Happy Birthday... To Me

Today is my 24th birthday. I've always hated having my birthday in November. It's always a bit chilly, and I'm not a fan of the cold weather. (and it's cold and a bit wet too... Grrr.. Why couldn't I have gotten sunny weather! Oy! LoL).

For my birthday, I wanted to share with you my one and only doll...She's an Adora doll. I picked her out because she looks exactly like me when I was a baby. How rare is that?

Check out her photo and my baby photos... (can you tell who is who?)


Doesn't she look a lot like me? She's one of only 700 dolls that were produced, and I think she's just precious. Cam bought her for me for Christmas last year. We saw her at an old-fashioned European toy store in downtown Franklin, TN, and I just had to have her. She cost about $120-130 bucks, and I absolutely love her.

She sleeps/lies in this toy crib that I bought. (The Adora accessories were way too much money).


Now some up-close photos...

And here's the baby in her entirety. Her outfit is pretty cute too!


Okay, so I probably went a little obsessive with the photos. But how often do you have a doll that looks a lot like you when you were a baby? Almost exactly.

My mom says she's like my baby clone, that's how freaky it is. When I first got her, my mom used to hold her and just squeal at how much she looked like me... And now I love her... because maybe my kids will look like an Adora doll. How cool would that be?

Anyway, enjoy your weekend!
-DP

Now officially 24 years old!

Fall Leaves

I apologize for the lack of posts. With the fall weather, there's not much to post about. There are a few things still growing in the garden, but nothing new has gone in. I think we're going to wait until next year as we begin to plan what we'll be growing.

Today I wanted to show you some photos of beautiful leaves that grace my yard. It's my next-door-neighbor's tree, but when it's sunny outside, the orange color fills the windows in the front door and in the kitchen, it's magnificent.


This photo was taken a few days ago, but isn't the tree so pretty? The orange color still remains on the tree, but its leaves have started to fall. It's not too cold in Nashville yet, but we've had a few cool/frosts I believe. All of our indoor plants are now safely in the house. In the upcoming weeks, I'll be posting photos of the last days of the outside garden as well as some of our indoor plants.

Enjoy the fall!

The Last of the Apples and Apple Jam

The last of this year's apples were so perfect and ripe that I decided that I would make apple jam. I guess there's no such thing because I've never seen it at the store. It's always apple butter or apple preserves.

I used a package of pectin and followed the directions to make the jam. It's delicious and sweet, but the consistency and taste are a bit like apple sauce. It's a little thicker than apple sauce, but still it's pretty liquidy.

Next year, I think I will just make apple sauce and can it. The apples were perfect and were so delicious.

Here are a few photos.

The Last of the Tomatoes and Luka

When the frost killed all the tomatoes, I took Blogger Tina's advice and put all the green ones in a paper bag. It will be going in the garage, and I guess we'll see if I will get to taste any ripe garden tomatoes soon...

Below: Beautiful green tomatoes


As I look back on this summer, I will miss these ripe tomatoes the most. They were so tasty and so delicious in my salads. Store-bought tomatoes just don't taste the same; they are too watered down. Now that I've tasted the real thing, I don't think I can ever go back. I have to wait until next summer and try to grow some more.

I may be planting a few seeds in pots and place them in the sun room, and hopefully it'll be like a green house for these seeds and maybe I can have some veggies in the winter. We'll see if this experiment works out.

In the meanwhile, it's time for a Luka update. Skeeter mentioned that I should've posted pictures of Luka for Halloween... but I forgot, so here's my belated Luka pictures. As you can see in the photos, she's been a busy kitten... (and it's very hard to take photos of her cute little face)




Now that we're starting to bring a lot of our potted plants inside, I'm trying to keep Luka away from them. She really does like to eat those leaves, and I noticed that she ate some rose petals (from a vase on the living room table) when we were away... And then she threw up... and it was not pleasant to clean up. So I bought her some pet grass at the pet store, and hopefully this will keep her thirst for greenery away from other plants.

I'm keeping my eye on her!