Roast me and carve me up... I'm stuffed!

Why is it that I continue to stuff myself silly even though I'm still full from Thanksgiving dinner? I'll never understand my mind's hold on my stomach. Anyway, this Thanksgiving was quite the whirlwind tour. I took Wednesday off from work and spent much of the morning baking. You'll see here that my kitchen was quite the disaster zone (I had a flour explosion in the Kitchen Aid mixer), but after about 4 hours and three different dish-washing sessions, my kitchen was back to normal and I had about 80 cookies to divide up and pack away. I made two recipes from the new Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cookies publication, and they really came out well. This little book is really good - I highly recommend it if you're looking for Christmas cookie recipes. All of the recipes are pretty simple, though some do involve a few hours of chilling. I avoided those. The two cookies I made (Lime Shortbreads and Ginger Crinkles - don't they look yummy?) were very quick to put together, and are delish. Really. I brought some to the Siskos, some to my parents, and I even have some leftover for us here at the house. Though not for long, I bet.

We spent Wednesday night through Saturday morning at Doug's parents' house in Monroe, CT. This is Doug surveying the new homestead. Where is Monroe? Somewhere near Trumbull, Newtown, Fairfield, Brookfield... in an area of CT that I've never really explored. We got to know it a little better this trip. Thursday was spent eating, basically. Doug's grandfather came over at about 1 o'clock, and at about 3:30pm we all sat down to eat. At left is a picture of me and my giant plate of food. I like peas; can you tell? Dinner was great - thanks, Mrs. Sisko! She quickly put it together, as the day before Doug's Uncle Bruce called to say that he was sick, and Mrs. Sisko decided that we should not go to his house for dinner. Poor Uncle Bruce is now stuck with 22 pounds of turkey all for himself. Personally, I can think of worse fates, but perhaps he isn't a fan of turkey like I am. Anyway, after dinner Doug whipped out his computer and showed his grandfather some photos and video he had on his hard drive. Then we all had fun with Photo Booth. Doug's grandfather got a kick out of the computer - "How do the pictures get onto the computer, Douggie?" Computers always amaze older people; they're a great conversation starter. That and talking of the old days. I don't think Grandpa will ever tire of talking about how Fairfield looked when he was younger. He's seen quite the changes in his lifetime; after all, his first car was the kind that you cranked to get started. After show and tell, we all ate dessert. Doug's grandfather enjoyed his cherry pie (he took the rest of it home with him), and then we all sat around the television watching a James Bond movie - The World is Not Enough. Can I say that I think Denise Richards is probably one of the most vacuous of the Bond women? Maybe I'm just biased against her, but she's really a ditz.

Let's see. Then on to Friday. Friday was a day for touring around Monroe. We headed out to an errand with Mrs. and Mr. Sisko in the morning, then went from there to see the new James Bond - Quantum of Solace. We saw it in Danbury, and I had never been to Danbury. And no offense to Danbury, but I don't see a real reason to go back. The James Bond movie was a little disappointing - where was the plot? I know that the point of a James Bond movie is not the story line or the character development, but the point of this movie seemed to be how many fights James could get into, or how many explosions there could be. I think Daniel Craig is a great James Bond (and yes, I admit to thinking that he might be the most attractive James Bond they've cast), but he didn't get much of a chance to really showcase his talent in this movie. But enough of my review. On to the rest of the weekend. After the movie we grabbed lunch and then Doug and I headed off to Milford to see if there were any great bargains to be had on Black Friday. We found none. We finished the day watching the Mork and Mindy marathon on the SciFi channel and stuffing ourselves with leftover Thanksgiving dinner.

