I always knew the pumpkins were my favorite.....

Oh pumpkim patch - you have given me so much in the past few days in addition to your pumpkin wonderness! Among these gifts have been some muddy stains on my jeans from your impossibly difficult corn maze that almost made Kimberly, Jason and me lose it from cornstalk-induced insanity (and if you don't believe me, look at the two corn maze pictures below in which I look like I may kill someone and where Kimberly and I look so dazed I'm amazed we even got out - thank goodness for our friends who led us out of the maze in striking success, save for a few additional flower stamps). Wait! The gifts keep coming - after getting over my childhood fear of pumpkin carving - oh, the messy innards, the smell, the scooping! All yucky! But, I made it through it all and produced a fairly nicely carved pumpkin that has become a receptacle for the local ants. They saw the pumpkins on the porch and thought, "yes!! finally the dumb humans have allowed us to live in style in this sweet, sweet pumpkin pulp! you think you can spray Raid and kill us, but nuh-uh! we live, we persevere, and we loves us the tasty pumpkin. oh, you think the fire from the candle will kill us? sure, a few will perish, but with those few come 1,000 more. try and stop us bitches!" Who knew ants could be that vicious?
Anyways, here are some more pictures for your perusal and really, I did enjoy the pumpkin patch. I just like to complain. Highlights include being with fabulous friends, Carrie's wonderful chili and cornbread and watching everyone carve ASS into their pumpkins. And feeling like a family......awwww. I forgive you pumpkin patch. You truly have brought wonder into my life. *Tear*

Ready to be done with this Corn Maze crap.



















Awww, who are those cute farmers in the best gender-bending cardboard cut-out picture ever?






Left:Kimberly and I looking ready to leave the Corn Maze
Below: Jason's and my pumpkin with Kimberly hard at work on her Death Mark masterpiece.

oat and a boat

This past summer brought many firsts for me: my first summer off since I was a teen, my first long organized bike ride, my first realization that having summer off is nice and I want to have the rest of the year off as well (and believe me, I had several more of those realizations), but one event that sticks out is my first Eastern seaboard road trip to Canada. I drove with my sister (ignore my strained expression) up to Montreal and we had a lot of fun. It was rainy, sticky, and full of underground shops. I always enjoy going to Canada because I just love the accents and everything/everyone just seems nicer up there.
Yet, Montreal adds a new twist to the Canada-ness - French speaking people and French accents!! oui-oui!! Absolutely love a place where it's the norm to walk into a store and say "Bonjour" and where pastries are everywhere! All of those details bring my back to my Salzburg days when you would greet everyone with a friendly "Grus Gott!" and if you got in the way, my favorite German word would come in handy - Entschuldigen. That part was tres fun for me because I'm a big nerd and love to be immersed in whatever culture I can, especially after a childhood in one of the blandest towns you'll ever witness (truly living in a white-bread suburban world).
We only had two short days there, but they were worth it. However, I would visit again when the humidity was not 85% because that was a bitch - walk around and be soaked from both rain and your own sweat from the day at 9am. No wonder they have so many underground malls!
Here are some more pictures from the trip:





A few drinks on our first night in a cafe just off a bustling cobblestone street.







More bustling streets and my sister in her glory shopping!

orange...an okay color

Quick note - I'm off to the kitchen to make some pumpkin muffins for a pumpkin carving party this afternoon, and before I begin this happy fall activity, I am musing on the color orange and how it's influenced many of my actions in the last few weeks. Pumpkin spice lattes - check. Pumpkin cheescake made - check. Cans of pure pumpkin purchased - check. And yummy pumpkin curry soup consumed - check. Man, for a color I always HATED (and funny because look at my husband's hair :) hee!), I am so rockin' the orange this fall. Just watch, I may purchase some lovely pumpkin colored sweaters and wear some lovely jack-o-latern earrings. Then you'll know that I've officially become......my mother? Scary. And hell no.
Okay, no orange colored clothing or themed accessories, but I can bake and eat whatever I want. That is my orange promise.

realities blending and toy terriers

Do you ever have those moments when your work persona bleeds over into your "real" persona (and I definitely, as a teacher, have two vastly different personas)? For example, I was discussing the Poe story "The Masque of the Red Death" with my little freshmen, and I asked, who is the Red Death? The answer I got back was Jason. I'm pretty sure they're thinking of the Friday the 13th villian, but my first thought is, my husband? I didn't say that - thank goodness - but then one kid says, no, let's call the Red Death Kimberly. Now wait a minute.....it's getting too freaky in here! First the husband, then the best friend? I blurt out - that's my best friend's name, which always prompts strange comments, like:
You have a best friend? and her name is kimberly? (duh - just said that!)
Do you call her Kimber? (no)
Kimbo? (why yes I do)
That's weird you have a friend named Kimberly (why? it's weird that you're talking right now....)
and the topper - do you call her Kim-Kim?
To which I snidely retorted - she's not a toy terrier. End of conversation and laughter reigns again in the classroom.

But why those two names? Perhaps just to freak me out or a strange coincidence, but still. I don't like when my real life infiltrates the classroom. It's almost as if the kiddos are at home with me and that's just bizzare. What are they going to ask me tomorrow......I hope it's not about the dead body in the basement, because that will be awkward :).