Guess what, guys. This was Minnesota's second warmest November since they started keeping records. And the first snow-free November since, like, 1962. (One or both of those statements might be incorrect, since I'm only now remembering having heard them on the radio, but I'm not purposefully making them up. I'm pretty sure they're mostly true.) Every time 'they' say what the high should be for the day (aka, the average high), everybody gasps. No! Surely not! Minnesota never dips below 40F! How quickly we forget.

But the garden has been hanging in there, thanks to the mild weather. Not really in a useful way, although the kale has been plentiful. Mainly I've just got loads of happy-looking herbs and overgrown lettuces that would be tough and bitter to eat. I planted my potted strawberries in the ground (pictured), since they can come back in the spring, and I really like how the leaves turn bright red before dying off. For some reason, it's much more amusing to me when plants do this, since it's such a 'tree' thing.

We usually have a sudden drop off in temperatures, which is like plunging into an unheated pool. I suppose this tends to happen in January, but I'm hoping that maybe we'll get a gradual easing in this year. Like slowly inching into the pool, letting your body get progressively more numb, so you just don't notice the pain as much. It's good to have at least a few weeks in each temperature range -- the 50s become the 40s become the 30s, and so on. It's psychological to a large extent; seeing a high in the 20s when you've been enjoying the upper 40s comes as quite a shock.

At any rate, I really feel like the shortening of the days hasn't affected me as much, probably due to our mild weather. It's been getting colder, for sure, but it just hasn't felt like winter is barreling down on us. I DID put up my Christmas tree last night, though, and the twee sounds of my 'Christmas in Sweden' album never fails to make me feel all wintery inside!

There's nothing sadder than a weekend that rushes by before you can enjoy it, but there are also few things better than a good weekend, one that perfectly balances social activities, productivity, and relaxation. I'd say this Thanksgiving weekend was one of the latter.

I bagged up all my pumpkin puree this morning, and I wound up with 11.5 cups, in the end. I'm glad I drained off all that water, because what I was left with is much more like the puree that comes in the cans. And it's the equivalent of roughly seven cans, by the way -- grown organically in my own garden, and all for the price of one little pumpkin seedling. Never mind all the work that went into it!

I ran some errands in the afternoon and found a large kids' Vikings sweatshirt, which came in handy with helping them win their game today. It was only seven bucks and has been hardly worn (the fleece is still soft and fuzzy inside), but the fit it sort of strange. It's only a little bit wider than the typical women's sweatshirt I might buy, but I can pull it down to nearly the middle of my thighs. But the cuffs of the sleeves hit right at my wrists.

So either A) boys who wear size L are 6'5" and very thin for their height and have T. Rex-style arms or B) boys who wear football sweatshirts are the type of kids who let the waists of their jeans hang down by their knees, so they need long tops to make up the difference. Either way, kids have changed since I was one.

And as if pumpkin puree and new sweatshirts weren't enough to push this Sunday into the 'win' column, when I went to put gas in my car, I realized the five-cents-off-per-gallon coupon I had was ALSO a free coffee coupon. And the gas station had single serve cups of flavoured creamer. I took one chocolate and one Irish creme and enjoyed myself a mighty fine cup of (mostly decaf) free coffee when I got home. I love getting things for free!

I'm contemplating ending the weekend by digging out the wintery decorations. White plastic Christmas tree, I think I can hear you calling my name!

-- Beany is such a funny cat. Sometimes she leaps straight up into the air because the urge strikes. And if I stand at the window and call, 'Beany, Beany!' in an urgent voice, she dutifully comes running, already excited about what must be outside. She was the one who spotted our bunny friend outside today, though -- that's what she's watching above. Every time I empty a roughly cat-sized container of something, I put it on the floor for Beany. She's so predictable.

-- I finally finished the knitted fox I started making years ago. Literally years ago; I made the first 1.5 pieces while I was still living in London. I lost interest until a few weeks back, and it didn't take long once I really made an effort. The pattern is from Lucinda Guy's And So to Bed. The only problem is that it's grey and only slightly smaller than Beany, so I had a bit of a boggle earlier today when I looked into the living room and saw two Beanys by the coffee table. I'll have to lock it away. But I'll try to take a photo first.

