43 days till Christmas, not that I'm counting

SoI went ahead and decorated the whole spare room for Christmas. Yes, I know that its not even Thanksgiving yet but Christmas decorations are so beautiful. I think its a shame that we only get to see them for a month. Plus, they are helping to encourage me as I dig my heels in and make my Christmas presents. The tight budget this year means everyone is getting lovingly hand made presents. My poor little sewing machine is ready to give up. I've also been playing with paint and yarn and pretty soon I'm going to be drilling holes. Sorry to be cryptic but since my readers are most likely those people who would get a present from me, I don't want to ruin it for y'all. Zelda isn't too happy about my crafting. She wants me to pay more attention to her. When she realizes that I'll be at the machine a while she lays down in her little bed and naps. Like many adolescents, Zelda does a whole lot of sleeping these days.
On the cooking front, Matt and I are working on cutting our budget. This means that we must have less fancy dinners. Not that many extravagant ingredients. I feel like beans are going to become a oft seen dinner companion. Speaking of which, I made beans today. They not only have the benefit of being cheap to make but making them from scratch makes them taste so much better than getting them out of the can. Because we had fresh made beans I made Mexican food for dinner. It has been years and years since I made chile rellenos but I think they came out pretty darn good. Oh! I almost forgot. I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies this weekend. They were super tasty. I made the pumpkin puree myself with a cute little pumpkin that Matt bought me. I still have more left and he has requested some pumpkin bread.
After a long day of crafting, cooking, and cleaning I need to relax. Thanks to my mother, I cannot sit and watch tv without feeling antsy so I generally have something to do in the evenings. I am currently spending my evening tv moments doing this pattern. I don't know what it is yet but its fun to see it take shape, bit by bit.

Hullo!

Its been almost a month since my last post, oops. On the bright side, I have been getting loads done in the meantime. My thesis writing is going swimmingly, I'm now working on the figures and Mark and I are going to talk about pictures tomorrow.
My darling friends Archie and Keiko were here visiting for the weekend. We didn't do a whole lot but we did eat quite a bit. We took them to Buns and Mama Dip's this weekend. Then this morning they tagged along to a Maroni Lab breakfast at the Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen. If Keiko doesn't gain weight from all that it is beyond me to help. We had a nice peaceful day yesterday. Lots of lounging around, lots of napping. This is the first time in three years that I've seen Archie. I'm sad to say that her accent is almost gone. No more "ber-gers" or "al-ooh-min-ium". I did fun have asking her opinion as a future doctor about all sorts of stuff. I made cheesecake for everyone on Saturday and while serving some yesterday Keiko cut her finger. I'm not really sure why she was using the giant knife to cut cheesecake but we've come to a consenus. The knife, now named Audry, has gotten a taste for blood and might be sentient. Just a warning to anyone who comes over and tries to cut stuff. The ladies were a big help this weekend with the cutting up bags. I've found that the rate limiting step to making the bag of bags is the making of the plastic yarn. They thought my giant plastic ball was very amusing.
Now, last but most certainly not least. I thought I would leave you with a picture. I should have lots more to put up on Saturday but until then you can adore this one.