sorry so remiss

wow, this is not a month of inspired postings on my part, is it?  let's see, things going on here:

1.  this last saturday, we got to drive down to c. springs with mike and maura and kinley to see our old friends lori and aaron and their daughter (now 8 months old!  this is the third time we've seen them since they moved back in july) and their new house down there.  the visit was a lot of fun, as usual, but it started snowing early in the evening, so the roads coming back to denver were not fun.  we made it home alive and in one piece, though.

2.  thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow and i'm trememdously excited.  in part for the food (mike and maura are having us over for dinner - her parents are in town for the holiday this year), but also for the 4 day weekend.  love it.  plus, thanksgiving means the start of christmas music season, and that i can put my pretty red berry wreath (from the martha stewart collection at kmart a few years ago) on my front door.  also, and i guess this goes back to the food, i get to make green bean casserole, and that's never a bad thing.  i'm debating making an extra green bean casserole for my fridge since i'm not sure if we'll have any leftovers from dinner, but i think that might be considered glutonous.

3.  on saturday, one of the girls in our sunday school class is having a craft and cookie afternoon at her house, and i'm a little bit excited for that, too.  i can't precisely decide what to bring - on the one hand, i started a little knit scarf for kinley like two years ago that i paused on because i realized that kids shouldn't wear scarves until they're two, so i need to get that finished if i want to get it to her for christmas.  on the other hand, i'd really like to start cutting my quilt squares for my picnic quilt and that might be a good motivation to work on that.  knitting might be more portable.  (the scarf is cute - it's a pale yellow, because i started it before kinley was born and they didn't find out the gender beforehand, and ribbed.  each row is something like 3 knit, 3 perl, etc, which makes a nice fat ribbing when you do it right.  i'm going to see if i can get some bright yarns and make brightly colored pompom tassels on the ends.)

4.  in a stroke of dinner genius last week, i made spicy honey-brushed chicken thighs for dinner on wednesday, then chopped up the leftover thighs on thursday, added rice, black beans, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream - and voila, chicken burrito bowls!  (spicy honey brushed chicken thighs are basically the easiest thing to make - especially if you use my generous sprinkling method of seasoning, rather than measuring out spices and rubbing them on.  so what, like 10 minutes of effort for two dinners?  sweet.)  unfortunately i decided at the grocery store last time that i would give dried beans a try, and despite soaking for about 10 hours during the day and then simmering on the stove for close to an hour while we were at the gym pre-dinner, the beans were pretty tough.  i've heard that slow cooking dried beans all day works well, though, so we'll give that a try next time.  i saved the leftover beans for slow cooked chili this next weekend, i'll call that my trial run.

inspired!

i was googling around this morning, trying to figure out how to recover glider cushions, and i am completely inspired now.  isn't this the cutest glider ever??  i love the colors, and the patterns.  those are amy butler fabrics, in case you're curious.  (if you ever want to know what the trendy fabric of the moment is, go to a trendy diy site like, say, etsy, search for a trendy item like, say, a wristlet, and read the descriptions of the cutest looking ones.  amy butler, my friends.)  i'm not sure that scott would go for a crazy floral turquoise glider in our otherwise mostly green and brown living room, and i'm not sure that i want to pay amy butler prices (which granted i've only checked out online), but seriously, that is a piece of furniture that i would not be ashamed to have in my house.

for real, though, i'm not letting myself start on that until i'm done with my picnic quilt, and with making a collage for a friend.  i think sometimes that i like ideas better than i like projects.