{ a swoop and a dart }

Ten on Tuesday

1. It is very cold this week—not -30 degrees kind of cold, but in the 20s and 30s kind of cold.

2. We've had to have a few talks in the Dillow house about keeping our weather snark to ourselves. "COLD!? THIS ISN'T COLD! LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT COLD!" They sound like 94 year old curmudgeons. We get it, you survived -44 with the wind chill in a 100+ year old house that operated on a flagging boiler system, but it does not give you the right to insult the native Alabamians. Or if it does, at least do it after you get home.

3. That said, I'm worried I might be losing my cold weather chops after almost 18 months away from true cold. It was kinda chilly out this morning at 29 degrees.

4. Thanksgiving! It's fast approaching. We're hosting the Willis-Taylor-Pershey families, which adds up to a total of 16 people at the table(s). Matt bought a basketball hoop last weekend to lure some of those people outdoors at least part of the time.

5. I really, really miss Cheyenne at this time of year. Cheyenne is especially good at November-December.

6. Maddie has had a sub in algebra this week who is A CHARACTER, based on her stories. I begged her to write them down and file them away for the future if she ever needs a character for a novel.

7. I've seen TWO movies in the theater in the past few weeks—Matt and I saw St. Vincent which I didn't think I'd like very much at all but ended up liking a whole lot, and even got weepy at the end—and all of us went to see Big Hero 6 last week and liked it as well. There are so many good movies still coming before the end of the year. It's a pity that it costs the five of us nearly $50 to see a matinee. I understand that it's 2014, but I guess I still expect at some level that matinees ought to be like $3 a ticket. Ha.

8. I am casting around for a 2015 project. I haven't decided on one yet, but I like to have a yearlong project.

9. The voice in my head is screaming that I could also just finish up some of the unfinished projects around here and call it A Project. (Touché)

10. It is a week of Early Morning Adventures; last time Matt was traveling for school, Gracie, Bridget and I dropped Maddie off at oh-dark-thirty and then took our van down by the river to eat breakfast and then wander around downtown to kill time before their school drop-off time... but as it will be 22 degrees tomorrow morning we're headed to Panera again. To kill an hour and 20 minutes. Should be fun! Or something. : )

This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.

 

 

 

Ten on Tuesday: Links List

My favorite #accidentalselfie yet, from the Montgomery Zoo

1. OH MY GOSH. This is so good. Though I am skeptical of the claim that Aussies love pumpkin pie, especially since my attempts to introduce it in New South Wales ended me up on the International Smuggling Watch List.

2. I think this is great—way to go, Bic!

3. This is hands-down the most intense and well-reported story I've ever heard on This American Life. It's a must-listen, though here's a disclaimer: the internet archives version is a little more censored than the podcast version. Still, I recommend listening to the podcast version with headphones or after children have gone to bed, because it illustrates how absolutely terrible and complex the situation is.

4. Great, life-saving idea.

5. Touché.

6. We LOVE THIS SHOW.

7. I haven't giggled so much about something on the internet in a very long time.

8. These are on sale this week and I'm debating getting Maddie some.

9. Halloween Decision Day is this week and Gracie is leaning heavily toward this. I might need to fly Abby in to help.

10. I've been dreaming of visiting here, which is highly unlikely at any point in the foreseeable future, but still.

And a bonus:

Matt and I did this when there was a discount coupon recently, and we're both VERY IMPATIENT FOR THE RESULTS. We're hoping for more than trace amounts of Melungeon (Matt) and Scandanavian (me). We'll see.

This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.

 

 

Ten on Tuesday

1. It's Wednesday. I know.

2. I don't recommend forgetting to put the gold filter in the coffee maker before setting the timer the night before. The coffee will be drinkable, but not very desirable.

3. Did I mention we had to replace our beloved Cuisinart coffee maker because the cabinets come down so low in this kitchen that it didn't fit? This wasn't even a problem in The 1938 House. I guess we could have just kept it on the dining room table, but... now it's ground coffee for us because ain't nobody got time to grind beans separately this year. We bought a DēLonghi coffeemaker because it was short.

4. It works out for Matt to pick up Maddie today; it also isn't a gym day, so Gracie and Bridget ride the bus to Little Korea (their Monday/Wednesday afternoon bus stop is like momentarily being in South Korea). THIS MEANS I DON'T HAVE TO DRIVE DOWNTOWN TODAY. It feels like I've won the lottery.

