Wishful Slacker

Pumpkins!

 

Growing up in Michigan, many a beautiful fall weekend involved a trip over to the nearest cider mill.  Warm donuts, the churn of loud machinery pressing hundreds of apples into sweet succulent cider, the bees languidly slurping remnants from the rusty garbage pails in the dirt parking lot.  The most exciting landmark in the area where I grew up was Yates Cider Mill, a large red barn on the Avon River which even boasts a water wheel at the entranceway.  It is 10 minutes from my parents' house, and not one fall season went by without a visit.

Yates serves as the highest standard when it comes to the quintessential cider mill experience, so I understand that I will never find any match for it here in the Chicago area.  And there are many more traditions- the charming apple orchard, the playful pumpkin patch- that complete the picture of autumn.  I was craving some fall fun outside of the city and was prepared for something different than Yates.  Upon the recommendations of friends, we set out this morning for County Line Orchard in Hobart, Indiana.

It was rainy and chilly, but we headed out early to beat the crowd (and hear me out- an overly crowded orchard/cider mill is sometimes worse than not attending one to begin with, in my opinion).  The best part was we met up with my sisters- it was a 2 hour drive for them from Kalamazoo, and a one hour drive for us.  We didn't take the hay rides out to the orchards and the true pumpkin patches, but instead milled about the entranceway with the piles of gourds and rows of mums.  We grabbed ourselves some donuts (apple cinnamon and pumpkin flavored), a bag of apples, and some popcorn to bring home, and later on ate some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our car with the aunties before parting ways.  The place was really starting to fill up as we left, and I can only imagine how busy it gets when the weather is really nice! 

Here are our baby pumpkin pics!  Today was the first day we put Ellie in this coat that was passed down to us from our friend Christina and her girls.  The whole day I kept saying, "Oh my GOD I love that coat!  Is that not the most gorgeous coat?"  Sometimes I think this baby wears better clothes than me.

Happy FALL!  The best time of the year!

Warning- what you are about to see are numerous pictures of the same child set among pumpkins.  It may be tedious, but how do you edit down photos of a baby next to pumpkins?  It is just not possible.

And we're back

Why hello there.

It has been a while, and in that while my husband and I dabbled in the world of "what else can we do with my blog?" and basically, as you can see, we are mostly back to where we started.  Okay, well I changed the background, but only because it seemed slightly pathetic to have made the attempt to create something fancy and to be completely back to square one with the boring page we started with.  So, here you go.  We are now orange.

There are other blog hosting sites that have some really cool premade designs (because hell if I know how to do any of that on my own!).  We got really close to importing the site into another platform, but couldn't figure out how to get the photographs to transfer over.  Then we just gave up after I slunk about the house with a newly developed tic because I had no way to create a blog post.  It was as though we decided to upgrade our living room furniture and spent many afternoons saturated in the task of finding a gorgeous coffee table in the right finish, only then to consider that in the center of the room currently sits a large inflatable duck bathtub converted into a plastic ball pit, so we might as well just stick with our scratched Ikea stuff.  That is basically what happened when we tried to fancy up this website.

Oh well, we tried.  And maybe we will try again some day in the future.  I have come to the conclusion that I will never, I repeat never, get up to speed in the world of technology.  I am a broken covered wagon stuck in the mud and choking on the exhaust of the Formula One race cars zooming past.  If anything ever breaks in this house, and Jim is away, then it will just have to stay broken until he returns.  This is why I keep buying notebooks when they go on sale- for the day when my laptop breathes its last and I can no longer use Word.

Since I last posted, we have been pretty boring so you didn't miss much.  The baby turned 10 months old last weekend so I have her 10 month letter to post.  We spent a day in Kalamazoo with my family which was nice, and my husband celebrated a birthday.  Major keeps meowing, and trying to change the baby's diaper is now like trying to catch an eel with my bare hands.  She now also shakes her head "no," and points to what she wants.  The pointing is cool.  I don't think we are ready for the "no" part yet, though!  The most glorious part of everything is that it is finally fall, our favorite season.  This means slow cooker meals and soups and long sleeves.  I transitioned my closet over to fall and winter clothes yesterday.  I am so ready!

Hope everyone has a good start to their week!

Michigan back roads

We made our trip to Tawas, Michigan using our Garmin, and it ended up taking us up and across some incredibly remote and fantastic roads.  I wish I had my camera out the whole time, because I missed a lot of good shots of old abandoned buildings and fields.  It is a long drive, about 7 hours from Chicago (which is why we rarely make it up here), but listening to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" definitely helped to pass the time!

 

 
 

City? What's a city?

 

 

 
 

Chopping weather

I know many would disagree, but I have just loved the weather this summer. For those of us without the luxury of work-free summer days, these cool temps have made working in July just that much easier. Last weekend, the mornings felt so fall-like, sunny and crisp, that I expected to hear the Fox Sports football music coming across the television. I just love the fall...the crunch of leaves underfoot, the pilling sweaters that have been worn for years, chili on the stove, and the sight of one's breath in the air for the first time. Many feel reborn in the spring. For me, the world comes to life in the fall.

As the temperatures gradually dip over the next month, I look forward to making one-pot meals-stews and soups and chili. And, I have a fancy new knife to use on those carrots and celery and potatoes. We took the Knife Skills class at The Chopping Block a few months ago, and during that outing my husband treated me to a new Chroma knife. It's gorgeous. Designed by Porsche, it's got a nifty nubbin that fits under my thumb and its contours are perfect for my hand. When we have guests, all I want to do is drag them to our kitchen and say, "Let me show you my knife!"  But I don't, because that might be considered odd. :-P