2003
Worth the Wait
You’ve had to wait more than a month to see the photos from our engagement weekend in Yosemite, but I had to wait six years for a proposal, so consider yourselves lucky. I know I do. 
p.s. If anyone can tell me why the photos are all pixelated and bitmappy, let me know. I’m resizing things the same way I always have but the photos have never looked this grainy and yucky before. Perhaps it’s as simple as using the flash once in a while, eh?
2003
WriMo? No. EdMo? Hell yes!
Now this is something I could definitely do! If anyone needs an assistant (or an executive officer) for this, I’m your girl.
2003
Thanksgiving Leftovers
Thanksgiving was just lovely this year–calm, quiet, and without the usual heaping dish of Drama battling the turkey for main course honors. Ethan and I made mashed potatoes and stuffing and our friend Elizabeth brough over crecent rolls, a can o’ cranberries, fancy wild rice chock full of gourmet mushrooms, apple cider and mulling spices, and a bottle of wine all the way from Minnesota (where she and and Ethan’s family are from) that I didn’t find completely unimbibable (I’m not a wine snob; I actually just don’t like it at all).
We also, of course, had a turkey. A fourteen-pounder, the smallest we could find at the store. (It probably goes without saying that we’ll have leftovers for at least a week.) While we waited for the turkey to get nice and brown and moist and delicious, we played the world’s fastest game of Trivial Pursuit, which I handily won in a surprise come-from-behind victory made possible by a Sports and Leisure question about that little butterball Richard Simmons. We ate, we talked, we ate some more, we yawned, we had pie, we cleaned up, we watched some t.v., we yawned some more, we went to bed. It was a full day in more ways than one, har har. Earlier in the day, it had taken Ethan a few hours to get out of his “I’m-not-going-to-get-any-work-done-today” funk, but after that it was just a nice, easy, relaxing afternoon and evening. We were worried it might be a little sad and lonely without any family around this year (usually Ethan’s parents fly in for the weekend), but it ended up being simply wonderful, emphasis on the “simply” and the “ful”.
Here are some things I’m thankful for: jersey sheets and flannel pajamas; movies like Love Actually, which restore not only your faith in human beings but your faith in the film industry to use its power for good rather than evil (and the website is just adorable!); long long weekends; my red duck-head umbrella named Dorothy; the Michael Franti and Spearhead CD from Ethan’s brother that can be played on a continuous loop for hours and hours; Wild Sweet Orange Tazo tea; the mouse I connected to the laptop so I can avoid permanently damaging the nerves in my wrists by using the postage-stamp-sized touchpad; scented candles; free flight passes on Southwest Airlines; and brunch (Ethan took me here on Sunday because he said I’d been “so great” this weekend–read: I facilitated his studying for sixteen hours a day and barely complained that I was bored and lonely and sick of turkey).
Here are some photos from the big day itself, which will no longer be called Turkey Day in our household, but Butter Day, since that sinful delight was the surprise ingredient of honor that afternoon: it was mashed into the potatoes, melted into the stuffing, swirled into the rice, patted into the pie crust, and slathered onto the turkey. The only thing the butter didn’t do was melt itself down and pour itself into a shot glass or a syringe.
Butter waiting backstage to steal the show. (Yes, those are fingerprints on the right.)
Butter taking a pre-meal dip in the jacuzzi:
This is the only decent picture of me taken that day, and I must say my hair was behaving itself rather nicely at the moment, all smooth and swoopy:
That would be my pie (or cheese, if you must) in the foreground kicking booty and taking names shortly before falling victim to an unlucky streak that almost cost me the title:
Le chef. This man can sweet-talk cranberries out of a can like it ain’t nobody’s bidness:
The spread:
My first, second, third, and fourth helpings. WARNING: This photo may be hazardous to your health.
These are the flowers Ethan bought me. You can’t tell in this shot, but the stems are purple. Cool. Festive.
