So thankful.

Hello, three blog readers. :)

I'm back from a weekend in the mountains and three days in the home office.

Things I'm excited about:

Starting my online Christmas shopping on my days off.

Testing out as many of these recipes as humanly possible.

Thanksgiving dinner at Green Vegetarian. Five years ago I could not have imagined looking forward to faux turkey this much.

Spreading the few Christmas decorations that I smuggled onboard the flight out across our wee apartment.

A nice cuddle with a handsome grad student.

Thankful to be home, for my family, sweet husband and incredible friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mountain Getaway

Montreat image via Flickr

We're headed for Montreat, NC to see two wonderful people get married this weekend. There's a group hike scheduled and the rehearsal dinner is in a barn. I'll be thinking lots of warm thoughts and grinning ear to ear. Have a great weekend!

something different

Phew. Yesterday was a rough day at work.
Like all the balls I've dropped in the last six weeks came crashing down at exactly the same time.
I've been a space cadet. I haven't been showing up [mentally].
After work I walked into the house and burst into tears.
My job is wonderful. The people I work with are phenomenal.
But I don't love it, and have been struggling to get work done these last few months.
Doing half hearted work makes me feel like a real asshole.
There's a serious reevaluation of my life taking place.
The difficulty is in finding the courage to take that leap.
In the meantime, I'll be doing lots of long walks and channeling my confusion into a series of questionably crafted scarves for loved ones.

Inspiration

It's so critical that I clear the cobwebs out of the old noggins every once in a while and let some fresh air in...both for my mental health, and to keep myself moving forward, not just trudging along with my shoulders hunched to the world.

Today I'm feeling extremely inspired. Gwen Bell has just convinced me of how critical it is to have a personal manifesto, and I'm itching to get started.

Another inspirational, if not completely awe-inspiring, bit that I came across on the interwebs today:



Found via The Year in Pictures....did this video not make your hands sweat, too?

Over the Weekend...

My weekend consisted of:

Fabulous Jamaican dinner with K (followed by too much yummy microbrew and a zombie Saturday)

Tons of time on the lightrail spent knitting

Turkish coffee with a new friend

Baking cookies for an old friend

A trip to the library and a new stack of books to dive into

Intoxicatingly fragrant flowers at the lightrail stop.

Lightrail stop art installation. The length of coils that went into the hands is astounding.

Glowing cacti.

Happy Monday!

Have a Lovely Weekend

Hope your weekend is lovely.

Ours is stacking up to be fairly loungy (for me, anyhow, K is deep in the throes of his final studio project for the semester, but can hopefully pencil in a lounge or two).

Snuggles under warm down comforters in a chilly room, quiet time over hot tea, and some work on holiday gift lists are what's up my sleeve.

Sunshine on My Ceiling

As I flopped on my bed last night, exhausted after work, I looked up and saw this:
 
The light in our wall sconce was refracting onto the ceiling in the shape of the sun.
Does this make me one of those kooky 'I saw the Virgin Mary in my goat cheese omelette people?'
Meh, I don't care.
Sometimes you find beauty in the most unexpected places...

Hurt Feelings

Sometimes I'm a little too sensitive and get my feelings hurt when no harm was meant. There are days when it takes the tiniest comment (or non-comment) to put me in tears.
Even on the luckiest day of the year.

This video helps me giggle my way out of it. Or try to, anyway.

Oh, Lucky Day!

image via weheartit

I might be the only person over the age of 12 to have a lucky number, but I do.
It's 11.
November the eleventh = 11.11. Which makes today very lucky indeed.

The Fruit of My Fruit

A pumpkin is a fruit. I just double fact checked that one, folks.

And the above is a family portrait of the pumpkin butter I made out of our sweet little pumpkins yesterday.

I know that yesterday I said that pumpkin roasting/chopping/pureeing was not worth the effort, but I think I've already changed my mind. You see, whipping up a batch of buttermilk biscuits (lawd am I southern, Nana would be so happy) and slathering them with my own homemade pumpkin butter made me feel a little bit proud. Kind of like a prairie woman.

The pumpkin butter recipe was another of Deb's from the Smitten Kitchen. She pretty much hits the ball out of the park every single time I cook one of her meals. If my husband ever goes missing, I'll just assume that he's left me for Deb.

On My Wish List

Holy Moley. I didn't know they still made these.

I'm not sure that I can fit on it, but that doesn't keeping me from wanting one.

Big time.

Over the Weekend...

Oh, Phoenix. Remember when we weren't on speaking terms?
When you were all like: I don't care if you don't have AC in your car, I'm going to be 120*. 
And I was all like: Fine, I hate you, giant sprawling metropolis.
And you were like: FINE.
THEN...it got insanely gorgeous outside again and I got over it.

This weekend was a festival weekend. Phoenix saves them up for when the weather is delicious and then we pack as much in as we can. Saturday we hit up the Local Fall First Festival (yay, local!) and sampled some tasty foods. Also, thrilled to recall that these beauties are printed in my neck of the woods:

Cards by seesaw.

(There is nothing better than checking the mailbox and finding a beautiful card with a thoughtful note inside.)

Afterwards we headed for Armenia Fest 2009. We ate platefuls of Armenian home cooking and enjoyed Armenian music and dancing. And beer.

This weekend was also filled with:
Belgian waffles and the Farmer's Market.
My first Zumba class.
Pitchers on patios with excellent people and weather.
Slicing, roasting, and pureeing our Halloween pumpkins to make another stellar Smitten Kitchen recipe.
(By the way, canned pumpkin is a gift from the gods. I gave myself a minor knife wound on Sunday and vow to never dismantle pumpkins again without a designated chopper. Canned is the way to go.)

Good morning, Denver.

Sunrise, from my hotel room.

Working from a cozy warm bed.

Breakfast and (too much) coffee in an adorable Denver coffeehouse.

Over the Weekend

Caught up a little on sleep, made these heavenly cupcakes for a Halloween party, and now I find myself in Denver for the majority of the week.

Fortunately I have incredible friends in town. Incredible friends who bought me a ticket to see a sold out David Gray show so that I could sing along and bawl over the beauty of the lyrics and his voice.

David Gray

(My photos all turned out a little blurry.)