-- And on the topic of 'finally', I also finally roasted the pumpkins from my garden. I grew three, but I think I mentioned that one of them was rotten inside. It was easy to tell when I picked it; it was much lighter than the others. I carved that one for Halloween, but the others have been sitting around looking autumnal for weeks and weeks. But I want to decorate for the winter holidays, so the pumpkins had to go. This is what the big one looked like chopped in half. I roasted the pumpkins, then peeled them (pretty easy once they're cooked), then mashed them with a potato masher, and THEN I pureed the mash in the blender. I got eleven cups of puree from that one and five from the smaller pumpkin, so sixteen cups in total! I've been draining it through cheesecloth for a few hours, though, and I've removed about 2.5 cups of liquid already, so it won't be quite that much in the end. Once it's drained, I'll freeze it in one-cup portions for baking.

-- I've got total day confusion. Last night I felt like I should be getting ready for the week to begin, and I have the same feeling right now. I keep remembering that tomorrow is only Sunday, which means I've been celebrating every half hour or so. Sundays are the best!

Ah, the day after Thanksgiving. The day on which I do NOT go shopping, because I find that particular activity tiring and annoying on even a regular weekend. (I don't mind shopping during the week, but I'm still good for only three stores that require driving in between, tops. If I'm in a good mood.) But it's a great day for leftovers.

Despite my plans to not investigate the sales, I woke up at 4:00am. Four. In the morning. Why? I tried to fall asleep for an hour and then gave up and played iPod solitaire for almost another hour (you'd think I'd get bored of it, but no!). I dragged myself out of bed and had some breakfast and contemplated the day's possibilities. I don't know about you, but whenever I wake up significantly earlier than expected, I find myself thinking -- while still in bed -- that I could use the 'extra' time to go to the gym and get out of the house. How virtuous. But then I put my feet on the floor and remember what it's like to be awake after only a few hours' sleep, and any gym plans go out the window.

I had a very satisfactory pre-lunch nap, however, which got me primed for the real star of the day: the leftovers. I made an outstanding sandwich for lunch with Quorn Turk'y and roasted veggies (it was missing cranberry sauce, but I made do). And later in the afternoon I had a slice of pumpkin pie, which is mandatory.

And then the rest of the day just slipped away, between working on paper houses and going to Mill End Textiles. (All the fabrics were half off! And I needed to get stuff.) I have that strange sensation of today feeling both exceptionally long (having woken up at 4:00) and also puzzlingly truncated (using the end of my nap as a 'starting' point).

I had a really excellent dream while I was napping, though. Not much happened, but I had a new home out in the woods/country, so now I know exactly how I should build my house. Hey, the dream-inspired Movable Type upgrade turned out -- how much harder can a house be?

p.s. -- Oh, frabjous day! On a whim, I went to Hulu's page for Lost, and they've uploaded the remaining episodes from season five. I know what I'm doing the rest of tonight!

I thought I would join in on Claire's weekly 'What's Hot, What's Not' list! Here goes:

What's Hot

-- Avocado on a toasted Ezekiel English muffin, sprinkled with sea salt. I had the same lunch (more or less) both yesterday and today, because it was so good. After the first bite I had of the avocado + English muffin, my brain pinged back, saying, 'I know what this is!' I thought about it for a while, and it tastes just like pistachios. Not as soon as you bite into it, but somewhere between mid-chew and aftertaste. It's uncanny.

-- Fancy soaps and shampoos to take to the gym. I realized last night that I shower more times per week in the gym's locker room than at home. Luckily, the showers there are really nice, but I persist in leaving my 'nice' toiletries at home while toting the crappier stuff back and forth. But I refuse to do so any longer (or at least not for much longer).

-- Tiny paper houses. Big surprise, right? But I'm working on three new buildings to scan in, and it's a lot of fun making them. There's usually a point, though, like when I'm penning in the thousandth weensy brick or slowly drawing my way through a stone wall, where I get upset that I 'have' to do it. And then I remember that I don't, and I buck up.

-- Talking cats. Not just these guys (although that's Beany and Booty's favourite YouTube video), but just cat-talk in general. I think it's true that cats only 'meow' to communicate with humans; they use noises more similar to those in that video with each other. Sometimes Booty will be sleeping on the back of the sofa when I'm using my laptop, and he'll suddenly wake up and say something in inter-cat speak. So I'll reply with a similar noise, and then he'll say something shorter and go back to sleep. I have no idea what we've just said to each other, but I think it's nice that I'm making an effort to speak his language.

