Fall is coming!

This past weekend we went from one day at over 90 degrees to the next day needing blankets to keep warm. I could live in this 60 degree cocoon all year long. At the farmer's market on Wednesday I heard several people lament on the cool weather and all I could think was "it's about time!" Summer to me means great produce from local farmers, but it also means that I hide out in the house until the heat passes. But this week all that changed. I have never been so happy to wear a sweater.

My Dining Room

One thing I really like about our condo is the fact that we now have a dining room. In the ten years we have been married, this is the first place we have lived with this luxury. I still remember going to Crate & Barrel to pick out dining room furniture. This was a big deal and I had saved for months for the purchase. Matt and I spent over an hour going from table to table before we found just the right set.

But no matter how much I prepared him, he still was a little shocked at the price. The table wasn't the problem, it was the six chairs we were going to purchase. Considering they were nice hardwood chairs, I thought the price was pretty average. We weren't getting super expensive furniture, but we also weren't buying the set at Target. So Matt complained for a while, but he soon got over it.

In my last post I mentioned going to get Matt's new bike. It is fancy and special and now sits in my dining room along with the furniture pictured above. The bike costs more than the entire dining room set...

I'm sorry, I have no excuse

I recently received an email from my Aunt Polly asking if Matt and I were okay because I had not posted anything in over a month. No problems or accidents to report, we just seem to be unusually busy lately.

I spent most of February knitting a sweater-tank for my sister Michelle, and since I had the deadline of her birthday on the 19th, when I wasn't working or sleeping, I was knitting. I will post a picture of the sweater soon. I have to crop the picture; I promised I would remove her head (sounds pleasant, right?).

I have also been participating in a mystery sock group where every month we meet and get a new sock pattern one row at a time during the evening and then we have the rest of the month to finish the socks. This has been harder than I thought. So with a new sock coming up on the 31st, I am working whenever I get the chance to finish February's pair.

The snow storm we had at the beginning of the month proved to have some benefits. Matt and I actually spent an entire Saturday together just puttering around the house. We also learned how to rent movies online since we had no cable, not from the storm, but due to a hard-drive malfunction with our box.

Days before the storm hit, we had to go down to Cincinnati to pick up Matt's new bicycle. So the three of us hopped in the car after work and listened to old podcasts of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on my iPod. The drive took only about 90 minutes in each direction, but the bike fitting, test drive, computer installation, blah, blah, blah took almost 3 hours. Goliath and I took a walk that lasted about an hour. We then sat in the store for another hour, and spent the last part of the wait sitting in the car in the dark listening to a book about the Supreme Court. Goliath should now be able to tell you the names of the nine justices.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, Matt and I will be off to Washington, DC for about a week in the beginning of April. I have a library conference and he is going to bum around town. I know he is planning on renting a bike and riding down to Mount Vernon. He made the suggestion that we go together, but the trip is 18 miles one-way, and I don't think my weak little legs could handle that. For him, this is hardly even training distance, so I have wished him luck. I'm hoping to get enough free-time to visit the National Gallery and try my hand at getting into the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress. I know, I'm a library geek.

I'll post again soon with pictures.

Have a happy Easter.

Man, is it cold outside

Good thing I made these socks for myself.
It's okay, you can say it. You're impressed.
I can hardly believe it myself.