Highlights

We have continued on with the most beautiful fall of my memory. We still haven't gotten a hard frost, so the leaves are just slowly changing to vivid shades that don't exist often in nature. We've had some busy times lately. I will touch on the parts for which I have photograhic evidence.

First, there was the Frijole Bowl in Tucson. Brian was offically initiated into the family by helping out with the beans!

I added the garlic, and we had a grand party, as usual.

When Brian and I left Tucson, we took my brother with us, and held him hostage here in Iowa for a week, where he got rained on at the barn and walking around town, but also drank some good beer and had some quality time alone in our house while we were at work. One evening, Jesse and I got to reminiscing about the old board game Balderdash and how it was the best game ever, and how it's a pity we somehow lost ours, and now they have changed it so you can't even get the original version anymore. And then we thought, by golly! We are resourceful people! We have internet access! With just a list of rare words in the English language, a piece of cardboard, an array of sharpies, and some scrap-mat from work, we resurrected the game and played it with delight.


After a lot of hilarity, creative definitions, and (yes) a fair amount of slyness too, Jesse (blue) won - but it was quite close at the end.


After taking my brother back to Chicago and dropping him at the train station, Brian and I returned home and have started to face the fact that we are going to have to take some part in planning our own wedding. I've been looking for a dress - a search which is not going well. Last Saturday afternoon we decided to head over to Von Maur in the Sycamore Mall to see if they had anything that might suit me. They didn't, and as we wandered glumly past the other stores, a gaming storefront caught our eye. For some reason, we went in, and after much deliberation, came out again with a puzzle.

I thought 1000 pieces would be no big deal. Afterall, we're resourceful people. We chose an only-mildly-sickening lakeside scene with (we didn't notice this in the store) lots of vaguely textured neutral gray areas. Assembling it was surpsing hard, and true to the darker side of my personality (the side that relates to people with OCD and loves printmaking), I got a little obsessed with it.



Thankfully, we finished it, finally, after several days. In case any of my readers have the same questions the guy in the game-shop did: No, we do not plan to glue it together so we can hang it on our wall and admire it always. We're going to put it back in the box. Just as soon as we need the coffee table for something else...