winter tip

Well, we have our first foot of snow for the season!

Here is a tip I learned when I moved out here: when it is snowing, or you know it is going to snow, pop your windshield wipers up away from the windshield. So they are sticking out in the air. It looks silly, but they won't freeze to the windshield and you don't have to worry about them when using the scraper! Then just flip them back into place after you clear the windshield of snow and ice.

Does anyone in the Midwest do that? I don't think I ever saw it before moving out to Colorado.

chilly

We celebrated our one year wedding anniversary with a trip to Telluride and Crested Butte. We took Cottonwood Pass out of Crested Butte. It was high. And windy. And cold.

finally fall

Happy Solstice!

It's the first day of Fall, and it may very likely snow in Boulder today.

I was home sick yesterday drinking tea and eating soup, crackers, and ice cream. Today I am wearing my boots and herringbone pants (my Fall pants). I've got books (Ulysses, Twilight (shhh!)) and crafts (needlepoint, sewing) and recipes (lentils with bacon, chipotle mac and cheese) lined up for the cool days ahead. Sure feels like Fall to me!

favorites

You know how iTunes makes a playlist of your 25 most-played songs? I thought the most interesting thing about my list was the songs that have been there for years. About half of the list is Ryan Adams right now, since that is our default cleaning / cooking music, but here are some of the older songs (all of which I still love listening to):

• To Live is to Fly -- Cowboy Junkies
• If You're Here When I Get Back -- John Eddie
• Never There -- Cake
• Dry Your Eyes -- The Streets
• Loser -- Beck
• Morning Glory -- Oasis
• The Ascent of Stan -- Ben Folds
• Flight Test -- The Flaming Lips
  

tour de fat 2009

We headed up to Fort Collins on Saturday for the Tour de Fat. As you can see, everyone dresses up in their finest apparel for the TdF, so we followed suit. We wore my grandparents' square dancing outfits.


I tried to get a photo of the Best Group of the Day. It was a whole funeral procession. On bikes! With a casket, a shovel, a lantern, people in mourning, and a sound system. Totally awesome. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the casket in my photo (it's behind the lady in the black dress, attached to the bike that the guy with a partially shaved head is riding...you can see the yellow flowers that were adorning the wooden casket (on wheels)).


Drew looked so handsome in my grandpa's shirt and hat.


And I was just happy that my skirt wasn't getting caught in my spokes. (The last time I wore this dress, I was Essie in the Hillsboro High School production of You Can't Take It With You!)


(Note: rigging a couch on bicycle wheels is asking for disaster.)

artsy and crafty

We're back from a hectic but wonderful trip back to visit my family and friends in Wisconsin. I was the matron of honor in my best friend's wedding and it was my grandma's 90th birthday. Here's grandma and you can see what she was wearing the day we arrived:


I mentioned way back when that I was working on Beth and Ashley's wedding gift. It didn't really work out like I planned, but I finished it just in time. (I was literally stitching on the way to the rehearsal dinner.) I intended to make a set of towels and a set of pillowcases, but I messed up the pillowcases beyond repair. So instead I supplemented the towels with an Amish-made basket and a kitchen angel thing that I thought was really cute and hopefully they did too.


One towel has their last initial (T) and the other towel has a bowling theme because Beth was in a bowling league last year and I really liked the retro images. I purchased the "T" pattern at Joann Fabrics and the bowling patterns are from Sublime Stitching. Both were iron-on patterns that I just stitched right over.


Before starting the towels, the last time I did any embroidery was in Girl Scouts in junior high. I'm not entirely happy with how well I did, the stitches are uneven and it's pretty obvious to me which images I did first (I got better as I went along). But overall, I really like how they turned out and hopefully no one will be inspecting them too closely. :)


I really enjoyed making these and I'm already scheming about similar projects for Christmas presents. I have another set of patterns that I'll start on next...Western themed!

it's hot

It's too hot to cook! Luckily, I have all sorts of appetizer-type foods left over from when Drew's mom was visiting. I think I'll make up my own tapas tray with guac and blue corn chips, goat cheese on garlic toast, and herb-cream-cheese-topped cucumber slices. That all combines into a healthy dinner, right? I was also thinking about riding downtown to [finally!] get a library card and check out some books. But it is too hot! Oh well, I have to work on wedding gifts anyway. Hopefully the house isn't roasting or maybe I'll try doing arts-and-crafts out on the deck...