Saturday (yes, I promise, the play-by-play of the weekend is almost over!) morning I woke up feeling so slothful that I made Doug find us some kind of nature area to walk around. We found Wolfe Park in Monroe, which consists of a man-made lake and some walking trails, along with a playground and some soccer fields. It was nice. Doug and I walked around the lake twice, stopping along the way to swing on the swings and play on the playground, of course. Here Doug shows us his hidden equestrian abilities, and I prove that you're never too old to ride a dolphin. There's really great fun to be had in Monroe! After our walk, Mrs. Sisko stuffed us with sandwiches and snacks, and then we were off to central CT to visit our friend Adam. Why don't we have photos of Adam? I don't know. We should have taken pictures of Adam - he showed us a good time. We hung out in his house, saw some photos, surfed the internet, then went out for pizza in Windsor Locks, lattes at the Windsor Locks Starbucks, and came back to Adam's. Adam made us some homemade scones - very tasty! Doug and Adam also enjoyed a drink of blackstrap molasses. Blackstrap molasses are very high in iron, protein, and calcium, so if you're ever looking for a healthy snack just drink some molasses. Adam does, and I bet Doug will now, too. I have blackstrap molasses on my grocery list right now, actually. I just hope Doug doesn't let the molasses sit like he lets his vitamins sit. The key to life is follow-through.

Anyway, now we are both home. Doug's putzing in the basement with his musical gear and I'm up here blogging and getting ready to go to the grocery store. It's a wonderful November day outside - gray, brisk, and misty. This is a great way to end a satisfying Thanksgiving weekend. There's something about gray and November that go together like turkey and cranberry sauce. Love it!

Seven gables and twenty five leaf bags.

Dear Diary,

(Why do I feel like this is my new journal? Next thing you know I'll be talking about my crushes and complaining about how my parents are so mean for making me clean my room or something.)

This weekend was a fun one, but also a very cold one! Doug (I won't even bother to link to his blog because why waste the time?) and I jammed it with good things. Saturday went like this: Curves, car dealer to get the oil changed and car inspected, lunch at High Street Cafe in Dedham Square (would be a good place to take my Dad for breakfast, and we can even walk there if we are ambitious), then on to Salem. We had no destination in Salem; we thought maybe the Peabody Essex Museum, but neither of us had the stamina to stand around and look at art that day, even if it was really cool art. We went to a couple of antique stores and then headed down to the water. We ended up at the House of Seven Gables, apparently the 9th most visited house museum in the United States. I have never read the book and neither has Doug. As a matter of fact, before we went there I didn't even know that there was a book called The House of Seven Gables. I thought the places was just a neat old house, which it is, but apparently it is the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne's book by that name (even though at the time that he wrote the book the house only had three gables. The family living there had actually removed four of the gables in an effort to make the house more modern, match the style of the times). Anyway, the house was very cool. There is this secret stairwell built into the chimney that we all traveled up. It's a crazy staircase. One of the men on tour with us refused to go up it because he was claustrophobic; they took him up the alternative route. The staircase was put into the house because the lady who opened the house up to tourists in the early twentieth century wanted to make it resemble as much as possible the fictional house in Hawthorne's book. Apparently it needed this staircase. If you ever visit this house, be warned - it's steep, narrow, dark, and a little creepy.

Anyway, I've posted some pictures from Salem below. There's the House of Seven Gables; me driving a fake boat in the yard of the House of Seven Gables (it was freezing that day! I was outside long enough to pose for the photo and then went inside the museum again); a water view from the yard of the House of Seven Gables; and Doug drinking a giant cup of tea in this little coffee bar we stopped at after the tour. We were frozen. We needed hot beverages.





So that was basically Saturday. Sunday went like this: I woke up, did an exercise video (Karen Voight's B.L.T DVD, highly recommended), fed the cats, etc., and then at about 8:45am decided that it could no longer be avoided... I had to start raking the sea of leaves in our backyard. It was about 20 degrees on Sunday morning, but at least the wind had died down. It took me a little less than two hours to rake the whole yard - back, front and sides - and by then Doug had woken up and came out to help me bag them. We had seven leaf bags at that point, but we filled all seven with leaves from the driveway and front yard. We didn't even get to the giant pile in the back yet (scroll down for photos), so we made a trip to Lowe's to get more bags and bought 8 packs of 5. We laughed about how many bags we were buying, but we used quite a few - about half. It took us until about 2:30 to finish bagging the leaves, and once done we had a total of 25 filled bags. Twenty five! Our yard is not even that big, but that's just an amazing amount of bags. My arms and back are definitely sore from the work, and my wonderful rake is now broken, too. Whatever. The leaves are raked, the yard looks as good as it will look until spring, and that project is now done. One more thing checked off the list! Maybe now I can concentrate on indoor projects, though if our rain barrel ever melts we'll have to drain that, too.

