ayenforcraft: a photojourney through my day

Saturday was a wonderful day.

It started out with our annual Thanksgiving get together:

[we're symmetrical! I'm wearing striped mitten socks!]

Every year since college started, those of us in the area get together the Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend. I love this tradition. We invade Emily's house with food and crafts and games and lots of laughter and fun. I love that we're still close, even after so many years. Having friends you've known for nearly half your life, who have known various iterations of "you" is something quite special in today's America where things are so fluid and people pick up and move all the time. Its like coming home.

We're all starting to head down different paths, something which will only become more pronounced with time, but fundamentally I think we still share a lot. We've grown in different directions but I think we're also still growing together in the same direction.

Mmm ... food, glorious food. Isn't Emily's table lovely? We had it potluck style, as usual. I've been on my annual pumpkin rampage so I made some pumpkin nut bread with walnuts and dried cranberries [I'm always improvising recipes, much to my mom's dismay]

There was quite a bit of crafting ...

I brought some lap blankets for people to help me tie. I wound up making them after all. So these are now brought to you by the letters A, M, J, E and E! We're also knitters and crocheters and cross-stitchers, but I think I've been obsessed with these lap blankets a bit. Probably because I'm always freezing in winter, I hate to think of other people freezing, as well, especially people who can't get up and go for a walk to warm up like I often do.

There was much laughter ...

And plenty of conversation ...

plenty of concentration necessary as we battled our way through Trivial Pursuit ...

Erg, well, sometimes plenty of concentration, sometimes we were rather distracted by simultaneous crafting. Don't you love Rachel's socks? I think they're adorable. I think I have a thing for striped socks.

The edition, by the way, came out before we were born, which didn't help things much.

Some memorables:

"Let's do drugs."

"Would they do that to us?" "YES."

"Trivial Pursuit for Dummies."

"Did I tell you that I'm really good at sports?"

"His mother."

"The Plains of Abraham."

"Oh. Louisiana doesn't touch Mexico."

"Let's strategize here. Let's just name English meadows."

And of course ...

"It's not stalking if it's Facebook."

"Who's Jeff?"

In the late afternoon I came home to some lovely mail. No pictures now because this is already pretty photo-heavy and I'm being kinda lazy. Some great cards from here and here, and a handwritten letter from Neha! I love handwritten notes, writing them and receiving them. They're such a rarity in today's busybusy world, but they're such a personal little touch that I love slipping one into the mail.

Then in the evening I channeled Queen Amidala while in attendance at my uncle's surprise birthday party. Michael called me a walking anachronism:

A closer shot of the hat and Queen Amidala collar:

It's much more StarWars-esque in person. Excuse the bit of narcissism. But anyways, the surprise party! Lots of fun and great food, great atmosphere, great location. Stacey did a really good job with the planning and decorations. Too bad I don't have a copy of the card to show, it was adorable the way she put it together! And I think uncle was pretty surprised. Happy birthday, uncle! Welcome to the next half of the century!