This week's blog assignment! Totally! Pumpkin Latte is my favorite!!!

You Are a Pumpkin Latte

You are a total homebody. You love the fall because it gives you an excuse to stay home a little more often and be cozy. Fall is your favorite time to cook a pie, read a good book, or watch your favorite movie. You're the type who prefers handing out candy at Halloween and hosting Thanksgiving at your place. You have a lot of different autumn activities, and they all take place inside the comfort of your home.

What Autumn Drink Are You?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

I want to be Pioneer Woman when I grow up

We have several fruit trees in our back yard. This is the third year we have lived here, and I was unprepared for the bountiful harvest of apples, plums, and asian pears. You see, the last two years, we have regular squirrel visitors who ate all the fruit before it was ripe. But this summer, we had two large, unstable trees removed from the yard, and apparently the squirrels vacated the property as well. So we are full of fruit that is all ripe at the same time. Last week, I bought a canner and we made plum jam and apple sauce. It is delicious. Today- apple butter and plum butter! I feel so industrius and self-sufficient. Plus my house smells really nice!

This Week's Blog Assignment

Ok, the blog assignment now comes from My Great Retreat! This week, I am to list my five favorite meals. Hard to choose, because I love to eat, but I'll try... In no particular order--

1. Enchiladas, any style, but especially mole.
2. Pulled Pork Sandwiches with cole slaw. I think I'm going to make this tomorrow!
3. Halibut Tacos with lime yogurt sauce and cabbage.
4. Pancakes
5. Fettucine Alfredo

Ok. So now you know why I'm chubby. But that's okay.

Teensy towels and little wet boxers

We started swimming lessons this week. All three of us- me, my 4 year old, and my 17 month old-- in the pool at the same time. Super fun! But I was not so prepared this morning. First of all, I forgot to bring towels, so we had no choice but to use the towels provided by the gym. They were woefully small, maybe 11% bigger than a hand towel. Just about full size for the baby (who I will admit looked heartbreakingly cute standing there naked wrapped in the little towel). Much better suited for wiping sweat than drying off after a swim. Anyhow, I need to remember to bring REAL towels tomorrow. Secondly, I failed to remember that I would be needing to bring wet swimwear home with us. All I brought was my sad old backpack, and it was pretty wet by the time we got home, not to mention my wallet and the bag of pretzels leftover from last week's zoo trip. Ugh. So this afternoon I got out the yard of "oilcloth" that I've had sitting in my closet for over two years and made a quick tote bag.

I serged the bottom and side seams, as well as the top opening. When I went to sew the top hem, I found that my sewing machine did NOT like this fabric (and I use the term "fabric" loosely). So I gave up after it pulled that whole unthread the needle trick, and I just folded the top over and applied four sets of snaps! This is perfect, since it keeps the wide top closed, was fun to do, and allowed me to use my spendy snap press again. I even snapped the handle webbing to avoid having to sew it in. Clever, eh? Or lazy...whatever.

I think this will keep our stuff nicely contained tomorrow. No more gym towels!

TWBA

For my blog assignment over at The Dressing Room, a list of my favorite books! I do love to read. In fact, I sometimes have a hard time deciding whether to read or sew when I have a few minutes to myself. And I'm totally intrigued by the Kindle, but too cheap to buy one. Here is my spur-of-the-moment list o' favorites. It's got a little bit of everything.

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (so complex and perfect, my absolute favorite)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo (heartbreaking and beautiful)
Sheep on a Ship, by Nancy E. Shaw (just plain fun)
Hippos Go Berserk, by Sandra Boynton (best counting book we have)
The Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester
The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman (super, super useful stuff)
Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (This one kept me up for hours, way past my bedtime)
The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss (This book gave creedence to the part of me that screams when I see a misplaced apostrophe at the grocery store...)


That's it for today's peek into my brain. Now I have to go make dinner.

Happy dishes

I made some cloth dinner napkins out of some "Lizzie Dish" fabric that is totally cute for kitchen stuff. A super simple, useful and satisfying Sunday project. Aren't they cute?

Ottoman slipcover

Note to parents, sloppy people, and anyone who wears shoes in the house: NEVER get a beige ottoman. Baaaaad idea. This puppy looked bad after about 14 minutes of use. I've been slipcovering it since. The first slipcover was dark blue, and the color rubbed off on the edges. Oy. We covered it with a sheet and used it anyways. This is take two, about 7 years later. Much better!

I'm proud of the corners on this. I didn't want to make them square, since the edge of the ottoman is rounded. But I also am not careful enough to actually make round corners that would fit. So I cut the pieces for square corners, but sewed in a little inverted box pleat to round them out a bit. It came out pretty cute.