Festive for Friday-Fall

One of the things I was most worried about when I decided to move to California was the year round temperate climate. How can it be fall without all things pumpkin and apple flavored? How weird is it going to be when the leaves don't turn and fall? (although I'm pretty pumped that there will be NO leaves to rake!) It's September and so fall (at least in my mind) has just begun. It also turns out that September (and October so I've heard) will be two of the warmest and most glorious months in this fine city. AKA it's not foggy ALL THE TIME anymore. And I haven't turned the heat in my apartment on in weeks. Two things helped me feel fall this week, despite the heat.

A tree near my apartment was dropping little bits of red pollen onto the sidewalk, completely filling in the street name etched into the cement. I may not have red leaves, but I have red pollen! 

The discovery that I can get a Pumpkin Spice Latte Frappucinno! I had a hot one earlier this week, but it was when I was in the a cold building during a meeting. I knew that that wasn't going to fly if I wanted to get anything done in Starbucks (another part of operation leave the house). This is pretty much the awesomest thing ever. The cold pumpkiny flavor with the whip cream and the dash of pumpkin spice on top made it taste JUST like a piece of pumpkin pie with a cold dollop of cool whip that we had every Thanksgiving growing up. I can tell this is going to be my go-to drink for this fall season...

What made your week festive? 

Festive for Friday.

Happy Friday! Nothing is more festive than the Friday of a short work week! This week I bring to you five things about living here in San Francisco that make me happy.

1. Trader Joe's. More specifically, these Coffee Latte and Cream Bars. They're like my super sugary and creamy morning coffee but frozen. And served for dessert.

 2. I can't even remember where we saw this, but I took this picture the first week I was here when the N-boy and I were out exploring the city. Since the Momcat and Daddo are scientists I was amused.

 3. Celebrating Baby Brother's 25th birthday back at the beginning of August. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've been able to celebrate with him in person since I went to college (aka a long time ago).

 4. Being able to walk to work. The boys are pointing down the "hill" (since it's technical name is Lone Mountain I question calling it a hill) to my apartment, which is visible when it's not foggy. What is slightly less festive is climbing these 160 steps (yes, I counted) each morning when I've only had one cup of coffee.

5. Food. So I'm pretty sure food will make this the list of all things festive each and every. This was at the Corner Store for brunch. 

What made your week festive? 

Weekend Recap.

Craft show, with the N-boy in tow. He's such a good sport. 

I finished the test of a revised pattern for a heart shaped bowl (I really want to call this pattern "Heart Shaped Box" but i'm also pretty sure that the Momcat wouldn't get the reference. Daddo would, however, so maybe it's worth a shot?) Let's just say that this pattern is without a doubt my arch nemesis. This is my THIRD attempt at making this blankity blank heart bowl and I finally got it to work. The pattern is significantly more complicated than the other shapes I've worked on, and the pattern needed some serious tweaking for us more novice crafters. At last, however, victory is mine! 

The N-boy purchased Russian food from a somewhat questionable van in a definitely questionable car repair shop. However, the then turned said purchase into these Сырники (sirniki). Basically pan fried farmer's cheese with jelly on top. Yum. Sketchy groceries for the win. 

We decorated for Christmas. More on that later-Christmas decorations definitely deserve a post unto themselves in my book. Let's just say that one of my new goals in life is to have an ENTIRE tree decorated only with flamingo ornaments. Yes, I'm serious. I do have flamingo Christmas lights already in my office, so I'm well on my way. The N-boy was less than impressed by this life goal.  

We escaped the football games on TV and went to a coffee shop to work for a while. The N-boy worked on his dissertation (ok well I assume he was working on his dissertation. Sometimes I don't ask too many questions because then he wafts poetic about cholera in provincial Russia while I'm trying to consume a tasty beverage). Is it weird that I think the foam on cappuccinos taste like the crispy part on a perfectly toasted marshmallow?  Pretty sure that must be a weird thing. 

 And that was our weekend!

Weekend fun and games.

The N-boy and I had a pretty quiet weekend, following a rather stressful end to the work week.  I love working with students, but sometimes it can be hard. 

Saturday we saw Skyfall, drank a lot of coffee, and watched college football. Let's just throw in a Go Irish! for good luck here. I cannot believe that they're undefeated and ranked number 1. It's absolute craziness.

On Sunday we took pictures of the N-boy with the awesome steel frame bike he received from Grandpa for his birthday. This bike had been hanging in Grandpa's garage for years. He moved into an independent living facility this summer, and the Momcat found the bike when she was helping to clean out the house. N-boy loves his newest bike (this would be bike number four for those keeping count at home), and we wanted to let Grandpa know that.

