Fall

Fall is my all time favorite season. The wood smoke and chill in the air. Pumpkins and the beautiful colors of the leaves. Yeah.

We don't have any of those things here in Florida. Well, the pumpkins of course. Chill in the air? Maybe December. If you're lucky November. You get the picture, right? I love it though. I can sit on our dock in shorts, in December...can't get better than that. ;)

So, to get my 'fall' fix we usually head north in October. My oldest sister has a cabin up in the north western part of NC, and we usually head that way, but my youngest sister is looking for property and this time we headed towards the Asheville area. She is feeling a "pull" towards that area and I don't blame her, lol.

Anyway, I love going to NC in the fall. This year we went a little early for the leaves but the weather was beautiful during the day and chilly at night. Here are a few pictures. Enjoy.

This was in Leicester NC. It is called the Medicine Wheel House at

Spirit Mountain Sanctuary. It was totally round, had a bedroom in the loft, a very nice wood stove and the bathroom rocked (for all 5 of us, lol)

this is the view from the deck...

beautiful vista!

hot tub

lots of paths to meander

Quiet places to meditate...

woods to explore...

This was in Franklin NC. The kids wanted to go mining, lol. This is the view from the balcony of the house we stayed in for a few days. Way down in that pasture, there were some cute little cows. The man who owned this house had a ton of bird feeders so when we got there we loaded them up. The little birdies were so much fun to watch as we sipped our morning coffee.

panning for Sapphires & Rubies. The kids did not want to go to the 'salted' mines so this one took almost all day to do. It was fun though.

This was in Georgia at Tullalah Falls park. This is one of the falls,

I believe there are two. :) So pretty

Tullalah Falls Gorge

And that is pretty much it. There were lots more pictures and even some video of my sister letting loose, singing and dancing to Abba's "Dancing Queen". It was hilarious!

Thanks for stopping by...

This week

This week I have been working on a quilt I started last week. We had a baby shower here last weekend so I had to put everything away. Out of sight if you will. The dining room is my sewing room. I had also borrowed a cutting mat and gave it back to the person I borrowed it from so I really took my time getting my sewing things back out. I really wasn't in to this quilt you see so I was in no hurry. I didn't like the way it was going. Didn't like the way it looked no longer appreciated the colors. *Sigh* not a good place to be. You see, I don't like to start a new project without finishing the one I am on. So, that is how my week has been.

Until yesterday.

I went to Wal-mart and bought myself a new cutting mat and ruler. Next I got out the sewing machine. Today I actually got the fabric back out. I started sewing. Next thing I knew I actually had a kind of vision. Then things started to look ok. The fabrics were meshing. I held them up and laid them out; turned them around and all of a sudden, I liked them. I could actually 'see' where I was going with this.

Maybe it was because I didn't have a pattern when I started (never do). Mostly I watch tutorials on You Tube. I really should take lessons I think, but for now I can't afford it and will just wing it. The quilts I am making are for me and my family and they won't mind if they aren't perfect.

This is the finished top. It measures 52" square. :)

I just have to drop it to the quilters house and wait for it to be done. :) I am also going to have her do 2 baby quilt tops. :)

Roasted Chicken

Yumm! I love cooking a roasted anything really. Whole chickens are pretty inexpensive too. Not to mention all the meals you can get out of one whole chicken!


1 whole chicken
1 or 2 celery stalks, cut up 2-3" pieces
1 med onion chopped
1 carrot chopped
1 Tbsp garlic granules (or 3-4 fresh cloves minced)
1 Tbsp Thyme
1 Tbsp Oregano
1 Tbsp Parsley
1 Tbsp Salt
1 Tbsp Pepper
olive or vegetable oil


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Rinse the chicken and throw the innards into your freezer to add to homemade chicken broth. Loosen the skin on the breasts, being careful not to tear it. Chop up your veggies and place in the bottom of a roasting pan with a rack. Mix the next 6 ingredients together to make a 'rub'. Take about one or two tablespoons of the spice rub and push it up & under the skin of the chicken, rub it around under there. Drizzle the oil all over the chicken and the remaining spices over the outside of the chicken. Place chicken in a roasting pan on top of the rack, breast side up & cover. Roast the chicken for an hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes (depending on size) or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thigh reads 165°F. Don't poke too many holes with the thermometer, you don't want the juices to leak out.
Remove the roasting pan from the oven, carefully lift out the rack with the roasted chicken on it and transfer the bird to a clean cutting board. Let it rest, covered with foil, for about 10 minutes before carving.

Here is a picture of mine going into the oven. Sorry its blurry, lol.

I don't have any "after" pictures because it was so tender it fell off the bones, lol. As of today the bones are picked clean & are resting in the freezer. I am going to take most of the chicken that is left & make some chicken pot pies for future dinners. I hope the freezer is up for it.

Thanks for reading, have a nice week!



Posts from the week

Some posts I liked this week…

Megen at Sparing-Change cutting costs on your vacation. There are some good tips there, check it out.

Read this post if you are having a bad day or week. It's the weekend so hopefully you can implement some of these and appreciate the res1. Thanks, Nora.

This is a good and unusual post on more and many uses of duct tape. Another good one from Daniel over at Wisebread.

Diane @ Turning the Clock back is turning up the salads with edible flowers. Check out this post.

They have a guest blogger over at Not Made of Money and he has written about struggling with energy bills. We can all use help on energy costs.

Marisa @ Food in Jars blogged about how to tell if your canning items have gone bad. Check this post out.

Go over to The Homestead Revival tomorrow and link up to the Preparedness Challenge.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!