To Every Season, Turn Turn Turn

Fall was officially upon us last week...but the leaves seemed to change overnight last night. It is just beautiful driving around and seeing all of these fiery reds and glowing oranges. I have really missed this beautiful season these past few years.

This is my favorite thing about Fall...what is your?

Q as in Quilt

I am projecting again. First off, I took a quilting class at JoAnn's yesterday and I am hooked. It was awesome. I began making my first quilt, a basket-weave pattern. Here are all of the fabric strips sewn together. The next steps are to create the pattern, sew on each of the borders (there will be 3), put on the backing and batting, and then snuggle with it. I love the colors and I am so excited to see the finished product.Today we went to the Coventry Farmer's Market (the highlight of my week) and they were having a fiber festival. This is when people from all over, who make their own yarn, come and sell it. It was amazing. There were so many beautiful things to choose from and I finally settled on this verigated yarn. It is going to make a great scarf. I learned so many neat things from knitters who are more experienced than I could ever hope to be. The extent of my abilities are scarfs and hats.

Well, I hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend. I am off to start my new scarf!

Family-Palooza

This week has been awesome. My little sister, Katie, flew in to see us on Saturday and just flew back to Atlanta this afternoon. She is used to visiting me in LA...so I think she was a little bored with all of the cows...but I really enjoyed having her.

And as if that wasn't enough, tomorrow Graham's mom and grandma are coming up for the week. I am so excited...for completely unselfish and selfish reasons alike. Grandma is a master seamstress (she gave me the sewing machine, remember?) and I have these little slippers that I have been stuck on for weeks. I just cannot figure out what the directions are telling me to do...so I am hoping that she will be able to help me. I am also just really excited to see them both :)

I will let you know how the slippers turn out...oh, and I am taking my first Quilting class on Saturday morning at JoAnn's...so I will let you know how that turns out, too. And, as if we were not already busy enough we start training for the Atlanta Half Marathon on the 28th...but I am so excited. We have perfect running weather right now.

On a completely unrelated note; is this not the best picture of David and Debbie that you have ever seen? Graham took it last time they were in town. We were at the coast near a famous lighthouse (which you can vaguely see in the background). I apologize for the strewn-together thoughts...I have not quite gotten used to my schedule yet, so that is just how my mind has been working lately.

Saddleback Forum

Graham's parents informed me of a forum that took place in mid August at the Saddleback church in California. Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, interviewed both Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain.

It is long, but I highly recommend taking the time to watch these men in a very different environment than we are used to seeing them in.

Click here to watch

Let me know what you think. My only qualm is that the questions, and the way that they are posed, are not quite as challenging to one party as they were to the other.

Ten Things Tuesday

Here are ten things that I am very thankful for this week:

1. My flash-drive: I can tote countless pages of research, journal articles, and the like without having to worry about my back going out. It's genius.

2. Databases: Thank goodness that the days of the card catalogues are gone. Now we have instant access to thousands of articles with just the click of a mouse.

3. Purse Sized Umbrellas: With all of the rain here in Connecticut a small umbrella is a necessity...I don't think I ever used one in California...but I digress

4. Sweatpants: Again, with all of the rain in Connecticut I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time in my sweatpants...and it is wonderful

5. Bookshelves: We got this really awesome bookshelf at Target's back-to-school sale for only $15...and now I have a place for all of my school stuff

6. Gardening Gloves: Since the move we increased our yard size by about 3000%; going from 0 land to about an acre. It is so nice to have space for Bear to run around in, but a lot of yard comes with a lot of weeds...I have cute green gardening gloves to take the edge off of yard work.

7. My Sewing Machine: Since it is my new favorite way to de-stress my sewing machine has seen a LOT of use since it was given to me. I have made purses, aprons, and I am trying (fingers crossed) to figure out how to make slippers

8. Flowerdy Briefcases: My mom got me this briefcase before school started and I have used it almost every day. It is so functional and has a little pocket for everything you could think of - the fact that it is really cute is just the cherry on top.

9. Trashy Celebrity Gossip Websites: Admittedly, this is my guilty pleasure...but a girl cannot spend all her time studying...everyone needs a little diversion sometimes

10. Lysol Wipes: Everyone, I repeat, everyone should have one of these their bathrooms and kitchen. I use these everyday after dinner to clean up my kitchen. It is so easy, and it smells great!

What is it that makes your life a little easier?

Lazy, Rainy Saturdays

Well, due to hurricane-turned-tropical storm Hannah, we have had an extremely restful Saturday. For the first time in several weeks I got to sleep in past 8am...in fact, I didn't roll out of bed this morning until well past 10:00. We have been watching a lot of TV and playing video games all day long. I think that everybody needs days like this, even if they are few and far between. We all need to decompress...and we all have our own unique ways of doing so.

What does your perfect lazy, rainy Saturday look like?