5. Are we the only people who are shocked and saddened by the killing-off of the 160 GB iPod Classic? I think we might be. Ours is a 2008 model. It can't last forever, and there won't be a replacement.

6. I KNOW I'm not the only person shocked and saddened by the killing-off of Aperture. The Aperture user websites I frequent are full of people like me. This might be the first time I've ever been dreading the big September Apple announcements, because it's been looming for months.

7. Oh, princess. I'm sorry.

8. Homemade watermelon sorbet: a huge hit. That Jeni is splendid, alright. 

9. Maddie got all haughty with me yesterday about my lackadaisical attitude toward the Metric system. What can I say? What you're like as a 4th grader will pretty much be what you're like as a 41 year old, and I remember very distinctly not caring that much about the Metric system back then, either. Heh.

10. There are so many good movies coming up! Gracie most recently pointed out this one:

 

Ten on Tuesday, Which is Actually Friday

1. This girl turned 12 last week, and I am feeling all sorts of panic about SIX MORE YEARS and kid time is up. She is smart as a whip, happy to play in the mud, missing her French horn terribly, checking out far more books from the library than any normal human being can possibly read, working on Für Elise for piano, and proud of her multiple bruises and rips and scrapes earned at gym. We celebrated her birthday by eating crawfish for lunch with live Zydeco in the background, and are extending her birthday celebration by going to see Maleficent tomorrow with some friends. I made the best invitations but they are totally in violation of copyright so I will not share them here. Heh.

Here is the last day of 11, which was also the last day of school, which was also the day we had a great celebration of ending the difficult school year with our Wyoming friends.

2. While at the post office this morning in Shreveport I discovered that instead of cutting up my credit card (which had to be replaced after some tree lover mysteriously tried to charge $6600 worth of trees at a nursery in California) I cut up my debit card, which happened to be the same color. This can only mean one of two things: I am not getting enough sleep, or USAA ought to spring for another color besides blue for all its cards. Actually, it probably means both things. The post office lady was not really into hearing the story, even though I tried to explain it to her.

3. We had dinner twice with Don and Anita this week, which was great fun. It's a pity that we're moving from here to Montgomery and they're moving from Montgomery to here in a few weeks.

4. Bridget had what we hope was her last ENT visit for a while (forever?) this week. She was very excited, despite the fact that neither of us has ever had a single complaint about an ENT or audiologist she's seen in the last 5.5 years.



5. This week we learned that our house will be put up for sale and needs to be show ready and gussied up immediately, at the same time it needs to be torn apart and prepped for packers in three weeks. This makes my brain hurt.

6. I downloaded a free desktop app called Lost Photos tonight (and quickly paid $2.99 to get the full version). It finds every image buried in your email and extracts it into a folder. GOOD HEAVENS THERE ARE 2417 IMAGES IN THIS FOLDER ALREADY. Note: I only really delete completely worthless junk email and ads, so my inbox archive is enormous. But still—it's like Timehop exploded. I can only identify about 75% of the people and places pictured... huh. Here is a funny one someone emailed to me years ago:

She was so LITTLE.

7. I get to add ballpark #9 to the list next week! I will save that list for next week. 

8. Summer gymnastics started this week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, 8-1. While that sounds like a lot (and explains why I was at the Shreveport post office at 8:05 am) Maddie and Gracie are just loving it. And, they come home, eat lunch, and put themselves to nap like they did when they were little, which is kind of funny. We are all trying not to count how many days are left until they have to leave this wonderful gym. I have a monster gymnastics post percolating about our experience there this year...

9. I like this picture.

10. I wrapped up the last of the content for The Phone Photography Project 2 this week! I can hardly bear the wait until July 17... good thing I have house showings, packers, a moving truck, unloading a house two states away, and a trip to Disney to distract me until then. Hahahaha [thud]

This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.

 

 

 

Ten on Tuesday

1. I cannot seem to time a Ten on Tuesday with an actual Tuesday to save my life these days.

2. I am working on about 80 million disparate projects all at once: photo editing, LA business research so I can revive my photography business, trying to figure out how to make Bridget a poodle skirt for her 50s Day on October 18, overseeing Maddie's Egyptian necklace made out of pasta (it's a long story—but I swear she is going to learn something while she makes it even if her teacher isn't making her), finishing up a few unfinished layouts for my class, getting ready to take a short class myself on Skillshare, making another registration video for BPC and listening to 8000 stock Christmas songs until I get the perfect one, trying to stay three steps ahead on the piano lesson teaching, making some projects for Cosmo Cricket, etc. etc. etc. My poor little notebook looks like a crazy person owns it. Oh wait.

