Fallen Behind

It's been forever since I've posted, and I really have no excuse. But here's a run down of what we've been up to lately. Last weekend (not this just past one, but the one before) we made a mad dash to Chicago to see Anouk and Christoph and their parents. We had a wonderful time visiting the zoo, Northwestern University, watching the kids, and eating delicious food. Oh, and there might have been a stop on the way home at Ikea that was way too expensive and time-consuming, but one of us had a lot of fun. Nora generally felt that Christoph was just fine, despite his fondness for baseball bats, but that maybe Anouk should keep her distance a bit. I've got excellent video that I will eventually post.

This past weekend, I was baby showering in honor of my cousin Leah, who is due at Thanksgiving time and then Todd and Natascha made an amazing brunch for us that was made even more amazing by Nora sitting in a big person chair and eating all of her waffles (graciously made vegan by Todd) while the rest of us actually got to eat and talk! She then tried to put her syrup sticky hands on everything and everyone, but fortunately the kitties were too quick for her, or else there might have been some grooming nightmares.

The weekends prior to these two were spent painting all of the furniture in the bedroom and then re-arranging said furniture in the bedroom and then deciding one of the bookcases looked better in the living room which resulted in more furniture moving in there. Big thanks go out to Todd and Laura who got in on the rearranging (Todd actually got talked into it twice!). Jason is completely sick of the upheaval, but we've got to get it all back in shape (which it's not) before Friday when his parents arrive. And I'm working all day Saturday. Whew. So that's where September went. Do I have any pictures of all this activity? Yes? But of course not handy. I will eventually post them....

In food news, I've been proceeding with the Isa recipe testing. Sunday I made some black bean soup in the crock pot which we didn't get around to eating until last night, so it was a perfect opportunity to test Isa's vegan cornbread recipe. I loved it, but I should warn readers that this is not quite like southern cornbread (it has more flour) but nor is as sweet as northern cornbread. Perhaps it's a happy medium. I did it in the 9x9 cake pan as Isa (a New Yorker) instructed, but I think I might see what happens if I were to do this in an iron skillet, which is how I do regular non-vegan cornbread or maybe in muffin tins. If you aren't a cornbread purist, or if maybe you think of this as something else entirely, I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Given the eating of black bean soup and cornbread along with the date on the calendar, you might think, ahh fall is here. Unfortunately, it is not. Yesterday it was 90 degrees and the rest of the week plans to hover around in the 80s. I am so very sick of this non-fall weather. It is the time of long skirts and boots and cute sweaters. I'm still here in my capris and tee shirt, although I did put away the sandals, but still, this is definitely not office wear (although I get away with it in the summer). What am I going to do? It's bad enough we don't have any apples due to the late freezes this spring, and I'm sneezing my head off with allergies (seriously, every hour!) but I could handle that if there were some crisp weather.