I had such great aspirations for keeping up this blog in a more regular fashion, but obviously I didn't follow through.

It has been wonderfully busy around here though. D. and I went for ten days to visit my parents in New England, and had a wonderful, amazing time! We went to an orchard and farm stand, hung out with family, went to the playground, and went on walks in the beautiful Fall weather.

Daniel fell in love with the beech tree in my parents' front yard that has been very special to me for many years.

He also enjoyed picking up pine cones (and smearing sap on Mamma's shirt) and giving me bright maple leaves.

When we got back it took me a while to find the rhythm of my home again, but now things are coming along nicely. I am working on some knitting projects for various Christmas gifts for friends and family. My knitting skills are extremely basic, so I can't make anything very fancy, but I found a few nice basic hat patterns, bought some pretty yarn to make them up in, and I am improving. I think I will post pictures when I have a chance.

The highlights of today have been:

~dancing around the living room with Daniel to my Carole King Pandora station

~several long walks with Daniel in the mei tai, enjoying the cool sunny weather

~eating apples with peanut butter (and also peanut butter right off a spoon...!)

~dinner of gourmet pizza from our favorite restaurant (free with a gift certificate) and heirloom tomatoes with fresh basil and mozarella

~looking forward to an evening out with my husband at a mixer for graduate students at the university.

October Roses

One of the wonderful things about living in Texas is that today, on the feast of St. Therese, I could pick red roses from the bush behind our neighbors' condo to decorate the table and the home shrine.

I got a spray of three full blown roses, for the Trinity, and one tiny bud, for the Little Flower. They are just lovely next to the icon, sprawling out of my white cream pitcher!

Later in the evening, another neighbor knocked on the door and gave me two more roses, one small and red and one sunset yellow, also in honor of the feast day!

On the subject of roses, I got a wonderful book from the library, Pink Ladies and Crimson Gentlemen: Portraits and Legends of 50 Roses, which I have been greatly enjoying. The photography is stunning, and the stories of the creation of the roses and their namesakes is fun too!