muffins

It really is a shame that you can't capture and digitalize a smell.  Otherwise I would have you all drooling just from the aroma of muffins that is wafting out of my oven.  I feel like the picture just doesn't do it enough justice.

But then I would have to consider if it was just downright cruel to  do that to you, tantalize you with the smell of fresh muffins, especially when most of you are so far away you can't just pop on over and share one with me.

something different

Josh convinced me to learn how to knit.  I'm still deciding if it's my thing.  I know it will take plenty of practice before I have the right amount of tension and can make more interesting things.  We'll see if I have the patience for it.  Right now it feels pretty monotonous, but it is nice to have something to do with my hands besides bite my fingernails when Josh reads to me.  And maybe eventually I'll have the courage to take it to church. I pay so much better attention if my hands are occupied.

By the way, please feel free to comment on my posts.  I'd love to know your thoughts, to know someone is reading my blog.  Let me know what you think, send me a recipe to try, suggest things for me to take pictures of, or tell me what my challenge should be for the next month.

Insomnia...

Why? Why must it be at night that my mind comes alive and refuses to let me sleep?  Like a good wife, I go to bed when my husband does, read for a little while (so glad that doesn't bother him), and than try to sleep.  Sleep does not come, so I think about all the things I want -and need- to do the next day. And suddenly my brain wakes up.  Some nights need to have a notebook and pen next to my bed, so I can write a to-do list, or my ideas lest I forget them.  The sad part is, I know that when morning comes I will not be so ambitious.  It will be hard to get out of bed, I'm tired because I didn't get any sleep last night, and usually the cold makes me want to stay snugly under my warm covers.  How do I break this vicious cycle?

All that aside, I took more pictures of leaves yesterday.  I can't help it.  They were so beautiful (that and I don't have anything else to put up).  So here you are, more of this autumn's beautiful color:

Bruschetta

I've been feeling rather apathetic about taking pictures lately.  It's been too cold to go out much, and I've had a bit of a mental block on my creativity.

So once again, the subject for today is food.  I found some lovely yellow tomatoes at the store the other day and I decided I had to make bruschetta. I made Italian bread from a recipe I found on my bread flour bag. Next I got out the bruschetta recipe and realized to my dismay that I didn't have all the ingredients I needed. So I decided to wing it and made do with what I had. The result was very satisfying and made for a happy husband, who said "keep the recipe", which is code for "that was delicious".

The only negative: I woke up this morning with the taste of garlic still in my mouth.  And, yes, I did  brush my teeth last night...

Done!

We finally finished our 3000 piece puzzle.  It took us a total of 24 days (less than i thought it would be, actually).
The sad part is, I am mainly just happy to have the use of our kitchen table back.
But this is definitely not a puzzle that will go back into the box.  For one, it is a really neat picture, and I really can't bear to undo all that hard work.  I'll have to find a way to glue it, maybe in chunks, rather than the whole thing, and then I know of the perfect place for it.  Our living room has a large unoccupied wall, that will be perfect.

beauty and complexity

I met an MK yesterday.  It fascinates me, the instant connection you can share with someone, no matter  where they grew up, or how different their life was from yours.  There is some kind of special understanding between the people that call themselves TCKs or MKs. Maybe it's the fact that here's someone who won't misunderstand you, who won't think your are weird and laugh at your quirks, but they themselves have experienced the complexity that comes from growing up in two different cultures, being able to comfortably being move about in both, but never really feeling like you belong to either one.

Ahh, I am reveling in this autumn weather. I just can't get over the colors and this beautiful weather. And the best part is, I have the time to enjoy it and the camera to capture it.

time for something new

It hasn't been quite a month yet, and I have not succeeded at taking a picture everyday, but I started a new project today.  It will probably not take me a month to do so I'll have to be looking for something else to do soon.

Today I decided to paint.
I've been putting it off, using my lack of supplies as an excuse, but i was looking at what i had today and realized that I actually have most of what i need, except maybe white.  So I told myself to put it off no longer and just get started.  I won't get good by sitting on my hands.

Now the challenge is to finish. I am usually someone who sees things through and sticks it out.  But I am also a perfectionist, so when something does not turn out exactly the way I want it to, I have a tendency to give up.

a nice way to end the day

It's been a little while...
The weekend was fun, we went to a wedding and celebrated dad's birthday.  But I didn't take many pictures.  Josh had the camera most of the time.
Instead I'll post one I took yesterday when Josh and i took a walk after dinner to catch the sunset. We walked to our town's pride and joy, the Dutch windmill, imported from Holland. It actually works too.