Pumpkin Seeds & Cat Naps

The best thing about carving pumpkins in October is toasting the pumpkin seeds after. (Okay, maybe it's the glowing, flame filled pumpkin-bellies, and orange hot faces and such...) The other day, after a rousing gut scraping fest, we ripped out the innards and separated the seeds. Delicious snacks. :D

Toast at 250˚ for an hour (we used this to help heat the house). Melt a little butter, toss. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture. Toast for 20 mins. Seeds should be lightly browned & crispy.

As the weather turns colder, on those days when we forget to turn on the heat, Spike likes to climb in bed and shimmy his way into the sheets. His favorite spot is a hip-perch or belly curl. I had to lift up the blankets to photograph him, then we took a midday cat nap. The cuteness is quite overwhelming at times.



My dogs usually jump in my bed and drool on the pillows. There's something to be said for the delicate nature of felines, particularly when you're trying to sleep, too. (Drool pillows are a shock to the system.)

Now back to the regularly scheduled grad school crazy. (Hence weeks between posts.) Brief notes: grad school overloads are silly. Don't do that. Henry James is evil. Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan are amazing. Creative writing pedagogy goes some weird places, and abstract theory sometimes makes a person want to smack a scholar. Novel writing is as arduous as it is glorious, and isn't an endeavor for the "pansy assed," as my father would say.