Pumpkins!

So, there's a pumpkin patch in town hosted by one of the local churches - happens to be the one where Lindsay's mom works. And as everyone knows, pumpkin patches = fun and pretty, so here are some photographs.

There are lots of pumpkins at the pumpkin patch, as one would expect. There are also various pumpkin people tacked to trees - this sounds gruesome, but is in actuality cute. :)

There are normal pumpkins at the patch...

...and knobbly pumpkins.

So, obviously, I had to get one. My pumpkin was cute and round and I drew a face on him. And then Lindsay and I carved him.

Step 1: Stab your pumpkin in the head.

Step 2: Pumpkin guts!

Step 3: Carve tiny bits out of your pumpkin until you get a face.

Step 4: Yay pumpkin! :)

Happy Halloween!

El Mercado

Today, I went with Linds and her mom to El Mercado, a huge market area in downtown San Antonio. So, of course, pictures followed. :)

First, we stopped and had lunch at Mi Tierra, a long-time, very popular Mexican restaurant (it was super-nummy, btw). The inside was very pinata chic.

There were also lots of these neat metallic napkiny cut-out thingies hanging from the ceiling. I used to know what they were called, and then Stephens cut the Spanish department and I forgot the word for them. Yeah, that's how that works.

After eating, we went to the market section, which was indoors and filled with lots of little stalls full of touristy fun things, such as fake fruit hanging from ropes:

And pink cowboy hats with plastic tiaras glued to the front.

There was a wall full of pictures of Frida Kahlo portraits, pictures of Jesus, and some optical illusions (people made of fruit, two mariachi singers that could also be viewed as the profiles of an old man and woman, etc). There was also this picture of the Mona Lisa, made from animals. If you look closely, you'll see her neck is a cat.

Then, of course, there were typical market things, such as colorful baskets and paper streamers:

One of my favorite stands was in a little corner, and it was chock full of overtly gaudy religious icons and suns and moons and basically anything that they could take a Bedazzler to.

There were also tons of Dia de los Muertos figurines in the market, all of which were creepy but cool.

And these spoons:

Also, in the same corner with all the bedazzled fun stuff, there was this little shrine. To.. these people. :)

I hear there's also a farmer's market down there on certain days of the month - I think I'll have to check this out sometime.

Thursday

Mishap number one fixed: comforter is sitting in the dining room in a nice laundry bag, all ready to be moved. Since the cleaners are next to a Starbucks... my comforter smells heavily of coffee. I was hoping for a nice fresh clean smell, but instead.. Starbucks. They give you frappuccinos and launder your bedding.

Packed most of my room today - tomorrow need to tackle the rest of the living room and kitchen, plus paint the bedrooms. Can't put that off any longer.

Yesterday, I went with Linds to Flat Branch to spend the rest of a gift card one of my students gave to me at the end of last school year. There was a ton on it, so we both got some of their house-made beer (Linds got Brown Ale, I got Scottish Ale), a BBQ Chicken pizza for Linds, a turkey and swiss sub for me with nummy mashers, and the best thing of all--the chokes and cheese appetizer.

Best. Thing. Ever. Freshly made artichoke dip with Parmesan cheese, fresh veggies, and a bread bowl.

Also, Pippin is all packed and ready to go.

How to Destroy Curtains in One Easy Step

Right, so, I took the dining room curtains down today. These curtains were red and gauzy, with a heavy panel at the top of red and gold embroidered fabric. They were about three and a half feet wide and seven-ish feet long. Just in case, I checked the cleaning instructions on the tag--sure enough, it said to machine wash them.

Just keep in mind that I'm not one of those anti-dry cleaning people. I just took my comforter to the cleaners today, even though it's machine washable. As if my washing machine is that big.

Anyway, so I washed the curtains. Went and ran a few errands. Just pulled them out of the washer--I didn't even dry them--and this is what they looked like.

Magically, the curtains are now ruched. Linds, who is holding this panel, said it looked like a prom dress.



And check out that amazing hole.

So, of course, we both flounced around in the curtains for a while, pretending we were in Oscar or prom dresses. Maybe--just maybe--curtains should be made a bit better, eh? Yeeeeah, that's what I thought.

Oh, and here's a picture of Pippin just for fun. He was lying in his box-tower, but flipping the picture upside down makes it so much better.

Flying box cat!

Happy Fish

Last trip to China Chef tonight... last time seeing the happy fish in the restaurant. There used to be more, which sometimes worries me. What exactly are they doing with all those dozens of fish that used to be in the tank? Best not to think about that and just enjoy my crab-not-goldfish rangoon.

Kidding, obviously. I'm sure they're totally reputable. :) Besides, greasy Chinese is the best. China Chef, how I will miss thee!

Picture Post

Time for a few pictures... I've been taking photos pretty regularly over the past few weeks, so here's a selection of what I've shot, just to give you an idea of what we've been up to with packing and getting ready for the move. A lot of these are from my phone, so apologies for the not-great quality.

Linds and I have been selling a lot of furniture - one of the things that went this week was the liquor cabinet from the dining room. I think it's been sent off to live in a dorm at one of the Missouri colleges. Also gone is the beige couch, the treadmill, the two fancy dining room chairs, and.. uh.. some other stuff. Soon to go is the washer and dryer.


Then there's the painting... when we all moved in, we painted the bedrooms, and about a year later we painted the living room as well. The living room was orange and blue - now it's mostly white. Ran out of paint on this wall, so there's a nice little border of orange up by the ceiling.


Pippin does not like change. As soon as these bins were stacked up, he ran over and sat on them, then proceeded to meow for a good half an hour. So, to make himself feel better...


...he climbed into the tower of boxes in the living room. Can I hear a woot for free boxes from a UPS employee? I like the plastic bins better, but at $4.00 - $9.00 a pop, they're too expensive to use for all the packing.


Then there's Catinca. She's the stray outside that Linds and I have been feeding. I would love to take her Texas, but she won't let me get close enough to her to pick her up. Also, no help from Second Chance or the other no-kill shelter in town, so I'm going to have to just leave her and hope that she has other food sources.

By the way, for any of you who have been in the apartment before, you probably remember the dent/hole in the hallway bathroom wall - this happened after an unfortunate incident with, of all things, the hardware for the toilet paper holder. Well, amazingly, after three years of staring at the ugliness of a damaged wall, it's fixed! After a lot of goes-on-pink-but-dries-white spackle, a metal spatula, and way more time that the estimated five hours of drying time, the hole is patched and painted and looks almost like it was never there. Good enough for me.