autumn chill

this face

no, this face

squirrel dance

coffee date

It is well and truly fall now. We got up on November 1st and it was suddenly freezing out. My friend Mark made a joke on facebook this morning about all the people wearing scarves and North faces already but you know what? IT’S FRICKIN COLD. I almost got my own North Face out of storage last week and I think the only reason I didn’t have more to do with how much time I spent NOT going outside than any sort of “oh it’s not THAT cold” thoughts. I mean… your body becomes acclimatized to the weather/temperature of whatever place you live and when you live here, anything under 10°C is FRICKIN COLD, and really, why would you want to live somewhere where it regularly dips way below freezing. NO THANKS.

On Saturday we had a small family gathering to celebrate Symphony and Gwen’s birthdays. It was pretty low-key and OF COURSE I didn’t get pictures. I remember thinking to myself that morning “I have to remember to get pictures this year!” and I then I didn’t even take out my camera. I did instagram a pic of the cake, wowe these precious memories. Actually I was pretty happy with how it turned out; I made a tired chocolate layer cake with green icing and decorated it with green sprinkles, rosemary sprig “trees,” and little plastic deers, birds and mushrooms. I also managed to fit 17 candles (14 for Sym, 3 for Gwen) onto the tiny top tier which I thought was very impressive.

Now that Halloween and the girls’ birthdays are over I can dive right in to Christmas… except I have a bunch of stuff I NEED to do around the house and I made a deal with myself I wouldn’t put up any Christmas decorations until I finish them all. Although… I didn’t say I couldn’t BUY new Christmas decorations. Look, that little tree was EIGHTY percent off! And I don’t usually go to the store where I got the two baubles so it’s not like I can buy them later. And it wouldn’t really make sense to buy new things and put them in storage for like two weeks so I might as well just keep them in the house and so I haven’t REALLY put up any decorations… Nice loophole, huh?

SPEAKING OF THE HOLIDAYS if you want to get any banners or whatnot from the shop, today (November 9th) is the last day to place orders for Hanukkah decor/gifts and November 23rd (rapidly approaching) is the last day to place orders for Christmas decor/gifts. One thing that I think would make a great gift would be one of my “Red Lipstick is Black Magic” iron on patches! They are available for pre-order now and will be shipping as soon as they reach me, which will be soon as the manufacturer shipped them yesterday.