Awake

A few more pics, courtesy of Jackie and her awesome camera

Jackie just emailed me a few of her pictures from the pumpkin patch outing. Some of them I took on her camera and what's this...?! a picture of me?! A historic event indeed.

Link to my photos on Flickr.

On my Vox: Videos from my weekend north

Just posted the videos from last weekend, including the much acclaimed Seth-Kylia stunt where he throws her in the air and she grabs a helium balloon from the ceiling. Quite funny actually.

Videos from my weekend north

Grab the proverbial popcorn and enjoy!

Brant's Birthday and Pumpkin Patch Outing Pics Posted

Last weekend I ventured north to Portland and then to Lacey, WA to hang out with family and celebrate Brant's birthday. On Sunday I went to the worship service at Village and heard Murray Decker from Biola speak (it was great!) and then stayed for Ben Spott's talk about India (which was also awesome!).

I crocheted some hats for the girls. The first one (purple) turned out a bit small, the second one (turquoise) a bit too big, but the last one (red) turned out just right.

I've posted my pictures on Flickr for your viewing pleasure here or perhaps you would like to view them in a slideshow, yesno?

Murray Decker from Biola's Intercultural Studies Department at Village This Weekend

I was excited to see in Village's e-mail newsletter that Murray Decker, a professor at Biola University (my alma mater) is speaking this weekend. Murray was just starting out as a professor in the Intercultural Studies (my major) department when I was a student there. I'm in Southern Oregon now, but I just might need to make a trip up to Portland this weekend to hear him speak. I'm very interested in what he has to say and also how the Intercultural Studies department has grown and changed over the past decade.

So go and see Murray this weekend (and maybe I will see you there too)!

Happy Wednesday!

A facelift for the ole' blog

October is my blog's anniversary month (four years and running); so, in its honor, I've changed up the look. I snagged the stylized eye graphic from the "Dollar Bin" at istockphoto.com and the font is what I'm using for my new logo for my web design business, Sleepyhead City Web Works, LLC. It's called Zephyr and I got it at Veer.com. (Love that place for fonts.)

Cheers and happy Tuesday.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie Made With Fresh Local Pumpkins

This is the story of how I, mistress of the microwave, actually baked a Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie and how it actually turned out magically delicious!

First, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon last weekend, I rode my bike down to White's Produce, a country produce market, which is about a mile away from where I now live. I picked up two sugar pumpkins and brought them home to sit on the counter for two days while I pondered the fact that I was about to actually bake something without adult supervision.

To prepare the purée, as per my friend's instructions, I roasted the pumpkins 'til they were very soft and squishy. The house smelled like Thanksgiving. Now I was excited.

On my lunch break in Ashland, I happened to have lunch at Allyson's of Ashland (they have a wine cellar and deli downstairs and a very charming gourmet kitchen store upstairs). I picked up some cheesecloth and was then ready for the next step.

That evening when the pumpkins were cool, I removed the string and seeds and gently separated the flesh from the skin. I mixed up the purée and placed it over cheesecloth in a strainer in a bowl and let the water seep out of the mixture in the fridge overnight.

Finally on Saturday night, after a week of debating between pumpkin bread and pumpkin cheesecake, after finding a recipe on the interwebs for sugar-free pumpkin cheesecake, after gathering all of the ingredients from the grocery store, and after going back to the grocery store to get what I forgot, I finally was ready to begin.

First I made a graham-bunny crust. (Graham bunny?) Yes. The second trip to the store for what I forgot was for graham crackers in order to make the crust. But every box of graham crackers I picked up either had partially hydrogenated oil or high fructose corn syrup in it. Finally, with some assistance, I found a box of Annie's Graham Bunny snacks (the organic counterpart to "Teddy Grahams"). I made crumbs using the Cuisinart Mini-Prep which worked beautifully, by the way. The resulting crust was delicious, even Grandpa said so. :)

Then I made the cheesecake layer using lower fat cream cheese and then the pumpkin layer with my pumpkin purée made from fresh local pumpkins. (Yum!) I substituted sugar with Splenda to make the dessert virtually sugar-free so that Grandpa (who has controlled type 2 diabetes) could enjoy it too. The two 9" pie pans weren't quite enough to hold all of the pumpkin mixture, so after filling it to the very brink of spilling over, I made another mini crust for a small dish and made a little mini pumpkin pie dish with the leftover pumpkin mixture.

