The Powertool Pumpkin

Tonight we went to Colette's annual pumpkin carving party. This year it was combined with her friend Suzanne's costume party, which was very entertaining for us carvers. There seems to be two kinds of folks at this party - people who carved pumpkins, and people who dressed up and couldn't carve pumpkins because of how uncomfortable or unwieldy their costumes were!
This year I decided to make pumpkin carving easier. Especially the cleaning out part, always time consuming and these days too difficult for me to do with my hands that are sensitive to cold and also have difficulty gripping hand tools. Partly inspired by a carving tool I saw last year, but too late to order it to actually use, and partly inspired by a segment on The Today Show, we packed up the jig saw, power drill, extra batteries, two spade bits, and the egg beaters from the hand mixer. And stopped to buy a couple of pumpkins.



I think this was the quickest pumpkin carving I have ever done. I made a "pumpkin lantern", something I saw on the Martha Stewart Show. We used the jig saw to cut the top off, the egg beater attached to the drill to clean out the insides, and then I used two sizes of spade bits and free-handed holes around the pumpkin. I tried to do a pattern, but without being anal, it looks cool without being "perfect".

In fact, I was done and back inside well before dark. Which is why there are no pictures of me carving - everyone's hands were too goopy and I was the first one done.

I used to do original pictures, then the templates starting coming out a few years ago and one year I even did a double carving where you had a picture on the front and a second cutout on the back of the pumpkin that would cast a big shadow on the wall of the house behind it. This pumpkin lantern was the best I could do this year. Next, I will be contemplating not having a Christmas tree either. (My pumpkin is the one on the far left.)

Steve carved the BMW logo artfully into his - as you can see the pumpkin is not cut, but rather the skin is scraped off to let some light thru in different amounts. It is a neat technique. Leave it to my husband to do something about his car.

Sophia was sporting her jack-o'-lantern sweatshirt. It was cold out, she was also bundled inside one of her snugglesax when we were outside (she would not stay inside without us.)

Here's Sophia in the back of the MINI as we head for home, flanked by our two pieces of squash art.

Now we're going to go put them outside so we can enjoy them when we come back from walking the dog!

Happy Halloween everyone! Thanks for a great party, Colette!

Save a pumpkin's life!

The code didn't copy over correctly. Go see this post on my other blog.

This year's Halloween colors are orange and GREEN

NWsource families columnist, Lora Shinn, says

Get on your eco-duds, then head to Ecohaus's Green Halloween party for some healthy Halloween ideas, hands-on activities and healthy snacks. Kids will get to meet "insulation man," who I imagine dates "duct girl." Prizes will be awarded for the most eco-friendly costumes. Sat., Oct. 18, noon-3 p.m., at Ecohaus, 4121 First Ave. S. Free.

Also, if you are looking for more green party ideas, you should pick up the book Simply Green Parties by Danny Seo, author of Simply Green Giving. I found it at Capers a year ago and it helped me plan our house warming party after moving into our Built Green Certified townhome in High Point in 2007. Nothing specific for Halloween, per se, but there are some AWEsome ideas in this book, great how-to's, and some really nice photographs. ADDED on 10/31: See this video of how Danny Seo green's up Halloween.

On the scary Halloween night, you'll probably find us and my little Italian greyhound, Sophia (sporting her orange jack-o-lantern sweatshirt, complete with green stem on the hood) at Skeleton Theater on October 31st. We've gone for the past two years they have done this, and they say this year it will be one 20 minute show instead of clips. You should check it out if you are in the area!! It is pretty amazing what a couple of guys and creative genius can create.

Like it's Y2K again (pretend)

My 38th birthday came and went. We celebrated by pretending it was Y2K again, the year we went to Paris, and on my birthday visited Monet's house at Giverny. This is the budget version, of course. We visited the Inspiring Impressionism exhibit at Seattle Art Museum (which also has a neat exhibit of autos hanging from the ceilings) on its last day (9/21, the day before my birthday) and I got to see another Monet original. Actually, I may have seen this painting at the Metropolitan Musem of Art in New York City in December, since that is where this painting was on loan from.

I finally figured out why I love Impressionism painting so much. Two reasons, really. It helps other people see the world the way I see it when I am not wearing my glasses. And I am one of those rare color-blind women (1 in a million, not kidding) and since the colors in these types of paintings range all the colors of nature, I put less pressure on myself to try to figure out the name of the color I am looking at, since the label for the color really isn't important. I try to enjoy these paintings without high expectations for myself.
I really do a lot more blogging at Green Spaces since a large part of my life is about being eco-friendly and it is wired into me to share what I know with others. I finally found a lamp for my office that I loved, was eco-friendly, purchased at a local shop, and I could finally see my keyboard after dark and also use my desk for writing.

