Round-up!

Reading - What is the What - Dave Eggers. There's not a whole lot to say about this besides how incredible it is and how you should rush out and get it even if you can't stand Dave Eggers and how it will make you cry and get really angry and still not be able to put it down and then finally be exhausted have to put it down for a month but then not be able to pick it back up because you know it will first break your heart some more and then end and you won't be be able to read it any more so you keep putting off finishing the book. So, really, not a whole lot to say about it.

Watching - I know it is full of, as someone put it, "overly contrived eccentricity", but I am loving Pushing Daisies this season. I could take it or leave it last season but it just keeps getting better, which makes its cancellation even more sad. I totally want Olive's nun outfit. Also, I am completely in love with Dogtown on the National Geographic channel. Our shelter directors have spent their vacations working out at Best Friends and they say it is just as wonderful as it looks. I generally end up crying at the end of every episode. The injured dog is now healthy! The crazy dog is now under control! The vet solved the medical mystery and the dog can now live a happy life!

Drying - apples by the bag-full. I made some of the famous Clayton family dried apple stack cake for a party last week and I am preparing to make another one in Florida so I have been processing apples for a good week now. I've only sliced a finger open twice with the mandolin so I figure I'm doing pretty good.

Loving - the Christmas tree lot at a local Methodist church. I've bought my tree there for five(!) years now and I could not love these people more. There are always old men out in the cold ready to haul trees, operate chainsaws, and secure my tree in the trunk of my car. They are really just the kindest people and would make me inclined to go to church if I weren't already of the church-going sort.