What's Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  I hope you're all having a great week so far.  Mine has actually been amazingly good!  I guess I was due for a good week after so many bad weeks, right?  And I'm sure having a positive attitude will help me continue to have a good week.

My biggest news this week is that I got a new smart phone!  Well, ok, let's be honest here.  I got my very first smart phone!  Yes, you heard me right; a 33 year old middle class American woman just got her first smart phone.  Until now, I've had an ancient flip phone.  Even my mom got a smart phone before me!  Let's just say I'm extremely frugal and that's why it's taken so long.  I got a Google Pixel 2 which has an amazing camera, and that's where all of the pictures are coming from this week.

So let's start with what's up with my garden.  I did the last thing with my garden for the year; I planted my garlic.  I've been growing this garlic for I think 5 years now.  It's a variety called German Extra Hardy, and it's never failed me. 

I've been really getting into a cooking mood lately.  I guess that's just what colder weather does, it makes me think of hearty stews and pies and delicious smells.  I've been rummaging through my old Taste of Home magazines looking for good cabbage recipes, since I have about 30 pounds to use.  One of the cool things I made the other day was Blueberry Cranberry Sauce.

It's a pretty purple sauce with mild blueberry notes that mellow out the cranberry twang.  Since my hubby and I don't eat sugar, I used a mixture of stevia, xylitol, and erythritol to make it taste almost like the real thing. 

The city went around and collected the leaves off the streets yesterday, using their amazing crazy leaf picker upper machine.

It works like an escalator, and shoots them off the back into a dump truck that's driving backwards behind it.  It's pretty amazing to watch.

Ironically though, we hot a heavy frost last night that made all of the remaining leaves fall.

I don't really mind so much.  We usually rake our leaves and put them into our compost pile out back.  It's just hilarious timing.

I got some nice pictures of the frost, too.

Nature sure is pretty, isn't it?

And here's some gratuitous cat pictures.  Spices got herself tangled up in some charge cords, and Sunshine is just being a cutie.

I'm still working on the Christmas plastic canvas boxes.  Unfortunately, it's going slower than I wanted and it may not get put up into my shop until next week.  I really want to get some Christmas patterns out before the holiday is over.

And this is how my work area usually looks when I'm working on a project.  Pretty terrible, right?  I'm like a messy kid.  I may have a craft room, but the crafts usually move all over the house.

And a little side note; Annie's is selling a couple more of my patterns!  You can check them out by clicking the links below.  I'm not an affiliate, but if you buy the patterns I will receive a royalty (or you can buy directly from my Etsy and I'll receive all of the money from the sale).

Well, that's all for now!  I hope you all have an amazing week.  I'm going to enjoy this beautiful sunny day we're having because it's supposed to start snowing on Friday!