Leaves & Books

We had a fairly quiet weekend with the boys. Friday night, J made steak & crab for dinner. The boys were delighted, particularly Pie, our crab addict. Boot said, "This is rich people food!" J also made a pot of soup for the open house of a woman from the Presbyterian Church. We all went to bed fairly early, a very good thing in Boot's case since he is coming down with a cold. Saturday morning, we took the soup over, then popped up to Dino's and the farmer's market. We got a few bars of handmade soap (my favorite is the pumpkin spice) from a young woman who was there with her baby. I picked up a pint of local honey to spice. We visited with Irish wolf hounds, who were absurdly large and furry. Then, we went home and made waffles & bacon. I went ahead & made a double recipe so I'd have some frozen for school mornings. Boot says they're much better than Eggos.

In the afternoon, I worked on organizing coupons and menu-planning while J & the boys cleaned the gutters & raked leaves. Pie, the smallest & easiest to hoist onto the roof, got all the leaves from around the stovepipe. He adored being up there & wants to be allowed to sunbathe there next summer. J snapped several pictures of his grinning face up high. In the evening, we went to church, where J was the liturgist. After church, we stopped for dinner at The Upper Krust. I was so disappointed in their matzo ball soup. It used to be much better. It's still pretty good, but not at all what it was when they were in the old location. After dinner, we stopped at Target so the kids could work on their Christmas & birthday wish lists. It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week & Boot will be 13 the week after! The year has flown by!

Sunday morning, we took Pie with us to church, leaving a grumpy Boot behind to get some sleep. He had been simply evil to his brother & wasn't fit company. It was the UCC again, since J signed up to be the liturgist both days over the weekend. After church, J played a little baseball with Pie while I chit-chatted. I ran into Leif, a former co-worker at the bookstore from years back. He's a gay minister, but doing counseling now because he had a hard time finding a congregation as an out gay man. I'd better be thoroughly prepared to do the same, I expect. Oh, I also had Jane O'Brien introduce herself to me. I'm taking a class from her next semester, a weekend intensive, and she said J is welcome to attend with me. She's very nice. I got a big hug from Don Dickens, too, one of the Hogwarts professors, as I call them. I am tempted to take Grassroots Media just to have him as my prof. He has such good energy.

After church, we grabbed some lunch at Chipotle before heading to the Planned Parenthood book fair. What fun! J & Pie had never been. It was bag day ($4 a bag) and boy, did Pie love that! He got 3 bags absolutely stuffed with cookbooks. His current fancy is to try foods from all ethnic traditions. He has chosen Moroccan food for one of his December dinners and is begging to go out for Thai or Vietnamese food. This is our former adorer of all things cheeseburgerish. He has made a giant list of cusines to try. What an adorable kid he is. I will be astonished if he likes Thai or Vietnamese, since he hates even tandoori chicken at the Indian restaurant & only likes sweet & sour chicken with no sauce when we have Chinese. But, we're rolling with it. I got a bagful of mostly mysteries & light novels. I found a copy of Possession and picked that up, since Laura recommended it for book group. It's bound to be one of our choices soon & has been on my "to read" list anyway. J got a bunch of Dean Koontz books & some philosophy & poetry books. She found a number of gifts for my mom & Graham. Also, a football book for Boot & a Christmas surprise for him, too.

We stopped at Coldstone Creamery on the way home. Pie was not impressed. He chose cake batter ice cream instead of vanilla & it was too sweet with his cookie dough & chocolate chip add-ins. J had brownies, caramel, & walnuts mixed into chocolate ice cream & I had my standard coffee ice cream with Oreos, almonds, and brownies. Decadent! Once home, we gloated over our books. Then, I studied my Hebrew (which gives me absolute fits!) while J made a pot of loaded baked potato soup. We had that with biscuits for dinner, then hit the hay pretty early.