simple hobbies.

one of the school parents who owns a chain of local fair trade coffeeshops felt bad for me standing around in wellies and raincoat in the downpour, and handed me a free drink card. "happy friday," he said. another parent brought HOT fresh pumpkin bread when she picked up her daughter!!! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...............fall and awesome parents.

so here i sit at the coffeeshop with my FREE pumpkin spice latte, decaf, soy. yum. AND ... it's stopped raining, and the world is washed anew. was nice to see sun for a bit before the inevitable early fall sunset.

didn't want to spend today, but made some "investments" -- in gluten flour and yeast for bread, milk powder ... glass bread dish ... etc. figure in the long run this will save buying a new loaf of organic local bread (often nearly $5!) every 2 weeks or so. we'll see how my attempt goes tomorrow.

for tonight, i have planned knitting with new ball of yarn from this LYS here in Louisville (Ari you'd love it!), documentaries (one on autism, one on the year 1968 with Tom Brokaw, and another about the economy of present-day Jamaica), and maybe some more reading of Maria Montessori and Michael Pollan.

Tomorrow: baking bread, yoga (video at home), homemade pizza, more knitting, more reading.

Sunday: farmer's market/art show that i'll walk to, then babysitting.

hopefully some more babysitting thrown in there somewhere ...

... and i'm good. the next two weeks at school are a 4-day, then a 3-day. i'm glad for the respite. the changing over of seasons is always difficult ... it's now very dark in the early mornings and hard to get out of my "nest" in the morning. it's only going to get worse when i begin sleeping with my goose down in another week or so .. ; /

sometimes, i still feel guilty about not making plans with friends for the last "golden" weekend or two we've had. but ... they're not making plans, either. everyone's "nesting." i have to always remember to put my young life into perspective and keep telling myself it's okay to "do nothing." though, as you simple lifers all know, that's hardly what we do .... blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. i hate feeling this way sometimes, but i'm sure it's a normal growing pain of slowing down from the rat race mentality.

god, this latte is good. thank god for lattes and pumpkins.

namaste and happy weekend to you all

~~karen~~

p.s. thanks to all of you who gave me some recipes to try with winter squash. i'll get back to you on that.

p.p.s. i'm so touched you read my blossoming blog. i really, really am. thank you all so very much.


p.p.p.s. here is the veg chili i made last week!! AMAZING. so hearty!! (but alas ... gas-inducing terribly if you eat a huge bowl every day ... whoopsie.)






here's what i did: heated a red onion (diced up) and 2 large garlic cloves in a bunch of olive oil in a big pot. Then, added organic kidney beans (1 cup dried, which i had soaked overnight, i think i should have soaked them longer though cause they held up the cooking of the pot for a VERY long time), a can of garbanzos and a can of black beans (drained and salt rinsed off first). Then added 2 cups water. Then a bunch of frozen tricolored bell pepper strips. Then added 2 cans organic diced tomatoes. Then, dumped in a TON of chili powder and ground cumin. Lastly, added 1 cup textured vegetable protein flakes (cooks up very much like meat), and a bunch of canned jalapenos. Let all of it simmer for ... well as long as it takes to be hot and done. Mine took nearly two hours, stirring occasionally but like i said the dried kidneys took forever to soften. any idea on why this happened would be greatly appreciated.

when i was ready to eat, i topped with a huge dollop of Vegenaise (best stuff in the PLANET, i sometimes get cravings to eat it straight from the jar) and some organic tortilla chips.

bon appetit!!!