Happy Halloween, Y'all!

This year I had planned on making an awesome Halloween setup in our driveway. I wanted to have decorations, games, prizes and of course candy, but somehow holidays ALWAYS sneak up on me. I didn't even get the house decorated this year. Last night, instead of getting everything set up like I wanted, I bought a last minute bag of candy at Costco, (which is the important part, right?). Hopefully, I'll have enough time after work to put out some lights before it gets dark. At least the weather will be nice enough for us to sit outside and hand out candy.

Next year will be awesome.

Happy Wednesday and Happy Haunting

-Shala-

Roller Disco is Back!

We've seen old fashions and trends come back in style, well now it is official - rollerskating is finding a resurgence.  Shala and I have been on the search for a rink with more of an adult atmosphere and alas we have found one!  Introducing Down and Derby - http://sk8party.com/about/  So, lace up your skates, grab a drink, and roll where the music takes you because roller disco is back baby!

http://sk8party.com/

See me rollin',
Allison

My favorite place that I have ever visited is New Zealand

They Northern Island of New Zealand is a paradise that one should put on your bucket list.

The country has an incredible culture and the people of New Zealand are the most gracious host’s one could ever ask for.  Mixed in with their British accent is a sense of humor that will leave you smiling and wishing you could stay.

The country is as diverse as one small country can be. From the heavenly ski slopes to the abundance of water activities you can easily spend a glorious two weeks and still not experience all the bounty of a small country.

The rainforest of the Coromandel Peninsula and the beautiful beaches allows you to slip away from the day to day living and enjoy one of the affordable guest homes that are steeped in the comforts of home. Many of the accommodations throughout New Zealand include a kitchenette, which is a nice option to experience the array of the local produce and products available at the grocery store.

The city of Auckland, which I visited before the earthquakes, is a cosmopolitan and friendly pace.  There are several must see places in or near the city. The Auckland Domain, is the oldest park in the city and sits on the site of an extinct volcano. You will also find the Auckland War Memorial Museum here. Another fun place to visit is the Sky Tower; this is the tallest feature of the Auckland skyline. From the observation deck you can take in a 360 degree of this hoping city dating back to the 1880’s.

You cannot go to New Zealand without visiting the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. You can take a guided canoe trip thru the caves. New Zealand is the only cave in the world where you take in this phenomenon.

If I were ever to return to New Zealand I would visit Lake Taupo. The lake is actually in the crater of an extinct volcano, and is about the size of Singapore. The water of the lake is warmed by geothermal water which makes for an excellent swimming hole. Not only can you take in a guided boat ride of the lake, but you can water-ski, sail, kayak and it boasts the best trout fishery in the world.  The people in this community love to have you there and their hospitality is above and beyond when it comes to sharing their life in paradise.

Happy Trails

Scales make unique and thoughtful gifts

Gift Giving Ideas 

Do you have sportsman, elderly family members, travelers, newlyweds, small/home business owners, coworkers, bird and other pet owners, new parents, soap/lotion or candlestick makers.  Then you have come to the right place for a gift that will be useful, and appreciated.

Many of us find that our parents and Grandparents can be especially difficult to find something that is more than a dust collector. Here are some ideas.

Talking scales can help with the visually impaired.

Weight can be very important in the health of our beloved seniors.

We have a kitchen scale that has a talking feature and a bowl for $36.90 plus shipping

This is the My Weigh Vox 3000

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-vox-3000.html

We also carry a selection of talking bathroom scales.

The My Weigh Phoenix Talking Bathroom Scale is $44.80 plus shipping

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-phoenix-talking-scale.html

or a larger size talking scale that makes getting on and off a bit easier

The My Weigh XL-440

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-xl440.html

For the sportsman we offer scales that can weigh fish, game, and even bicycles

Weston offers a selection of Sportsman Pull Spring Scales.  These are mechanical hanging scales.

Jennings offers 2 UltraSport models  and these are digital hanging scales.

These and other sports related scales can be found at:

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/hanging-scales.html

For the bird lover we offer a selection of avian scales. 

These scales come with a perch and have a 30 year warranty.

