Maison Newton: 2012 Autumn Around Maison Newton

I saw this intriguing recipe for Fettucine Alfredo at Love, Pomengranate House, and decided - it was too good to be true. Way too easy!

And so I tried it out for myself Friday night. Guess what? It worked! Perfectly. For myself, I made 1/4th of the full recipe, and it was a just the right size serving portion. I eyeballed the dry fettucine pasta - a double handful and then broke it in half into a pot of boiling water. I will try the chicken recipe next. I can tell you, the Fettucine Alfredo is DELICIOUS! It almost feels like a sin or something to have a recipe this simple and this delicious! Oh my! [Postscript: I discovered that if the heat is not set perfectly, the sauce has a tendency to break, but I learned shortly afterward from watching an episode of America Cooks on PBS that using a pinch or so of cornstarch in the sauce keeps it from breaking, and it works! It took a little experimenting for my small portion of the original recipe, but using a quarter-teaspoon worked for me, sauce stayed intact and did not break even when it cooled. Perfection!]

Except for the Packers managing to lose a won game earlier today, it was a good day around Maison Newton. I changed the "autumnal mantle" somewhat -- added the second owl, added a lovely ceramic pumpkin that held a very nice floral arrangement I received at the office for my recent 10th anniversary there, and added some seasonally colored leaves around my piece of rescued wood from the back yard. Here are some pictures:

I moved the smaller owl to a roost on the candle holder and added the second larger owl. I lit them up last night with votive candles and they looked really beautiful!

I really love this piece of rescued wood from my back yard. The texture, the color, the holes, the splits! Gorgeous. I dressed it up with some (not real) autumn leaves.

Here's the ceramic pumpkin. It adds an appropriate seasonal touch, incorporating Harvest, Hallow'een and Thanksgiving. I've got something in mind to add later on to the mantle as it gets closer to Hallow'een.

This morning, I don't know what prompted me to do it, but I did it. I pulled out an old pair of smaller jeans stashed into a drawer for many many moons, and -- they fit! Whooppee! Actually, they fit around the waist (I'm getting a waist back!!!) and are about an inch loose in the hips and butt!

It was cold here today - the high only got up to 46 degrees F. Brrrr!!! I had to go to the supermarket to pick up some things, so I pulled out the winter jacket I wore to Madrid in January. It looked a little big on me then in photos but now, well, it's now looking baggy. Wow! I've managed to misplace about 15 pounds since going on a healthier eating spree at the beginning of June (before I was diagnosed with my heart problems with extra impetus now to shed excess pounds). Today I hauled extra groceries home from my hike to the Pick 'n Save and I had the idea of weighing myself with everything on including by loaded cloth grocery totes just to see how much I hauled home those 9 blocks (mostly uphill). Guess what -- well, you won't so I'll tell you -- I was lugging 28 extra pounds from what I weighed in my PJs first thing when I got up this morning. WOW! I knew I was pushing it adding those extra few things to my cart but still, I had no idea. No wonder I was slightly out of breath by the time I hit the top of the hill. Whew!

Also had excellent news about the upcoming Hales Corners Chess Challenge XVI (October 20, 2012). The most chess femmes we ever had play in an event was eleven, in Challenge IX; in Challenge XV in April, 2012 we had eight. Early registrations for Challenge XVI have nine chess femmes already, so I'm hoping for twelve or thirteen chess femmes! That would be absolutely wonderful. Chess and getting more females to play it is a passion.

I put this together, hope you enjoy!