3. Are glockenspiels too hipster? I don't know. My top two favorite stock Christmas songs in the running for the video have glockenspiels in them. I googled this question and came up with a funny picture I cannot share here. I might just forge ahead anyway, since it is cut with other instruments.

4. Who googles that, anyway? Someone with a crazy notebook, is who.

5. It's the sixth annual Scott Kelby Photo Walk this weekend! You should sign up. It'll be fun.

6. It has been so humid in the mornings with such a high dew point that I a.) actually read an article about dew point and b.) imagine myself running in a terrarium in the mornings. A neighborhood-sized one, but a terrarium all the same.

7. I finally got this done last week:
Nana and Papa will be here next week—there is nothing like company-on-the-way to light a fire on the rest of the undone stuff around here! I am thinking of adding this to my sorely neglected 52 Projects list, even though we did it once before. But this time I did it by myself! Only three stray nail holes thankyouverymuch.

8. Another evil thing to add to the list of evil things lurking in our centipede grass: mushrooms. More mushroom shapes/colors/varieties than I have ever seen. There are above-grass level mushrooms and underneath-grass level mushrooms. Matt is the best and most wonderful husband ever for not making me mow (a job we've always shared)(that was for his benefit).

9. The Red River Revel is coming up here, and we're excited to check it out (something big to do!). Arrested Development will be performing on one of the stages! I love Arrested Development! Matt isn't sure we're the target demographic for that show here. Whatevs. Maddie and Gracie will also be performing on one of the stages with their gymnastics team, which means they're listed on the same peformance page as Arrested Development. Tee hee.

10. It's MLB playoffs time. We are most excited. Go Cleveland!!! There is nothing redeeming about Florida baseball teams. (Sorry Florida baseball fans)(OK not really)

: )

Ten on Tuesday: Random Thursday Edition

1. It's going to RAIN tomorrow, ya'll. I mean, it's not like the Dillows have been keeping track of the days in the mid-high 90s since they got to Louisiana (all of them) like prisoners who tally their time on the cellblock wall or anything... if that were true, we'd know that today is Day #80. But oh, to have some different weather... of course, Maddie believed for a long time when she was little that the purpose of umbrellas was to keep oneself warm. We aren't really good at rain preparedness, so tomorrow might be a bit of a shocker. 

2. Speaking of which: it is heartbreaking to watch the news from Colorado, especially as we've been yearning for some rain to break the heat wave here. We are very much attached to the Front Range, and the devastation is hard to witness. I had family that lived in Loveland during the Big Thompson Canyon Flooding in 1976, and I have vivid memories of looking at a book about that flood at my Grandma Watson's house (she kept it in the blue room) when I was little. If you want to help with flood relief, here is a good place to start.

3. If you say "the blue room" everyone in my family knows which room I'm talking about. It was the room with the air conditioner and all my grandma's fancy dance dresses.

4. Gymnastics is going very, very well here. Pictured: Bridget with an ICEE post-gym on Monday.

5. Matt and I are very excited to receive our Avett Brothers tickets for their Nov 9 performance TEN MINUTES FROM OUR HOUSE. I ordered the tickets vs. printing them myself, because concert tickets are important. Confession: I first heard the announcement on our local NPR affiliate, which I almost missed because they pronounced "Avett" incorrectly. In the last week we heard it pronounced incorrectly four different ways by multiple radio people, and yesterday I broke down and politely emailed the station to let them know that it's an emphasis on the long "A." Sigh.

It will be fun to hear them play from their new album that comes out in October. Makes missing them at Red Rocks this year not quite as painful.

6. I had to replace my nearly 20 year old/second favorite pair of Fiskars scissors (what, not everyone rank orders their scissors?) because one half of them went missing in the move. I have always believed these scissors were defective, and came apart because their mechanism wasn't working correctly, but this was also the same thing that made me love them so much: you'd be surprised how useful this feature is. Matt pointed out last week that they are designed to do this. I had no idea.

I mean, now that I see it and know this, it is very clear to me. Perhaps this should be filed in the category of "sometimes it's best not to say things out loud."