These can be found at:

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/search.asp?keyword=avian&x=0&y=0

Scales for people that have everything

For the smaller kitchen we offer a scale with an Ipod dock

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/ade-joy.html

A beautiful bathroom scale for the new homeowner or just a nice update to the plain scale

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/soehnle-63804.html

Good combination gifts

A recipe, or cook book with a kitchen scale

For   the elderly, those that find getting to the post office is difficult or to just avoid lines at the post office

A small shipping scale with stamps and perhaps cards and envelopes or small shipping boxes

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/shipping-scales.html

New parents might enjoy a baby scale

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/baby-infant-pediatric-scales.html

For the traveler we offer luggage scales

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/search.asp?keyword=luggage&x=0&y=0

and even a Portable body fat scale

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/ade-yvonne.html

For crafty people we have Soap Making, Candle Making & Lotion Making Scales

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/candle-and-soap-making-scales.html

These suggestions are just to get you thinking about how you can give a gift that shows you thought enough to make it personal. For these and other great ideas please visit our website 24/7 or call us Monday – Friday from 8:00 am – 4:00 pm, mountain time.  We look forward to hearing from you.

It's that time again!

For those who have yet to experience the brilliance that is The Walking Dead, you are missing out on a GREAT show! The new season kicked off this past Sunday and it didn't disappoint in any way. Lots of blood, guts, drama and Zombies! What else could ya ask for in a show? If you haven't had a chance to catch The Walking Dead I would suggest picking up season's 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead to get acquainted with the show, then catch the new episode and brace yourself for an action packed, horror filled, drama overload, thrill ride! I for one catch every episode and I am always giddy when it is time for the new episode.

Zombie Out
Dale

Haloween Costumes

It never fails. Every year I plan on making the coolest Halloween costumes ever and every year I either forget, or can't find the time. This year I'm a teensy bit ahead of the game and it's a good thing, too. This Halloween The Toddler says she wants to be a princess pirate frog. That's right, a frog that is both princess and pirate. Now, I can do pirate, I can do princess and I can probably swing a frog, but trying to put those all together might result in a hot mess.

I've got a ton of work ahead of me and the possible outcomes don't look promising. It'll be awesome if it works out. It'll be even more awesome if she changes her mind and decides to go with a Star Trek uniform instead.


Happy Wednesday!

-Shala-

Haunting Season

With leaves changing to their beautiful hues of orange and red, and the cooling air, that we keep at bay by closing the window's at night, it can only mean that the time for indoor entertaining can not be far away.

As the smell of summer BBQ's become part of our summer memories, it is time to think about some of our
favorite indoor things. I've always enjoyed the savory smells of chilli cooking on the stove top for hours,
freshly baked cookies and pie's wafting through the house. As the days become shorter and the nights become longer, cooking seems to take on a new dimension.

I have always enjoyed the holidays as they bring friends and family together for special moments and celebrations.

One of my favorite fun holidays is Halloween.  This year as it will fall on a Wednesday which  (play on words haha) means that the evening festivities will be a bit more home based.

Below you will find a seasonal family friendly brew with a touch of scariness.

Witches Brew

Ingredients

1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries thawed

2 ½ cups of cranberry juice

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin

2 liters ginger ale

2 liters sparkling apple cider

6 gummi snakes candy

1 Latex free rubber glove

Directions (a day or two in advance)

To make the frozen hand: Wash and rinse the out outside of the rubber glove. Turn glove inside out and set aside. In a 4 cup measuring cup, combine the thawed raspberries and cranberry juice.

        Pour 2 cups of the raspberry mixture into a small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin over and let stand 2 minutes. Warm over low heat, stirring constantly, just until gelatin dissolves. Mix back into the reserved raspberry mixture in the measuring cup.

       Pour raspberry mixture into the inverted glove. Gather up the top of the glove and tie securely with kitchen twine. Freeze until solid, or several days if possible.

     

       To serve (the day of)

       Carefully cut glove away from frozen hand. Place frozen hand, palm side up, leaning against inside of a large     punch bowl. Pour in ginger ale and sparkling cider. Garnish with gummi snakes.

You may also use any number of seasonal cake pans/molds in place of the hand.

For more suggestions please visit the reviews at:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Witches-Brew/Detail.aspx

Watch out for the ghouls and goblins as they make their way to the table.