Here are some photos of leaf mania 2008: This one is of our sea of leaves, pre-raking. This does not include the leaves in the front or on the sides that needed to be raked.

This is of the pile of leaves that I had raked in the back yard. The pile was very tall and very long. It was more like a leaf wall than a leaf pile.

Look! Have you ever seen so many bags of leaves? Twenty five in all, and that's not including the leaf bags that I filled the first time I raked, back in October. So how many leaf bags in total did we use this fall? Thirty? More? Wow. I now am VERY glad that we do not have a bigger yard.

Here is the backyard after all the leaves were raked. Looks much better, yes? Today there are more leaves out there littering the clean yard, but whatever, they can stay there. I am not raking anymore (not until next fall, anyway!).

I've sewn.

I am posting the below photos to my blog as proof that I actually sewed last weekend. I actually used my sewing machine, as I have always wanted to do, and sewed a curtain for our dining room windows. My fantastically helpful and capable mother helped me learn how to use the sewing machine, but I did do the actual sewing. I now have another project lined up (more curtains), so this is only the beginning. So I'm told. The curtain for the dining room actually came out well, despite my lack of thinking the project through enough to realize that I would have to do something about the bar in the middle of the window. Our curtain rod spans the entire length of the three windows in the dining room, so there's this bar in the middle of the window frames that keeps the curtain rod from sagging. I forgot that I would have to take this bar into account when hanging the curtain on the curtain rod, but thankfully my dear friend Chris suggested that I just cut a hole in the curtain for the bar. Great idea, and problem mostly solved. Now the curtain hangs much better in the middle, enough so that I'm not constantly bothered by the gathering of fabric, and I can say Mission: Accomplished.

Here I am sewing. See? My mother didn't do everything for me. I worked the actual sewing machine. This is good, because I'll need to know how to do it when I make my next curtains all on my own like a big grown-up girl.

This is the final product. The finished work. The completed project. The masterpiece. Don't look too closely at the seams... I haven't learned how to sew in a straight line yet, but I am pleased that I only had to rip the stitches out in a couple of spots. Not too bad for the first time!

The material that I used to make the curtain was a tablecloth. Doug and I had been looking for a simple curtain that would go with our purple room for a while, since we moved in and painted the room, but hadn't found one that was right. I decided that I would just sew one, and I think there are cool tablecloths out there, cool enough to make curtains out of. So I picked up a couple of these (very cheap - clearance!) tablecloths from Target a month or so ago. I have a lot of material left over... perhaps I'll be making matching placemats.

There she blows! This is the beauty that made everything possible. She does a lot more than I'll ever need her to do, and I hope she doesn't ever break. I once had ideas of becoming a quilter, but I might stick to easy things like curtains or simple repair jobs.

Perhaps this weekend I'll have time to start on my next sewing project, but I'm also knitting another scarf (as a birthday gift... the birthday's in a month!). Look at me, so ambitious with craft projects! It's like old times.

I hate the MBTA.

So I have to vent. I know, I know, this blog is supposed to be filled with cool pictures of food and day trips, and then the little crafty/house stuff that we do along the way, but today I have to complain about the MBTA. Can I tell you how much the MBTA makes my life miserable? If I were a better person, I'd laugh these things off, but I'm not, I'm me, and so things like this really irk me. Put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day, probably longer. Make me a terrible person to be around. Yes, I truly dislike the MBTA.

