fall foliage

we have had spectacular fall colors this year. someday i'll have a camera with a decent shutter speed so i can document the beauty appropriately.







the wee cedri share their father's passion for puttering around the yard. this is their attempt at helping to rake leaves. note the difference in style. maria was super focused on gathering a large pile with the intent of jumping in said pile.

sam liked the idea of jumping in a pile of leaves, but he found it challenging in his fire boots. the smart little cookie opted to so hollow out a little leaf circle which provided a lower clearance for him to jump in.
apparently the little dude isn't just eye candy.

multitasking

so we've established that i'm terrible at balancing work, life, marriage, and shoe shopping.
i'm trying to embrace, and revel in, the level of my suckageness, but it's not working.
i inherited all of my mother's genes for order, organization and cleanliness, so i find it incredibly stressful not to have the time to clean and straighten things up.
a few weeks ago someone told me that grand central had a u-bake section. we'll save my rant about using a letter for a word for another time, but let me state, grand central you're not Prince.
i purchased some already rolled out pie dough this weekend and took it for a ride with some pumpkin pie filling. i would love to have the time to whip up my own pie dough, but i don't and while this dough wasn't a rockin as daddyo's, it was quite good. it also left me time to clean the bathroom and order some shoes from endless. this is my kind of multitasking.

halloween recap

we had a very happy halloween at chez cedros. for the first time in ages the weather complied and it was dry and balmy. we had a slew of folks over for the big polenta feed (the traditional meal on the saturday night of goodies weekend) the hit the streets in search of sugar.

maria ended up as cinderella. she changed her mind a good ten million times. i finally told her she could be whatever she wanted, but it had to be with things in our house as i wasn't buying anything new. yes, i'm already booked for oprah's mean mom episode. sam had a hand me down bee costume from cousin ben and he loved it. he thought he was a rather spooky bee, but with those cheeks he was insanely cute.

auntie b and the kids created a delicious ghost cake. they loved assembling the ghosts, although i do believe they ate far more than they assembled.

both kids had halloween parties at school, which they loved. at our previous uber organic, uber montessori school no holiday was celebrated which i find to be pathetic.
sam partied with a dragon at his preschool and maria had a non uniform day. anyone who has attended a school that requires uniforms knows the days you don't have to wear them are reason enough to party.

but she also had a full on halloween party with tons of candy, games, and orange frosting. i finally got the girls at her table to stop giggling and wiggling long enough to pose for a photo. they are a fabulous gaggle of girls - incredibly thoughtful, sweet, polite and fun.

goodies

the annual cedros baking weekend (aka the goodies weekend) was last weekend. we had a small, but super efficient crew this year.

we went through five gallons of honey and 40 pounds of flour. the first batch of dough was for the turdilli.

the dough is rolled out into strips that are cut into 1/2 sections and rolled off a butter paddle. they are then deep fried and soaked in honey. the second goodies made was the strufoli. the process is similar, but they are not rolled on the butter paddle so they puff into little balls when dropped in the oil. they too are soaked in honey.

next comes the pitta, my personal favorite, this dough is rolled thin and a mixture of chopped walnuts, almonds, golden raisins and cinnamon sugar is spread on the dough. it is then rolled up like a cinnamon roll. it's baked then honey is drizzled over the top. can you see why we need five gallons of honey?


it was a fabulous weekend, such fun to see everyone and have the kids involved in this family tradition.

sam

a photographer came to sam's school to take pictures. 
not surprisingly his were ADORABLE.

holy roller

i love the concentration and piousness.

numbers

7.5
this week i realized that i've lived in portland for seven and a half years. this is shocking to me because, in many ways, it feels like i just left minneapolis yesterday.  this revelation got me thinking about numbers and memories.
25
the number of years i lived near lake harriet.  i'm guessing i ran around this lake a few hundred times with kristin or leena solving the world's problems and checking out boys.
41
my current age. when i was a young lass i had many ideas of what my life would be like in my forties. it's quite different from what i imagined, which is neither good nor bad, it just is. although, i think at some point i was supposed to have a volvo and three kids.
16
number of years since i entered graduate school. it's been nearly two decades since i sauntered up the stairs of helen c white hall. i couldn't have picked a better profession, or a better graduate school, for me. i met some dear friends (my partners in literacy) in that lush bathroom at HCW.
23
years since my freshman year of college. back in the days of bon jovi's livin on a prayer i met a gaggle of girls who would become my sisterhood. we've gone through life together - attended countless weddings, shared parenting advice, and discovered miraval. this group can rally and be an incredible force during more difficult times - from bad hair choices to heart breaks they offer support, comfort, and always find a way to make me laugh.  also, if you need someone to put a hex on an ex beau or an evil boss, this is your go to group.
31
years i have known AEC. i have a handful of very close friends, but there's only one that i have known for 3/4 of my life. it's a friendship i treasure.  
21
years since my grandpa flotten died, nineteen years since my grandma kamman died, seventeen years since my grandma flotten died, five years since my dad died. the pain doesn't go away, thankfully the memories don't either.
5
i've lived in five states for varying lengths of time. long enough to form strong opinions about their politicians and fall in love with some aspect of each location. i love the lakes and the birch trees in minnesota, the southern warmth and mountains of north carolina, the lush green pines of wisconsin, the excitement, majesty, and history of new york, and the rivers, bridges and bounty of oregon.

while this exercise made me realize that time flies, it also made me think that i'm not as bad at math as i once thought.