-- Family togetherness. I've been going over to my folks' to watch most of the Vikings games this season, which is nice. But I've been trying to convince them that buying the Beatles Rock Band game would really promote togetherness. I don't think I've been entirely persuasive, though.

What's Not

-- Soy milk boiling over. Which makes the burner act funny, which leads you to turn off the gas behind the oven, which means you have to pull the oven away from the wall, which wrenches your shoulder. I think it's okay now, but I did a CO test, just to make sure, and then I accidentally threw the monitor down the stairs to the basement. All before breakfast.

-- Websites that use that Snap preview 'feature'. Oh my god, it drives me nuts. It has never once provided me with content or information I found useful, but it does manage to make it near impossible to click the actual link. And it throws me into a blind rage.

-- Drivers who don't signal their turns and lane changes. It's not optional! Take note, cops. You're not above the blinker, sirs (and madams). They're seriously the worst when driving in normal traffic (ie, not an emergency).

-- I made some good headway on my to-do list today. I had to go out in the afternoon to buy a radiator key (I love Ace Hardware) and pick up a few groceries, and I really had my heart set on a store-bought cookie for my afternoon snack. The supermarket was all out of their individual bakery case ones, so I wound up buying a package of Pepperidge Farm chewy chocolate chip cookies. Even though I enjoyed them, they were so (too) sweet and insubstantial feeling; I was sure I'd have a sugar crash after about an hour. But no -- I was fine until dinner. Hooray.

-- Then, come dinner-time, I was all set to have a big baked potato with cottage cheese. But my potato was green; I'm sure it wasn't green in the store a few days ago! Luckily, I had 1.5 smaller sweet potatoes (I only need half of one the other day), so I almost had what I wanted. Maybe it's the running or the changing of the seasons, but I've been craving more carbs and protein and less raw veg, and I'm going with it. I have however, also been wanting loads of broccoli cooked until it's falling apart, which I've been eating at both lunch and dinner the past few days. But raw veg is making me feel a bit bleurg right now. Go figure.

-- I've been trying to bleed my radiators, but I have a feeling this could take weeks. Air seems to escape for about thirty seconds, and then nothing happens. No leaking water, and the tops of the radiators still stay cold when the heat it on. If I wait and try again, I can get more air to come out, but only ever for about thirty seconds. Curse you, radiators that I otherwise love! (I only have two old-fashioned radiators; the rest of the house has baseboard radiant heat.)

-- I watched a History Channel program on Ben Franklin last night (on Hulu), and I learned about, for the first time, the glass armonica. Holy wow! That's the best thing I've ever seen.

-- One of my at-home chores was to tidy up the guest room, which had become cluttered with various homeless bits and pieces. It wasn't a huge task, but I was glad to get it done, because it meant I could leave the door open to let air flow in there (it's one of the rooms with the old-fashioned radiators, so it's been chilly). I keep a bedsheet over the guest bed, so the cats won't get hair on the quilt and pillows, but twice I discovered Beany curled up UNDER the sheet (she loves being under blankets). And then, when I was in the living room, I heard a crash and discovered that she'd climbed on top of the big cabinets in there and knocked down the one model horse I have on display (my favourite, of course) and broke one of its legs. Why? She's a bad, bad, wicked cat.

-- I've had the most vivid dreams the past couple of nights, the kind where the events and feelings linger with you the whole day. I think it might be due to taking Benedryl before bed. I get most allergy-y at night, and I also like the knocking-out effect of Benedryl, but I might have to go without tonight. Not because of the dreams (which were actually nice, and I'm feeling rather wistful about them), but because it makes me feel sluggish when I'm trying to get ready for the gym after breakfast. If it's not one thing, it's the other.

I've had a full weekend: running at the gym, knitting with friends, Sunday brunch, and football watching (I do not so much 'care' as 'support'). And working on another paper house, as you can see. One of the great things about my new glasses is that, since they're not scratched up, I don't mind keeping them on for non-computer close-up things -- like drawing. My old glasses felt too 'in the way'. So now I don't have to go blind!

Thank you for all the wonderful comments on my paper house post, by the way. I keep getting more and more ideas for new houses and buildings; it's hard to stop.