Today I rushed to get out of the house by 7am. I had to shave, and I just can't seem to get myself up those few minutes earlier on these shaving days, so I always have to rush. And I knew that I had a 9am meeting at work, so I absolutely had to catch the 7:18am train. That's the train I always catch, because the next one doesn't come until 8:15am, which doesn't get me to work by our 8:30am start time, but today I had to make it. So I walked really fast for most of the way to the station, then ran a little bit at the end, and then once I got to the platform I noticed that a couple people were leaving. Not a good sign! I took a look at the message board and there was a notice that due to mechanical failure, the next train to Boston would come at approximately (note that word) 7:50am. Great. So it was 7:15 at that point, and I'd have to wait until somewhere around 7:50 for a train?? In the freezing cold? Trust me, this morning it was very, very cold. I started calling Doug around 7:30 to see if he was awake yet, but no luck. By 7:45 I could no longer feel my fingers, and my toes... forget them. They didn't even exist by then as far as I was concerned. I was beyond cold. At 7:48, though, I heard cheering, and so I looked down the track and there was a train coming! Yay! So I start preparing myself to get on, moving closer to the spot where the doors are when the train stops. The train came closer, slowed down, stopped, and we all huddled around the door waiting for it to open, when suddenly one of the conductors came to the door and said that he wasn't letting anyone on the train, the train was too full, we'd all have to wait until the next train. Please sir, when is the next one? I don't know, says the conductor, you'll have to check the schedule. Well, I had no way to check the schedule for the train (don't have one of those cool iPhones and haven't figured out how to use the browser on my Blackberry and wasn't about to learn when it would expose my frozen and inoperable fingers to the elements), and so I resorted to calling Doug again a million times in a row. I began to shake I was so cold. Finally at about 8:07 Doug answered the phone. I told him that the train never showed, that I was absolutely freezing, and that he had to come get me so that he could drop me off at a T stop on his way to work. Fine, that was fine, he'd leave once he fed the cats. Well, maybe 5 minutes later I heard more cheering... a train was coming. I tried to call Doug to tell him that he may not have to come after all, but no answer. He must have already left. The train finally pulled to the platform and still no Doug (and Doug doesn't use a cell phone or his Blackberry so I couldn't call that to try to reach him), so I got onto the train, as it would get me to work much earlier than if I had to go to a T stop and I might actually make the 9am meeting. This means that I left Doug to figure out for himself that if no one was standing there at the train station then the train must have showed up, which I felt really guilty about doing but I didn't feel that I had a choice at that point.

Anyway, I got on the train to find it absolutely packed, and found a spot near the door to stand. It was not a warm spot, so I did not ever get warm, and to add salt to the wound when the conductor came along to check for tickets (yes, the MBTA still wanted money after making us wait for over an hour for a train!) I could not even feel my fingers as they pulled out my train pass. Right now I am at work sitting at my desk in my wool coat and scarf because I am still frozen. Completely cold. I doubt I'll get warm today. Not to mention that Doug is mad at me for making him rush to get me at the train stop and then I wasn't even there. So now, thanks to the MBTA, I probably inflicted permanent damage to myself by standing out in the arctic weather for over an hour this morning, and then I have to come home to an angry husband and try to somehow make it up to him. Yes, I really, really, really do not like the MBTA.

I'm so proud of you!

Yes, today I feel proud. I feel proud for a bunch of reasons. The first reason that I feel proud is because today marked the first day that gay and lesbian couples could officially and legally marry in Connecticut. I was born and raised in that little Nutmeg state, and still hold it rather near and dear to my heart, so I am very, very pleased that the only two states in which I've ever lived are progressive enough to recognize gay marriage. Yay!

The second reason that I feel proud is Adam finally posted a public blog. I am amazed and thrilled and so excited to read about the fun things that my good friend Adam is doing. Isn't Mystic Seaport addictive? Doug and I regret not getting a membership there last weekend. We really liked it and think the working museum concept is great there. I love that they're restoring the Morgan and I love that they sponsor the sailing camps for kids in the summer. If I lived in Connecticut and if I had a kid I'd send it to that camp. It sounds fabulous. And now I know that the Seaport has an antique car show in the fall so I'll have to go there next year. Maybe Adam will join us, and it would be great if his grandfather could be there, too. He looks like a spitfire.