I also worked on some English paper piecing for a project (more on that project coming Wednesday!)

And we baked sourdough rolls to take to Thanksgiving. Don't worry; we checked and made sure they weren't poisonous before we packed them up. ;)

Our biggest adventure of the weekend was the eviction of an opossum who had taken up residence in the garage. I'd heard something rustling around in the garage earlier this week and had actually called the N-boy on my phone from the garage to come take a look. We couldn't find anything then, but the next day something had gotten into the birdseed and made a mess. The N-boy thought it was just a squirrel or a chipmunk so he blocked the crack under the side door and cleaned up the bird seed. Then today he went out to rake leaves and when he grabbed the big canvas leaf bag found Mr. Possum inside hissing irritably at having been disturbed from his slumber. 

Animal removal is definitely not thing we learned in grad school. We called my parents to see if they had any suggestions (their ideas were leaving the door open so he'd come out, calling animal patrol and something involving dry ice-I didn't ask for details on this last one). Finally we just used a long pole to loop through the bag handles and pull the whole thing outside, shutting the garage door behind it. We went inside to give the poor little guy some space to get out, but a couple of hours later it was obvious that he had no intent of leaving his comfy nest. The N-boy (carefully) used the pole to move the bag into the backyard and gently pushed the bag over until the opossum crawled out. Hopefully this is the last animal adventure we'll have for a while. 

Have you ever had to conduct any animal evictions? 

Festive for Friday-Caffeine.

I've been drinking a lot of coffee lately. I think that's an ok thing for this time of year. It only gets worse as we head into three weeks until new student orientation. Pretty sure caffeine is the only thing that's going to keep me going here. That and loving my students and wanting to give them the best experience we can. But mostly the caffeine. 

What's keeping you going this summer? 

Christmas Mug Rug

Can it really be almost three months since I have posted a blog entry? Yes. Sad. 

Have I been busy? Well, somewhat. I've been continuing to work on the Paducah Challenge Quilt, which incidentally is due on Saturday. I'm almost finished, but not quite.So I haven't been able to post pictures of what I've been working on given that it's a secret challenge with the Momcat. Still, no excuse. 

I have, however, just discovered an app that will let me upload photos from Audrey (my iphone) directly to my Picasa album, from which I can pull photos into this blog. Are they the bestest quality of photos? Well, no. On the other hand my photos with my camera are not the best of quality. Although is due large in part to my lack of skill as a photographer, and is no fault of the cute little canon camera.

I do think this will help me be less lazy. I rarely have my camera with me, but always have my phone. I hate dragging out my camera cord to connect to my computer. Yes, I really am that lazy. 

So without further ado, here's the little package I made up for our office coordinator. He just started with us this last May, and has been a SUPER person to have in our office. 

I made the little rug mug from scraps I made; log cabin pattern. He really like it, and even took it home to show his wife!

Here's to being less lazy!

The Near Death Experience of Mr. Coffee

I am, without a doubt, addicted to coffee. I don't know when I became officially addicted. I started drinking coffee my senior year in high school, but only drank it on and off throughout college. It wasn't until graduate school that I started needing it. Every single morning. My morning coffee is now affectionally referred to as Mr. Coffee and he even has his own theme song (to the tune of 'Rubber Duckie, You're the One'). Parents-I blame you for giving me the coffee addiction gene.

The N-boy used to be just as addicted to coffee, but lately he has cut back due to health reasons. Now he drinks---NONE! Oh the horrors! However, one of his "jobs" each night before bed has always been to get the coffee pot set up to come on automatically the next morning. Last night, as I was reading blogs in the other room, I hear an ominous "uh-oh" from the kitchen. The N-boy says, "The coffee pot just broke." Scarier words were never heard.

This is the piece that broke off. It's that tiny little hook that keeps the basket for the grounds latched into the whole unit. Who knew such a tiny piece of plastic could be so important Luckily, I am both resourceful and too cheap to want to buy a new coffee pot. A few strips of lab tape later and...tada! A working coffee pot. The N-boy has suggested we get some velcro to make this a more permanent solution, so we don't have to re-tape it every night. And I don't go bonkers from lack of Mr. Coffee. The coffee came out fine this morning, so until we get some velcro the tape method will work just fine. And since Daddo gave us a large quantity of very festivly colored lab tape last Christmas, we have no shortage of tape supplies.

On a somewhat less scary note, I made ginger cookies last night! I used a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. I'm happy with how they turned out, even if ginger cookies aren't a "summer" cookie.

Clearly the batter was equally as tasty!The N-boy and coworkers have given them a thumbs up, so I think the recipe is a keeper!