They’re back!

Yarr. They don’t usually appear until later in December, but a north wind yesterday brought some cedar down from the Hill Country. I am not looking forward to the next three months of allergies. IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. Really.
But I do love the cold weather and wearing scarves and sweaters and thick socks. It means that it is really soup season. In south Texas, soup season is precarious two month affair, so I have to take advantage. Not that I am above making hot soup in 90 degree weather. I love to cook, and there is nothing I love to make more than soups. One of my favorite wedding gifts (which ironically is one of Tim’s least favorite because it is really heavy when you are cleaning it) is a huge bright yellow Le Creuset pot from my aunt Jean Marie. Other than the pot love/hate conflict, I would have married Tim for no other reason than he loves eating soup, and will happily eat it almost every night. This week I am trying a new Cream of Broccoli recipe.
There are also lots of quilts to make, books to be read and cards to mail. I did get all my packages out in the mail today, so that was exciting. Events this week, and mailing the packages all over the country made me wish once again that everyone I loved lived in one place. We are all so spread out, and it would be nice to be close to everyone that you love for the holidays, for hard times and for laughs. But a far away relationship takes work, and maybe that can sometimes add to the quality, strength and depth to that relationship.
Anyway, I am trying to get Tim to add a photo element to my posts which would be very exciting. That way I can show you all the little photos that I take that don’t really always add up to a whole set.

Unlikely Hero

Despite the traffic, despite the day, despite the week, I smiled and laughed almost the whole way home yesterday in the car listening to Tom Waits on NPR. I usually listen to books on CD, but am waiting for one to come in on hold, and I would have missed it. I also heard Kiran Desai on Monday and now must go and read The Inheritance of Loss. She sounds lovely.

Looking at a four day weekend, potential unfurling, but not many plans. Tim and I are going to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner of side dishes for ourselves. Including persimmon pudding, one of our favorites.

This year I am thankful for many things, but always topping the list is family and friends. Some are close, some are far, but without all of you I couldn’t do any of it. Emails, phone calls, hugs, random text messages…they all keep me going and make every day sparkle a little bit. Thank you.

30 Cookbooks

I did it! I actually cooked my way through all 30 of my cookbooks for my 101 list. It was a struggle sometimes, but did really help me branch out in my cooking and try new things. This was overall a fun project and I would recommend it to anyone who has a stack of cookbooks sitting on their shelves. Some recipes were a disaster, some were a total success…but that is the fun of it!

I am busy making a few quick quilts, trying new designs and making mistakes along the way. Some mistakes were stupid mistakes, others because I am always still learning. It can also be hard to make some serious progress when you run out of thread. Talk about a stupid mistake. I am also continuing to work on my 2006 Block of the Month quilt for Ashley. The pinks, greens, oranges are so bright and fun…a total departure from the navy and tan quilt I made for Andrew last year. If I can afford it (do you even know what fabric costs?), I might try to make two next year at the same time. I have a month in between each class, so I could easily duplicate the pattern in a second set of fabrics.

Must go and re-cut two pieces that are 1/2 inch too short and get back to sewing.

The Plague

Yesterday it was dragonflies. Not pretty petite blue dragonflies, but big fat ugly dragonflies…swarming our yard. I’ve never seen so many! They fly around really quickly, never seeming to pause. Today? Little bitty butterflies. Everywhere. On the last stretch of my drive, I hit 10 of them. Smack. Right into the windshield. I wonder a little bit what tomorrow will bring.

Regina and I have been talking about starting our holiday knitting…and I finally figured out what I am going to do this year. I hope this isn’t eliciting groans from my friends. But I came up with a great (well, great to me) idea and actually started last night. Actually I started four times last night, once my tail wasn’t long enough for the cast on, then again when I cast on the wrong number of stitches for the pattern, then again when I realized I was using the wrong sized needles. This pattern calls for almost 100 stitches, these weren’t quick mistakes. But I finally got it right, and now just have to get busy on it this weekend and next.

Tim and I have now done the vegetarian thing for over a month (which was the original trial period), and I am thinking of not turning back. I feel great, am happy about my choice and have rediscovered my love for making food. Maybe I was in a dinner rut…but since we’ve done this, I have been pretty ambitious in my meal planning, while having fun with it. A noodle casserole that takes two hours to prepare? No problem! Making two new recipes in one night (something I never did before), piece of cake (well, an hour and a half later). I have been wanting to make sp

Taupe 3, Eggshell Interior

My four day weekend is flying by! That is what happens, I guess, when you spend 2 1/2 days of it painting. We started off with the idea to finish painting the hallways, but gosh we bought so much paint. And had all the stuff out…so we started painting the living room. And anyone who has been to our house know what the living room is like. The huge almost 2 story wall with the skylight? Yep. It looks amazing and I love the color, but we are wiped out. Almost everytime we paint, I am amazed at a)how long it takes, but also b)how much I love it afterwards and can’t believe that we took so long to get around to it.

And because becoming vegetarians wasn’t enought of a lifestyle change, we also downgraded out cable today to basic. Yep, 25 channels insead of the 100+ whatever we had before. On the down side, Tim will miss his SportsCenter, but on the plus side, we still have HGTV and Bravo (when does the new Project Runway start anyway?).

Speaking of the veggie bit, it has been going incredibly well. We have spent more time cooking together, planning together and having fun making food than we had in a long time. Today, we had marinated grilled portabello mushroom burgers, grilled corn on the cob, and some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers out of our garden. So good! We’ve done a 20 minute tofu stirfry, grilled veggies in pita, veggie pizza and soy corn dogs (really good! well if you like corn dogs…). I can’t wait for colder weather (for many reasons), but so I can start making chili and soups!

