little bow ties

They had a hard time telling at first, but it's official:  little bow ties here we come!

snapshot: love/hate

I have a love/hate relationship with duvets and duvet covers.  In the winter, when the nighttime thermostat is turned down to the low 60s, I love it.  But when I'm trying to wrestle the actual duvet into its freshly-washed decorative cover, well...  I've also come to realize that the hate part is directly proportional to the number of black cats owned.

After writing yesterday's post, I got a motivated bug in me and went to the grocery store, made vegan butterscotch pudding (fail), baked vegan biscuits (win), changed the bed linens (see above), and other assorted productive tasks.  Oh, and I burned a scented candle and blasted Miranda Lambert (my current obsession).  So thank you, sporadic blogging venue, for giving me a kick in the rear and getting me going again.

november

You know how the days fly by and then you look back and think, huh, nothing exciting really happened, but man that was fast?  This is how I've been feeling the entire month of November so far.  For instance, I am finding it very hard to believe we are pretty much halfway through the month already.  Where did the days go?  The weather is cold and rainy today.  We have the big duvet on the bed now, and the cats are now attached to it like glue.  And normally are so "helpful" when we are making the bed in the morning or trying to turn down the covers at night.

We had our first Halloween together in our little house and I had major high hopes for trick-or-treaters (given that I ran out of candy last year).  Such high hopes that I bought three jumbo bags of candy at Target.  And we had maybe one dozen kids all night.  And all night the mister paced outside to the front stoop to look up and down the street for kids to flag down.  It didn't help that the large majority of houses on our block were boycotting the holiday (even the lady who already has her Christmas decorations up seemed to have no interest in celebrating).  So now we have chocolate and Sour Patch "Zombie" Kids to last us through the winter.

This past weekend we had the mister's mother over for dinner.  He made stuffed mushrooms and fancy drinks for cocktail hour and I made successes from the past for dinner - Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes and Kale & Potato Gratin.  Yes, we fed a meat-eater tempeh and she actually ate it and seemed to like it!

Other things on the menu these past couple of weeks:
~ Breakfast for Dinner with Blueberry Oatmeal Waffles and apple-sage Field Roast sausage 
~ Spaghetti and Beanballs (from Veganomicon p. 189)
~ Butternut Squash and Apple Soup (from Ina; I use about half the curry) with crusty bread and salad

And now we are gearing up for Thanksgiving.  Spending the day with the mister's family in Richmond, Virginia.  A football game and oyster roast followed by traditional dinner.  Should be fun to have our first Thanksgiving as a new family.  Especially considering that last year I was in Texas for my grandmother's funeral, this year should be full of lovely new traditions.