Photo Friday - Autumn 2013

Photo Friday - Heavenly

This pie was truly Heavenly!  One of my best baking efforts ever!

Pretzels!

A few weeks ago I spent the day with my grandson because he was sick and couldn't go to school, and his Mom and Dad really couldn't miss work that day. It was a good time to be with him alone and have some Grammy time, and a good time to be away from the stress of work. We spent the day reading, watching TV and napping - just what I (and he) needed. 

During my reading that day I ran across a recipe for soft pretzels in my favorite magazine, Better Homes and Gardens.  I do a lot of baking and this seemed to be pretty easy so I wanted to try them. I told one of my choir friends about the recipe and she thought it would be fun to do also. So today she and I tackled this new recipe, and let me tell you, these are outstanding! 

It was nice to have another woman in the house to talk with and cook with. We were quite pleased with the afternoon. I wish my sisters lived closer, maybe I'd convince them to cook with me. With 2 of them it would be just watching while I bake, but I could live with that too.

Rolling out the dough and making them into pretzel shapes - we were not too great at this part.
 

The finished product - YUM!

Photo Friday - HUGE

This photo was takenat a place near Sedona called the Devil's Kitchen. It is a huge sinkhole. This large piece of rock is called "the Piano". It's the biggest grand piano I've ever seen! I think it is about 100 feet across.  I have attached a link about this sink hole below. It is quite interesting reading.
Devil's Kitchen

Clouds

I'll admit it, I'm obsessed with clouds.  I think I always have been to a degree, but when my kids were little my Mom sent them an article out of Reader's Digest or some such magazine that explained all the different types of clouds and what they meant. I don't remember the details of that but I do remember feeling that God created all these different kinds of clouds so people would stop and take notice. I know I sure do. Yes, I'm that crazy lady that pulls her car (or bike) over and snaps pictures of cloud banks with her cell phone. I just can't help myself. 

For those of you who don't know, in AZ we have a rainy season, usually through the months of July and August. We will get big clouds that build up and look like the ones in that movie "Independence Day" where the alien ship suddenly emerges. Sometimes we will get big rain storms from these clouds, but a lot of times they never make it this far and leave us wondering why we are so unlucky to not get rained on when it is so obvious that we should.

Here are a few of the pictures I snapped this summer during our monsoon season.

A little out of focus, but this was a weird sight I saw one morning when I was cycling. The sky was 2 different shades of blue, in a straight line. This is facing west, and there were clouds to the east.

The colors were truly amazing on this morning.

This was the view from my office at the hospital one afternoon.

That alien ship should be coming out of these clouds any time right?

Flowers: it is finally cooling off here, so I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to plant my fall flowers. I have a few varieties that survived the summer and they are starting to perk up so I think it may be time for planting. We are supposed to have temps below 100 this week so that's a good sign.

Flour: today I am trying a new cinnamon bread experiment. Wish me luck!

Photo Friday - Nature Walk

Red Rock State Park - Sedona 2013

Photo Friday - Spacious

Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies...