Summer is Here?

It has hardly felt like summer around here this year. The temperatures have been cooler than normal, and the rain has been around later than the last few years we have been here. It is in fact raining again today! Very odd for the bay area from what I understand. Under this odd set of weather, I have had a hard time getting it through my head that it is summer. One of the ways that I have tried to get myself into believing it is summer is by burying my head in camping plans. Thinking of being out in the woods in a tent makes my mind turn to thoughts of summer instantly.

I wanted to decorate a bit for the Independence Day holiday this year. Nothing big, but I wanted some little touch to further remind me that yes, in fact, it is summer. I decided to make some simple place mats for the table. We have been eating in front of the table more and more since it is no longer situated so close to the television. With the television being a floor below, it is quite a hassle to bring everything down to eat, so meals at the table have been adopted. This means that we go through table linens at a much faster rate. I thought some Independence Day themed ones would be a welcomed addition to the collection. I made these with fabrics I purchased off of Fabric.com. I have found them to be a really great company. They are helpful, and the free shipping after hitting the $35 threshold is also a nice touch. They often run sales, and the discount corner is a great place to pick up some nice deals. Overall, I find their prices to be competitive with retail giants. This does not mean that I am abandoning my locally owned shops, but they are a nice alternative to other places and carry some different things from my local shops.

I decided to go with double sided as it is the easiest option now with the serger. I did not want to work on mitering corners as this was supposed to be a super fast and fun project. If you did not have a serger, you could put the pieces right sides facing, sew them together leaving a small opening, and then tun the fabric right sides out, press, and sew your opening closed. I liked the added touch the red rolled hem added to the linens. I picked a less overtly Americana for the backside so they can be used off season as well.

Well I think I am going to take advantage of the rainy day seeing as those are my most productive. There is a birthday present that needs to be sewn up as well as some costume items for my impending Chaos Wars trip. Hopefully I get all these things done before I have to leave! There is always so much to do lately... I love it!

Apron Finished

I finally finished up the Kaleidoscope apron that I talked about earlier. It was an interesting project, and even though I used the corrected pattern and directions, I still had to fiddle with the project a lot to get it right. I am not sure if some of this came from my using the opaque projector for the first time or not. I would say that if I was to do this project over again, I would make sure that the image I was copying using the opaque projector was small enough to fit into the 3.5 inch viewer. Moving it around an image was rather challenging and involved a lot of patience. If it were not for the small size of the projector, I would go and buy an old overhead projector instead due to its convenient image projection size. They are just so large to store in our small space. I really liked how the project turned out though. The pin tucks on the obi like top piece are a wonderful design touch. I also feel like this apron hides any tummy that I am currently trying to battle. While I would not say that this project was particularly challenging, I would say that it is an intermediate project as I had to play around with enlarging the pattern as well as deciding how large to make the side seams since there were no indications in the pattern directions. I ended up doing them twice because the first time I made them too short and the red part of the apron did not fit the black top. I still have to add buttons to the ties. That is going to be something reserved for later today as I would like to find four matching buttons out of the button boxes, no small feat to be sure. This project was in keeping with working out of the stash, so the fabrics were from the box of stashed pieces. That means I would love to use buttons from the random button box to have a total stash buster success! I even used up black cone thread ends from the serger to sew it up!

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was a really fun day. I received these wonderful flowers from one of my best friends. They arrived just as I was getting ready to go out to my big birthday dinner. Dan took me to Fleur de Lys in San Francisco. It was a wonderful meal. I will review it in more detail Monday once I get my pictures off the phones. Needless to say, I enjoyed myself. I also feel the need to take a long walk around the neighborhood to burn off some of those calories.

I also got some awesomely thoughtful presents from Dan. He went back to the antique store and picked up one of the cake stands that I really liked. While it has a distinctive lean, I still love it. I want to make a cake right away to use it, but I have to wait until we finish up those rocky ledge bars. That recipe made just too many for two people. Next time I am definitely doing a half batch of those. I also received some books that I had wanted for some time. One of them is Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hays. I am always trying to define exactly what it is that I am to people, and hopefully this book will give me more things to tell people about what I do. I know that homemaking is not exactly the most glamorous to many people, but I surely enjoy it.

I also received two of Pete Reinhart's books, Artisan Breads Every Day and The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. I am looking forward to reading these books and studying up on the art of bread. I love making bread, and while I am not that great at it, I hope to improve with these two texts. Look for pictures and updates here as to my progress. I have already made the pretzels with Annie out of one of the books, and she served us a luscious loaf during a dinner party last weekend. I hope I can reach her level of bread baking through these new instructions.

So much inspiration and reading, but for now I am off to laundry and some sewing. I still have inspiring projects for both myself and Fabulous Pants to work on. I wish, like many people, that there were more hours in a day!

Personal Projects Completed

It is always nice to get some personal projects completed in a somewhat timely manner. Usually I start a personal project and kick it around for a few months while I work on things for other people or Fabulous Pants. This, however, seemed to defy the odds. I guess part of it was that I really have loved this particular fabric for a long time. I bought it when Dan and I were trying to see if we should move out to California from Illinois. I purchased this wonderful piece of batik at a fabric shop and carried it home with me. It was a well traveled piece of cloth as it came back to California when we moved, still uncut. Packed away, I had forgotten about it for at least three years until a recent dig through my stash for the tiny little dresses project.

This particular piece of fabric was a little over a yard and a half in length. It consisted of two different patterns. One is the darker background with the blue and green flower motif that you see in this choli. It made up a third of the total cloth piece. The other motif is the lighter color for the background with the darker tan on top along with the blue and green flowers and vines. I loved the entire piece of fabric, but the darker tan section seemed to really want to be turned into something beautiful.

It took me the good part of an afternoon playing with the pieces of the pattern before I found a way to get it all harmoniously arranged in the small section of the fabric I had to work with. I then let it sit and marinate for a while. I was too intimidated to cut into it. I did not want to mar the fabric and find that I miscalculated somewhere, leaving out a piece for instance, to only find that I could not complete the project. The bad part of working with old stashed away fabrics like this is the small margin of error. If you miss the mark, there is no running out for a new section of fabric. It does not exist at a store any longer.

Once the project was fully finished yesterday, I realized just how much I love what I did with that small section of that beautiful fabric. I think my favorite thing I achieved is the row of roses that run down the back side of the choli as well as the cuffs of the sleeves. The lining of the choli is made out of scraps of muslin from the first thing I ever sewed, a peasant top for an outfit for my first events in Belegarth. It was a full circle moment for me being able to use that fabric from my first project and integrate it into a project that I put together so well, including splicing the bottom band together out of the sides of the original piece of fabric.

Seeing at it is Earth Day today, I wanted to recommend a great program that I watched last night. It was an American Experience episode called Earth Days. It was a great program and was also a really interesting look at how the observance of Earth Day began. I am already a big fan of American Experience, and this was yet another winner. I thought I would add this picture of last night's sunset with this recommendation for viewing today. The picture does not do the actual sunset justice. The colors were much deeper and darker, and the reds were more fiery. I never can seem to get a good photograph of sunsets like this. I guess that is what your memory is for. Happy Earth Day.

Canning Projects

The last few days have been filled with spring cleaning and the beginning of a new canning season. It all kicked off on Monday with a trip out to Brentwood for a canning and baking session with Annie. We have both been busy, and she is currently wrapped up in research and moving plans, so the girl day was just what we both needed. We worked on the strawberry and rhubarb jam that is pictured here. It was a recipe that called for pectin, and while no longer my favorite jam method, it was nice to do a quick batch over the long cook method. I have to say, though, that I enjoy the flavor of a cooked to the jelly point jam over the commercial pectin flavors. I also like the looser texture of the jam over the pectin. I feel that the powdered pectin makes a jam that is a bit too stiff.

We also worked on some pickled asparagus. It was pretty easy after doing the dill pickles last year. The method is pretty easy, and our skill at properly packing jars has increased immensely. Seven pounds of asparagus is quite a bit, but cooked down into six pint jars. We pickled the spears with some green and red pepper, jalapeno, and garlic as well as dill and mustard seed. I am wondering how these are going to taste, but I have to wait for a month before I can find out. Pickling takes time, and I would like to make sure they are mellowed and fully pickled through before I try them. I am not sure how to use them other than adding to a salad or in a Bloody Mary or eating straight from the jar, so any suggestions for cooking with these would be welcome.

Yesterday, Annie came over to work on some sewing lessons, as it was too rainy for her to check traps. It was fun getting together two days in a row to work on things. After she left, I took to canning up some oranges that I bought on Friday. I made an orange dessert sauce. I sliced the oranges up as thin as I could on the mandolin, and then they were heated through in a syrup of water, sugar, Grand Marnier, and white wine that was spiced with cinnamon sticks and cloves. I got a bit gun shy after seven oranges were cut out of the nine that the recipe called for, so I quit early. That was a bit of a mistake as I would have been at the called for eight half pints. Instead, I canned up the remaining syrup in the empty two half pints. I figure I can boil them down into a glaze for an angel food or pound cake sometime for a quick dessert. The orange slices can be used for cake, or as my recipe suggests, for an ice cream topping. They turned out a little more yellow than I expected, but I figure it is more of the syrup's doing that than the oranges themselves.

All in all, it has been a busy last few days. I am looking forward to finally getting to sit down and finish off that personal choli. There is so little left to do that it is kind of embarrassing that it is not done yet. Then I am going to work on the new fabrics I have gotten in to make up a prototype of the new products. Hopefully I can round out the day with some deep kitchen cleaning. It isn't that I want to do it necessarily, but it has been put off for too long and just needs to get done. Right now though, the rainy day outside is screaming for some hot tea and sewing at the machines.

New Dance Bag

I am happy to report that the bag is finally fully finished. I found a great button to finish it off and also worked on fixing some of the issues with the ties that I had. I am really enjoying using it, and I think it will be even better now that it has a closure. This bag looks absolutely beautiful from any angle. I love this fabric! I also like how the bag looks when it starts to get filled with items. The bag goes from a very flat design to a lantern type design.
I also like that this bag used up some stash items. The ties are a scrap of satin cord that I had lying around. The straps are scrap pieces of black linen that I have started to fall in love with. Linen is quickly moving to the top of my list of fabrics I like to work with. When I say linen, I also mean real linen, not a linen like blend with polyester. Linen is wonderful as it takes on a softer texture the more it is used and washed. It is also wonderfully breathable. I recently even switched over to linen for all of my fighting tops for Belegarth as the breath ability is unbeaten for me in the hot climates of our tournaments. The interior of the bag is also made out of scraps of black cotton fabric. I always seem to burn through the black fabric, and this season was no exception. I have quite a few black synthetic blends that I cannot seem to find uses for as I have become such a convert to the natural fibers. They just look better, react better, and are more comfortable to wear. This does not mean that I am not still a believer in the occasional stretch fabric here and there, but overall, I really cottons, linen, bamboo, and some animal fibers like alpaca.

I also have found that I am really into the same manufacturer of Japanese style fabrics. The last time I went into Stone Mountain and Daughter, I found this wonderful fabric in the remnant bins. We needed new pillows, and I thought it could be a good option. I also thought it would make a wonderful choli if Dan did not like it for new pillows on the couch. It turned out he did, and I figured out that I could potentially swing both pillows and a choli if I cut smart. I used the remainder of the left over linen for the backings of the pillows. I am happy to finally have new pillows that I can wash seeing as Dan and I tend to fall asleep on them every weekend. I can also easily remove the pillow forms and get new ones when they wear out and keep the beautiful covers. Overall I am really happy with how they came out

Also, I got featured in a SF Etsy team treasury on their blog. It is located here for those of you that want to take a look. It is a treasury based on Chinese New Years!

Today I am hoping to get some early plantings done for the balcony garden. Some of the seeds have taken off so much I cannot wait any longer. Hopefully I can dig up some good packaging peanuts soon, so I can get on this planting.

Lilliputian Lemons

The Meyer lemon tree has been pretty happy over the winter months here. I am quite relieved as the balcony does not get any direct sun over the winter. Not knowing this when we bought the tree, I thought my biggest problem would be the cold nights, but the lack of sun was actually more of a problem. The tree did come inside for some of the months of November and December when the nighttime temperatures were close to freezing. Once it warmed up a bit again, it went right outside. While I loved having it inside, having to contend with the moths that were constantly sprouting out of the dirt was not something I wanted to put up with for very long. We harvested one of the lemons two weeks ago for our Dutch Baby pancake, and when I went outside to check on the lemons, there was one more to pick. It was so tiny, the name Lilliputian Lemon sprang to mind.



In getting ready to take this picture I found that I have misplaced my ruler for sewing, hence the lateness of this posting. I have turned the entire house upside down looking for the ruler to find no trace of the thing. It is pretty disappointing as I am working on a project for myself, something I honestly do not usually do. I am making myself a dedicated dance bag. I usually just use one of the canvas bags that I take to tutoring or the store or places like that, but I am constantly worrying that I have forgotten to slip my zills or foot covers or some other small item into the bag. Then the bag checks begin, where I dig around while walking to catch the train to a dance session hoping whatever I have decided is missing is actually packed. It almost always is! So, to ease my troubles, I am making a dedicated bag that I know will always have those items inside. This will also help to curb the neat piles of organized items that tend to fill the Fabulous Pants sewing space... usually resulting in missing items.... like my now missing ruler! I have decided to wait for Dan's fresh set of eyes to look with me tonight and to instead lose myself in this delightful dance bag project. It is easy to forget the lost things when you are working with something as beautiful as this fabric:



Well there are bags to be sewn, living rooms to be cleaned, and headdresses to be practiced. I guess it is time to quit fretting over lost tools and start sewing. Making lemons into lemonade so to speak! New dance bag, here I come.

Lists Working?

The Google Task lists seem to be working.... well at least a little. I now have things written down in a priority form that I cannot lose because it is on my phone. This makes for a somewhat stress inducing reminder of all the things I would like to accomplish and what I have yet to do. I did have to move Monday's tasks back to Tuesday, so that made yesterday's list look very intimidating. I did, however, plow through many of the items, including cleaning the dreaded bathrooms. It isn't that the bathrooms were so dirty that I did not want to tackle them, far from it, I just hate cleaning the bathrooms. I have no idea why that is, but it is. So, after many avoidance techniques yesterday and the day before, I buckled down and got it all completed. I also got the curtain panels cut out and ready for sewing up today.

In gardening news, I restarted the Aerogarden last week. It needed a complete overhaul, new motor, light bulbs, and new plantings. I ended up going with the very old herbs that came with the thing. I was not expecting much in the way of germination seeing as the seeds were so old, but I am happy to report that I have dill that is ready to have the cap removed already and the mint is fast approaching the same state. I don't see any other shoots yet, but the chives are also starting to develop fog on their dome, signaling the possibility of new growth there as well. Nothing yet from the thyme or the parsley, and I also did not plant the two basil plants yet as they germinate so much sooner and would overtake the other plants before they are established. I am going to give all the other herbs a big head start before planting those basil plants.

I hate to cut it short today, but I am feeling sewing inspiration today as the clouds are starting to break and let the sun in, so I should seize on this inspiration and go!

Holiday Wrap Up Three

One of the presents I was really looking forward to making was a learning book for Craig. I found the pattern on the internet and bought it up. It was a vintage Vogue pattern for a book called "It's A Zoo." The book was great as it used up lots of fabric from the bins. I only bought some of the fabrics for the pages themselves. I also got to use up some old and wrinkled interfacing that I have been kicking around for some time as it is featherweight fusible, and I do not really need that too often. I was astounded at how well this one came out. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Title Page that was customized for Craig:



Page One: A fishing pelican. I made it out of the same material that his previous and Jozef's pelicans were made out of for some continuity. The fish attach and come off of the hooks.



Page Two: A turtle that is a sensitive fellow. Learning to use snaps.





Page Two: A hungry alligator on what must be a hot day. Learning to use a zipper.





Page Three: A giraffe all ready for a night out with her hair all done. Learning to tie a bow.



Page Four: A kangaroo out for the day with her baby. Learning to use a buckle.





Page Five: A bear ready to coach his baseball team. Learning to lace up eyelets.



Page Six: A rollerskating elephant ready to go! Learning to button and unbutton.



Page Seven: A lion all braided up neatly. Learning to braid three ropes.



Page Eight: A hippo is driving the bus for all the animals to ride. Learning to button and unbutton again.





All in all it was a fun project and used up lots of scraps in this new era of using up things. I also got to use up a bunch of notions that I have had knocking around drawers and things. Any cleared up clutter is good use in my mind.

On that note I am off. I have a special order I need to complete today as well as transferring the pattern for Annie and I to sew up aprons. Lots to do before I need to head out for Long Now tonight!

Holiday Wrap Up One

Well I completely got busy at the end of last week and did not get around to starting my holiday wrap up, so I thought today it would be good to start it out. I have three things to show off today, two of which are repeats from last year, one is a new item just for this year. I have to say that I am surprised that I managed to pull it off this year, getting all of my handmade items finished in time to give them or send them for a Christmas day opening. I also managed to meet my goal of getting all the major mailing of Christmas gifts off by the ground shipping deadline. It was still expensive to help Santa out by sending that many presents, but it was worth every penny. The theme this year was to try to minimize buying new materials and use up materials I already had heaped up in fabric bins, boxes, and containers of crafting supplies. Overall, it was a pretty successful endeavor.

For my Dad, I did a rehash of a moss stitch scarf. I had one ball of the Cascade EcoAlpaca left from the attempt at this scarf from the year before, so I got another one and knit it up, this time correctly, for my Dad. It looks entirely different since I knit the knit stitches rather than knitting them to the back. I like this one a bit more, but both still looked great in the end. I was just glad that the yarns were a really exact match since there is no dye lot because it was natural alpaca yarn.



I also made another counting fish pelican for Jozef. It was requested for him last year by Kathy, so I had fun making a second one in what I am sure is a long line of counting pelicans in my career. Overall this did not meet the full criteria of using up and not buying more items to make it, but all I really had to purchase was the zipper and yellow dot fabric for him. The fish were totally made out of scraps of other fabrics. It is nice to see how much faster you are at doing things the second time around.



I did not do so well on the not buying when I made this banner for my Mom. I thought, though, that it was a great exception to the rule. I made it using a pattern from Butterick that Dan picked out. She really liked it, and I have heard that it is hanging up in the kitchen currently. I was amazed while working on this to see how much better at applique I have gotten. I did have to do some shopping for the buttons with my Mom when I was home for Thanksgiving, so it was pretty funny when she opened up the package to find the buttons on her gift.



Today I am working on gaining the motivation to start some house cleaning. Over the holiday crafting extravaganza, things like dusting and vacuuming fall by the wayside. I also have a rosemary bush in need of some transplanting out on the balcony. The lemon tree is chugging right along, and the first lemons are starting to ripen. I do have a bit of sad news in regards to the balcony garden. White flies were hard at work while we were gone traveling during the holidays, so the herb garden is basically no more. I have decided to turn over that box to strawberries this spring and instead use the Aerogarden for the herbs as the likelihood of white flies inside is lower, so I will not have to pour so much time into fighting insect battles for my herbs. They have been missed this week as I wanted to prepare a recipe only to find that I forgot that there is no easily accessible sage any more. It was rather disappointing.

I am also working on prepping for an apron sewing session with Annie this week. I am determined to copy the pattern and sew one apron on my own so that when I am teaching her the lessons will be more successful. The harp is also in need of some time with me as one of my resolutions is to become more proficient on that poor neglected present. Now that I received my knee bones for Christmas, there are no more excuses. Calloused fingers, here I come!

Reorganization and Restarts

My bread making skills have been steadily improving as I get more and more practice with the methods. I was really proud of this first attempt at French bread. It turned out to be more like Italian bread though as the loaf was too large and not a small diameter like a baguette. After the second rise, I knew it was too big!



It was still very good and came out of the oven golden brown!



I did not slash the loaf deep enough, so it expanded out of the side, however it was still delicious. I think I will be working on this more and buying bread less. The pan was also wonderful. The bottom of the loaf was really crusty, just like from a bakery. It also released the loaf with out any extra butters or oils. It popped out with out any fuss.

On Friday, Dan and I did something that we never do. We went out and bought the newest thing on the day it came out. We got ourselves new Droid phones! The last time we got new phones was when we got our first phones in 2003. It was a long time coming, and I am really happy to have a new smart phone. There has been a huge learning curve, but I am catching on very quickly as the user interface is really easy to figure out. Usually we wait for things to get older and almost ready for new models to come out before buying, but for once, we treated ourselves. That actually took up most of our day on Friday. Then, we both started to feel a bit sick. We spent all of the rest of the weekend feeling a bit awful and working on the house a bit. We reordered Dan's office, and I did the same to the sewing room. Most of it remained the same, but I switched up where my desk and storage shelves are. My desk is now in a cozy nook sheltered by the shelves of supplies and fabrics. The sewing area remained the same as it was working well before. Now, though, I can actually get the bins of fabric off of the shelves with out any tricky maneuvering or yelling. The only bad thing about the arrangement is that I am looking at the electrical panel for the apartment. All in all though, a good switch.

