5 things about today.

1. ohmyword! the smell of coffee grounds is absolutely amazing.
tomorrow would be one week since i've brewed it at home.
i  fell sick with a funky cold last friday....had a cup at church on sunday; had an americano at caribou coffee after wedding dress shopping monday night; and had a cup of coffee at church again wednesday night.
but there's truly nothing like brewing your own.
my word.

2. the reese boy. anna usually nannies this boy, but she's gone on a roadtrip to minnesota with two of the other siblings --my favorites: the hilarious ones, caleb and rach, until next wednesday.
this boy is playing with duplos. it's quiet time. he's 3. twenty minutes till he goes home with his daddy. we just got home from a 40 minute outing at the park. fresh air, warmer than our past week has been even though it's windy. [i'm putting up my hopes for an indian summer...]
he has shown me today exactly how hilarious and cute boys can be...you know, instead of just dangerous and quirky as i'd viewed them before. heck, i look forward to maybe having a boy or two.....maybe. especially if they're as cute as my love. ;) the world is so huge and detailed and simple to them all at once. i never knew a balloon could be explained like that before this morning.
...but when it comes to bathroom matters [like this one time today, for instance!], that's where it'll truly get fun. i have a feeling that might be one of my least favorite things about having kids...........

Source: tumblr.com via Alba on Pinterest

3. i'm going swing dancing tonight, with ben and martha. [since anna's gone. gone. gone.]
we're gonna have fun without her. she'll be swing dancing at her own friends-of-friends swing dancing hall tonight or tomorrow with a whole new crowd. heh.

4. chicken curry for dinner? sounds fantastic. over quick brown rice. mhmmm.

Source: eatdrinkchic.com via Beka on Pinterest

5. mum and i have been discussing and looking at tutorials for birdcage veils. i like the idea of one based on a headband. not a clip with a flower, or bobby pins...obviously i'm not having an elaborate updo; my hair won't be that long by then. lol. and not too much poufing. and not too much flowery embellishment. heh. i can't wait to make one! it's amazing the cost difference between $100-$200, or diy with things you can get from joann's or michael's for a total of under $30. heck. yeah.
[btw, did i mention that i found a dress monday night? yes. yes. yes. i like it a lot, and am so happy with my choice.]

p.s. coffee is good. and it's great to be able to taste it again. mmmm.

gorgeous mornings, coffee, and weekly news.

it's 8:18am and an utterly gorgeous morning.

i brewed coffee this morning for myself.
it's the first time since last week's sunday.
why? because i was sick all last week.
came down with a case of the chills during the service at church, came home, took a long nap, had fever/chills/aches/coughing all week....and now i'm getting better. thank God.
i still haven't been getting as much sleep as i could, considering i go to bed at 9:30 lately [insert gasp here; just a month or more ago i called my sister anna a grandma for going to bed at that hour. lol.], but with coughing and all that, i wake up a lot through the night.

 justin, drawing robots for danny boy. :) d.a.r.l.i.n.g.

then, friday night justin drove up here, and stayed till sunday afternoon. that was great...i went off and on with a fever, but it was good anyways...so good to see him again. :)
so yeah, i haven't been craving or brewing coffee all week because of the darn sickness....:P
but,
this morning.

i woke at 6 to my fiance's voice on the phone as he drove to work another day.
i watched out the window as the sun came up and brightened the trees colors.

i packed apples, blackberries, and strawberries to eat at work later.
i brewed some coffee. 
finally.
i love gorgeous days like this.
now to figure out what i want to wear to work......
i have to say, i was excited to feel the urge to write a few words in this post editor here in blogger this morning. it feels like it's been forever.
so . . . . hi!!!

yeah, no title comes to mind. :P

this day has been gorgeous.

the sort that makes you feel better just looking out the window.

contracting a cold [nose and throat horribleness] was not part of the plan for this week after being busy with church for the first part of it.
oy.
this afternoon i started feeling better, though.
:)

yesterday, me and lyddie took a walk. she was getting cabin fever, and i got a bit cold on the walk, but still...it was worth it; pictures, really fresh air, and beautiful weather... it all evened out in the end.

now i have a kitchen to clean...

good music to listen to... [take ryan mcallister, for example.]
and an utterly vegan version of broccoli potato hot dish to make...
and reading the post stuff jesus never said: by the bohemian husband.

also, i sold this and this canvas this week...
which reminds me: i need to paint. more. often.
i would write more deep, wonderful thoughts, but it's already 4:53pm, and it just occured to me that i'm pretty darn hungry, and i've got things to do....
so, here's to a better blogging record in the future. :)

artistic endeavors: shakespeare.

remember this day?
september 5.

that was when autumn started.
hence the scarf, the sweater, the skinny jeans and tennis shoes.

seeing as how i had never painted a shakespeare quote, this was the day to do it.

. . . and that's how it turned out.
:)

so, for current news:
tuesday i woke up with a slight sore throat.
wednesday i woke up feeling better.
today i woke up feeling eh.

 today. yeah. lucky you guys. a preview of a custom canvas i just finished!

i've hardly taken any pictures, made food, much less painted more than a swirl, in the past week.
it is not fun feeling less than 100%.
oy.
we're going swing dancing tonight: martha, anna, me, and we're meeting up with a few friends there --annie, heather, derek, and who knows who else.
it should be fun . . . i'm hoping the social situation brings me my second wind, because honestly, with this windy, cold, utterly overcast day, i'm not feeling that energetic.

well, now. she & him are always good. peppy, cute music when the day isn't making sense in the fog of blahness.
and . . . unfortunately, i haven't been able to find the vhs of anne of green gables.
who knows where in this house it is . . . dangit.
i really want to watch that. really. really.
we need to remedy that.
maybe the library has it? ;)

no title is good enough for this subject. :)

yoga pants: check. no, i did not do yoga today. they just happen to be the comfiest thing i own.
comfy grey tank: check.
tea: check.
crazy hair w/no mousse: check.

yay for one more outfit post on the net. ;) just. kidding. 

it's funny to do them once in a while, though. 

i've been gone from the blogging scene for two days.
i have a slight cold; mostly it's a stuffy nose. it developed sometime wednesday early morning.
on and off liveliness so i don't come off as a complete zombie to the family and whoever sees me --oh, wait, there's a family get together with dad's parents and grandma t's side of the family tonight . . . should be interesting.
anyways, about the cold: in the back of my mind, i can blame heather for sunday night --girl's night we had with her and steph-- she had a cold over the weekend from her younger siblings . . .
on the other hand, a very cute newspaper guy just walked by outside.
back on the other hand, late nights contribute to a general weakening of my system . . . shoot. :P

now here i am with a gorgeous day, sun shining.
anna gone on 3 meetings--one, a possible client due in december; one, a doula she's getting to know; one, a mom-friend of ours whose 3rd baby is about 3 or 4 months old.

it's 11:33am, and the tea water is boiling.
ginger peach it is, then.

so.
recap on my week?
er....last few days?
thursday morning: farmer's market. love that place. we also walked to caribou coffee--i got a large regular brew. dark roast. i swear caribou has the best regular brew out of all the coffee shops i've been to and tried.
♥
thursday evening: swing dancing for the very first time. i will forever bless the night and friends who got us hooked on it.

 me and anna, posing in our shabby apple dresses before she came:)

a lovely friend, anna a, picked us up, and from there we drove through country

and more country to her friend martha's house.

♥ gorgeous.

then, on the way to the
[i dropped off the face of the planet for a sec half an hour here to procrastinate just a wee bit and laugh at a site i just found thanks to kelsey: how to be a dad. go ahead. go laugh. go learn. now back to the story.]
on the way to the place for swing dancing, we saw this stupid guy:

both hands holding the gadget phone. 70mph or more road.
the sight made me go weak in the knees.
and i was sitting down. dangit, how obvious is that.
i obviously don't get into the larger cities that much; people in our small town are just a tiny bit smarter than that, i think.
the freaky thing is, the idiot is practiced at it.
practiced.

or we'd all be history.

anyhow, back to the story again.
we got there in the middle of the lesson; kinda late, but oh well. martha taught us the basic steps on the side by the pool tables while a pretty big circle of couples practiced random things around the instructor and his partner.
then, the lesson ended and music started. 9pm. they go till midnight or something, but we didn't stay that late.
it was mentioned that anna and i were first-timers, but we dressed like we knew what we were doing.
oi.
well, when you have vintage-inspired dresses on hand, what do you wear to a swing dance?? exactemo.
so here we go.

an overview of the most of the room: lights were dim, so i had to use the stinkin' flash...
now for a slideshow, then a ramble from some notes i managed to take in my journal afterward, and . . . yes.

the grand thing is, the men step out and ask the women.

heck. yes.

