I made potato-cheese casserole last night for dinner. Normally this requires potatoes, cheese, broccoli or green onions or neither or both (broccoli in this case), and cream of onion soup. Last night, I started the potatoes boiling and grated the cheese and then realized that I had no cream of onion soup. So I made my own, of sorts--it was more of a gravy or a roux, but it worked quite well, and it was interesting to see the cumulation of twenty years of watching my mother cook, then assisting, then doing it myself staring up at me from the pan. The casserole tasted fine.

My dad e-mailed me a news item about Rowling declaring that Dumbledore was gay and said he was disappointed in her. I contended it might not have been a political statement, maybe that was just her backstory for him; but I'm afraid of what this means about his own views.

I'm feeling very quietly discontented with my life. Not that this is anything new; but I wonder what it'll take to stop it. Moving? I've been here two years now.

I did pumpkin-carving at the local Metropark yesterday, for the Ghosts of Providence program. I'm also going to be leading lantern tours on Friday. I've never seen the program before, so this should be fun. Afterwards I went to Andersons for produce and another wintergreen plant, and found that they have any number of potted citrus trees. I was tempted by the kumquat or the minneola--but not $60 worth.

I also stopped at a farmer's stand that I've been meaning to stop at every time I go out to the Metropark. All their summer produce is gone, of course; I wish I'd visited earlier. But they had very nice pumpkins and squashes, and lots of apples. I bought a buttercup and an ambercup squash (the latter purely because it's pretty) and I'll have to figure out what to do with them...later, though, as I accidentally nicked one of my four homegrown butternut squash later that night, so I'll be making roasted-squash-and-bean soup tonight.

I'm due to make apple butter and apple cider jelly this week as well...also stock, from the bag of vegetable leavings I've been keeping in the freezer. I wonder how much or how little of this do-it-myself business I'll retain once I have kids.

In Jennifer Housewife news, my floors are shockingly dirty. Also the laundry is going slowly because a three-inch spider has taken up residence just beside the washer, and so I'm either making Eric load and unload the washer or moving very slowly with my eyes fixed on the spider the whole time. I suppose I could ask him to get rid of it, come to think of it, and that would speed things up.

The construction company was supposed to come and fix our driveway last week. But they didn't come and didn't call, so I left a nasty (well, nasty for me) voicemail today, and not long after the owner called to say he was very sorry and they would be out tomorrow. We'll see.

So here's my week's list:

-vacuum
-mop
-make apple butter
-make apple cider jelly
-make stock (broth really, I guess)
-use butternut squash
-finish B's bear
-finish C's glove
-transplant herbs and strawberries

Why is so much of that food-related? I must also take some walks...

The nonexistent captions

I keep meaning to take pictures so I can put them up here. But I don't do it. So I'll do it later and expound now.

The text to go with the nonexistent pictures: I feel like it's all spinning, all the time sometimes. And I don't even have a wheel yet. Here are my hand-spun, hand-dyed, hand-knit handwarmers, which I love beyond imagining. Don't even start with me about the colors.

And here's the first of the yarn for Eric's hat. I also love this yarn beyond imagining. (Wait until I have kids, the superlatives will get worse.) It's super-soft and fluffy and much more even than I had been afraid of. I also learned things on this yarn, most importantly, I think, how to find out what a balanced yarn is supposed to look like. I even wrote a pseudo-article on it, which I may look at again in a few months and clean up and consider sending somewhere.

Turns out socializing is good for you: I went to a Metroparks History Department volunteers meeting yesterday, to talk with the volunteer coordinator and see if it was something I wanted to help out with. Turns out it is, very much. They depict the mill and the canal they have as they were run in the 1850s, so they teach the volunteers about household chores and tinsmithing and blacksmithing and cooking and doing the laundry with the wringer, and have them act it out during the summer and through the fall. (The regular staff does the actual working of the mill and the lathes.) They were much excited to find out that I already knit and sew and spin. And I actually got to try a spinning wheel for the first time, and confirmed my suspicion that I need a castle (upright, non-handed) wheel, because the Saxony (traditional, Sleeping Beauty type) ones are right-handed and I do, indeed, spin left-handed.

On New Year's resolutions: I've gotten the baby quilt designed and most of the template pieces cut out, I've done some writing, I've sent Eric out gaming so that I could have an evening to myself. I'm still worried about all the things that need doing, but I'm working on lessening that (both the worry and the number of things). Next I need to sign up for time off for my wedding shower in April and my wedding in May, and find out how to get someone ordained.