Fall Decorating

I decorated my mantel for fall. I bought three bags of candy corn and filled two matching clear cylinder vases with the candy corn creating three distinct layers (and putting my favorite type - Indian corn - out of my reach). Then I put them on either side of a maple leaf berry swag and added a few mini squash and mini pumpkin scattered in front of the swag. Originally Audrey helped by adding Farmer Bob in with the squash and pumpkins, but he has been MIA for a while now, so I couldn't get a picture of that. I also put the pumpkins for us to carve on the hearth, though the little one has been mistaken for a ball, so it usually sits on the bookshelf.

Northern Exposure

I realized the other day that I missed almost all TV that occurred during my high-school and college years. In high-school I was too busy and in college we didn't have TV. The exception was 'Friends'. I started late on that one, but then when my other roomies and I were hooked, we would go to friends' houses for "Friends" parties or we would go on campus and watch it in some of the auditorium style classrooms.

Anyway, I have decided to catch up on some of those via Netflix. Northern Exposure was one that came to mind, so I watched the first two episodes this week. It was pretty good. And what makes it even better is, there are no commercials and no timing issues. The only bad thing is that watching Northern Exposure makes me want to move to Alaska, it is just so beautiful.

Holiday Planning

Flylady has this thing called the Holiday Cruise, where you are supposed to pretend you are going on a cruise for the first 3 weeks in December and must therefore have all of your holiday stuff done before then.

I decided to give an organized holiday a shot, so today I filled in the list of gifts to purchase from her online control journal. Which gave me a chance to think about what I actually want to get for people. I looked online for some prices and because I am ordering so early, I will be able to do slow boat shipping and still get everything in time. I am really excited about this.

In another part of the holiday control journal you list traditions that your family does and the dates that you will do them this year along with any preparations that need to happen for those traditions. It is really quite brilliant and so much fun to be getting into the holiday spirit in October.

Bring It On Marathon

I just recently realized that they came out with a part 2 to the fabulous "Bring It On" cheerleading movie. So I casually mentioned to Ryan that I was thinking about putting them both on our list to get at the same time so that I could have a "Bring It On" Marathon. For some reason, he was both amused and horrified by my good idea.

Law School

Ryan just started an LSAT study course this week. It made the whole thing seem suddenly real and sort of scary to think of being student poor again and to think that we could be living almost any where at this time next year. To be honest, I really like our house. It is just a townhouse, but it is pretty big and we bought it directly from the builder, so we got to pick out little things like the kitchen cabinets, floors and counters. Plus we have painted so many rooms and Audrey's room looks fabulous! It is the perfect little girl room. So in many ways, I hope Ryan ends up going to a local school.

The $50 challenge

Well, aside from the occasional (read: weekly) eating out, we are doing pretty well on our challenge. In fact, it no longer really feels so much like a challenge at all. I am not implying that I just buy lots of snacky things at the grocery store, but it is safe to say that since I am planning our meals and snacks a little more carefully which results in us eating better food consistently, the challenge seems like a much better lifestyle choice.