#24

Christmas Cards! (Anne these are majorly cute. Very creative!)

#23

Puzzles. There's no excuse in the world to ever do these when the weather is nice outside. But when it's cold, start a (fake) fire, turn on some 1950s satellite radio, and lose your self in a 1000 piece hypnosis.

#22

The Christmas tree at Daley Plaza. Even though this year, relatively speaking, it's a bit of a Charlie Brown tree. Lean times in the Windy City.

#21

Christkindlmarket!

#20

Keeping awake after turkey by teaching little ones to love the wii.

#19

Sarah H. coming to town to make a turkey with us!

#18

Putting George in his Christmas outfit

#17

Gifts that show up on the front porch from Allstate. Spouses aren't invited to the holiday party this year. Chocolate is way better than corporate chit-chat. At least they know that.

#16

How stark can be a thing of beauty.

#15

The full and content afterglow from a yummy early thanksgiving dinner. I don't have a picture of that for you. Sorry.

#14

Nutmeg.

#13

'Excellent television' marathons during drizzly days.

#12

Full permission to wear crazy fleecy things.

#12

Mashed sweet potatoes.

#11

That the absence of foliage makes deer both become more visible and blend in more. It's trippy.

#10

Fires in the fireplace.

#9

Football.

(Now, what I really mean here is that I like the (non-blaring) sound of football playing in the distance while I do something else like make cookies or decoupage a candle holder. It's a wonderful homey fall sound that I grew up with. Now that I am grown up and married to a man who loves actually watching the games more than even eating reese's peanut butter cups, I am learning to like the sound from front and center and am even starting to understand what the sound means.) (Oh! And, Go Huskers!)

#8

Sweaters.

#7

Steaming hot coffee. (Don't tell tea, but my love for coffee runs deeper.)

#6

The sun's hue.

#5

Hot tea.

#4

Little feathered friends with big appetites.

#3

The smell of dried leaves.

#2

Indian summers.

#1

I'm kind of burnt out on this blog. And the cooling of the weather puts me in a real funk (though today was beautiful in Chicago). Thanks to some inspiration from LK...her reminder of my love for lists, especially as defense mechanisms, I will take the next while to use this piece of cyberspace as a place to list the things I like about cold weather/this time of year. This is obviously just a way to kid myself.

#1 Co Co Wheats!

Co Co wheats, Co Co wheats can't be beat.
It's the creamy hot cereal with the co co treat.
To be big and strong, have lots of fun,
Eat Co Co Wheats everyone!

(Ask for yummy Co Co Wheats today!)

Here's a song from the cd that I can't turn off. I take it with me from the car to the house and from the house back to the car again. I can't part with it. It's Monsters of Folk. M. ward is in this band. Yep. I'm so predictable.

El Sacapuntas

Current favorite Spanish vocab word.

Birdhouse in My Soul

Guess how many leaves we've raked up in the last 40 hours.  Hella many!