7. Matt and I took a whirlwind trip to Natchitoches on one of his use-or-lose leave days last week (which we think is pronounced Nack-a-tish but keep not quite catching it when people tell us). It was kind of a long drive for a school day adventure, and we had to come back early because leave is sometimes pronounced "schmeave" in the Air Force, but I still had fun. It is the town where Steel Magnolias was filmed, and there is a little star walk on one of the sidewalks. My favorite picture though: this one, which I snuck of this woman fishing while Matt was on the phone. He remembers hearing stories about his grandmother fishing with a cane pole, and cleaning up with it while everyone else was using something more advanced.

Another fact: Natchitoches is also the meat pie capital of Louisiana. I had a meat pie for lunch at Lasyone's Meat Pie Kitchen and Restaurant. I would eat meat pies all the time if only I could get away with it.

8. NPR did a "Dumpling Week" recently on Morning Edition and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all the stories about dumpling-like foods like meat pies and pierogues and spring rolls and ravioli and whatnot. It is definitely one of my favorite categories of food, which is why I have always been so perplexed about Maddie's utter hatred of all foods of the world that are dumpling-like. I might have written to Morning Edition to comment on this. Heh.

9. Last weekend Gracie and Bridget went to a birthday party at a local party center for a little girl down the street that they know from the bus. This place had batting cages (!) so after the party, I turned in a few tokens so I could hit 90 pitches. After a kind of scary slow start (0-10) I immediately regained my ability to hit a fast-pitch. Gracie and Bridget could not have been more bored. But whatever. It was reaaaaaaalllly fun. Though five days later, my hands still hurt. The last time I batted for real (I am not counting the stupid slow-pitch league I played in for one summer in Montana) was 1991. Old lady.

10. There's still time to enter the giveaway for a spot in Design Challenges if you scroll down!

Ten on Tuesday

 Some things we've been up to lately...

1. ReadingRidiculous amounts of reading for all of us.

2. School registration
Not for the faint of heart, but we're almost done. School starts August 8. (!!)

3. Uniform shopping

Mama approves of the sign, but the actual uniform part is an exercise in character building in more than one way.

4. Visiting the farmers' market a lot

We've only missed once since we've been here (it was raining this past Saturday and the Dillows are not yet to the point where they do activities in the rain on purpose). We like to take pictures of selections from our haul. We are both sad and perplexed that the farmers' market ends on August 31.

5. Eating breakfast outside and trying to take pictures like my friend Holly

We sold all our outdoor furniture in the garage sale and haven't replaced it yet, so eating outside is makeshift at best but the only time of day that it is halfway pleasant to be outside at all. It is harder to get a non-deformed-hand reflection picture in one's coffee mug than it looks. Plus, our backyard is still firmly in the ugly category. Need to gussy it up on the cheap, and soon.

6. Eating Hawaiian Shaved Ice

A clever friend sent a Hawaiian Shaved Ice kit as a housewarming gift, and it is a hit.

7. Joining a new gym

I haven't talked much about it (or at all) here, but the girls had been gymnastics-less since May 1 until a few weeks ago. Their new gym and coaching staff has been the bright shining star of our move, and they've fallen back in love with gymnastics after a very difficult year. They are training at the level they competed in two years ago, which initially was a little bit of a disappointment to them both but they're so happy with their coaches and all the corrections/rebuilding of skills they're working on that they don't care about the demotion at all now. It makes the 26 minute drive each way worth it to hear them chatter happily about gym again. It's been a long time since that was the case.

8. Cloud watching

As Jill pointed out, if you squint you can almost pretend those are mountains.

9. Thoroughly enjoying The Phone Photography Project

I've managed to stay almost entirely caught up with the challenges in The Phone Photography Project—the first time I've ever played along with one of my own classes in real time. It's been very fun. Only two more days... and there will be 15,000 photos in the #bpcphonephotographyproject hashtag when I wake up tomorrow! Next week I'll start work on my next class (Design Challenges will run for a third time with a few new features in September) and I'm excited to do some scrapbooking again. It's been a while.

10. Daydreaming about what's in my refrigerator right now
I bought some film for my dad's old Polaroid Spirit 600 CL as a reward for surviving the garage sale and the move. It arrived this week, and I'm very excited to use it—thinking very carefully about it, though, because you don't just willy-nilly use up a pack of Impossible Project film. : )

 

Ten on Friday

1. Last week I ran over to Target to get boring things like Windex and toothpaste and whatnot, and discovered a magic portal where I ended up at a whole bunch of stuff from Rifle Paper Co., Paperchase, plus some beautiful new things from Greenroom/Clementine Paper. I blinked my eyes and it was still there. NICE WORK, TARGET, NICE WORK. You make buying Windex and toothpaste and whatnot ever so much more fun. 

