for Bethany, my faithful lurker!

Bethany cornered me (well, said hello to me ;) in the ladies room at the Vineyard church conference the other day and wanted to know when I was going to post again. This, Bethany, is for you!

My life started to get somewhat interesting about six weeks ago when I started chatting with someone I'd not known well before. Then my life picked up speed about a month ago, when the aforementioned someone and I started hanging out together, first in groups and then just the two of us. About two weeks ago, my life got much, much crazier and pretty much all free time was cut out as the boy and I (sorry, interruption while I returned an email from the boy) started to do lots and lots and lots more together.

Here are some of the things that he and I have been doing together in the last month, some by ourselves and some with others:

playing tennis; hiking at Starved Rock Illinois State Park; climbing rocks, hiking and sitting on fallen trees at Devil's Lake Wisconsin State Park; eating lots of good food; drinking lots of good wine; cheering on Sus at the marathon; watching movies; going to restaurant openings; writing emails; visiting the historic Lincoln sites in downstate Springfield; reading books; listening to music; watching sports; taking fall walks; playing with dogs ... yeah, it's been rather a busy time. But a very welcome and quite wonderful busy time!

And that, my friends, is all I'm going to say for now. We shall see what we shall see ...

Homemade applesauce!

Tonight I made the fall's first batch of applesauce. I also roasted a sweet potato. And I stuffed other apples with grilled pork, slivered almonds and dates and baked those topped with Lithuanian cheese. Thanks to Mom and Dad for filling my fruit bowl with farmer's market bounty during their marvelous visit last week.

I miss Mom and Dad but I love the apples and leftover grilled pork, chicken and vegetables! (Not to mention the crack corn they brought me from Basha's in AZ).

I love fall food so much that I wrote about it in Tidbits, the food column I write every month that appears in 200,000 newspaper. They say half a million people read the food section. It's a little daunting to think that many people know about my personal life--of course, I'm the one who chooses to share!

Here's a link to the apples column:
Tidbits 9/21/06