Autumn is my second favorite season, and this one is shaping up to be pretty darn glorious! I spent a few days in Salt Lake City last month and went for a couple drives up the canyons and into the mountains. Oh, it was so pretty! We have only the most anemic autumn colors here in Southern California, even in my little mountain town, which is mostly full of pine trees and live oaks (neither of which change color), so it was lovely to see some real color.
I made a little video of one of our drives:
I have stuff to share: knitting projects off the needles, books read, recipes made, links found, and a Very Exciting Trip coming up. I will try to get to all of that very soon, but I thought I better put some of my pretty fall pictures up before we are in the dead of winter. I'm working on a list of autumn favorites. Obviously, I need to get that up here before it's too late!
I don't keep up with music like I used to, but I thought I'd give Spotify a try. As much as I love my iPhone, I hate hate hate iTunes (why do they have to come out with a new version every other day? I don't have time to download and install software all the time). Plus, I don't have much room in my budget for buying music, so I like the idea of being able to really listen to a whole song or album before spending money on it.
So far, making playlists is nice and easy with Spotify. I don't know that I'll pay for it every month, but I thought it would be fun to post a monthly playlist, so maybe we can all discover some new, good music together! If you'd like a Spotify invite, let me know in the comments (be sure to include your email address), and I'll send one. I've got a half dozen to share, so the first six comments can have one!
The first link goes to the whole playlist, and below are links to each song. It's a mix of old and new. I like it :)
I got terribly, annoyingly sick on Wednesday. Luckily, I am still in Spokane, and just happen to be staying with a doctor. A little antibiotic prescription was called in, and I will soon be better.
Yesterday, for therapy, my sister-in-law and I went to some antique malls, where I found this little elephant that needed to come home with me. We also had pho, which is excellent medicine for any sort of snot infestation you might have.
I was going to talk about some things I wanted to do this year, but then I watched this, and now I don't think I will!
Okay, well, I'll talk about one little goal I have this year, mostly because I'm pretty sure this one won't be a problem to fulfill. I've been keeping a little bit better track of what I've been reading, thanks to GoodReads, and it turns out I read fifty-some books last year. That's not too shabby, but I can do better, both in number of books read, and keeping track. I've often been guilty of devouring a book and then, once I set it aside, completely forgetting half of what I read. So, part one of my goal is to enter all books in GoodReads and then rate it when I'm done and add at least a brief review. I'll also share longer reviews here of the titles thought were particularly good.
I've also decided to up the number of books I read this year to 65, which is really a suggestion from Michael of the Books on the Nightstand podcast (which, by the way, is excellent for all you book lovers out there. If you haven't listened, I suggest subscribing right away!) to read +11 in '11. I just rounded to 65 since I know I missed listing some last year. I decided that since my sister thinks I don't read enough non-fiction that I would make those 11 additional books non-fiction titles. GoodReads also added a nifty feature this year to help you set and track reading goals.
Another thing helping me read more is a new toy from Mr. HeyLucy (who sacrificed his own Christmas money, combined it with mine and insisted I get it), it's a nifty little Nook Color, and I've really been enjoying using it to read anywhere and everywhere. I don't buy many books, because our bookshelves are full, but I've always got a library book or three laying around, as well as constant requests waiting to be checked out, and I'm excited that I'll now be able to check out ebooks as well. I've read lots of books on my phone, so this bigger screen is really luxurious. And there are plenty of free and bargain books to download as well.
And now, how about a book recommendation? The last book I read in 2010 was The Bells , by Richard Harvell. It was a perfect way to end the year-with one that I think will be a favorite for a long time to come.
The Bells begins in a small Swiss village, where the bells in the church tower are so loud they can only be rung by a deaf woman, who comes down from the hills and dwells in the belfry. She has a child, and the villagers and parish priest assume that the boy, too, is deaf. When the priest discovers that is is not the case, he is so angry he takes the child and throws him into the river, certain that he will die. The boy is rescued by two passing monks, who aptly name him Moses and take him back to their abbey. There he becomes a prodigy of the strange choirmaster, Ulrich, who decides he must preserve Moses' beautiful voice. What follows is the story of his life as a castrati, abhorred in his native Switzerland, and exalted in the music capitals of Italy and Austria. I don't want to give any more of the story away, I will leave it to you to discover.
I loved the way Harvell captured the physical feelings of pure, beautiful sound. His language is sensuous and beautiful. Even the most painful scenes reverberated with the feelings of hearing, not just with the ears, but the whole body. There are so many good passages, like this one from the beginning of the story:
"As my mother rang her bells, she tuned the fibers of her body as a violinist tunes his strings. There in her neck, she rings faintly with a part tone of the middle bell. There in her thighs, with another. In the bottom of her feet, I heard the strike tone of the smallest bell. Each tone, ringing in her flesh, was itself the faintest echo of the vast concert. I cannot remember my mother's face, but I remember this landscape of her sounds. And though I have no likeness with which I might recall her, when I close my eyes and hear her body ringing with those bells, it is as though I have a portrait in my hands."
I love the sound as memory imagery. The Bells is highly re-readable, which is high praise indeed.
Please share any good book recommendations in the comments, I have 65 books to read this year!
I've been meaning to post some pictures or something, but I came down with an annoying cold the day before Thanksgiving and so I've just been feeling sorry for myself. I like to keep things nice and happy here, so I've been at a loss. I love the holidays, but due to many circumstances, I'm having a bit of a hard time this year. I'm not sure if I will be able to visit my family, my cold is still lingering, and Thanksgiving was kind of a failure all around. These are all minor problems, so I am irritated with myself for the ridiculous pity party I've been having the last few weeks. I am trying really hard to generate some Christmas cheer.
In an effort to start feeling more Christmas-y, I thought I'd try and do a little something for the holidays every day. I've started playing Christmas music, I'm putting the finishing touches on a couple handmade gifts, I think I'll set up the tree this weekend, and I hung my big wreath up on the front of the house the other day. And then I noticed that some of the lights were out. It seems to be exemplifying my attitude right now: trying to let my (Christmas) light shine, but not quite succeeding. Blergh.
At least I have this fuzzy face to keep me company while I pull out the decorations:
I'm definitely a spring person. I love flowers and green and all the new sprouting life. I was born in the spring, so it just makes sense. But fall seems to have arrived in earnest now, and I'm realizing how much I enjoy this time of year too. Up here in the mountains it gets frosty every night, while the days are still warming up to a perfect 65 degrees. I fired up the wood burning stove for the first time since last winter, and spent a cozy Sunday evening knitting and contemplating how to re-arrange the furniture in our tiny room so I could sit right in front of it for the next five months.
I'm starting to appreciate all the foods of this season as well. The weekend started with pumpkin pancakes, inspired by the fact that I woke from a crazy dream in which two old ladies had somehow barged into our house and commandeered the kitchen. They insisted that they wanted to make me pumpkin pancakes. It was strange and happy, except when they spilled the can of bacon grease all over my kitchen floor. I woke up when the frustration of trying to clean up all the grease while they were stepping over me became too much to bear. And I found myself craving pumpkin pancakes.
The two ladies were nowhere to be found, so I went to work. And no cans of grease were spilled while I whipped up a batch of tender, hot, flavorful pancakes. My recipe could use a little work, but I crave pancakes about once a year, so if you can figure out how to tweak it to make it just perfect, let me know. As it is, it's really good, and the leftover pancakes are almost even better. At least Mr. HeyLucy seemed to think so, as he proceeded to eat the leftovers that were sitting on a plate on the stove, over the course of the weekend.
Pumpkin Pancakes
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. each ground cloves, nutmeg and ginger (adjust to your liking. I only added a dash of each, and it was not quite enough flavor. I will add more next time).
1/2 t. kosher salt
3/4 c. canned pumpkin (about half a can)
2 large eggs (I used duck eggs now that our ducks are laying in earnest, and I think they are great for baking!)
1 1/2 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
3 T. melted butter
Combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Dump the wet into the dry and mix just to combine. Cook them up on a buttered griddle and eat them while they're hot!
So here are my thoughts on the finished pancakes: they were very, very moist, almost like they weren't cooked through. I'm wondering if I should have used less milk to make them a little drier. Fresh out of the pan they were good, but that moistness was actually very nice when eating them cold as leftovers. I also definitely need to add more spices next time. I could taste them, but the pancakes were just not quite spicy enough.
Some other seasonal foods we are really enjoying right now include Roasted Acorn Squash with Wild Rice Stuffing, which I made for Sunday dinner along with some simple grilled pork chops. I will be making this again soon, it was so delicious, and really easy. Plus it's really adaptable, you can make as much as you need and switch up the type of rice you use. It worked well to use just one squash for the two of use, but it's easy enough to make more if you have a crowd. It would be a really pretty side dish to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner too.
On the sweet side, I got some Chewy Egg Nog cookies from Trader Joe's, which were pretty yummy, and their Spiced Apple Cider is just about perfect, not too sweet and just the right amount of cinnamon.
, by Richard Harvell. It was a perfect way to end the year-with one that I think will be a favorite for a long time to come. 
