Autumn also means pumpkin spice and autumn food.

Here are a few goodies I found in the stores.

Apple Cider Donuts from Trader Joes

Apple Cider Jam from Trader Joes

Pasta and Pasta Sauce from Trader Joes

Pumpkin flavored Pepperidge Farm cookies from Target

and finally pumpkin bread box mix from Trader Joes

Bon Appetit!

Watching Hallmark movies always bring in the season, either Harvest or Christmas.

Hallmark did a nice little preview to give you a sneak peek of the movies coming up on every Saturday.

If you missed the preview, you can catch it here.

I watched the first movie called “Truly, Madly, Sweetly”

Truly, Madly, Sweetly
Premieres September 22, 2018
Natalie, the owner of a San Francisco food truck business selling cupcakes, and Eric, a finance manager and divorced dad are brought together when Eric’s aunt, also a longtime customer of Natalie’s, passes away and leaves them a building which happens to be the site of a once-famous bakery. Forced into this new partnership, they discover selling the building won’t be easy because it has been declared a historical site. Romance blooms as they spend time together in the process of renovating the old bakery. However, Natalie’s desire to keep things strictly business could put an end to the partnership before the grand opening.

I rate this a 4 pumpkin

Now that we have looked at a few pictures of autumn it is time to get some of those bucket list items done.

If you have not read my bucket list, please click on the pumpkin below and it will take you to the post.

To kick off the season, a simple change like a garden flag with a wonderful Autumn sentiment is a good beginning.

These cute little garden flags are from Joann Fabrics

Just click on the pictures to be taken to the website where you can get one too.

I also put a lovely Autumn wreath on my front door.   This is just the beginning,  However it will remain simple until Halloween is over.

This cute little wreath was also from Joann Fabrics.  I loved the velvet pumpkin nestled in between the foliage.

Just a simple start to the bucket list.  Happy Autumn.

Today is the first day of autumn.

Please tell Southern California that is the 1st day of Autumn and not the summer that never ends.

I love autumn, the crisp air, golden and ruby leaves, pumpkins, a little fog in the morning, cuddling up in a blanket with a good book.

Maybe one day I will live somewhere that actually has Autumn and not brown crispy plants that will more than likely be fuel for yet another wildfire.

ok, ok,  get back in the mood.

Lets looks at some wonderful pictures of Autumn

Imagine looking over the valley of exploding autumn colors, gold, orange, yellow, reds, olives, dusky purple, all fiery and glorious.

Or Creating an Halloween scene with leaves and crows, jack o’lanterns and mums

or taking a walk during a gentle rain with rows of Jack O’Lanterns inviting the season.

Or walking in the woods and coming to a covered bridge.

Maybe finding a quaint cottage with pumpkins and cornstalks

Welcome Autumn, we have waited so long.

I am not a big fan of Summer and usually around this time of year I am more than ready to bring on Autumn.

I have been channeling Autumn and have gotten all my friends and co-workers to bring on Autumn thru wishful thinking.

Not sure if it will work but I believe in using your powers to summon up the goodness of earth.  And in this case, the season.

It must be working because the stores are putting out the autumn and Halloween items.   I am seeing pumpkin spice everything start to show up on everything, not sure about pumpkin spice motor oil but who knows.

I looked at several buckets lists and since a lot of them involved activities I will never do (go on a nature hike) or cannot do (no piles of fall leaves in Southern California), I made my own list.

Since I am a crafter/baker/creative person that lives with two little dogs the list has things that are achievable for me.

Follow along to see how I do this year.

If you want a copy of this bucket list, please click below.

Autumn 2018 Bucket List

Penny and Olive here.  We are hacking Mom’s blog.  She never puts enough of US on the blog.   She does silly stuff like cards and quilts.  So we will just have to hack into her blog and fix that!

Mom promised us 4 days of new park adventures.   She is on vacation this week and she said she would take us to 4 different parks during her stay-cation.   All new sniffs,  new grass, new shade, new poop places.

We are here to rate the parks and let her know which parks meet with our approval for future parkies!

Park One – Dr. Richard H. Rioux Memorial Park

This park is in the hills of Stevenson Ranch.  Like most parks, it is next to an Elementary School.   However the park was large enough that you could not even see the school.

Lots of Grass

Lots of Trees

Picnic Tables for Mom to rest at

Plenty of Shade for us to rest under.   We try to rest in a cool spot FAAARRRRRRRR away from benches so Mom has to stand there while we rest!

Hee Hee Hee, I love to make the hooman stand and wait for us to rest!

I did not even poop at the park, which I love to do.   One of life’s greatest pleasures is to poop at the park.

Hey Olive, Mom says you will NEVER be a instagram star as you REFUSE to look at the camera!

Not TRUE!   I just choose to model when I am in the mood, which is rare and hardly ever!

See I can model, if I so desire.

OK let’s get back to rating the park!

Grass and Trees

5 paws!  Lots of grass, lots of trees!  Makes lots of shade.

Crowds and Hoomans

There were people there but they did not cause us to bark.   Maintenance guys were mowing, so avoid Tuesdays!