The third reason that I'm proud is that my husband made us dinner tonight without burning down the house. Yes, the smoke alarm screamed, "Fire, fire!" a few times, but still, no real flames. We now have quesadillas to eat and a couple of DVDs of Arrested Development to watch and it's only 8pm! Yes, today is a day for being proud.

Work. Life. Balance?

Jobs. Jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobbie job job jobs. What is a job, anyway? What is the point? Is it personal fulfillment? A way to make ends meet? A path to riches? And what is this work-life balance idea that I am hearing about ALL THE TIME? Is it really possible to achieve? If you give all to one, let's say work, because your job is your personal fulfillment, then what happens to your life? Isn't your job your life then, and what do you balance? And if your job is only a means to live your life, how do you balance that? It would seem that then your life would be totally out of balance, because much of your life would be spent at your job. I am struggling with this work-life balance thing. A lot. I don't want my job to be my life but I'm not sure how that's possible when I have to work this job to give me the kind of life that I apparently want. Or, at this point (thank you student loans and mortgage), need. I want to have a job that I really like, that is an extension of my life, but those kinds of jobs aren't the ones that can pay the bills at this point. I tell you, it sure is a pain to be an adult. As a child my dream, my goal, was to be old. To be "an adult." Don't ask me what I thought that meant. I think that as a kid I thought that if I were just old, if I were 40 and an "adult," out of school, living on my own, working a job, driving a car, whatever, that everything would be fine. No more growing pains, no more adolescence, no more unfairness, no more uncertainty, no more of being a kid. Wow. How wrong was I! I will be thirty in about 4 months. I suppose I am, in age at least, the adult I so desired to be as a kid. Problem is, I know just about as much now as I did then about being an adult - nothing. I guess I can just take each day at a time, treat my life as a continuous AA meeting of sorts. Yes, it's fun to be me and to be "grown up," but it's also a lot of work. I hope other people had childhood dreams that they could actually achieve... because while I can be - and am - an "adult," I am not the kind of adult I thought I'd be. But then again, I think as a kid I was watching way too many movies. My vision of adulthood was obviously rather warped.

More maritime culture.

Doug and I were thinking about starting a new blog this weekend, a joint venture that focused on food and daytrips, two of our favorite things. We love getting in the car and just driving somewhere. We tend to stay in New England, especially now that we are old and gray, but at some point we may venture past these New England boundaries. What doesn't seem to change, though, is our desire to eat cheap, unhealthy food while on these road trips. We don't really actively seek out dives, and we don't actually ever eat in those kinds of places, and we don't go for fast food for the most part. We try to catch some kind of local flavor while on the road, and usually this ends up meaning a greasy spoon or a local joint of some sort. Since we at least once a month take a trip like this (seems like more often this fall... maybe it's because our weekends are ours again and don't belong to trips to Connecticut), we thought it might be a good idea to document our travels and review our eats in a blog just for that purpose. We nixed that idea, though, since this is what our blogs really end up being at the end of the day, so I guess people truly interested in our travels or in the food we eat will just have to sift through the other posts to get to the good stuff.

Good stuff: Yesterday we hit up Mystic Seaport. We wanted to go for a road trip yesterday that would take us somewhere near the water, and somewhere near some kind of interesting local food. We immediately thought of Cape Cod, as we HAVE NEVER BEEN there since living together again in Massachusetts these four years now. Seems weird, huh? We just don't tend to drive the car in that direction. So we were going to make the Cape Cod National Sea Shore in Eastham our destination, with Arnold's our choice for dinner, but it's closed for the season. We then thought Sundae School, but that's also closed, as is the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory tour (closed on weekends... can you believe that?). Cape Cod with its seasonal attractions was reluctantly scratched from our list, and we quickly put together plan B, which was to drive down to Mystic, Connecticut, to see if the Seaport seemed like a place we'd want to go. We drove the hour and a half it took to get there and, despite the slightly high admission charge and cool mist falling, decided to give it a go.

