Friday, you are a welcomed day. You bring the closing of the week and the opening of the weekend!
To the weekend, long may it last!
These two ladies look like quite the party girls, don’t you think?
(Image found here)
Month: November 2012 (page 3 of 3)
(Image found here)
I was getting caught up with my Google Reader account yesterday and seeing this made me smile.
A mini “Bonjour! “marquee sign. Wouldn’t it be cute to do a little Christmas version? I think I just might do it!
Tutorial from Oh Happy Day
Mr. Michie and I love to cook with each other. We get caught in a rut at times, not so much in that we aren’t sure what to make, but we go through phases and can’t seem to get enough of a certain thing, for instance a variety of different salads, or soup with different homemade bread recipes we will try. We like trying new things. We were on a guacamole kick during our 1/2 term break and decided to do just that: try something new.
I read Jenny Steffens Hobick blog and she posted the recipes that she made during a recent cooking event that she hosted. One of them was a Roasted Butternut Squash Chili.
It looked and sounded delicious. We decided to try it! As always, it must be the Italian in me, but I made a few moderate changes, I added a whole red pepper, a few more spices, I also completely forgot about the bay leaves and never added them.
It bubbled and stewed away on the stove for hours, filling the house with the most heavenly homey scent. Mr. Michie made his famous guacamole, we piled the chili in bowls, dotted it with mounds of cheese, guacamole and sour cream.
We ceremoniously sat on the couch, with a bowl of tortilla chips, a couple of beers and pressed “play” on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
It was a very nice evening.
Good Grief, its Monday again!
We awoke to rain this morning, beating against the window panes and thundering down on the roof. It was still slightly dark outside and our room felt warm and cozy and bear cave like. Mr. Michie left me to make a pot of coffee and I feel back to sleep for another 20 minutes. One of those wonderfully restful sleeps, where you know you have had the best sleep in that time then you had during entire the night.
We made pancakes and sausage for breakfast, a special Sunday treat. It is quiet today, the house is quiet, we are quiet, outside is quiet. I think the house knows that we are going back to school tomorrow and it will be mourning its happy occupants this past week who filled the house during the day.
I enjoy my work with the students, but I must say, I am very selfish with my time, I have relished this week of just being. I didn’t accomplish everything that I wanted too, but that is alright. It was what it was supposed to be and we rested and pitter-pattered around and cooked great food together and listened to music and caught up on some TV shows we watch and munched on Halloween candy in-between.
I have meant to share this for awhile now, but for one reason or another I just forgot. The weather seems to fit the mood of the colors used in this piece today and watching this is like seeing a magic trick take place before you.
This was created by the very talented Maisie Broadhead, she is known for her photographic parodies where she recreates fine art paintings into photographs. She has work in the The National Gallery Photography Exhibition that has just started this past week, Seduced by Art. It is on my list of exhibits I would like to see.
We are going to continue to just be today. Mr. Michie is planning a few lessons and grading papers, I am staying cozy, listening to music, reading and planning on making one of our favorite Julia Child chicken recipes tonight, to celebrate the end of our week and the start of our next school term.
I just finished A Discovery of Witches, actually, I haven’t been able to put it down all week. As the story culminates with Halloween, it felt like a superbly timing read for this bewitching season.
The only mistake I have made is that I should have ordered the second book in the All Souls Trilogy last week, not last night as I am ready to dive into it right now, but, at the same time, I am still savoring the words that I have just read.
I was mesmerized from cover to cover. Deborah Harkness has written this so intrepidly well. I can see Oxford, I can smell the Bodleian, I don’t even have to close my eyes. I have had the great fortune through my Art Historical research to be able to be in great library collections and call books. The smell the pages hold, the feel of the cover as you nestle it into a cradle, the cool air that washes over you as you open it, if it has been called from the crypt. There is a magic to it all of its own.
I could place myself in Diana Bishop’s shoes and see what she saw. This is a magnificently written book, she didn’t miss a beat. I have a soft spot for manuscripts as Medieval Manuscripts were one of my chosen fields of study. I also love that this book is written around a manuscript that is indeed truly missing. This book is magic! If you haven’t read it, you need to, the world she creates is one to get lost within.
We had so much fun last night! We cut up veggies for a snack platter and made a fresh goat cheese dip to go alongside it. I saw an idea on Martha Stewart ages ago, about making Halloween cheeseburgers, so that is what we did last night, they were very cute and very tasty!
We even ate Halloween carrot cake! I laid everything out and Mr. Michie set up the projector and the screen. The first on the bill of our double feature was Hocus Pocus. I have always loved this movie, you just can’t go wrong with it!
Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy make excellent witches!
After a little intermission where we made cups of tea and sliced a piece of cake each, we watched our more “adult” feature, Fright Night.
I love the wonderful cheesiness of this movie, the formula it follows, I am not a horror movie watcher, but I can watch this, it is more funny then anything else and has just the right amount of “spook” factor for me.
The 80’s music is perfect. I am not embarrassed to say that after Mr. Michie made me watch this ages ago, I downloaded the soundtrack, you just can’t beat a good bit of 80’s music nostalgia!
I love that once bitten, your hair seems to miraculously not only change color but also grow! In the end, the boy saves the girl, they kiss and we are left with his friend Evil, now turned vampire, laughing demonically, just in case they wanted to make a Fright Night 2….
It was cold here last night, the rain and wind poured down in sheets through most of the evening and into the early hours of the morning. It is our taste of Hurricane Sandy.
The rain has stopped for the moment today, but the skies are silvery gray, as I look out the window across the street I can see the bare branches of the trees waving furiously as if they alone are beckoning in the first of the month.
Today is a day to bundle up, drink copious amounts of tea and read a good book and I think I am going to do just that!