As for being green, our lifestyle change began in 2001 when we joined PCC and began concentrating on an organic lifestyle. We had a p-patch garden for several years, and then began gardening at home when I began having more difficulty, physically, with gardening, and the neignbor had (unfortunately) cut down a 100 foot tall Douglas fir in his yard, which suddenly gave us full sun from almost no sun.
Now I garden in pots on my 200 sq ft deck, my arms had gotten so bad it became pointless to try to maintain a 1/4 acre yard with garden beds. We are very happy here, celebrating our first anniversary in our new Built Green Certified townhome in August. The sun streams thru the bedroom window all afternoon, and as you can see, Sprite has taken Sophia's pillow, but Sophia doesn't mind too much since she is still in a sunbeam.

We've had some career issues around here lately. Steve became unemployed the first week of September. We weren't expecting it, and it took a few weeks to put together another deal with his former agency to go back to Microsoft on a new one year contract. He begins October 15th (Wednesday).
Beginning in mid-August, my work began slowing due to project delays (waiting for appraisals to come in), and my income suddenly went to half of what it had been. Not a good thing to happen at the same time Steve had no income. Employment Security Department is still dithering over whether his case qualifies. Maybe we will get a windfall check here any day, as they say it takes 4-6 weeks to make a decision and it's been just about six weeks.

One good thing came out of it - Steve was able to spend a lot of time with his dad when he visited here in September. And Ron lent Steve some of his camera equipment and Steve has spent some time outdoors taking photographs that are actually truly amazing, as you can see by this recent photo of the moon from our house. Looks like you could almost reach out and touch it. He has posted some really amazing photos on his blog this last weekend. Even some really cute ones of Sophia and Imp the cat in one of Sophia's holiday sweatshirts.

Ron also lent us some money to get thru this tough time. I began sending out resumes the last week of September, deciding I needed to take matters into my own hands and if that meant leaving self-employment and taking a corporate job somewhere and maybe start working on a "career" again, I would consider my options. I have an interview for a Port of Seattle position this week, and I am also looking at moving my real estate license to a like-minded brokerage if they will agree to a part-time agent status at this point in time since we have severe cash flow issues headed our way and it will take awhile to get fiscally fit again.

Another good thing that has come of all of this, and actually I started working on this before Steve's job evaporated, was we agreed to a debt management plan with an agency. We already had sworn "no new debt" as a New Year resolution, so we have been in training, so to speak, all year. So it was just a formality to sign up with a service, get the interest rates lowered, and actually have less money going out every month than trying to meet all of the minimum payments on the 6 cards we had. We should have $57k of credit card debt paid off in 3 years and 11 months. I am pretty happy about that and am perfectly comfortable living a cash-only lifestyle. There was a moment of panic when Steve's income stopped, but the reality is we had so much debt, and with the credit crunch our country is experiencing in our economy right now, I doubt we would have been able to use our credit cards anyway. We signed up with Take Charge America - it was one of the companies recommended to me by a Bank of America rate adjuster when I tried to dicker for a better interest rate after paying a bill one day late. Steve and I both did debt repayment in our 20s, too, but didn't learn our lesson that time, so we are going to do it again. I feel really great about the decision, and just need to make sure the money for the autodraft they take out of the checking account once a month, to pay all of our credit card bills for us, is there. I highly recommend this service if you are feeling uncomfortable, or even scared a bit, by your own credit card debt. Otherwise, all of our bills are paid, and with the loan from Ron, we should recover by the end of the year and still have money to pay for taxes on my self-employment income for 2008.

Thankfully, I am ending service on my HOA board as President at the end of October. Yeah! My after-hours life is pretty full. I take a Nia class on Monday, play bells on Tuesday, have been going to physical therapy for my back on Wednesday, and on Thursday tutoring after school homework help at the Youth Tutoring Program here in my neigbhorhood. Hopefully I won't have to give up any of these activities if I take on full-time corporate employment (even when working "full-time" now I only work about 30 hours/week - lately I have been lucky to get 10-15 hours a week of work). I do know I will be going to bed a lot earlier, and I will also have to hire a dog walker since I know Sophia is not going to be able to hold it from 6 AM to 6 PM. No yard here, you know, and I wouldn't want her to be uncomfortable anyway. Hard to picture paying someone what I might make in one hour on a temp job for a 15 minute potty break walk, but with Steve working, too, it will help offset the cost.

Well, I am going to head out for a walk outside of the neighborhood for a change, and go see what autumn is up to at the South Seattle Community College Arboretum.