.  But, if she sat up too fast, she'd probably still roll out of bed.  Gee..... wonder why we haven't bunked these beds yet?

Here she is today after getting it glued.  It looks really good!  I hope the scar is tiny.  It's right in the end of her eyebrow, so the PA felt it wouldn't be noticeable as she grows. 

The nurse got her face scar when she was 4.  A kid threw on of those little wooden peg game boards at her face.  The PA got her face scar when her older brother pushed her out of the back of a moving pick-up-truck.  I got my face scar when I was running and fell onto the TV.  All of us in the room had a story, so why not Gretchen, too, right?  Gretchen got her face scar falling out of bed.  tee hee... it does sound funny. 

Not as glamorous as a moving pick-up truck, that's for sure!

dress up

Check out my mad shopping skillz......     I found this Disney Sleeping Beauty costume (with the tiara attached and tags on it still) at Once Upon A Child for $12!  Same dress is $40 at The Disney Store.  It's a 7/8...can you believe she is that big?  He is in 8 bottoms and 10/12 tops.  That's even more crazy. 

And this is part Halloween spoiler part Father's Day flashback.... 

This hat is part of Carl's costume.  I've had it forever.  I have no idea where it came from.  I used to use it with my classes each Father's Day.  I had 2 sports coats of my father's and 2 of his old neckties.  I'd dress the little kids up in the jacket, tie & this hat and take a picture.  (Then, we'd make a card of their footprint.  Inside, I'd write, "Daddy, I want to follow in your footsteps.  Happy Father's Day.")

Carl is loving this hat!  Wants to wear it to school and everywhere.  It's so cute to look back inteh rearview mirror and see him in it.  It's goofy.  It's certainly not a 5 yr old fashion statement.  But, I am so glad he loves wearing it and doesn't care what anyone else might think.  That is one really cool thing (among many really cool things) about 5 year olds in general.  But, when I mentioned it to my mother - how I hope Carl always just wears what he loves without worrying about what people might think, she said, "Well, that was Big Ken.  He never cared what people thought about the things he wore."  Just one (among many) more connection between Carl & Big Ken. 

bummer milestone

At 11:52pm, Lew & Gretchen headed out the door for the First Ever B. Family ER Visit.  We made it 5 years,10 months and 1 week ER free.

She rolled out of bed and somehow cut her face next to her eyebrow. A little over 1/2" long.  Yes, I took a picture.  No, I am not posting it.  I snapped one because Lew was arguing with me that it did not need stitches and I thought I was going to have to put it on a site I check often to get my mommy friends to back me up.  

It stopped bleeding very quickly.  She either hit the doll cradle or a dinosaur.  Can't really tell.   I hope they can glue it and it won't leave a big scar.  It has a puncture-esque look to the center of it.  If Urgent Care places were open at midnight, we'd have gone there.  It really wasn't a huge emergency.  We're pretty laid back about most stuff, but when it comes to scarring that beautiful face, I wanted it looked at.  Then, a phone nurse agreed with me.  "Face/head cuts over 1/4" should come in."

I'm going to bake some cookies now while I wait.

__________________________________________________________________
update:  2:15am

Lew just texted that the dr said "put some neosporin on it."  It is apparently too shallow and too irregular to do anything.  I know damn well it is going to scar. 

Hefty co-pay for ER visit. 

And, Gretchen is still up at 2:15 am.

I love fall colors!!

Leaf peeping in coastal NC is not too exciting.  Unless, you are Kermit the Frog. 

But, we grabbed some of our favorite fall accessories and headed to one of the kids' favorite places for a little fun on Friday evening.....

Want to see old pumpkin shots?  Check out 2010's shoot.  Actually, also took place on 9.23.

How about checking out last year's?  Here are the 2009 pictures.

 In 2008, the kids didn't get in the pictures.  They were too busy running and playing.  But, that is the year I shot the photo that was entered in the area TV station's 2010 calendar.   And, finally, here are the 2007 shots.

more 2011... 
they love the beach.  We don't go often, but we should let them play in the waves more.  We won't live here forever.  I'm sure.

 Happy Fall !!!!!  Hope you have some traditions that are as fun as this one is for us.