Some Progress Made

 Paint color picked (and sampled on the wall), a little art made (with a preview of what it will look like on top of the new paint color going up next month), and the motivation to keep going.  Now,  I just need to have my yard sale and clear out the far corner, and I'll feel like I'm making some real progress (and I might even find that I have room to put a little one in here after all).  Nineteen weeks left!

Nesting

At 20 weeks (and half-way!) into this pregnancy, I am beginning to feel my nesting instinct kick in. Hence the reason I spent 15 minutes Friday afternoon during nap time moving furniture around the house.  

I moved the rocking chair out of this setup and into the nursery.  The still-full-of-stuff-we-don't-know-where-to-put nursery.  It's rather crowded and cluttered in there.  I will not be showing you a picture of that.  It's more of a "before and after" kind of post.

So, picture with me.  In the place where that brown chair is, a chaise.  A nice one.  Move the brown chair back over where it came from, move the end table out, and put a round ottoman between the brown chair and the sofa.  I promise there really is room for all of that there.  I just moved everything closer together so it would feel more "intimate" and less empty.  It really just needs a rug.

Hopefully, we will have a yard sale this weekend, and I plan on painting the nursery at the beginning of next month.  Then, with the junk gone and the walls painted, I can give you a proper nursery tour (without revealing the baby's gender, of course).  Until then, think of this as my pre-nursery, filler post.

Favorite Things: Making Faces

Apparently, it's genetic.

Me, sometime around 1986.

A Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday was a very busy day, and today I'm:

Enjoying those graham crackers with Noah.

Munching on maple popcorn.

Having homemade blackberry gelatine for breakfast.

Loving the smell of cooking apple butter.

Looking forward to the cheese crackers and marshmallows I have planned and in the making.

I hope you all have a lovely day full of the things you love!

Baking Day

Now, I think most of you know I really like to bake.  And while I don't bake all of our bread, I do bake a good bit of it.  Before Noah was born and I was working, Saturday was designated as baking day.  Now, I just bake whenever I need to.  I try to do it all on one day so I only have to heat up the house once.

Yesterday saw the making of Peanut Butter Granola and French Bread.  Although I don't bake all of our bread, I do make all of our cereal.  We don't buy boxed cereal.  It's granola (or muffins) for us.  Every now and then when I'm feeling spiffy I'll make a coffee cake, but I've found that with only two of us eating it, the cake tends to linger on and on and on until it dries out.  So, I stick mostly with granola.  It's so much better for you (and tasting) than what you buy in the store, you know exactly what's in it, and it only takes about five minutes to throw together and stick in the oven.

The French bread is a relatively new recipe to us, and we love it!  It's very easy to make (Noah helps), and the end result is lovely.  I actually took it and divided it into two round loaves yesterday.  When I bake bread, immediately after removing it from the oven I take a wet cloth and wipe the top of the loaf with it (and it is cloth because we have a paper-free kitchen).  This keeps the crust nice and soft.  The one on the left was only brushed with water after baking.  The one on the right was brushed with butter.  Huge difference.  

Blair got me a copy of The Homemade Pantry:  101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making for my birthday, and even though most of what we eat is made at home already, I can't wait to start making many of those recipes.  Ricotta!  Graham crackers!  Lentil soup!  Be prepared to read about several of them over the coming weeks.  I'm actually headed to the grocery store in the morning to pick up some ingredients.  

A New Season

"This is the day that the LORD hath made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!"  Psalm 118:24

Butternut Squash

Kale

Apple trees

The start of my new raised beds!

While I don't believe it's here to stay just yet, the cooler weather is supposed to hang around for the next couple of weeks which is just long enough for me to begin to feel Autumn settling in.  I roasted a chicken last week and made 2 quarts of stock over the weekend from the leftover bones.  We've been eating apple pie and starchier foods.  There's football to watch and knitting in the house, and the autumn garden is coming along nicely outside.  The bees seem to know winter is coming, and Blair is doing a great job building my three new raised beds for next year's garden (that was all I wanted for my birthday this year).  If you happen to drive by the house, you'll see I've put my fall wreath on the front door (but don't look too closely, or you'll see that the landscaping fairy has skipped our house for the last couple of months).  The windows are open, the breeze is blowing, and hopefully the weeds in the front flower beds will begin to die soon.  Ah, Autumn, how I have missed you!