I baked the pies and when the fork came out clean :) I took them out of the oven and you know what? They looked goooood! And they smelled good too! I was amazed! I baked the little baby pumpkin pie and left them all to cool overnight. This morning I put them in the fridge to chill. This evening Grandpa and I each had a slice of my Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie and enjoyed it thoroughly! Success!

I'd have a picture for you but my camera battery is dead after a day of taking pictures of the Rogue. This wouldn't usually be a problem except that my camera's A/C adaptor cord has frayed and is no longer functional. Luckily I found a replacement on eBay for cheap which is shipping tomorrow, so problem should be solved in a few days. :)

A Perfect Fall Day on the Upper Rogue

Bridge over Union Creek
Originally uploaded by amber_is_i

Grandpa and I enjoyed a perfect Fall day along the Upper Rogue River today. We had lunch at Beckie's Café at Union Creek then viewed the Gorge, The Natural Bridge and Woodruf Bridge. My camera's battery made it through the Natural Bridge viewing but died before I could capture the especially brilliant Fall colors at Woodruf Bridge.

I brought along the monopod and snapped quite a few pictures. They are now living on my Flickr site in the set Fall on the Upper Rogue.

Update: I posted my mini-videos on my Vox over here.

In Which Tucker the Puppy Moves About Gleefully

Tucker, the silent 12-second movie puppy star is featured over on my Vox blog. Check it out....

Link: Tucker. Puppy.

A few pics from graduation

Here are the pictures I took from my graduation BBQ that took place a couple of weeks ago. Mom and Jackie took pictures too...wonder if I can convince them to get Flickr accounts and upload them too....? Mmmm.....
;-)

Link to the Graduation BBQ album..

(If you haven't been to Flickr in a while, you may get a message about logging into Yahoo first. Puzzling since these photos are public, but I think it may be due to the Yahoo-Flickr merge and their objective of getting all users of Flickr over to Yahoo so that Flickr will work for them. I remember it being a fairly painless process.)

Tucker, The Ridiculously Cute Puppy

Brant and Jackie got a "Puggle" (Pug+Beagle) last month. They named him Tucker, a good name, in my opinion. He is very cute and sweet, don't you agree? (Link to this set.)

Niece Extravaganza

Here's a set of photos I like to call "Niece Extravaganza." I made a trip to Lacey for Adalie's birthday and hung out with the girls. We went shopping and got Adalie a Superman tank top, a sundress, and she also picked out a princess umbrella to buy with some birthday money she received from another relative. There's also some pictures in this set from my graduation weekend a couple of weeks ago (those of the girls with the puppy). Enjoy! (Link to this set on Flickr.)

At the fair

Seth sent me this pics of their superfun trip to the fair a couple weeks ago. By the way, I've been locked out of my own Gallery and so I'm starting to use my Flickr account in earnest. You can find my latest photos over there (link).

The Snowball Entry

No, it's not snowing here in Ashland. Nowhere close. It's a pleasant 68 degrees here and just a beautiful Fall day in general. No, this is the entry that starts all of the other entries that I've been posting in my head, but not on my blog for you all to read. My iPhoto 4/iPhotoToGallery combo has been acting up (read: crashing) for the past 6 months or more and I simply haven't had time to fix it; so, photo uploads have been slow-going, but I've got plenty to share, including pictures of Brant and Jackie's new ridiculously cute puppy, Tucker (a "Puggle"), my nieces at the Fair, and other summer delights. I'm sure I could dig up a few from my graduation too and the BBQ party over at my folks house that followed.

So here's the teaser...with a promise of many updates to come. Stay tuned...

Happy Tuesday.