Ever since I began hanging out with Elizabeth I seem to be craving a daily latte.

So I dug out our espresso machine from the back of the pantry (where it’s been living since we moved here) and put it to work. I picked up some white chocolate truffle coffee at Southern Season and along with this milk frother, I can make myself a mean latte. Of course, I used to work in a Barnes & Noble cafe way back when, but I think anyone can do this with the right equipment. :)

This evening we spent some time looking at works by Monet and others at the North Carolina Museum of Art. We prefer to go to these special exhibitions on Member Mondays when it’s not nearly as crowded.

While the Impressionism movement is not my favorite (we saw several dozen works by Monet last year), I can appreciate the style. I had two favorites. “The End of the Working Day” by Breton was incredible in person. The canvas is massive and the intense light of the sun and detailed shade was magnificent. This photo, frankly, doesn’t do it justice.

My other favorite was “On the Heights” by Curran. The play of light and darks in the girl’s faces is lovely and I really like the paint strokes in the sky.

Between the hectic nature of the last few weeks and the late Autumn (we still have the majority of the leaves ON the trees), Thanksgiving and Christmas managed to sneak up on us this year. But this afternoon we were working on some Christmas plans so I turned on our Christmas music collection, beginning with the same albums as last year. According to our iTunes playlist we could listen to 4.3 days of continuous Christmas music without a direct repeat… I don’t think we’ll be testing that, but it is reassuring to know it’s possible.

Since we’ll be in NC till December 21st or so we are going to get a tree this year, probably next Sunday after our Thanksgiving travels. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I can’t wait!

It was a beautiful fall day, so we took Riesling to the dog park. She usually starts out running along the fence line:

After she’s burned a bit of energy we move her to the small dog area, where she starts out with a search of the perimeter:

Note the black mini schnauzer rapidly approaching Riesling - he’s also a rescue!

After securing the fence line she takes up a spot on the highest point:

When she’s finally tired out she finds us to take her home:

On average, about 45 minutes at the dog park makes for a very happy Riesling!

We used to have a white set of flannel sheets, but as those with white sheets know, they don’t stay fresh looking forever. So we bought a red set several years ago, but they don’t match our very purple bedroom.

I have a bunch of store credit at Bed Bath & Beyond, so I ventured over there yesterday to pick up a flannel sheet set now that it’s hitting the low 40s every night. So I bought an off-white set and when I got home to throw everything in the wash, I noticed that the bag only had one pillowcase, of the two promised on the cardboard insert.

So I traipse back over there this afternoon to exchange the set except the only queen set they have left is stained. So, I just grabbed an extra pillowcase and went home to wash everything.

This story wouldn’t seem to be such a deal until I went to make up the bed and what did I discover? The fitted sheet is a TWIN.

AGHRHGGH!

I give up.

I’m back home in NC from my Oregon trip. Overall, the trip went well, and my flights home were only about an hour behind through Chicago. As you can see from the map below, I got to fly over a good bit of the country:

Not sure of the exact mileage yet, but it looks like I’ll have earned ~5ooo miles for this trip! I had about 2 hours to kill in the Portland terminal yesterday, and overall the airport was a pretty pleasant place. They’ve got free wifi in most of the terminals, a wide concourse, and groups of restaurants/shops (with no sales tax!) between every 4-6 gates. Plus, from the B concourse area you can see Mt. Hood on a clear day:

Of the two AA hubs on this trip, I preferred the layover in Dallas due to the wider variety of food options. Having written that, O’Hare seems to have added a few new options in the H & K concourses (the areas where we usually catch our flights to Raleigh). I especially liked the bagel place serving breakfast all day. It’ll be useful to remember on our post-Thanksgiving flight next week!

When Eric goes out of town I eat fish more often and it’s the only time I am “allowed” to have french onion soup. It, um, stays with me, ahem, anyway…

I am staying up late to pick him up at the airport and after my filling lunch, compliments of the Capital City Club, I wasn’t very hungry until late. I should note that I enjoyed she crab soup and fish and chips for lunch, so I’ve eaten more fish today than I have in weeks.

Pup and I ran some errands and then we stopped for sushi takeout. Riesling was eying me pretty closely but she didn’t get any!

My favorites… a philadelphia roll, freshwater eel and yellowtail nigiri. Not pictured, a hot mug of freshly brewed green tea. Delicious!

Because we live in the South, I was able to harvest some basil (for pesto!) and cherry tomatoes this afternoon. I freeze the pesto so we have plenty through the winter and I munch the tomatoes as a snack.

We haven’t hard a hard freeze yet, so I plan on making one more batch of pesto before Thanksgiving!

I missed the first few days of NaBloShoMo, unfortunately, but I only make the 30 pairs of shoes mark when including about 9 pairs of Old Navy flip-flops. Not terribly exciting.

However, after church yesterday I stopped by DSW to find a pair of black flats that I can wear with my favorite pair of jeans. These jeans happen to be exactly the right length, meaning that any amount of heel makes them look too short. On me of all people.

Shopping at DSW isn’t a slam dunk, sometimes I find a few pairs (and then have to choose one) but most often I find nothing attractive in my size. But, I was in luck because these adorable shoes fit perfectly!

They are very comfortable and they were 50% cheaper than I have found anywhere else online!

I’ve spent a good chunk of today in the air, flying to Oregon for an interview this week. Thankfully I had my Zen media player with me, allowing me to watch several episodes of the Long Way Around, episode 5 of Ken Burns’s Jazz, and listen to some music too. I watched over 6 hours of video on one battery charge… I love my Zen.

Over the next two days I’ll be plenty busy, and I’ll head home on an early afternoon flight on Wednesday. I’m sure my head will be swirling even longer!