As much as I'd like to draw all day, I have so much to do this week. I really need to make a proper to-do list, because everything is weighing on me much more than is necessary. I feel like there's so much I need to get done outside of real work, but I'm pretty sure all I actually have to do is call my insurance agent. And deposit a check. Hardly a mountain that needs scaling.

And even though my work tasks are much higher in number, I know if I sit down and just tackle one thing after another, I can clear a lot of my list in only a few hours. Putting things off takes sooo much more time than getting them done. Bah.

If only I could live in a world where little paper houses were as good as currency. And chocolate chip cookies were a nutritionally balanced meal. And none of my favourite TV shows had ever been canceled, and Beany could speak English. You know, so long as I'm wishing for things.

p.s. -- Hey, my birthday is in one month! Woo hoo!

[If you enjoy this freebie, also check out the paper house pack I have for sale here]!

So, the other day I was sitting around, trying to decide what to do after dinner. It's that time of the day when I don't really feel like starting any big projects, but it's too early to watch something on Hulu. I have absolutely no recollection of my thought process on this evening, but I grabbed a piece of white card and drew a house. The next day, I cut it out and assembled it, and I made a second one the day after that.

I guess part of the reason I had houses on the brain was because my gingerbread houses didn't live up to last year's. The instructions called for too much water in the icing mix, and all my nice details wound up slowly migrating downwards before they dried. Disappointing.

But I'm totally, immodestly in love with my little paper houses, and I can see making quite a few more in the near future. In fact, while I was in the process of drawing the third house, I stopped before I cut it out and scanned it in -- so I could share it with you!

Following my friend Alex's lead, I'm going to play the 'Things I Love Thursday' game this week (and in the future?). Here are some things I'm loving this Thursday:

-- Going to the Asian supermarket. Really, I just love seeing shelves lined with products I'm not familiar with. Different packaging. Yesterday, I picked up some Swiss rolls that aren't covered in chocolate. They're a little disappointing, actually; Little Debbie is miles ahead on the filling front.

-- Papercraft. There's just something about the precision of measuring, cutting out, folding, and gluing. And my brain likes the task of visualizing a 3D object flattened out on a piece of paper.

-- Smoked cheeses. I currently have a chunk of smoked Gruyere, but Mozzarella and Gouda are also prime choices. Homemade butternut squash soup with grated, smoked Gruyere on top? Awesome!

-- Coffee in the morning. I make a single cup of decaf in my Bialetti every morning and mix it with unsweetened almond milk. Using caffeinated makes me feel sick, but I just love the flavour of coffee with my breakfast. I'll drink it in the afternoon, but it's never as good.

-- New glasses! New glasses! I got an automated call this morning, letting me know they were in, so I swung by this afternoon, and now I can see. Two years ago, the eye doctor I went to spotted that I was actually farsighted (despite my having always been 'diagnosed' as mildly nearsighted), and that my trouble with distance was just the result of eye strain from all the reading and computing I do. Two years later (now), my close-up vision has gotten noticeably worse, so my new (twice as strong!) reading glasses are really making a difference.

-- Absorbing projects. I'm so easily distracted and/or have such a short attention span a lot of the time, even when I'm doing things I enjoy. But every now and then the odd project comes along where I start and then only remember to look up/make a cup of tea/run to the bathroom/stretch my legs every few hours. I like my job, but if I could somehow find a way to make money doing the sorts of things that pull me in like that... well, that would be a recipe for perfect happiness, I think. Or just a lot of missing days.

-- Being invited to things. Who doesn't love to be remembered? It's particularly good when the invite comes form somebody unexpected.

What things do you love this Thursday? If you want to play along on your own blog, leave me a link to your post in the comments!

-- A couple people commented recently about my zipper tutorial. I'm not sure what happened, but the 'Continue reading...' link managed to bust itself; even though I could see that it was still there in the 'extended' part of the entry, it wasn't displaying. So the tutorial was moved to the main body of that post, which should still be at the same address as always (which is here). I should make a special button for it on the sidebar, as it's far and away the most frequently followed link to this site. People love learning how to put in a zipper! For now, you can just search for it by using the new search feature.

-- And I really like that feature, by the way. I mean, I've always been able to search my own entries through Movable Type, but it's nice that other people can too now. I tested it out by searching for 'cats', but it turns out that I mention cats in almost every post, so it didn't really prove anything.

