I Love Fall

During this long weekend, while dropping a friend off who stayed the weekend, *B* and I went looking for something that would allow us to open up space in our kitchen. We have very few cabinets, and I have quite a few appliances that I use fairly often. So, as always, we went to Ikea and drooled. When I was much younger, I got very upset with my mom for giving away her hutch. I loved that hutch! So I've found something, while not the same, very similar:
In a couple of weeks, we'll be able to afford it, and I'll have a place to store my good glasses up top, and my appliances down bottom. It matches our kitchen theme well, and I'm very excited.

While out, we also stopped by the Asian market again. While there were no pomegranates (*tear*), they did have more apples on sale. This time they were Macintosh rather than Gala. They make a good, but decidedly different applesauce. I only got through a good four pounds or so when I just broke down exhausted on Monday night.

On Monday, I invited both of my parents over for dinner. My dad was not agonizing over the party situation half as much as I was. I'm happy that I can put that behind me now. We had rosemary encrusted pork loin with root vegetables and homemade applesauce. Man, was that good. It was not the world's biggest pork loin, so we had no leftovers, and I'm really craving it again. I have another in the freezer, so that might be dinner sometime soon. I wish I had taken a picture of it.

This recipe, and many others, is going in my cookbook. I've started this cookbook because my mother never remembered the recipes that she cooked, she just added stuff by heart. Of course that's the joy of cooking, but it's hard for someone just starting out! I didn't want to lose any of the family recipes that I had worked hard to acquire. I'm up to 28 pages so far. I need to start taking pictures of the food that I cook whose recipes are in there so that I can make it look a little more professional. I tried taking pictures of my homemade tuna noodle helper a few days ago, but they did not turn out so well. There's just something about the lighting in my kitchen that make it gorgeous in person and not-so-gorgeous on film, err, memory card.

I love this time of year, but it makes me a little bit sad. I'm happy because the weather's just starting to turn, and the leaves are gorgeous colors. But I know that winter is coming, and I hate winter. It's because I'm short. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but my pants often come close to skimming the ground. They don't touch, but they come close. In the winter, inexplicably, my pants always get soaked to about mid-calf for no reason at all. So, not only am I freezing cold, but I'm wet as well. Though I will say, I am always pleasantly overjoyed at those winter days when the sky is a gorgeous, clear blue. I see them as little treats to get me through the winter before the sunny days of spring.

I've been cleaning for days now, but I can't seem to keep on top of the rolling wave of household chores. I'm very interested in cleaning using natural products (baking soda, vinegar, etc). For those things that my mom used baking soda and vinegar, I do as well. But for other things that could use them, I'm a little more hesitant. I never know how much to use, and I seem to go through an enormous amount of both baking soda and vinegar when I clean with them. Is this normal? I'd also like to make my own swiffer cloths, so that is my next research project.

Our FHE is today, and I'm not precisely certain what we will do. Since we've begun the FHE, we've gone grocery shopping, explored our new town, and made applesauce together. We planted half of our flower bulbs last night, so perhaps we can plant the rest today. I think today will end up being one of those days where we fly by the seat of our pants. Tune in next time to find out what our FHE activity actually was...