Bountiful Brunch and the Begining of New Things

The past few days have been a whirl wind of activity. On Thursday, I ran all around to get the presents for Dan's birthday, and Friday was filled with running errands to get food for the brunch for Saturday and cleaning the house for the guests. I prepped for the meal all evening, so I skipped dance class again. The brunch was bountiful, partially because of my fear of running out of food. I made fresh pumpkin bread on Saturday morning to avail my fear and focus on pulling off some new recipes I have never made. It is such a hosting no no, but I really wanted to make these recipes I have never gotten the chance to because they make so much. I made a recipe for caramel apple and cranberry French toast from Tyler Florence and my second recipe attempt out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was also a success. I made a quiche. I only wish there were pictures, but I was too busy hosting to think to take them. The food was awesome. We also had applewood smoked bacon from the smoker next door to our building and lox with creme fresh, capers, and red onion on mini toasts for the meats. It was a great spread, but the cleaning of the party is still on going. While I started the cleaning right after the breakfast, the rest of the party went over to Alameda for a tasting at the Saint Georges distillery. Needless to say I was pooped and gave up on fully finishing the cleaning around 6 that night.

Sunday was Dan's actual birthday, so we planned to celebrate it as well as get some of our weekend errands done. We ate some of the leftovers from brunch for breakfast. It was still very good. We then went and shopped for our pumpkin to carve for Halloween. I think we picked out a winner. I will make sure to take pictures for you all to see.

I have decided to try to start a new routine with this week. In honor of the new moon and the belief that the new moon is a good time astrologically to start new things, I am going to try to get back to my exercise routine. I am going to go as soon as I post this and do a yoga workout. It has been many month since I have done yoga, and I am starting to notice the effects in my everyday life and not just during dance. I am more stiff and feel less flexible to do things that I once could do easily. I am also going to work on taking up the Christmas gifts again. I am starting to rapidly fall behind again and need to get back to working on things again. I hope to get the gift I have partially cut out fully cut out and mostly sewn up today. I will also take pictures of these items for an end of the year wrap up like I did last holiday season. Well off to stretch and start up some sewing.