Weekend adventures + 30 days of positive posting

Happy Tuesday!

 Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I returned to find quite the storm brewing around the blogosphere due to a certain Marie Claire article. All I'm going to say is the author seemed to have taken them for a ride BUT it has brought up some tough topics that may need to be addressed. If you want to read a great response that I stand behind, check out the post from Laury of The Fitness Dish.

Moving on, I thought I would share with you some tid-bits about my weekend.

It started off with the fun task of racking all the leaves in my backyard. I say "fun" because I actually like doing it! I love walking through the leaves in the fall and hearing that crunch ...ahh Fall you actually do make me happy:)

About half of these leaves are from my neighbor's tree that hangs over the fence..oh well..all the more for the compost:) Ps my grass is finally green! We had severe watering restrictions in the summer and so it was looking pretty dead but with all the rain we have been getting, it's back to life!

Crunch, crunch, crunch!! My compost is full and my little over-flow area is full and the trees aren't even half bare! I'll be getting my exercise that's for sure:)

On Saturday I headed out to my mom's place to pick up Junior:) He is so small and sweet and fun!

My mom pampered him well and there were toys all over the place for him:) He also just got a clean bill of health from the vet so I'm happy about that!!

After all the cuddling and playing, I reluctantly left him to play on him own and we headed out to my my happy place - Covert Farms.  If you want to see my adventures the other weekend check out this post. This time I had one mission- pack the car full of butternut squash!

This, my friends, is the squash patch in all it's glory! There were a bunch of different varieties growing here but a lot of it was butternut:)

Come to momma!!! LOL

I think I succeeded in my mission, hey? I'm not sure what those green squash are but I'm just excited to be stocked up for winter:) Yes, that is a cantaloupe! They still had a million of them and watermelons..it was hard to walk away:(

This creepy looking thing is a purple tomatillo!! I love the "veins" on it's shell.

tomatillo rows! These things just grow and grow! Funny thing is, my aunts didn't know what this plant was so last year they ripped it out of the ground. This year they left them in so I'm planning on raiding that soon:)
PS they still had strawberries and we picked some more...YUM! Strawberries in October..who knew!!

On Sunday right before my mom and I hit the road, we were able to meet up at my cousin's wife's baby shower. I hadn't seen baby Addison yet so that was really fun. She is so adorable!

Thankfully, it was a beautiful day and the drive was warm and sunny! Yet, it wasn't only humans who were enjoying the good weather. We saw this guy going for a stroll...

I actually turned around on the highway to go back to a side road where I knew I could get a better view. Don't worry it was safe:) I loved seeing this guy just going about his business! I never see wildlife so that was pretty cool.

The scenery is always breathtaking no matter how many times I travel that highway!

Junior was really good too! Only a few cries at the beginning then he slept...purr-fect!

We got home safe and sound which is always a blessing. I was anxious to get home to see how Nemo was going to react to his new brother. Well, it wasn't the warm welcome I was hoping for but with time I'm sure Nemo will get off his high horse LOL! Junior has taken quite well to his new surroundings and runs around and plays so that's good. On the first night he even slept under the covers between Ry and me:)

Last night (Just pretend it was part of the weekend:) I made an amazing dish from Kathy on  Happy.Healthy.Life called Harvest Sage Red Quinoa. Spicy fennel/bean puree. I had some fennel in my fridge that had better days and with my fresh butternut squash, I knew this recipe was going to be perfect.

Butternut squash, quinoa, fennel, bean puree...MMMmm

This was super good! A great compliment to the other ingredients.

It doesn't look pretty but this green salsa is my new favorite food! I added some of this to my dish and it was awesome!

This is the recipe I followed! I added a little water to get the process going and I didn't blend it up as I like it a bit chunky.

I really like Gabrielle Bernstein and her message! She has the site Herfuture.com and her vlogs are very powerful! One of her latest vlogs talked about the power of being positive and how detrimental bullying can be as was seen in the suicide of Tyler Clementi. Cyber bullying (and negativity towards our fellow human beings) is quite rampant these days and it needs to stop. Everyone has feelings including homosexuals, straights, bisexuals, lesbians, blacks, whites, asians, hispanics and those from every other sexual orientation,race, religion, and on and on! I have my beliefs but I do not judge others who think differently. Gabrielle has asked that we post a favorite quote, a favorite youtube clip, a favorite cookie recipe, WHATEVER it is that makes you happy and allows you to radiate positivity onto others for 30 days. It has already started but it's never too late to share the love!!!  Hope you will join me:)

Have a great rest of your day! I'm off to do some rebounding while watching Glee and catch up on some much-neglected chemistry homework. Chow for now!