After the weekend of rest, I am off to a roaring start today. I have already gotten banana bread made and out of the oven, the whites and bed sheets laundered, and some light pick up around the house done. I hope this reordering of things continues. I would like to get harp playing back in the routine, and I am going to try to start that again today. I hope to add it to my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday schedules. Well I am off to sew since I am feeling the urge to finally complete the first Christmas project and move onto the next sewing one. I am also hoping to get some light housecleaning accomplished today as well. Wish me luck on the cleaning and that the crafting does not fully take over!

Halloween Treats

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought it was time that I got some treats made for Dan and I as well as some fun for us for the holiday. I made cut out sugar cookies, and while not the sour cream cookies of my youth, these are Dan's favorite from his. I made the dough and let it chill, and we cut them out while watching a silly movie. It was a fun time. We picked, "easy to decorate" shapes this year. The last time made some of these we made too many of the difficult ones, like the witches. We stuck mostly to single color items like pumpkins, ghosts, cats, and bats. The weird looking shapes for the low imagination types are candy corns.



They are on the counter now to age properly. These cookies are best when left to get stale over night and then adding liberal frosting that sinks into the cookie and then makes it all moist again. It is a great technique. It also avoids the soggy cookies syndrome that some frosted cookies seem to get. Tonight, I am going to get out all the fun sprinkles, dredges, and make up some big pots of frosting in black, orange, and white. I will take some pictures of the finished project. Now I have to switch my mind set to Christmas and get into the sewing room to work on some projects. Hopefully the sun will finally be right for me to take pictures of the chocolate pin strip pants this afternoon. Well lots of sewing and knitting ahead today. I am feeling suddenly inspired! Hopefully it is not an artificial rush from my sneaking candy corn out of the decoration stash.

Moving on to Toy Making

I finally did the last stitches on those chocolate pinstripe pants. They got cast aside last week due to the birthday festivities, and now they are hanging on my door waiting for a sunny enough day to take product photos.





I really love this fabric. It is very similar to a business suit I have. In fact, these pants would be wonderful for someone with an office job that, like me, lives for comfy pants. They are a soft bottom weight polyester cotton blend, so they are easy care as well.

I have decided that it is time to cast aside the pants sewing for a little while in order to start work on the many toys and gifts for the holiday season. I have one almost cut out and marked. I hope to get it done today. I am also working on a project for Brenna's birthday. I started this one last year and abandoned it due to poor results. This time, however I am doing much better with it. I hope to have this all finished soon and waiting to be mailed out for her birthday on the 5th of December. It pays to plan ahead, especially since it has to travel across the country to the other coast. I also have quite a few patterns to copy over to interfacing. I am a solid believer in not cutting my patterns now, and I have found that interfacing makes a great transfer medium. Well I am feeling inspired, so I am off to finish cutting out all the pieces and putting this toy together. It will be fun to have so many "friends" hanging out in the sewing room as the holidays approach.

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.

Soup on a Rainy Day

Yesterday was completely glorious in how rainy and dreary it was. I miss days like that, and today is also a nice day with some sun but really beautiful fluffy clouds. I have caught myself staring out the window at them almost 10 times this morning. It is just nice to see some variance in the sky besides fog or sun. I did revel in the rain yesterday by creating a rainy day feast of butternut squash and apple soup with homemade rolls. I made a recipe from Ina Garten that I added some modifications to for the soup. I have made this one before, but I did not like it as well as tonight's with my modifications. It was by far the best soup I think I have ever made.



The rolls were my first attempt at Parker House rolls. The dough was really good, and they tasted yummy. Sadly, though they did not all stay crimped shut, so some were just like biscuits. They were however all eaten, so I am sure they were not awful. We had them with some local honey and my homemade apple butter.





I declared, after eating the rolls, that we would no longer be a pop roll family. There were way easier to put together than I thought, and took very little time. So, I think I am adding another from scratch only to my list.

I did not get the pants done as planned. Many friends were calling me yesterday, and it was wonderful. There were people that I had not talked to in months that all decided to call me yesterday. I took the opportunity to work on some ironing and cutting out of Christmas gifts, as that can easily be done on the phone and sewing is too loud. Today, though, I am focused on those pants. Hopefully tomorrow is sunny enough to take a picture, so they can get listed up on Friday. They are a wonderfully dressy pair, that look almost like they could be suit pants. I have some shopping to do this week as well to get Dan some birthday gifts, so don't be surprised if there are some late entries into the blog in the next day or so. It is as it needs to be! Well I am off for pants finishing and more toy cutting out.