Last Post for October! Household Updates

We had our first snow this past weekend! It snowed a little bit Friday night (it was mostly rain -- horrible, cold, grey rain), and Saturday, it snowed enough that we had our first snow plows. That's right, we had 2" of snow stick to the ground. It of course melted when the sun came out Sunday :-P. Apparently, there are hundreds of homes without power due to the snow. Say what? How can NO ONE have been prepared for snow in October? Seriously folks, it ain't hard. It's kinda a fact of life when you live in the north east US. If you tried to pull that kind of thing in Syracuse or Buffalo they'd laugh you out of town. But that's another story. Mister and I also only turned our heat on the day before any snow hit. We're just awesome like that. :-D

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I started working on the muslin for my wedding dress. Let's just say that I suck at pleats and measuring the amount of fabric required. At one point, I threw the thing down and told Mister I was done. When I explained that it was too big, he inquired further.

Mister: Well, how big is it supposed to be?
Me: Me-sized.
Mister: How big is it?
Me: (*holds out hands 3' apart)
Mister: You could fit two of you in that!

I'm pretty sure it's because I think it requires three inches of fabric to make one inch of pleated fabric, and it winds up only needing two inches of fabric. But that's just my suspicion. I'm now tacking down pleats and seeing what I've got left after that.

Thankfully, this is the hardest part I think... It's a pleated bodice that connects to a fitted waist, and a full skirt that goes to just below the knee. There will be additional tricksy-ness for the actual dress as I'm doing super cute things with... uh... pleats... (maybe I should rethink :-P)

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Basil and Pepper are cuddling in the kitchen currently and I may actually get more peppers. I kept meaning to bring Pepper in, and forgetting, and when Sunday, after the snow melted and I saw Pepper acting so happy I figured I'd bring him in. He has little pepper plants set! We'll see how this goes.

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Still haven't heard from L about the money she owes us. We forgot to call her last Friday, so I've reminded Mister to call her and let her know that we're filing papers tomorrow. (It was supposed to be today.)

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Bumped into a friend Saturday, as she was on her way back from picking up her sister at the train station. Wound up grabbing a meal with them, and while waiting for a table, it came up that my friend, M, had never seen Dirty Dancing. As this cannot be born, a movie night was had on Sunday after she got out of gamelan practice. Mister made his awesome Boeuf Bourgignon and we had goat cheese of some variety. M cannot have wheat, gluten, cow milk products, or chicken. Mister and I have rolled with this and we often cook delicious things for her (I made her cake for her birthday last week 'cause I rock ;-) ). Yet, every single time we cook something that we find quite obvious and simple (chili, beef stew, cabbage and bean soup, rice flour cake, etc.), she always seems quite surprised and shocked that we've a) cooked for her and b) found something delicious she can eat. Mister even commented to me last night: 'I think she doesn't really cook much or eat much variety...'. Which is quite probably true. I think what makes it perhaps different is that we're not going out and buying gluten-free wanna-be-wheat products or vegan cheese or what-have-you. Now, these are still quite simple meals -- I wouldn't call chili difficult in any sense of the word -- but perhaps it's something that she never thinks of? I dunno. Extrapolating with too few data points.

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Had another friend, M (too many Ms!), over Saturday night for cards, and the conversation turned to reed making. At which point he proclaimed that it probably wasn't too hard and he could make them. I immediately pulled my kit out and put him to the test. He managed to make a functioning (not perfect) reed in 30 mins, and snapped two others due to a) not soaking b) not sharpening the knife often enough or c) not appreciating the delicate nature of cane. I call that a success. He can work in my reed sweatshop ANY time! :-D

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Mister and I realized something last night: half of the reason why the kitchen hadn't been getting clean of late is because we kept trying to say it was this person's job or that person's job. When really, we work better when the two of us are in there, and not getting in each other's way. He was cooking and I was washing dishes, and washing what he needed, and cleaning the counter space that he needed -- when we both try to wash, or both clean, we wind up sniping at each other because we work quite differently, yet similarly in one way: we both are brusque and demanding when in work-mode. This has led to quite a few exciting fights.

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I'll also post today on school updates, as I haven't been posting much of late.