Happenings Around the Cottage

Well, of course, last week was a busy week. Second week of school--I think Blackeyed Susan and Alvin Fernald are getting used to the new regime. Susan is only complaining about Getting Up Early and Homework. I don't know of a high-schooler who doesn't complain about those, right?

A friend shared some farm-eggs with us. These things are HUGE, all with double-yolks:
I put a store-bought "large" egg beside one of these brown beauties to compare:

We had to eat them, because I couldn't figure out how to use them in brownies! At one time, I learned the cup-measures for all of the store sizes, medium, large and jumbo: kinda like 1/3 cup, 1/2 cup, etc? But since we *could* eat them, I just didn't bother.

But my two-eggs-and-toast was a tad more filling than usual.

My neighbor Linda sent over a selection of her gorgeous tomatoes. Some of them are vintage varieties, and, as you can see, very colorful. We call this "a bowl of candy" because of their sweetness, and eat many of them as such. The rest will go on our lunch salad today:

On the crafting front, I am about 60% done, quilting my Barbara Star quilt...

[the photo of which I just DELETED!!!!!!!!! I'll post it again the next time...]

...working on a surprise for Christmas...

...and making props for our Missions Conference Parade at church. These are burlap bags filled with balled-up newspaper, that can represent beans if you're from Latin America, or rice if you are Asian:

Finally, any crafting that happens after September 1st is accompanied by Christmas music. This is a habit I developed in high school, to get me in the mood for the presents I knit/sewed/crafted for my friends. So, the case of Christmas cd's came out this week, and is doing its duty, setting the mood!

I didn't take a photo of our newly repaired window in the kitchen. Alvin and his friend DISOBEYED the house rule of no-real-baseball-throwing in the backyard (or front yard, for that matter). We have a custom of using tennis balls in the yard, and baseballs reserved for the park down the street. The window they broke was a double-paned custom jobbie. Charming took it to the hardware store, but they could not fix it as it was. The frame was constructed around the glass, so there was no knock-out-the-glass-put-a-new-piece-in. Since we did not have several hundred $$$ to buy a new window, Charming and MacGuyver spent the afternoon chisel-ing out the frame so it would be able to receive a regular ol' pane of glass. I thought Charming especially smart to choose plexiglass. Cost: $42 for the glass, $15 labor, and $12 for the wood-chisel.

Quite the week.

Oh, yes, I wanted to update you on Freshman Football. Unfortunately, SSHS (Green! White! Fight! Fight!) lost to the big "S" school, but Alvin was not injured. Friday night the varsity team beat the next rival, which is the school the freshmen play this Thursday.

Sigh. Only six more games to pray Alvin through.

Oh, and by-the-way, of course you saw that ND beat Nevada 35-0. First shutout for ND since 2002. Do you think they can do that again next week against Michigan?

Wake up the echoes, baby.