-- I realized today that my itchy finger stopped itching. I don't think it's itched for two or three days now. Gone as quickly as it arrived. What was that?

-- I found a plugin and related widget to manage links on the sidebar, so links are back. As I was tagging links so they'd automatically fall under the proper category, I was realizing how many blogs are sort of multi-purpose. A bit like this one, I guess. Even though certain blogs are under 'crafty', they're just as likely to be 'foodie', maybe. It's either a sign that certain bloggers have been around long enough to garner an audience that's interested it whatever they say... or that they've been around long enough to cease to care about 'focus'. I never claimed to care in the first place!

-- I think our streak of warm, sunny November days will come to an end tomorrow. It was nice while it lasted. I caught the sunset above a little while before I started making dinner. The short days get us all every year (and it's disappointing to not have the light to take dinner photos), but they're not so bad when the light bit has been particularly bright.

Slow and steady wins the race, right? I've been slowly (and so, so steadily) tweaking this and that and trying to get twelve22 working the way I want to. I published my 'about' page as a post (in case you were wondering why that showed up below) so that I could easily link to it while keeping the sidebar constant. It's all just a little bit too boring to talk about (and yet...).

I figured out how to send my feed to twitter, so those of you who follow me there will see when I've updated. It's tricky trying to decide how interconnected to make things. There's some redundancy between my blog and flickr (though, as far as what I write, not too much), and I don't really use twitter that much (although that might change). I thought about having widgets to display my latest tweets or most recently uploaded flickr image, but things get cluttered-looking so quickly. Instead, I just went with the little 'iPhone app' style icons on the sidebar. So those are the about, flickr, twitter, and RSS links.

I decided to get my hands dirty with actual, physical dirt today and repotted my prim roses. These are the same ones that I bought this past February (or late January?) to have indoors, and then I planted them in one large pot outside for the summer. I noticed that they were still struggling to live last week so brought the pot inside. And today I replanted them -- in thrifted bowls that had been packed away -- to see if I can keep them alive. I'd be sort of amazed if they're still growing, still blooming, an entire year after I brought them home!

Heck, I've kept this blog alive for almost nine years now; prim roses have to be easier than that!

About Me

Hello there! My name is Anna -- if you're American, it doesn't rhyme with banana, but if you're English, it does. If we ever meet in person, you should try to remember that.

I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is a pretty good place to be. I didn't think so for a while, so I tried living in London for a few years -- there's a lot of British culture that I adore, but I'm happy to keep London at an arm's (or ocean's) length for the time being. Instead, I spend my time enjoying the Minnesota summers and enduring the long winters.

I own a house and keep a vegetable garden, and somehow I still find time to publish books. That means I get to design book covers and write blurbs and spend a lot of my time reading. And I get to do it from home, so there's not much to complain about there.

I have two cats - Booty, an aging black and white cat (and the last of my childhood pets), and Beany, a much younger grey tabby, who reminds me that cuteness CAN make up for badness.

In addition to growing a lot of my own veg during the summer, I also enjoy cooking it. I've been a vegetarian for almost a decade, and although I grew up as an extremely picky eater, there's not much I don't enjoy cooking and eating these days. I love to bake, but since I don't work in an office and therefore have few people to share things with, I try not to go overboard.

Photography is a great hobby of mine. I've gone through several cameras since I first started shooting, but I use a Nikon D200 these days.

If you'd like to get in touch, you can do so by e-mailing me at anna.torborg[at]gmail.com

About twelve22

I've been keeping this blog since 2000. It's gone by a couple of different names, and I haven't made all the archives available, but I think it's fair to say I've been at this a while. The content tends to follow my interests, of course, and at the moment it's a real mix of food, plants, décor, cats, and the very occasional craft. I still find it astounding that people want to read about what I've been up to.

7:00pm -- Hm. I went ahead and installed a newer version of Movable Type, and it's light-years ahead of what I was using. The installation went almost as smoothly as can be, but trying to refresh back to the default design is... not. Obviously. I'll be working on this as quickly as I can bear it, but thanks for your patience in the meantime.

8:22pm -- Okay, am getting the design slowly pulled back together by manually tweaking the CSS. So at least the main page is looking less awful, but I'm a little bit afraid to look further (ie, I'm not sure why the archive pages haven't shaken the old style, even though I rebuilt them. We'll see.)