I've visited Mystic Seaport maybe 4, 5 times total in my lifetime, but it never changes, and this is not a bad thing. The Seaport is a recreation of a New England shipping town, not unlike Old Mystick, and you can visit the period pharmacist's shop, grocer, caner, blacksmith, bank, captain's house, school, chapel, etc., etc. There are real tall ships, too, to walk on and investigate. The prize of Mystic is the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship built in 19th century New Bedford. We didn't get to see this ship, as it's out of the water for a 3 and a half year restoration project, but we did get to climb aboard the Dunton, a commercial fishing ship from the early twentieth century (it still smells like fish). It was a good visit, though some of the buildings were closed for the season. Reinforced Doug's current interest in maritime history and culture, though, so that was good - at least our drive was worth it! Here are some highlights of the day:

Here's a view of the Mystic River, on which the Seaport sits. It was a particularly gray and misty day, one right out of a New England storybook. We wanted to eat a big bowl of chowder, or at least thought we should. It was that kind of a day.

Here I am driving the Dunton. Doug did most of the driving that day, so I was happy to do my part here.

We saw the Amistad, which was parked here at Mystic. Here's Doug standing near it. By the time we noticed that the Amistad was available for tour Doug's tummy was screaming for eats, so his desire to actually go on the ship was minimal. We'll save that for next time.

Doug's tummy brought us into the town of Mystic itself, and we decided to eat at Mystic Pizza. Was it a bowl of clam chowder? No, but it is local eats, and that's what we were after. Here's a shot of the pizza, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (after all, Mystic Pizza is known for the movie, not for the pizza, right?)

The Mystic Pizza decor certainly played up the movie. On a flat-screen TV in the back of the main dining room, the Mystic Pizza movie plays continuously. I had a great view of Julia Roberts' giant '80s hair all evening. Doug, on the other hand, had a view of Owen Wilson's lips. What does the Starsky & Hutch remake have to do with Mystic Pizza? Nothing, but Doug seems to be fond of Owen, so that's all that matters.

All in all, a satisfying meal, a good trip, and plenty of new blogging material. I think Doug might be in charge of posting actual food/restaurant reviews, and in that sense we can have a joint blogging project, but in the end we both barely have the time to spend blogging in our own blogs - how would we have time for a third? That was a crazy idea, and I'm glad we talked ourselves out of it.

C'est fini!

Drum roll, please. I hear doves cooing in the background, I hear roosters crowing, I hear rounds of applause, I hear voices shouting, "Bravo, bravo!" Because why? Because I have finished my scarf! My dear friend Summer Sweater ever-so-kindly showed me how to knit about two and a half years ago (longer perhaps? not quite as long ago maybe? I really don't remember... it's just been a while), and after a few failed attempts and the search for a thicker, more forgiving yarn, I am done with my first-ever knitting project. My scarf. I believe it took about 5 balls of yarn, maybe more - I lost count (who wouldn't after over two years...). But that's no matter now! All that matters is that the scarf is done, it's long enough to wrap around my neck and keep me warm (and apparently itchy as well), and it gives me hope that the next one I attempt will not take me nearly as long.

You'll see in this photo that this scarf is quite long. I guess that's what using 5 balls of yarn will do. The yarn was kind-of cool because it was dyed with lots of different colors, making it very colorful in the end. It was a bit of a pain to use, though, because it was very bunchy on the needle and I had a hard time not getting my needles caught in it. The cats loved it, though. Much of my scarf is spooged on by Wyatt, who decided at various times that it was a giant chew toy, and then for Sasha it was a giant scratching post. I am indeed amazed that I was able to finish this scarf in one piece.

This next one is of me wearing the scarf. Very cool, no? It's a bit rainbow-y, but I figure this way it will match a lot of stuff, and will brighten my otherwise drab winter outfits. Because yes, I will wear this scarf while at work. It's very cold in there. All the time. Very cold.

And this last photo is of Doug in the scarf. Yes, we're all going to take turns wearing the scarf (this is what happens when we keep our heat at 60 at all times). Doug's feeling a little under the weather tonight, hence the pouty face. I'd like to think he's pouting because he knows he's going to have to give the scarf back, but he's already said that the scarf was too girly for him anyway, so I guess this means that he'll be the recipient of my next project. What's a manly scarf, though? Black? Navy blue? I don't think I'm advanced enough yet for stripes or some kind of pattern. He may just have to settle for something like this and just blame it on his wife if he happens to look a little more feminine than usual! At least he'll be warm!

