I have made it to Friday, y’all. This post vacation week back at work has gone better than expected. However, it has all caught up with me now and I am sure glad today is Friday. I am feeling it, whatever it is, and am a wee bit draggy.

I still have not figured out exactly what I will be doing this weekend. I am feeling some veg time with some fall themed Hallmark movies. You know you love them, even if you will not admit it. I am a proud Hallmark lover!

I will absolutely be getting out to the farm at some point. I need some quality time with the dun duo like I need air to breathe. I also need to get them both back into regular work now that my trail riding vaca is over. What is your favorite way to get your horses back into regular work after life has taken over? I like to rotate round pen, riding, and lunging work until they are a little more mentally and physically fit. Then I transition into more riding work. I think this will be a Cheetah round pen then riding weekend and a Lito lunge and walk to the river weekend. I believe I am going to be by myself, so I have to be safe and not ride the youngster alone. Bummer. But, better safe than sorry. If it is not safe, it is not fun. It does not matter how much I trust him or believe that he would not do anything bad (I am nodding my head). He has less than ten rides on him and all horses are unpredictable. My game plan moving forward with Lito is to get a schedule going with family and friends so I always have someone with me at the farm. The sooner I do this, the sooner we will graduate to trusted equine citizen.

I think Sunday my cousin and I will do another All The Fall Things craft/bake/cook session. Earlier this week I was feeling the need for fall pumpkin flavored things. How stereotypical of me, I know, but alas the NEED was real. I attempted to make pumpkin cinnamon rolls. I did not exactly follow the recipe…again, who is surprised??? Not a single person. I picked these partly because I wanted instant gratification. It called for the use of store bought dough! I could not handle the time yeast needs, I tell you. Anyhoo, I actually used the recommended dough and I think it is too buttery. Strange, right? It takes over the flavor. I did more on the spice front. More cinnamon. More nutmeg…the fresh graded…I can not go back to the pre-ground stuff. I added some ginger and cloves. Why not, right?! I added a dollop of cream cheese to the filling instead of milk. I skipped on the icing to conserve my calorie budget and I figured they would be rich enough. I was right, they are good enough without the icing. Do not hate me. I believe I will make something like this again, but I will spring for homemade dough. They both need and deserve it.

I also attempted making a pumpkin spice White Russian for a desert cocktail. I will let you know when I perfect that. It is not there yet. It might also morph into a pumpkin spice Milk Punch…I prefer Milk Punch to White Russians I think.

This best thing that came out of this pumpkin spree is that I made extra milk/pumpkin/spice base (you know, sans alcohol) for the White Russian…for coffee! You need to do this. Right now. It is good. Better than any pumpkin spice anything you can get at a coffee shop. I do not think I can ever order one anywhere again now that I have had the real deal.

Here is to hoping for some good horse time this weekend! What are y’all doing?!