T Stands for Pumpkins and Other Babbling

 Hi everyone. Happy T Day to everyone who stops by with their drink related posts. I hope those of you in the US enjoyed the holiday weekend and didn't eat too much either. I didn't exactly succeed when it came to food self control. There was just too much good food. Now it's back to food moderation for me.

Speaking of food, I tried a couple of new recipes last week. First of all I made a pumpkin chocolate chip bundt cake, which tasted delicious. The only issue was I de-panned it too early, and since the cake was a little too warm inside, some of it stuck to the pan, so it didn't look pretty at all. Good thing I didn't need to bring it for Thanksgiving dinner. Smile.

I also tried a new recipe for a pumpkin quiche. I decided instead of making a single large quiche I would make minis and bring them to my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving appetizers.

I will  definitely also use this recipe again. The couple that didn't get eaten were scoffed up by my sister-in-law so she could have them for breakfast the next day. I won't paste the recipes here, but if anyone is interested let me know and I'll share them.

I even have a pumpkin drink to share for my drink for T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. On Thanksgiving my husband's 25 year old niece Ally made a pitcher of pumpkin margaritas. Ally always finds the most interesting drinks to make. I don't have the recipe for this one, but I really liked it and managed to have 2 of these before dinner. (Good thing there were plenty of appetizers to go along with the pumpkin quiches. Smile.)

During the weekend my husband and I kept busy. We went and chopped our Christmas tree one morning at the Christmas tree farm in our town.

The hubby also put together a windbreak for my bee hive, and I helped him install it.

It looks on the large size (and it is) because hopefully next year I'll have 2 hives and  this temporary structure should fit them both.

It does look a bit like a garbage dump when you look in on the open side. I have bags  of leaves around the bottom to keep the cold out. And if you look carefully at the photo, all the little black spots you see, especially at the base of the hive and on the left plastic, are bees. It was a warm November day (around 50 degrees F or 10 degrees C) Sunday when we put the wind break in place, and the bees were out in full force. Too bad there isn't anything blooming for them to get pollen from.

And finally on Black Friday afternoon my husband and I went and did a bit of shopping. We don't go to typical Black Friday mall/shopping plaza type  stores, so other than when we went to Harbor Freight Tools, which was full of men filling up their shopping baskets (not exaggerating), we really didn't have lots of crowds. My husband wants a couple of things for his boat for Christmas, so we hit the marine/boat supply store. There was only one other customer there. The hubby picked out what he wanted, and the trailer jack, which was the most expensive piece, was 40% off so he's happy Santa is bringing him his wish list, and I'm happy I also saved a good amount of cash.

We also hit the 2 big box hardware stores in our area (Lowe's and Home Depot), and I found something in Lowe's that I really want for my art space.

It's not as big as most tool storage units are, and I like that it's on wheels and has the butcher block top. We took its dimensions and when we got home my husband and I measured the spot where I would put it in my art space. It actually would fit better than my tall plastic storage holders and would definitely be a lot sturdier.

And so Friday evening we went back to Lowe's.

I splurged and bought myself an early Christmas gift. Smile. And I was going to be so frugal on Black Friday- ha-ha -that didn't happen. 

Of course now I need to wait for Christmas before I can  use it because we need more strength than my husband and myself to carry it from the basement garage to the second floor. The new son-in-law will be here for Christmas, and he can help. (I  am sure he is glad we volunteered him-smile.)  Even though I have to wait, it does give me something to look forward to, besides seeing my daughter and her husband  for the holiday that is. 

OK, I think I've babbled on  enough for  this week. I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead.