Just a Minute: November

Boy, November flew by!

Image from Amazon

reading…Just finished This is Where I Leave You by Jonathon Tropper. A bit like mixing The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen with High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. A little heavy, but the end wasn't a downer and the narrating voice was great which made for a quick, enjoyable read.

cleaning…When we were at my parents' over Thanksgiving, we took a stab at cleaning out some of our childhood/high school belongings. I ended up dragging my CD collection back to Chicago to sort through it. I have a rather embarrassing plethora of movie soundtracks (Does anyone even remember the movie Go? Well, I have the soundtrack, among many many others.) and a rather large stack of country music, including no less than 12 Garth Brooks CDs (oh, Lord, I even own his Chris Gaines oddity). One thing my sisters and I agreed on as we went through our piles of things is how painful it is to think of all the money that those many ceramic Disney figurines, CDs, or teddy bears represent.

Image from Amazon

listening…I bought Holidays Rule from Amazon this week because they had it as a $1.99 special. It's pretty good. Among my favorites are I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by The Civil Wars and What Are You Doing New Year's Eve by The Head and the Heart. It's a good mix for background party music.

Image from fellowfellow

loving…This wreath. I adore it. I bought a huge square boxwood wreath at a thrift store this fall, but I haven't tackled adding anything to it yet. This makes me want to try. I could definitely make this work.

making...I'm nearly finished with the stocking stuffers. I think watching a good two movies while hand-sewing should finish them off. Maybe when they're done, I can get started on some fun baby projects. First order of business, baby pants from a pattern my sister gave me this year.

Image from King Arthur Flour

baking…I made some dried cherry and pistachio biscotti this weekend. I used my usual recipe, and just added about a cup of pistachios and a very large handful of dried cherries. Though I was a bit disappointed in how it turned out (a bit crumbly for some reason), Nathan assures me he loves it. I think perhaps I cooked it too long during its first bout in the oven. Our oven is so temperamental. I sort of secretly hope it dies, so I can justify getting something awesome. But then again, our microwave will have to die first and our refrigerator has some incredibly frustrating crisper drawers, so maybe the oven will need to live a lot longer...