And on a final note - Happy anniversary, Chris and CHRIS! I hope you've celebrated well! It's hard to believe your wedding was one year ago... think of all that's happened in this first year. This year is just the beginning, too.

Trick-or-treat! Smell my... leaves?

Happy Halloween! We bought a total of four bags of candy, perhaps a little more, and we only gave away maybe ten pieces total. So much for trick-or-treaters! We had maybe four separate doorbell rings, each doorbell ring bringing about two trick-or-treaters. We had three Dorothies (Wizard of Oz kind), one dark angel, one rapper, one robot thing, and one little girl in an old-fashioned-typed dress. I thought she said she was a midwife, but that can't be right. Anyway, each of these little kids only took one or two pieces of candy each. What's up with greed these days? If I were a kid I'd have stuck my hand in the candy bucket and taken as many pieces as my fat little hand could have held. Parents today parent too well, I guess. Needless to say, we spent a rather uneventful Halloween night watching Ghost Hunters Live, eating (gross) Papa John's pizza, and stuffing ourselves silly with leftover candy. We still have most of our candy bucket left to eat. Please take it away from me... I never thought I'd say this, but I'm getting tired of candy.

So what else did we do this weekend? Raked leaves. Now here's a piece of advice when you're going to look at houses to buy - take careful note of how many trees either exist on your property or overhang onto your property and ask yourself if you really and truly want to deal with all those leaves each fall. We figured that our yard was small enough that we wouldn't really have to worry about too many leaves, but having a small yard really doesn't have anything to do with how many leaves you'll have. I raked only the front yard (and part of our street, actually), and filled five leaf bags. Here are a few photos from our leaf adventure:

This one is me dealing with the leaves in the street. Yes, I raked the street. I raked the street because we have a small, narrow street and a tree of ours was depositing leaves all on the side of the street in front of our house. At some point I'm sure the leaves would have overtaken the whole street. Rather than make our neighbors unhappy with our tree, I decided to rake the leaves. Raking the street just seems wrong somehow.

Here is a photo of all five of our leaf bags standing in front of the house, waiting to be collected for garbage day on Tuesday. Can I ask why leaf bags are made the way they are? It's very difficult to put leaves into them. I scoop up a pile of leaves using the two-rake method and I try to dump them into the opening in the bag, but half the leaves fall outside of the bag and the leaf bag gets full so fast. These bags confound me. Please, Creative Person, please design a new kind of leaf bag.

Moving on. This weekend also brought to an end the seasonal clothes-change project. All the summer clothes are now in bins in the attic, and the winter ones are now nicely put away and organized, as you'll notice in this picture of our closet. I had to post a photo of our closet because I just love that it is so neat and clean. Who doesn't love a clean closet? My closet was never clean as a kid, never organized. Now I don't think I could live without having my closet in this kind of shape. (This just proves that I've turned anal-retentive in my old age, doesn't it.) My parents' closets always looked like this. My mother's pants all hang neatly from pants hangers, her shirts are all nicely hanging on hangers. Her shoes are all at the bottom of her closet in her shoe box, the nicer ones still in the boxes in which she bought them. I was always impressed by her closet, and how I have one just like it.

And speaking of my parents, they celebrated today their 40th anniversary. Apparently the 40th anniversary is the ruby anniversary, but no rubies were had today. My mom and dad went to my sister's house for dinner and hung out with their grandchildren. Were flowers had? Not sure. Breakfast in bed? Not likely. For reasons I understand well they don't really do much celebrating of their anniversary, but it's good that they were treated to a nice evening out of the house and in the company of family. After all, two years after they were married they had my sister, so it's only fitting that they celebrate their wedding with her and her offspring. I'm sure the dinner was great, too - my brother-in-law makes a mean meal. So happy anniversary, Mom and Dad! Doug and I will be glad to host a 50th anniversary bash. For that one we can't let you let it pass unnoticed...