I don’t have a lot planned for the weekend, which is good because I’m quite behind in my blogging and having Sunday free might enable me to catch up, right?

Saturday afternoon I’m going apple picking with fellow alumni from my alma maters and ten other small New England colleges. I’m also hoping to pick some raspberries and maybe a pumpkin. Saturday night, I have dinner plans with friends, which is always exciting.

Sunday has nothing on the calendar other than the farmers’ market (to supplement the orchard’s takings). I’m thinking I’ll be using it to finish the Red Scarf that’s due on Monday and to cook up some of tomorrow’s pickings. Plus maybe I’ll get a bike ride in during the nice, cool weather.

Relaxing is important because things at work will be busy this week. Monday afternoon is my company picnic and Wednesday I leave for Detroit for a three-day work trip. (BTW, does anyone have any recommendations for restaurants/sightseeing/shopping to do in downtown Detroit in the evening?) This means I only have a day-and-a-half of actual work-time and will require lots of focus and staying on task. Plus I have to train someone to work on the project I left so she can get started in earnest on it.

Ack!

Let’s think about all those nice apples instead. Apple-carrot soup. Apple crisp. Apple cake. Baked apples. Anyone have a fantastic apple recipe they love they want to share?

Well, Rudi’s bread is done and I’m feeling a little tired, so I think it might be time to hit the hay. After all, I need to get up early tomorrow to start enjoying my relaxing weekend, right?

If it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back on some beautiful things from the past week. Here are three from my weekend:

1. It is 95 degrees on Saturday and Shelley’s children are in their bathing suits playing with the hose and with water balloons. We spend the latter part of the evening around a campfire in their backyard, and Irisa, still in her bikini, curls up in my lap.

2. Mum makes apple crisp for Dad’s birthday. Usually pie is Gramma’s domain, but for Dad, Mum demands sole baking rights. The pie is chock-full of tasty apples and the crumbly topping is sweet and cinnamon-y.

3. I sleep in over the weekend, which means I miss the normal morning chats Dad and I have over breakfast preparations. So when Mum heads up to bed at midnight on Sunday, Dad stays downstairs to chat over cups of tea.

Anything beautiful going on in your life this week?

I should not take photos.

Oh, I’m not a bad photographer. Admittedly, I occasionally cut someone’s head off or give them vampire eyes, but generally I understand the major idea — put something in frame and capture it (usually in focus) — and can execute it reasonably well. Every once in a while, I’m even somewhat gifted with framing a shot.

But I am a bad uploader. Shots sit on my camera for days. Then they sit on the computer for a while longer. Then they’re loaded into Flickr, but I have to annotate them. And then I have to write the post to accompany them. If I left out the photos, we could skip straight to that last item.

Because I’ve been diligent about bringing my camera with me, I’m behind on my blogging. (Those of you who have been peeking at my Flickr account and have already followed the goings-on in my life, shhhh! You’re probably bored already. Go ahead and click one of those links to the right and see what some other bloggers are up to.)

Which means that some of the topics covered in this week’s posts will be a little old. But, to reassure my folks, this does at least mean that there will be posts. Let’s not quibble about how long ago I did the things in them.

Today’s topic? The Sept. 20 Yarn Harlot talk in Arlington, Virginia. (more…)

Rudi and I headed up to Connecticut this long weekend for some much needed R&R. We celebrated Shelley’s 35th birthday with a cookout and campfire. Rudi rode up a mountain. I hung out with my folks and with Gramma and caught up on sleep. And today (yesterday, now), we broke out the party caps and helped Dad blow out his birthday candles. (Mum thought 65 might be too many in his apple pie, so she opted for 13 (one for each half-decade) instead.)

It was a wonderful weekend and I feel very relaxed at the moment. I’m sure when 8:30 rolls around in the morning, I will be less enthusiastic about our late arrival home, but right now I don’t care. It was totally worth it. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head to bed. More posts about books and knitting and other such things to follow soon.

I bet you were starting to think I’d forgotten…

But, no. Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A couple is cuddling on the stairs to nowhere by the Hinckley Hilton tennis court in broad daylight.

2. Posey lies on the floor, her body and head hidden under the drape of a dress that needs to be hung up in the closet. Her front legs stretch in front of her, crossed at the paws.

3. Yesterday was my friend Amani’s birthday and she opted for a more low-key celebratory lunch in rather than out. Sarah baked peach cobbler and I bought ice cream, but Amani outdid herself as the birthday girl, offering up homemade brownies and cupcakes.

Oh yes! Remember a couple weeks ago when I mentioned a new resident of our garden plot? Well, he’s continued growing and Rudi captured a few shots of him this week.

Jenn invites people to play along on this meme she found:

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users (as of Oct. 1). Bold is for books you’ve read. Italics for books you’ve started but haven’t finished. Strikethrough is for books you found unreadable. Leave the ones you haven’t read as they are. Put an asterisk before each book you want or plan to read. (more…)