and it's a good thing to wear flats. only near the very end, before we left around 11:15pm, did my left shoe start rubbing. nice little blister i acquired. but let me tell you this: it was so worth it. anna got several blisters from wearing low wedges with a nice securing strap; she says it was worth it. [uh, with a beaming smile, too.]

so if you ever have a chance to try swing dancing, do it. search it online, go. if that interests you at all.

because you will fall. in. love.

at least, i know i did.

notes:
12:02am
smiling. speechless.
in love.
swing dancing. ♥
1:30am
home.
there's something about spending the night with a whole bunch of people being alive, enjoying themselves.
[this was followed by a list of observations on the men i danced with through the evening.]
let's just say--my third dance, i was breathless after. that guy knew how to twirl you. and the dip at the end? only ever seen that in movies. it's been years since we've been stupid enough to try to dip each other as young siblings trying to reenact that amazing dance move. el oh el.

then, on the way home [after turning down a dance, darnit; never thought i'd say that...], we stopped by mcd's. 

they made the coffee on the spot; i ordered a small decaf.

for the record, i'm never doing that again. it didn't taste a cinch like coffee, and the non-taste plus the heat [though i waited and waited for it to cool] semi-burned my tongue. a blanket of numbness for the next few hours was the really nice outcome.

waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting for the mcd's dude to get our order and, hopefully, have a handful of sanitizing wipes to give us. no dice. they were out. wth? i needed that; i had forgotten to scrub my hands in the lady's room before we left the dancing; hands slightly tacky with sweat: not the best. i survived and washed twice with lots of soap and time when we got home.

it was almost 12:30 when we got home.
but again: so worth the loss of sleep. even though the past few days i should've gone to bed at like 11pm every night to get rid of this cold. :P


if you were thinking of trying to youtube it, i already did. i found this user {adelineness} to have the best videos; not the best high-definition, but the best instruction and visual learning from them. so many other videos i viewed sucked at bringing it across. those are my candid thoughts, anyways.

all in all: dancing is addicting. it's a whole new experience for me. a very good one. a very enjoyable one. i love learning new things. and stumbling along the way. [no, i didn't step on anyone's feet; but always staring at his feet is what i had to do to get the mirroring down. i'm getting better. :)] it's what makes life meaningful. it keeps you on your edge. keeps you thinking there's always more.

and i can't believe it's nearly 2pm. maybe eating something would've 

brought me energy and contributed to a faster post. oh well.

broccoli quiche. oh, and life.

hello.
:)
today is another recipe. because there are some to post. it's just how it's been lately.

it's easiest to center a post on a recipe when life gets busy. upload pictures, post recipe, babble about life a bit. the end. not to sound so . . . flippant. but sometimes it kind of is.

our family loves mushrooms; except for lyddie. she says that cooked mushrooms, in delicious butter!!, look like slugs.
heh.
funny little girl.

that's butta. freshly made from the cream dad brought home the other day.

and when you crowd the mushrooms...with butter and onions....

the eggs we get from our friends who raise their own chickens and/or ducks... the yolks, as you can see, are so orange. pretty amazing.

looks like orange juice.

so, sliced mushrooms, diced onions, minced garlic, steamed broccoli...
eggs, milk, mayo, salt, a dash of cayenne pepper.
simple crust...flour, cool diced butter, dash of salt, a few drops of water maybe.
350.
i suggest pre-baking that crust. i made these, and halfway pre-baked them. the neighbor boy jose didn't like the crust. the rest of us? ahh we just bear with some things...or don't tell the maker of it and just don't eat that part. ;)

no shots of the baked outcome. me and some people ate it, and life was busy, and sooner or later i lost the charger and my battery's been dead since...well, you know when.
:\
bad news, that.

it's been a day that look like this.
less rain, more looks.
and now it's some lightning and thunder...yay.

i washed dishes to safetysuit, flyleaf, and the civil wars today. the circle by flyleaf is one of my favorites by them.
still have a stuffy nose...hate the tingles you get and then the one eye that tears up....and maybe a few minutes later, a sneeze.
oh boy.
let's hope i get to sleep in a bit tomorrow...the past how many days of before-7am and in bed around 12 should take a break. ;)
brendan hollis: a friend told me about him, and .....he sounds like a relative of jimmy needham.

take this heart oh God; make it more like You.
[brendan hollis: belief without knowing]

i hope you all have a good night and a really lovely monday!
♥