       

1       

Space

There has been a lot of neat space related news lately. Red Bull Stratos has twice delayed the record breaking dive from space due to winds. Rather than take it day-to-day, they've rescheduled the dive for Sunday at 6am MDT. So much for sleeping in Sunday. Another cool snippet of news is about Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity. On October 7th Curiosity scooped up a sample of dirt from the surface of Mars. After a few scoops are taken, they'll start analyzing the samples to see what Mars is made of. Finally, if you're a meteor chaser, I know what you'll be doing on the morning of October 21. The Orionid meteor shower will be putting on a show, possible courtesy of comet Halley. All of the Orionid meteors are pieces of Halley that are left in space after the comet passes. The shower will only produce about 20 meteors per hour. While 20 meteors per hour is not a lot, there are a lot of nebula, galaxies, and star clusters near Orion to keep you busy while you wait for the shower to get going. Dark skies and a pair of binoculars will grant you access to all the nuggets in the sky. Get out there and have some cold fun!

~T

Weed Killin' Time

When we bought our house two years ago, (in Winter mind you) the back yard was filled with landscaping rocks. We didn't really think it was a big deal and the yard is small enough that we could move them pretty easily once Spring rolled around. Well, as time went on and Spring finally did arrive our wonderful rock filled yard became overrun with weeds. Upon inspection we found that whoever put the rocks down failed to cover the ground with landscaping paper first. Yay! Since The Toddler wasn't quite a toddler yet, we pretty much had our hands full with her, so we let the yard get out of control. This past Summer I pulled all of the weeds and got most of the rocks moved to one side of the yard. Since we didn't put down any grass when I moved the rocks the weeds just got worse. Now that Winter is approaching, and the weeds' growth has slowed, it's time to bring out the big guns. In the next few weekends we're pretty much going to drown the yard in weed killer, till it up, spray it down again and hope the weeds stay away until we can plant grass in the Spring. We also have a garden box in the back yard that we can't spray weed killer in, but I did read that boiling water does a good job of killing weeds, too.

I've never used weed killer and have always been against it because of the chemicals, but the condition of our yard limits our options. I wish we lived out in the middle of nowhere, so I could just burn them all, but maybe that day will come later in life :)

If any of you have suggestions for getting rid of weeds, I'm all ears! Anything to avoid spraying those chemicals.


Happy Wednesday!

-Shala-


PS. We've tried cutting the weeds and applying salt, covering the area with tarps and using vinegar. I think the big problem is that most of the weeds are vines that propagate with root sprouts, so they just pop up all over.

Bye Bye Bruises

Recently I attended the wedding of my college roommate.  I was a bit embarrassed because I had bruises everywhere thanks to my CrossFit classes.  Sometimes I seriously wonder if I'm really improving my body or if the abuse is worth it.  Anyhow, I looked up some quick fixes for getting rid of bruises faster and thought I would share them with you all.  The following article provides some good methods for preventing, managing, and healing bruises -

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Bruises

Hasta,
Allison

Chilly

I woke up this morning, looked out the window and to my surprise snow covered my vehicle. It is only October 5th and Denver, Colorado has already received some snow. Not exactly what I wanted to see as it means cold weather has arrived. Although it could be worse as I heard Minnesota had about 14 inches of snow. 14 inches already? It isn't even Halloween yet.

Happy Friday
Dale

Surprise!

The ground level of our house has wood flooring and we love it, but everything upstairs, including the stairs, is carpet. I hate carpet. For a while now, we've been saving up to add wood floors upstairs, too, but it's taking forever and it's so expensive.

Last weekend, I built a bookcase in our hallway and had to pull up a little carpet to attach it to the wall. As I pulled up the corner I took a peek under the carpet and guess what I found. Our entire top floor is wood (not like real wood, but the fake wood flooring. Still way better than carpet)! After I finished building our bookcase, I went into our spare room and started pulling up carpet. I got half of the room finished and it's so awesome! No more icky carpet and the wood floor underneath wasn't too awful. It was really dirty, but the floor itself was in great shape.

I still can't really believe we've been living in that house for two years now with wood floors we didn't even know about. Crazy awesome!


Hope the trash guys don't mind taking the old carpet. Maybe I should get them a gift card or something :)


Happy Wednesday!

-Shala-