Places for Mom to Sit and Rest

Lots of benches, but had a lot of dirt around them.  We could not sit in the grass if Mom was sitting at the bench

Poop Bags Available

Did not see any.  But we were only at one section of the park

MOM stuff, like easy to get to…parking…nice view (she does not care about sniffs)

She says it was close to home, easy to park, plenty of parking spaces,  Lots of trash cans to throw poop bags away.   Walkways so it is easy for her to walk.  Overall pretty good.

Our over all rating for this park is a total of 4 paws up!

I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Signing off – Olive and Penny!

Well it is that time again.

As I showed you last year, I collect the Lenox Holiday collection.   Such beautiful dinnerware for the holidays seasons.  It is sort of an extravagance considering I rarely use it.   However I collected it when I bought my house and pictured myself having lots of holiday parties.  Back then I had money to burn, now I am on a budget.  But this my Christmas gift to my self.  It is black friday so I got all 4 pieces for $100.  Not a bad deal.

This year I bought the 4 hostess gifts that were a great price.

The Lenox Holiday Lazy Susan Tray.

This will be great for appetizers or a cheese platter.

The second item I got was the bread tray.  Obviously to hold bread, either for the table at dinner or some pumpkin bread in the morning.

Up next is the divided dish.   Since I am not 100% sure of the dimensions.  It can either hold olive/pickles.   Or if larger, two side dishes.  Either way, it will look great on the table.

The last piece I got was the chip and dip set.  Some great dip in the middle with some chips.  Or humus and some pita bread.  You could go crazy and do mashed potatoes and gravy.   Nah, but it could be done.

Because I bought 4 items, I got these bowls for free.  I really anticipate them telling me they are sold out.

Posting these on my blog really helps me keep track of the items I have brought previously.

For years and years I have been collection Lenox Holiday China.

I have the entire place settings for 12 people and a ton of matching accent pieces.

Fortunately for the last few years it has just been grabbing the new pieces and the great sale items.  No huge ticket items.   All bought and done with!  I swear I must have everything.

This year I have added these two beauties to my collection:

The Lenox Holiday Covered Dish – 6-1/2 x 9-1/2

The Lenox Holiday Round Platter – 13″

I love how they tell me it is dishwasher safe, like I would EVER put my china in the dishwasher.

I really need to inventory my china.  But more importantly, I need to have a dinner party again.

Thanks for looking!

I have been missing for a while.   Been busy quilting which I normally do not blog about, but will soon.   I am trying to finish a Halloween quilt that I started 2 or 3 years ago.  Or it could be 4 or 5 years ago.

I finished the piecing and now am quilting it.  The big challenge is that I wanted to learn to do free motion, so part of my quilt was done with a walking foot and the other parts are free motion.

I basically suck at it, but it is a new skill so I just need to practice to get better.   I actually do not mind doing this on an actual quilt versus a spare fat quarter.  I am hoping it will be a reminder of where I started (that is if I get better).

On to Halloween!

I did my normal decorating, pumpkins that light up, spider webs, etc.   I added a new bone spider, bone rat and and bone vulture.

I also like to get the big candy bars and be the cool house.  But the last two years I have seen a trend where large groups of children come together.  About 10-15 in a group.  As you can image this wipes out the candy pretty fast and with that volume, I cannot even stop to see the costumes.   I prefer the one or two children at a time deal.   Of course the little boy next door showed up twice just like he did last year.   I told him to stop doing that and I would run out of candy.  LOL  He could have least changed his costume or waited for a huge group and confuse me.   Too funny!

Speaking of children, the last two children of the night wore this adorable NASA suits and you put the candy down the flexible silver tube (aka dryer exhaust hose) it drops into their air pack on their back.  Sooooo cute.

This year I added two new items, an electric fence light that made “sparking” noises when you got near it.

I ended up putting it on the baby gate that I use in the doorway so the dogs do not get out when I answer the door.

The other goody I got was a short-circuit lab light bulb that fizzled in and out like one of those spooky haunted laboratories that mad scientists do human experiments!   Eeekkk!!!!!  This one is sold by Gemma in case you want one.  I got mine at Wal-mart.

It has a little switch that you can either make it motion sensor or not.    I liked it a lot.  Made it real spooky.

I also dress up the dogs like a good dog mom.   Doug resisted Eli getting dressed but I think he really thought he was cute.

He was a prisoner of Love.

It was a tad bit tight but he did just fine.   The label on the back glows in the dark.   I just love how it looked on his hind legs.  So cute.

Olive was a dinosaur!  A cute one I might add.   Olive does real good with costumes.

You can see her costume better on the video below.

Penny on the other hand HATES costumes and sweaters.  She is 100% dog and does not like that sort of thing.

She does make a cute little panda.   Look at that panda tail on her back.  So cute.

For fun I made a little video

Thanks for looking and Happy Halloween!!!

Oh, this goes by so fast.  I wait all year and then BAM it is over.

I cannot wait to hear about next year’s theme.

I am holding up my three favorite cards from this year!

I had an awesome time!