Wine Tasting Thanksgiving Weekend

We kicked off our holiday season by going wine tasting Thanksgiving weekend. It's so festive and relaxing. Thanks to black Friday, the wineries tend to be pretty quiet. One of our favorite wineries had the caves open for touring and tasting.



Fun day with good friends ... even if one of them was a little tired ...

Snow and Sand

After the 12 hour (most of them sleeping) cabin experience, we booked a hotel which is way more our speed ... you'll see that someone immediately crashed upon arrival ... (when you're 47 and have a fake hip, futons aren't really your idea of a great sleep).



Imagine our surprise to wake the following morning to snow! This is the view from our balcony.





It was so cool! Especially considering this was the day before ...

Winter Camping

I had a crazy idea about 9 months ago. We would try winter camping ... I guess not really camping considering we would be in a "rustic" cabin ... in a state park. The website looked so appealing. I happily booked this 2 day adventure the early part of Thanksgiving week. How bad can it be? And besides, we love the beach!

We packed up half the house and headed out ... through snow.



Finally, arriving at the cabin ...





You'll see what became the two most invaluable items I packed on the counter ... Lysol wipes and alcohol. We were to be in the cabin 48 hours ... we made it 12. Turns out we're hotel people.

Orchid

This is the second time in two years that I've managed to get my orchid to bloom. I don't want to mess with a good thing but feel like maybe I should fertilize him once in a while. To water, I give him 4-5 ice cubes every week. Pssst ... the blooms in the back with the yellow throat are the "real" blooms ... the blooms in front with the purple throat are fake. No one can ever tell the difference and I never have to look at bare sticks when the real blooms fade.

Butternut Squash Salad

This fall salad is one of my favorites from one of my all time favorite cookbook authors. It's easy enough for a weeknight dinner yet feels totally gourmet. We've eaten it four times since October!

Origami

Last Christmas my niece decorated their family tree with an assortment of origami that she had made. I was swooning over the originality and how completely adorable it was. On the spot, I commissioned her to create an assortment of ornaments for my tree ... she delivered this weekend and I can't wait to decorate our tree.

Sunday Morning v.2

I find Sunday morning to be one of my favorite parts of the weekend. It's such a lazy and carefree day. I tend to cram all my errands in on Saturday just so I can kick back on Sunday and read my stock pile of magazines ... while my husband watches football. It always seems a bit of a downer to have the same-o, same-o breakfast on Sunday so I decided to test out some berry muffins from my newest cookbook. The recipe called for the flour to be barely mixed in as you can see in the photo ...





They were delicious. Not too sweet and the perfect partner to a steaming cup of coffee.