{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

{pretty}

It certainly doesn't feel like fall here -- today it hit 91 by our house, and that's with the ocean breeze to cool us off! I am missing New England autumn for sure, and making up for it by cooking up pumpkin baked goods whenever the temperature drops low enough for me to turn on the oven. (We had a few cooler days last week, and were as happy as could be!) 

This was our Wednesday night dinner, which turned out pretty special thanks to some homemade pasta from the freezer. I'd made it a few weeks before, but only needed half the pasta that night. I cut the rest into squares (which is a real shape, it turns out: fazzoletti, though I really was just tired of cutting it any smaller than that), froze it between layers of parchment paper, then transferred it to a freezer bag.

The other night, then, I just had to toss it in a pot of boiling water, then throw it into my cast iron skillet along with some roasted butternut squash (roasted earlier in the day when it wasn't as hot), bacon, parmesan, fried sage, and almonds. Even my husband thought it was delicious, and he doesn't even like squash.

It tasted just exactly like fall.

{happy}

We take Trash Day very seriously in this house. It recently occurred to me that we might have a much better view from the guest room upstairs than we did from downstairs, and boy, was I right.

{funny}

I got this little truck for Pippo secondhand  this summer. It's remarkably ugly and has all sorts of dumb buttons on it (though none of them work). But it has four wheels, a handle, and a compartment under the seat for his sippy cup. Goodness, does he love it.

He has logged many, many miles on his little truck, and has earned something of a reputation in the neighborhood for both his speed and his dedication to what we refer to as "trucking".

(Some might call it obsession.)

{real}

Unfortunately, all those miles have taken their toll. This is the pair of shoes he hadn't grown out of yet...

They're absolutely falling apart, thanks to holes worn right through the toes from all that trucking.

For some reason I have the hardest time finding shoes for this boy. I don't know what my problem is. But it's time to look again!