Hello 37!

Birthdays are awesome. I sure enjoyed mine!
My sweet husband surprised me with flowers Sunday. Including my favorite Sumatra Lilies. I went out for a jog and when I came home he had them here.

We went to the Japanese gardens, one of our favorite spots in Fort Worth. It was beautiful, as always but we were a little disappointed that the leaves weren't changing yet.

I made the S'mores cake recipe into cupcakes. They were divine, possibly the best cupcakes I've made so far. I did a graham cracker bottom and put a little on top of each one until I started running out of the graham part. Next time I will double that portion of the recipe. I topped them with ganache and the marshmallow topping and torched them, that was fun!

We had dinner and drinks with friends Sunday night and it was just perfect.

These Days

These are my days. My favorite weather in my favorite month in my favorite season. These days are fleeting and won't last long. I'm spending as much time outside as possible, basking in the golden light of Fall. The days are growing shorter and the leaves are falling faster. These days are too few and far between.  I suppose that makes me love them more.

I grew up wandering through the woods and creeks behind my parent's property. We built forts and spent hours out there. I feel at home outside. I don't know why it took me so many years to start running outside because now that I'm doing it it just makes sense. I feel grounded and more like myself when I am out in nature. I have a long list of things I want to do this weekend for my birthday. Wandering through the woods is at the top.

This song has been on reapeat in my head the last few days. It is so beaustiful, if a little depressing.

Happy Halloween!

Here is the extent of my Halloween enthusiasm. Pumpkins are marked down at work and I finally brought some home yesterday. I figure they will last on the porch through Thanksgiving. I love the funky colors and textures!

 I've been longing to have a backyard s'mores party with our nephews. This picture is from one year ago when we had our nieces and nephews all here and told ghost stories and made s'mores. The nieces are all in Houston now, so it would just be the boys this time.

 Speaking of S'mores, we attempted to make these crazy s'mores cookies when we were in Austin for my brother's birthday. They were his request and only sort of worked, resulting in 8" diameter cookies with a small s'more in the middle of each. Pretty ridiculous, though the caramelized marshmallow was pretty awesome! I'm not a huge s'mores person but I do have daydreams of making from scratch marshmallows and graham crackers for gourmet s'mores. That won't happen for the boys as they wouldn't appreciate the work.

In more s'mores related news, I'm seriously contemplating making myself this cake for my birthday. I'm having a hard time deciding between this and the Chocolate Caramel cake that I made last year.

Source: heatherchristo.com via Martha on Pinterest

Enough with my s'mores tangent. Though I'm not in much of a Halloween mood, I hope you enjoy the holiday and get to see the little ones in your life all dressed up and having a blast.  Karlie is going to wear the Snow White costume that I made for her birthday and her mama is dressing as the evil queen.  I'm anxiously waiting for a picture of the two of them together!

Chihuly at the Arboretum

Mom came to town last week and we had a whirlwind day in Dallas. We started at the Arboretum. We had both been wanting to see the Chihuly installation since it was put up. I'm so glad we went, it is awe inspiring, and my pictures really don't do it justice. The arboretum is gorgeous on its own, I had never been. I'm hoping to go back with Frank so that he can see this show before it is gone as well.



These pieces will be on view through the end of the year, the exhibit was just extended for two months. If you have a chance to see this, don't miss it!

Mom and I also did some shoe shopping and fabric shopping (our favorite).  I came home with some beautiful linen that I dyed, a nice piece of knit that is being made into a tunic and a piece of silk to go with another hand dyed piece that I already had. 

Most Beautiful of Days

Today was the most beautiful of days. The best of Texas weather. Cool, clear and sunny with a nice breeze. I love it. I went for a jog this morning and it was so nice to be outside.

The garden is loving this weather too!

I'm working on this right now. A Milk Chocolate Malt Ball Cake. The cake is Vanilla Malt with Milk Chocolate Frosting. I think it is going to be really good! It is for my little brother's birthday.

Could it really be?

It's hard to believe, but yesterday was mine and Frank's eight year wedding anniversary. Time really does fly. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from that day.

We married under a tree in the backyard of my childhood home.

We danced into the night with some of our best friends.
I keep this picture in a frame by my desk, it may be my favorite memory of that day.

Monday evening I saw a check that someone wrote at work with the date of October 15th and it dawned on me that the next day was our anniversary. Sure, I knew it was coming up and we had talked about it, but it really snuck up on me. It doesn't help that I'm on a nine day stretch of work before a weekend off. I'm a bit out of sorts, with days running together! We celebrated last night by making Green Curry for dinner, which was appropriate since we had our first date at a Thai restaurant.

I would say that we have come a long way, but really things are pretty much the same.  We live in the same house and have the same friends.  We lost a beloved dog and gained a silly cat.  Besides growing older, and possibly wiser, I think we are about the same people that we were that day.  We still love each other and get along awfully well. We have seen a lot of babies born and children grow like weeds, but none of them are ours.  We have a happy home, and that is what matters.

Happy anniversary Frank, I still feel like one lucky lady to have you as my husband.

Draped Pocket Dress

I made this dress earlier in the summer after becoming consumed with figuring out how to copy a draped pocket dress that I had seen. I didn't wear it until yesterday and I'm not sure why because it is insanely comfortable and pretty damn cute too!

Oh look, this dress has pockets.
 

The pockets are lined with the same hand dyed yellow knit that I used for the binding.

I drafted this dress myself. It is very simple, but took some figuring to get the pockets how I wanted them. The top/tank part is based on the Built By Wendy Sew U Home Stretch tank pattern that I have made before and have altered to fit myself well. The waistband is lined and I used knit interfacing to stabilize it, but it isn't as stretchy as I had hoped. The skirt is gathered, as is the tank.  The pockets were created by extending the front rectangle up at angles on each side, folding under at the corners and then gathering in the middle.  Does that make sense?  I had to play around with it a lot to get it just how I wanted.  I added the tie belt as an after thought because I wanted to be able to cinch in the waist more, and I'm glad I did.  It is a woven fabric and was re-purposed after I had removed it from a thrifted top.

The knit fabric is from Joann and was on clearance.  I had just enough to make this.  It is a bit summery but I can wear it with a cardigan into Fall.  The fabric is very stretchy and stretched out a bit at the armholes.  It doesn't show much when wearing but I know it's there.  I really want a serger as I LOVE sewing with knits.  I just wish there was a local fabric store that had a good selection of knit fabrics.  I already have another knit cardigan that I want to copy.