2. Matt's birthday is tomorrow. Day 3 of the NSI (big inspection) is tomorrow. Needless to say, birthday #41 will be a little less exciting than birthday #40 was last year : )

3. I'm working furiously on many things at once, which tends to make me a little on the crazy side. Ahem. But they are fun things! Photo shoots, and photography/design for some stores downtown, and something new and big you aren't going to want to miss coming soon (also from Big Picture Classes). Also, did you sign up for Finding Your Photo Style yet, photography types? It's going to be so much fun and thoroughly educational.

4. See? Fun stuff.

5. May is 19.5 days away. <cue ominous music>

6. Bridget was singing a little 1970s Melanie Safka to herself in the shower last night. Which falls into the category of never a dull moment with that one.

7. Speaking of which, on Wednesday she tossed her backpack inside without actually coming in the house and went out to play in the snow for an hour. Normally she prefers to wait for a sister or two to come outside and play, but when there's snow on the ground she becomes very focused on getting out as fast as possible. Bonus: do you see the weird thing in this picture? Heh.

8. One of my old speechies made her debut as ESPN's newest anchor last night. I am so super-proud of her.

9. I got my cholesterol test results back yesterday, and the dr was concerned about how high it was. I startled him with my glee, because HELLO, 35 points lower than last time. That's grounds for a party. : )

10. Recurring theme in my life: the need for an extra six hours a day. With that, I'm off and running. Happy weekend!

Ten on Tuesday (The December/Christmas Break Edition)

Since December 13....

1. Gracie turned 8 and we threw a big party. It was a wonderful party, and should have been a 100% joyous occasion. However, it was hard to pull off a wonderful party that fit the 100% joyous occasion bill on December 14, 2012. We were able to shield Gracie and Bridget from the tragic news though Maddie wasn't so lucky—it's hard to play the shielding game with a ten year old. Jonah and Gracie share a birthday, and it helped tremendously to know that someone else was planning a celebration shielded from the outside world. It's hard to compartmentalize joy and sorrow.

But there were owl cupcakes

and a whole bunch of second graders building gingerbread houses (which kind of put me in a panic leading up to the party, but it went amazingly well—there's a tip on that, just a minute)

and many beautiful handmade owl greetings and donations to the Rocky Mountain Raptor Center in Fort Collins, CO

and a very happy 8 year old with her first-ever invite-friends-from-school-birthday-party.

Two tips for throwing a successful gingerbread house birthday party:

1. Host at a location that isn't your house. Like the Arts & Crafts Center on base or similar. Even better if there are three adults from the Arts & Crafts Center staffed to help with the party.

2. Prepackage all the supplies. This step may do you in at the time, but it is worth it.

2. We had lots of Christmas programs to attend. Gracie was the star of the second grade portion of the show (as Frosty the Snowman) while Bridget generally sang as if she were on Broadway and not in the school gym, Maddie sang and played in the bell choir at her school, and the annual Christmas carol piano party at their piano teacher's house was great fun. Both girls played duets with their teacher, with each other, and the three of us played a "Tree-O." Ha ha. There was a terrible, horrible, no-good, no explanation gate-closure that nearly caused both Matt and I to miss Maddie's program—we slipped in separately after it started and it's a Christmas miracle that I didn't get a speeding ticket once the gate finally opened after 43 minutes of waiting (I was supposed to pick Matt up after dropping Gracie off after her 8 year checkup, but that didn't happen). Anyway:




3. There were parties to attend. Gracie was sick on the last day before break and missed her very fun party (the horror!), but Maddie's class had a little celebration, Bridget's class got to wear jammies and bring a stuffed animal (she brought her pygmy puff) and drink hot chocolate and watch The Polar Express. We skipped the Wing Christmas Party so I could go to The Nutcracker with the girls and their friends and their friends' mamas (one of my favorite things to do during December). Matt's squadron party was at The Plains and we spent an evening with our CFD family celebrating, well, life in general.

4. We hung out with school friends over break. Bridget and her preschool friend Cora got together twice, Gracie had a friend over from her class, and Maddie and her musketeers had a sleepover and an ice-skating date. We had lunch with Ms. Deb. We had a great post-holiday brunch with Abby and Wes, in which wonderful gifts were exchanged, including this one:

5. We made stuff. 8 billion chocolate covered cherries, multiple batches of pine bark, birthday treats and banana bread. A whole bunch of Christmas cards. Banners, mixtapes, framed gifts and needlepoint ornaments. Drawings and paintings, beaded jewelry and the beginnings of braided bracelets. Reindeer food and lots and lots of meals at home.

