Little Pumpkins

Because I am no longer drinking caffeine, I was able to chill the hell out and tell myself that someday I would cook meals again and someday I would wear workout clothes because I was working out. Thankfully, those days have come. (Although I still wear workout clothes just because, too, because despite your advice, I cannot/will not buy big jeans. I did buy a bunch of dresses and leggings, though.)

I have been buying good spices from Penzey's (which is a freaking awesome store, by the way), and we have been actually purchasing oil at the oil and scotch store my brother manages. We've been planning meals and clipping recipes from magazines. It's been fun and delicious. Tonight we had spicy chicken curry in the slow cooker from Family Circle, and tomorrow we're doing a sausage and pasta from Real Simple. Last week, I made chicken soup from scratch for the first time, and we had a really easy chicken parmesan casserole. Clearly, we like chicken. We're having it again on Thursday, but by Friday, we're branching out to pork for some apricot mustard glazed chops.

Our cooking spurt is a huge improvement over Cooper's first 2 or 3 weeks, when all we could do was make deli sandwiches, order deli sandwich delivery, or call for a pizza. I am so relieved that we could squeeze food prep into our daily routines.

And we got our elliptical, and I have used it everyday, thank goodness. Ben got me season 1 of the Gilmore Girls for Chrismukkah, and I have been watching an episode a day-- 42 minutes is the perfect workout length for me. I should be in great shape by the time I work my way through the whole series. If I can stop eating everything in the pantry. And honeycrisp apples by the bushel. Apples are healthy, I know, but the volume of my apple consumption is startling. And expensive-- I spent over $30 on apples last week. Gilmore Girls is the best of last decade rolled into one show. I forgot how much I used to love Macy Gray!

Ben's parents came over last weekend, and we had so much fun.

Playing football at the park:

Some competitive teeter tottering

Climbing
Swinging

Today, sick of Harry's nagging, we finally carved our damn pumpkins