Massive Fall Catch Up Post

As life sometimes goes, I haven't had the extra time and energy for blogging lately. I can't make up for lost time, but I did want to do a quick recap of some of my fall experiences.

After 3 intensive months of training, I have moved from my training work location to my permanent placement. For the past 3 months I have seen this beautiful morning view of the Minneapolis skyline while walking from the bus stop to work. The shiny round building in the right side of the photo was where I was working during training. My new location has a nice view, too and I even have an office with a huge window. After having worked in basements and/or interior rooms for the past few years, having a window feels absolutely decadent!

Now that Paul and I are both working again, we can indulge in dinner out from time to time. We recently ate at Town Talk Diner. The sign was the most impressive part as I found the food to be overpriced and the service to be mediocre. Luckily we were using a groupon or else I would have been way more displeased. I do love the sign, though.

Fall also brought the last round of harvesting from our garden. One night after work, as dusk was setting in, I unearthed the carrots and beets. I was in a rush, so I only ended up snapping a blurry picture of the harvest atop the covered up A/C unit. After the root veggies were out, we were left with collards, kale and brussels sprouts from the garden up until we got the big, wet snowstorm last weekend. At this point, the garden is at rest until next year. As much as I enjoyed the garden, I am very ready for the dormant phase. My knitting time definitely suffered because of the gardening!

With fall comes strong cravings for baked goods and crappy lighting to photograph them. I baked the pumpkin biscuits with orange honey butter that I mentioned in my pumpkin post. It was a good thing that I made a double batch of the biscuits to go along with the single batch of orange honey butter, because a little of this delicious butter goes a long way. I even had some leftover to pop in the freezer for later. The biscuits ended up being in the shape of a snowflake as I realized I only own 2 cookie cutters. One of them is a snowflake and the other is bone-shaped and meant for cooking dog treats. Luckily, the Crafternooners didn't mind eating snowflakes in the fall.

Last weekend, on the evening of the big snowstorm, Meg and Cyrus hosted us for a potluck dinner. I hadn't made a tart before, but wanted to give it a try with this recipe. I modified it to use the raspberries I had on hand in the freezer instead of the blueberries that the recipe calls for. It was a very tart tart with all of the lemon zest and juice. This was definitely not a quick and easy dessert, but I think it was worth it.

We also brought along a Pomegranate salad that I made based off of this recipe. I hadn't originally been assigned a salad but we had lost a portion of the dinner party guests due to the bad weather, so I was happy to step up. Luckily I had all of the ingredients on hand except for subbing mixed greens in place of spinach, which I like better anyways. This was my first experience cutting open a pomegranate. The way it is structured is pretty fascinating while making it very tedious to dissect.

Meg and Cyrus made quiche with gruyere and mushrooms and roasted potatoes with sage. It was a delicious dinner and a great thing to be able to spend more time with them before they head out for their year in Argentina.

There has been a little bit of home improvement work going on around here lately, too. My dad stopped by and when I asked him for advice on our sticky door it turned into a full on repair session. Paul and I had gotten used to having to kick it open. We forget that it works how it is supposed to now so sometimes we accidentally slam it open!

Before the ground got really hard, Tchazo discovered the joy of digging. We have been really fortunate that it has taken him nearly 9 years to make this discovery. Our yard is now paying the price where he has chosen a few of his favorite digging spots. He is a bit sneaky with his digging so I rarely see him doing it, which would mean I could correct the behavior. Instead he does it stealthily and my only proof that he is the culprit is that sometimes I catch him "red-pawed". I noticed signs of digging earlier in the season but had been blaming it on squirrels. Now I know, it was Tchazo's work!

In order to balance work being really busy, getting back to my gym routine after a break during my job transition and the hustle and bustle of fall, Paul and I have been careful to carve out some time for slowing down. The dogs appreciate the weekend mornings where we don't have to rush around and we can take time to let them up on the bed for a family snuggle session.