6. Someone got the biggest gift of her life and played with it nonstop. It might be plastic and ginormous, but there was never a child who wanted the Disney Dream Castle more than Bridget. She's been wishing for it for over two years now, and has organized art shows and rock shops to try and save up money to buy it herself. She told everyone for the last six months that Santa was going to bring it to her because she wanted it so much, and in the end, that's exactly what happened.

I will be very surprised if Bee doesn't grow up and work at Disney.

7. It snowed! It snowed! It snowed! The snow totally messed up the ONE DAY Melissa and I were able to meet in Denver for our annual Christmas shopping trip, but I still love snow. We're planning a New Year trip to IKEA in January as consolation. : )

We had the best Christmas Eve walk in the snow, too... oh, how I'm going to miss snow when we move.

8. We watched a lot of movies. The girls watched all four (FOUR! I know, ridiculous) Home Alone movies. The first one is practically a classic, the second one is OK... and I cautioned that the third and fourth were probably totally stupid... they were all in until the fourth one, when they agreed with me: totally stupid. We also watched Red Dog, E.T., Singin' in the Rain, and Hotel Transylvania together. Matt and I watched Lawless and Knuckleball and planned the next few months of nerdy documentary watching on Apple TV. I could easily be convinced to watch a movie every day.

9. I worked some with my camera. I took 100+ Santa photos for Operation Provide Joy and did a last minute photoshoot just before Christmas. It was terrific because a.) I have known a branch of the family since the first few months we moved back to Cheyenne, b.) I have photographed a branch of this family before and c.) they were really just happy to be together, and chose to have it in the grandparents' backyard. Everyone happily cooperated even though it was freezing, including four dogs. A sample:

10. We hosted a New Years session of Camp Dillow-Karahalis. But time is up and that deserves a post of its own anyway, coming soon. : )

Ten on (Actual) Tuesday

1. I am 90% done with the shopping portion of Christmas gifts and about 10% done with the making portion of Christmas gifts. Gold star for me! We'll see if I actually get things mailed on time. Mailing on time = Achilles Heel.

2. My Christmas cards are designed and ordered! I noticed on my way to Maddie's school today for an emergency forgotten item drop-off that there is an auto body shop on South Greeley Highway that uses very similar fonts in its signage as I used on my Christmas card. Heh. Uhm.

3. As of today I am officially the Scripps National Spelling Bee coach for Maddie's school. I have a log-in to the website and everything. Now I just have to figure out how to coach spelling and run a spelling bee. Again: Heh. Uhm.

4. She sleeps exactly the same way as she did when she was three. 

5. I did some blog maintenance last night; photo albums are listed like normal again, sidebars are cleaned up a little, and there is a link to a new blog-garage sale page that I hope to continue adding things to on a regular basis. Right now it's just the gargantuan Halloween supply box, but more is coming. Oh! I updated my 52 Projects album, too.

6. While we were at the eye doctor's office last week, Gracie and I entertained ourselves by taking pictures of interesting things in the magazines available. Gracie took this picture for Maddie:

It's Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thénardier in the upcoming Les Misérables movie! Another HBC literary character Maddie can add to her Halloween possibilities list.

And I took this one from some sort of southern living magazine (interesting choice for Cheyenne):

This is NOT what I wore to watch the Ohio State vs. Michigan game, for the record. My team spirit looked more like pajamas. Is this real? Do people really wear sequined dresses to watch football in their own homes?

7. Related news: Gracie is extremely unhappy that she can't get glasses yet because her eyes aren't bad enough. [all the Willis and Dillow family members just rolled their eyes]

8. I have a new favorite pie (OK, OK, almost all pie is my favorite):

Nantucket Cranberry Pie before adding crust

I made two of these for Thanksgiving—one stayed here, one went out to the field. Here's the recipe, adapted from Laurie Colwin. I feel very smart because I know who Laurie Colwin is and I even read one of her books a long time ago. I have enough cranberries left over from Thanksgiving week that I might make another one. Cranberries are good for you!

9. Gracie got selected to be Frosty the Snowman in her school's Christmas program. She is VERY EXCITED.

10. This post is a little light on Bee, so here's a November picture of her... from five years ago.

: )