Breakfast

You can still call it that even if it happens at 1pm, right? Right.  Sometimes mornings are busy, filled with things like reading and coffee and walks, and it is hard to make breakfast happen before 1.  One of my favorite neighborhood things is having a breakfast cafe in easy walking distance. The kind of cafe that isn’t the least bit pretentious (that was in a across the street from this one and is better suited for days when I got fancy with a shower instead of a ponytail) and has breakfast foods that are delicious, but also nothing special. The kind where all the regulars are 70 or older and you want to ask them if the secret to long life is in fact pancakes with a coffee chaser.  Coffee (and more coffee), pancakes, eggs, and bacon are essential to Sundays.

Sigh into Friday

This was one of those weeks where I woke up on Wednesday morning and nearly cried because I couldn’t believe it was only Wednesday.  It wasn’t bad, it was just wearing.  I stopped for coffee this morning and am playing the mind game with myself where I try to relax into productivity.  Something about whipping out the work laptop on a Saturday morning often sees more checks just because it is a proactive choice.  Sometimes this works in the office too. I tuck my legs up on the chair and remind myself to keep breathing deeply.  Problem is, I was on email until midnight last night and started it again at six this morning and still have about a week’s worth of work to do. That, and of the nine hours I will spend at the office today, four of them will be spent in meetings. Someday I will catch up.  Fortunately, I really like my job. Unfortunately, true to form, I seem to like things that push and challenge me to my limits.

It will ultimately be this photo and the promise of another Friday night in that will carry me through today.  I am looking forward to slippers, tea, and some reading or a movie. After going for a run.  Because apparently even in men, I find things that push me.

Plants and Reading

I turned my third bedroom into a room for couch snuggling, hot beverage drinking, reading and movies.  It is still largely unfinished – in need of paint, wall decor, and some sort of media console alternative.  That said, I do have a a fern that I have kept alive for 3+ weeks, so I am counting the room an overall success thus far. In addition to the plant, it is stocked with happy reading material.  One of the fabulous things about Kinfolk Magazine (you know, aside from the content) is that it is just so pretty. Seeing it on my coffee table makes the slippers and blankets seem a little louder when they are calling my name. Who’s for taking a day off just for magazine reading?

Figs and Olives

I had a moment of temporary insanity on a lunch break the other week.  I stopped into the grocery store for some fruit and purchased these crackers.  I can’t even tell you how much I paid for them. It was inappropriate.  Only it turns out that they were so good I needed more. But I could not bring myself to buy another package. Moving from temporary to repeated insanity is something I just can’t get behind.  And so began the internet search.  It didn’t take me long to come up with this recipe.

As it would turn out, these are easy to make.  I made the loaves on Thursday in just a few minutes plus baking time.  I did not add pecans, raisins, or rosemary.  I did add about a cup of kalamata olives and a cup of figs, roughly chopped. I put the loaves in the freezer until today when I sliced and baked the crackers. They are a very, very, very close approximation of the Raincoast Crisps.  Which I am thankful for or I may have started missing mortgage payments.

New Winter

As much as I love Christmas lights and stockings, I am always happy to put them away.  Something about clean, new January makes we want things fresh and clean.  Rosemary and Grapefruit scents are spreading through my dining room now. Surely this is temporary being that I kill plants.  And come to think if it, I eat grapefruit.  But for now this smells exactly how I want my new year to be.

Very Merry

I hope you are a little chilly – just enough to make you snuggly.
I hope you are drinking good hot cocoa – with real chocolate and milk out of your favorite mug.
I hope your house smells like pine.

It’s just a little baby squash.

Why tiny things hold such fascination for people, I don’t know.  But this holds me both because it is tiny and delicious.  My CSA has had these Baby Honey Butternut Squash.  Here it is hanging out next to my 9″ chefs knife.  Very sweet. Perfect size for one. Makes me happy it is fall.