9:10pm -- Better and better. I'm a little disappointed with how hands-on I'm going to have to be to clean up the templates. When I tried to refresh the archives templates (which control the look and content of monthly archives, individual entries, etc), they pretty much all bounced back saying it looked like I had a custom template in place. I do, of course, and it's nice of MT to notice, but it doesn't seem to give me the option of saying, 'I don't care -- refresh it anyway!'

Other than that, I'm just blown away by the difference between this newer version of MT and the old one I was using. So many options. So dynamic. There's still no straight-forward way of adding a blogroll (there are ways around it, though), but the available widgets are still pretty cool. Heck, I'm pleased just to have a drop-down menu for archives!

I'm not sure how much further I'll progress tonight. It's time for some popcorn and a break for my eyes (that is, watching Hulu, which is easier on my farsighted eyes -- new reading glasses in a week!).

10:55pm -- Okay, I lied. I had to get the archive templates sorted out. There's still work to do (have to add things back into the sidebar, for example), but I think the bulk of it is done.

I'm really excited to have fully functional comments -- I'd messed up my old code at some point, so it was always a bit wonky. But now, hopefully, the site will be able to remember your information and you can preview comments, etc, etc. I'm curious as to what the 'sign in' link above the comment fields is all about. I thought I'd turned off any sort of local registration option, and when I click on it, it automatically signs me in as Anna Torborg. I'm not sure if it's grabbing that info from my signed-in status on Movable Type or what. Can you see that little link?

I'm rather amused -- and a little bit weirded out, to be honest -- that this entire upgrade was the result of a dream. I'd had no intention on changing platforms or anything before I went to sleep last night. And yet, here we are. Let me know about any bugs if/when you find them!

11:10pm -- Arg! After all that talk about comments, it seems like they're busted. It acts as though it's been submitted (and is pending approval), but they're going nowhere. No notification, nothing in the control panel. So don't waste your time trying to comment just yet. I'm calling it a day, though.

Tuesday, 9:15am -- Okay, maybe comments are working? I'd be much obliged if you'd try posting a comment, so I can see. I think the issue was that all comments were getting sent to the spam folder, so hopefully I can 'train' the plugin to know what is and isn't spam, or I'll have to remove it altogether (a scary prospect).

p.s. -- The breakfast photo has nothing to do with the post, except that I don't like a photoless blog update... and a good breakfast can fuel you through anything!

Another beautiful November day! This photo was actually from yesterday (note the Sunday paper), but today is just the same -- clear blue sky. We've been so incredibly lucky with the weather this month, but as I told the man at the coffee shop, I'm sure we won't remember it when it's snowing in May. Always looking on the bright side, me.

I had a dream last night that I'd blogged about an (imaginary) article my friend Monette wrote a few months ago, and I received a slightly admonishing comment from Mo saying that she'd only just noticed my post because she'd had no alert, and why didn't I have a newer and more dynamic publishing platform and make use of the ability to, say, twitter the first line of new blog updates, so she could more easily stay in the loop, especially when I was referencing things she'd written? And then I abruptly woke up, thinking, You're right, dream!Mo, I SHOULD switch to Wordpress! And then I wasn't able to fall asleep for almost an hour, because I was thinking about how much work that would take.

And you thought talking about normal dreams was boring! It was quite a useful dream, though, and when I woke up for real this morning, I was still gung-ho about making the switch. And then I thought, Meh, I'll just upgrade to the newest version of Movable Type (I'm using a rather outdated one). And that's withered to thinking I'll just reset the default templates and play with the CSS to get rid of the currently janky bits of code. But still, what an inspiration you were, dream!Mo, even if you were a bit harsh in your criticism. If you write any articles, I'll make sure to both blog about them AND let you know when I have. That's a promise.

So if you notice some weirdness going on with this website in the near future, I'm probably just messing with things.

On a completely unrelated note, look at the fuzzy bunny that Beany spotted yesterday. The end.

Oh man, I totally outsmarted myself! See, once I'm at the gym (or out on a walk or whatever), I don't really mind the whole working out bit. But the thought of getting ready and packing my clothes to shower at the gym... it wears me out. I don't usually go to the gym at the weekend (it's busier then, of course), but I got everything ready last night, just in case. And since it was all set to go, I thought I might as well have a gym day this morning, and it wound up being awesome.