Hope everyone has a great holiday tomorrow!

Road Trips

Last night I watched Elizabethtown, which was ok. Not great, but ok. But there is a part where the main character takes a road trip, starting from Elizabethtown, KY and drives west. While parts of Texas are beautiful, the scenery from the movie made me nostalgic for a midwest roadtrip. The scenery from the movie looked familar, the trees, the blasted limstone on the side of the highways is just like the Indiana I still dream of. There is one part where he is driving and drives around a corner, and there is a grey low limestone wall, with sideways slanting stones on top of it and it looks exactly like the wall in front of Beck Chapel on the IU campus. You know, if you come out of Ballentine Hall, cross the street, and walk towards the Union or Kirkwood to go to the Den every single day, you pass this wall. (Beck Chapel, though you have to scroll the picture around almost 180 degrees, so you can see the wall). The wall, the trees, the bridges crossing the Mississippi, was all so beautiful. But it made me think that there aren’t enough midwest road trip movies. I can’t think of a single one, though I have tons of great memories of those trips, both as a child and in college. With southern Indiana as my starting point, I took road trips to St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Bedford, Memphis, New Orleans, Nashville, Detroit, College Station, Chicago, Indianapolis, Tell City, Pensacola, and Lynchburg, and have a thousand stories, memories, and images in my mind from each.

Not working on any quilts lately, since I finished Andrew’s, but have a few knitting projects going on, which sort of feels like cheating on quilting. Though there are a few baby quilts to start thinking about…. Painted the breakfast area yesterday. Took me hours to prep, and possibly 30 minutes to actually paint. I also realized today that I only have two more cookbooks to go! The Elvis one shouldn’t be too bad (totally making the peanut butter, bananna, bacon sandwiches, how could I not?) but I think I need to buy a scale before I attempt something from the CIA cookbook which is over 1,000 pages long. It is a beast, and I love looking at it for the techniques and information, the recipes all look very time consuming and frequently also reference other recipes from the cookbook, so for each recipe, I may be making three!

Closing Ceremonies

I must say that I was not that impressed with the Closing Ceremonies (Ricky Martin? The best they could do was Ricky Freakin Martin?), and must admit that I didn’t finish Tim’s hat either. I was saving it all week to work on during the Closing Ceremonies and then was struck down Saturday night with the Cedar Fever. Still. With. The. Allergies. Will try to finish the hat this week. I have to admit that I didn’t totally push myself during the Knitting Olympics (if Bode doesn’t have to, neither do I), but did make myself pick up two new knitting skills…knitting in the round and using double pointed needles. I was working my way to doing something besides scarves, and this gave me the little push that I needed. I hope all the other knitters out there feel successful and happy with whatever progress they made.

Oh, because I know they all read this blog (Joey? Call me), a quick note to future US Olympians. If you do not know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, DO NOT PRETEND. It looks terrible. And? We can tell that you just sort of barely mumbled the incorrect line. Chad? Apollo? I am talking to you. Unless you know the song inside out and backwards (like the Italians knew their anthem), just stand there and look humbled, proud and happy. We don’t care if your lips aren’t moving.

I actually made a new recipe tonight to cross off another recipe from my cookbook collection and realized that I only have two cookbooks to go. Well, that isn’t exactly true, I have received two new cookbooks since I put the list up and should probably add those too. So, four left.

Time to rub Vicks all over my face and drink some NyQuil.

This year…

This year I am thankful for having a wonderful husband of two years and my family and friends for all their love, laughter and support, often from far away via phone, emails and instant messages. I am thankful for a decent job with funny and interesting co-workers and for the housing market in south Texas that allows me to have a great house (even if it needs painting). I am thankful for having a hobby that I love and the thought that maybe one day it might not pay the bills but at least pay for itself. I am thankful for authors who entertain me, enlighten me, and soothe me almost every evening. There are a million things that I am thankful for and just think of all of them can make you dizzy.

I did make Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and rolls. And for dessert? I got to cross something off my list…I made pie! Peach pie. And despite the soupiness of it, it was pretty good. We debated about painting this weekend, but Tim is getting over a head cold and it is damp outside and supposed to rain all night tonight and tomorrow. So instead, we got out our Christmas decorations, played on the computers, and movie watched. I also did a little sewing…finished the quilt top for the one quilt I am making for christmas. Later…reading and book cataloging. It is amazing how many books we have and what they are worth.

Hope everyone else is having a nice holiday weekend!

Chez Acres North

Even though we adopted him from there, Loki is never happy to go back for his yearly visit. He is still a little mad at me for taking him to the vet, but he is getting over it treat by treat. The vet did say that he has a little tartar build up, and after hearing about Annie’s teeth (Loki’s long distance girlfriend) it sort of scared me. Should I be brushing his teeth? With one of those little rubber finger tip thingies? An actual toothbrush? I can do the nail clipping, but I don’t know about the teeth.

I love early Friday afternoons…the whole weekend stretching out before me. I might make some cheese sticks from a cookbook I have yet to cross off my list. Maybe do a little knitting as well. I found some yarn that I LOVE, and it is knitting up beautifully. And then maybe a movie tonight, curling up on the couch pretending under the fan and the a/c that it is turning fall (which it TOTALLY ISN’T).

Loki’s Treats

Things Loki likes to eat (in general order):

1. Salmon
2. Cheese
3. Peanut Butter
4. Organic Wheatgrass
5. Cheetos All Natural White Cheddar Puffs
6. Pounce Tartar Control Treats
7. an ice cube in a bowl
8. bamboo/spider plant
9. spider webs
10. anything else that is either an a)plant, or b)salty