ahem....

Dear Sweet Pennsylvania Neighbors of Mine,

(Especially those eight houses who can see into my backyard).

I must offer my apologies for what you saw if you were looking out your windows at approximately 12:30 pm this afternoon. That girl that ran out of our back door in her flannel pajama bottoms, ratty t-shirt, barefoot with hair frizzy and messy, white dish towel in one hand and soapy dishwater dripping from the other... yes. That was me.

While that is a very disturbing sight in and of itself, it must have become even more traumatic when that apparition began leaping up and down in the frozen grass screaming, "It's snowing! It's snowing!" - especially considering the sparseness of the flurries that were swirling down for only a few minutes.

I could offer you endless excuses about how I have been snow deprived from my youth or how snow is my favorite weather phenomenon ever, but something tells me that by now your opinions of me are already formed and nothing I could say would ever erase the disturbing images from your mind's eye.

For the haunting scene that will be forever emblazened upon your memory, I am truly sorry. But I must warn you, in the future when you see snow falling gently outside your window, resist the urge to look into the backyard... because what you saw this afternoon is quite likely to occur again soon.

Sincerely,

Your crazy new neighbor from Texas

rainy day blues

Since I'm a little depressed and bored with all the rain and wetness, I thought I'd post a few pictures of things up here for your enjoyment. It's been far too long since I've posted pictures, so here goes.

The gorgeouse fall colors out my kitchen window. This is what I see while I'm doing dishes every day.

More fall colors, this time on the campus.

Handsome Murry.

My newly organized mudroom.

So there is a little snippet of life up here in the Northeast... Beautiful colors, puppies, and organization. And rainbows and babies. And unicorns.

And the sun! Which just peeked through my kitchen window! Miracle of miracles... Now I must go frolic.

has it really been a month?

So many thoughts, so many good ideas for blog posts, they've all been wasted (or chronicled in other ways) these past four weeks. I'm ready for my computer back. Since Hubs' laptop has "issues" right now, my happy little laptop companion has been given over to the office. And I rarely see it anymore. Someday we will reconcile with Hubs' fixable laptop, and I'll be back to my old posting self... in the meantime, I'm restricted to smaller, more infrequent portions of time.

It feels good to be here right now, though, having slipped from the office with the laptop and now sitting at the kitchen table wearing my big green sweater, pup snuggled happily in my lap, cup of caffeinated hot cocoa (we're out of coffee) at my right hand - the perfect combat for the cold, pouring down rain that taps at my window. Hubs is at presbytery all day today, luckily it's close by this month so he didn't have to drive far in the cold and stormy weather. The forecast calls for the weather to drop even more today (this rain is ushering in a front), and the snow starts tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday. It's just a chance all three of those days, but it will definitely be cold enough. I'm excited, yet a little nervous about the first snow of the season. We could have a white Thanksgiving this year, which would be awesome if a little weird.

There is so much to catch up on, like the victory I achieved when I finished clearing out all of the boxes from the mudroom and finally converted that room into useable space... thus finishing all of the unpacking and settling in for the whole house except for Hubs' office, which is a project all in itself. It finally is beginning to feel like we live here. I finished that project just in time, too, as it is quickly becoming very uncomfortable to do much work in the mudroom because it's not heated and working in a coat is just no fun at all.

I found the first pomegranates of the season at the grocery store last week, Hubs and I have been enjoying our fill. They taste so wonderful, and we always feel healthier as we eat our antioxidants. We ate so many pomegranates last year that I wondered if you split either of us open if a ton of little seeds would come out. (I know, a little gross and graphic, but you get what I'm saying).

I just realized that the structure of that last sentence was not grammatically correct, but I'm not going to change it.

Thanksgiving is going to be an adventure this year, it will be our first Thanksgiving without either of our families. Hubs has been in charge of thinking about cool family Thanksgiving traditions we want to start for our itty bitty family, and I'm in charge, of course, of the food. We will probably have several students here, perhaps a friend of ours that lives in New York, and who knows who else. That's one of our new family traditions... open table to all around us who have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. My family had that as I was growing up - especially as I got into college years - and I always loved the concept of having as many as possible at the table. Even though it makes for more work for me on the cooking end, there is something about Thanksgiving that just asks for that kind of attitude. The Pilgrims and the Indians started it by chowing down together at the table, I think we should continue in that same spirit.

As for the actual cooking, I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I think I can do it. But the rub is that in our family, we don't really have Thanksgiving recipes. All the girls just go in the kitchen and start cooking, and between us we always remember everything. Now I have the responsibility of remembering everything all by myself!

I'll let you know how it comes...

Now comes the time when I must part, I have books to sort up in the office, and tonight Hubs and I are going to a dinner hosted and prepared by two students. Should be fun!