I somehow forgot to bring my purse with me, though (my gym card is in my duffel), and I had planned on stopping at the co-op for nutritional yeast before I headed home. I needed three tablespoons to make the seitan for my stew, and I only had two left. The gym is about 4/5ths of the way to the co-op, so I really didn't fancy driving allll the way back home to grab my money before driving alllll the way back.

So I scrounged around the car and found a dime (in the pocket of a coat in the trunk), a penny (at the bottom of a shopping bag), a five pence piece (underneath the cds in the center console) and -- at the last minute -- a quarter (buried under all the gum wrappers in the door pocket thing). Thirty-six usable cents, which, it turns out, is enough to buy a tablespoon of nutritional yeast. Win! When I was growing up, my dad and I used to practice our 'urban survival skills' (usually while my mom worked late, although we pretended she was in prison, more often than not), and I think this was a prime example of such skills put to use.

So I was able to make my seitan 'beef' stew when I got home, which turned out very nicely. I'll make sure to take a picture soon and link to the recipes I cobbled together. Once the stew was finished, I had to go back out to the regular supermarket for cat food (which cost more than the 5p I had left after the co-op), and I took the opportunity to purchase a donut for my afternoon snack. I mean -- I had an awesome workout, I saved the day with thirty-six cents, AND I'd made stew, all in one morning. It was time for a donut. I prefer a regular cake donut with chocolate icing, but they only had chocolate cake with chocolate icing. It was a struggle, but I made do.

And THEN, after all that, I cleaned the house in anticipation of visitors tomorrow. It took almost three years of home-ownership, but I just realized that if I remove the removable covers from the sofa and chair cushions, I can get all the cat hair off by just tumbling them in the dryer. A revelation. I still use the rubber glove method (which I think Em told me about) to get the hair off the rest of the sofa, but this makes things so much speedier.

What a day. Running, scrounging, cooking, donut-eating, and cleaning. AND sunshine!

Today was a pancakes-for-lunch kind of day. Apple pancakes made with Whole Grain Milling multi-grain mix, specifically. I had a touch of the ennui today, so this was pretty much as exciting as things got for me. Since I don't really have much to say, I present to you a list of things I like:

-- Flannel sheets (also heated mattress pads, but I think I've gone on about that before).

-- When I manage dry my bangs/fringe the right way. I do the same thing every time, but it's always a toss up.

-- Ezekiel English muffins + cream cheese + blackberry jam. Or any Mountain Fruit Company jam. We really ARE fruit friends forever. If I were to receive a gift basket with every single variety of their jam, that would be an entire week lost, just trying to decide where to start.

-- Beany and packing materials. Boxes, usually, but she's got a big piece of butcher's paper at the moment (3'x8', I'd guess), and the result is hilarious.

-- The giant Asian (+ Mexican, really) supermarket down the road. Tofu for $0.99! Cheap soba! Aromatic leaves and fruits I've never seen before!

-- My secret project. I can't tell you about it, of course, but I like it.

-- Getting new reading glasses in ten days (or sooner!). Only if they got my prescription right, though. Still, to have glasses that aren't scratched to uselessness...

-- Tomorrow is Saturday, even though I kept thinking it was only Thursday all day today. It will be a Saturday of cleaning the house, but still.

-- I came back from running errands today to find the cats all snuggled up on the sofa. They always get along, but they don't really have much reason to get close until it starts getting cooler outside. Then they ramp up the cuteness. Beany is like a real-life Japanese cartoon, no? So happy!

-- Why does it take forever to build up endurance for running, but then if you, like, eat a leisurely breakfast and get to the gym five minutes later than usual, you've lost it all? I've also realized that the 'reward' for doing well during a run (while in the process of rebuilding endurance) is having to run even further the next time. Sounds like punishment to me! Clearly, I have a love-hate relationship with running. Except by 'love', I mean 'casual interest'.

-- Speaking of the gym, though, ever since I started going again, I've been sleeping an obscene number of hours every night. Obviously, I've just jinxed it, but it was nice while it lasted.

-- Since Beany's Cat-A-Wheel is currently stationed next to the end of the sofa, sometimes she sits inside and we play a game not unlike 'chicken'. I rest my chin on the arm of the couch and we stare at each other -- rather intensely -- until her pupils completely black out the irises of her eyes. That's always the point where I back away, because I know what happens when she goes all saucer-eyed, and I rather like having my face attached to the front of my head. In one piece.

