Mostly Food. What Else is New?

Fall has already proven to be a very busy time for us. Busy in a different way from the normal fall chaos of back-to-school life. I do miss those days terribly but this is fun too and the lack of homework is really quite wonderful. It's always hard to not get to do the whole back-to-school thing. As soon as the leaves start to change and we have those beautiful cool crisp mornings it makes me think of You've Got Mail and the whole "bouquet of sharpened pencils" thing. That never really sounds all that exciting until fall hits and all of the sudden it sounds like just the right touch. If ever I make it as a teacher I plan to have just such a bouquet sitting on my desk.

Steven isn't working much this month just because of the way that his regular days off worked out so we're just hanging out with people and visiting friends and taking advantage of the opportunity to be social. Last weekend we spent Sunday hanging out at my mom's house. It was relaxing and fun. We watched The Queen, which I thought was really interesting. Helen Mirren does a fabulous job portraying Her Royal Highness and the actual news footage that they used throughout the film really helped to bring everything together. The movie was a glimpse into the life of the royal family in the hours just before and the few days following the death of Princess Diana. Since I was only ten years old at the time of the accident, I really didn't know much about it so the movie was both informative and entertaining. We finished our time at Mom's with a little "family pizza night" :) It was fun making our own pizzas and putting all kinds of toppings on. They were yummy too. I put a little bit of everything on mine so I was only able to eat one small piece before feeling absolutely stuffed.

I also spent a bit of time sewing last week. I had the pleasure of spending a few hours at Sue Piehler's house on Tuesday. We worked at our sewing machines and drank tea and talked and ate lunch and it was so relaxing and fun. Sue is an excellent teacher. Mostly I was just working on my own but it was so helpful having her there when I made a mistake or angered my sewing machine (we're still getting to know each other... hopefully I'll learn how not to anger it with such regularity). Here's that quilt I found. Like I said, it's not much to look at but I've been working on the border and it really brings the whole thing together. I think I'll be quite proud of it when it's finished.
  

On Friday morning I took a quilting class. It was really basic but also really helpful. I made this little square thing. It's not something that I would make in real life. I wouldn't use such flowery fabrics (they were in that big tub of fabric -- figured I might as well use them instead of buying something) and I also probably wouldn't do a design like this but it was great practice for cutting and measuring and matching up seams for corners and pressing and everything. I can't wait until I can do more! I'm really excited about this. It's fun for me and a great way to just focus some creative energy and block out other useless thoughts that tend to occupy my mind.

We also had Amanda over to spend the night. We had met up with her in Seattle for games and Sushi and then decided to just have her over for the night... which gave us an excuse to spend yet another day in Seattle when we drove her back to her place the next day. I made cinnascones for breakfast -- they were SO YUMMY! Steven says he likes them better than normal cinnamon rolls. I don't know about that but they're definitely easier. It's a scone recipe  and then you roll it out, spread the cinnamon/brown sugar/butter mixture over it, roll it up, and cut it into one inch pieces. I made cream cheese frosting for the tops of them because I think it's far superior to a powdered sugar glaze.

New exhibit at the Science Center -- the Design Zone. They have all kinds of interactive things that show how video games work and how ramps are designed for skate board parks and how photos are edited and how music is mixed and just all of the sciencey stuff that's involved in those things. They have another exhibit there right now, the Puzzle Palooza, with the giant Rubics Cube but we didn't have time for that. We'll have to go again soon. We did, however make time to see an IMAX. Rocky Mountain Express was all about the railroad being built through the rocky mountains. There was some beautiful scenery and a lot of interesting history. Mostly, it just made us want to travel to Banff.

We also made a quick little trip down to visit Jeremy and Ronnie. We only stayed one night but we played lots of board games and ate some yummy food. It was so nice of them to host us! Their friends Hannah and Mike came over to play games and make pizza -- the boys fixed dinner while us girls just sat and talked and then we stepped in to make a dessert pizza with the left over dough. We put apples and cinnamon and sugar and some icing on top and it was surprisingly yummy.


Our growth group started yesterday. Steven was working so there were only two of us (me and another group member) but we still had a a nice time. We played games and had lunch at Cafe Mox and we're already looking forward to next week. I expect to have at least three group members there in addition to Steven and myself and possibly Amanda. My sewing group starts tomorrow! So that should be good too. I bought some really fun fleece at the fabric store yesterday. One is red with frogs on it and the other is black with these adorable colored monsters all over it. I want to make something for myself out of that one. And that's pretty much my update from the past week. Well, for now anyway.