-- One of my fingers is itchy. A lame thing to complain about, I know, but it itches! I've inspected it and can see no cause (apart from the constant scratching). I tried cortisone cream, to no avail, so I think the next step is a string that I'll tighten every day until the offending finger is no longer a concern. It's not like it's a thumb or pointer or anything.

-- One more cat story. They're not usually allowed in the bedrooms, but every so often I'll let them in when I wake up, so we can loll around and have a cuddle. I must have accidentally done this two days in a row, because every morning this week, Beany has been waiting expectantly outside my door when I open it. I haven't let her in, because I don't like to encourage pushiness, but I wish I could use her memory for useful things. I have a cup of coffee every morning; can't she learn to make it for me?

Aw, I've run out of Lost episodes. I have to wait now until Hulu sees fit to update with the second half of the fifth series. I guess I'll have to fill my time with actual activities now...

I took the photo above at my friend Andy's birthday party, which was held at the West Bank Social Center in Minneapolis. I'd never been there before, but it seems like there's an endless supply of surprisingly cool locations in the Twin Cities. I don't usually dig night-time photography, but the lighting was so great in this place. In addition to a couple of random shots, I also took a few really nice (if I do say so myself) photos of my friend Alex, which I'm withholding them for privacy reasons. But it was unexpected: enjoying both artificial light AND portraits -- perhaps I'm growing as a person. Or at least as a photographer.

We had the best Indian Summer you could ask for this weekend. I took a walk around St Paul and did yard work and generally didn't freeze or feel the need to complain when I was out after dark. Another month of that, pleasethankyou. Of course, I'll take even just a couple more days, which I think we'll get!

I love the light in this breakfast shot, but the truth was that that bowl of oatbran was out to do me harm. Feeling adventurous, I'd decided to make twice as much as I usually do (but I didn't put in any protein powder, which I also usually do -- it's better than it sounds), but as a result, I had to eat it from a bowl that was more bowl-shaped than my regular one (which is wide and shallow). The oatbran managed to stay scorching hot almost to the last bite. Not awesome.

I feel like I could have a very productive late autumn/early winter if I can figure out how to keep myself focused. I have so many (well, three OR MORE... maybe) project ideas, but actually getting around to them is the trick. I think that once I've finally finished watching Lost (I've got the finale of season four to watch and then the first half of the fifth season, which is all the further Hulu currently goes), I'll find myself with bushels of time. With which to make... productivity pie... or some less strange metaphor.

It's a gorgeous day outside, so I might just read a bit more of this zombie book (it's my job!) and then poke around in the yard until the sun gets low. In like, fifteen minutes. Practically.

Hey, friendpals. It really is November -- and I don't mean that in my usual 'seriously-can't-get-over-the-rapid-passage-of-time' way. It just feels really November-y around here. Cold, but not unbearable, pretty windy, and a bit cruel (Daylight Savings Time, I'm shaking my fist at you).

The weather has been tolerable, as far as I'm concerned. I got out yesterday afternoon to finish raking and bagging leaves, and I also did a bit of clean-up in the garden, tearing out dead annuals and replanting some potted stuff that I hope will come back next year. It seems unusual to me that the grass is still so green and alive this late in the year, but I suspect that was because of our late-summer and autumn rains and has less to do with temperatures. I took the picture above after my efforts yesterday, right around 4:30 in the afternoon. Too early for the sun to be that low, if you ask me.

I restarted my gym membership (I'm sure I've mentioned before that I suspend it over the summer, since I'm too busy gardening/being outside to bother with the gym), and it's actually been sort of nice to go yesterday and today. My routine last year was a morning workout, followed by time at the coffee shop across the street, time spent proof reading or going through submissions. It's a chain coffee shop, but I think the fact that both baristas recognized me and asked how I'd been makes it worth going to.

November is National Novel Writing Month; I've participated four times, and it was tempting to dive in again this year, but I'm going to give it a pass. Instead, I'm hoping to draw a comic every day this month. I'm on track, so far. I'd promise to upload them each day, but... there's a plant on top of the scanner. It'd be so much work to move it. And I'm already drawing a comic every day, so my effort reserves are pretty much tapped out. I'll see what I can do, though.

Happy November!