10.21.07 - rejected too-small sketchbooks
Yesterday I swore never to buy another small sketchbook again.
These are my three unfinished undersized sketchbooks. The pattern is always the same. I finish up a regular 9" x 12" one, and I think "ooh, I should get a smaller sketchbook, because it's more portable!" and I do, and then I draw less and less because the page size is too small (and I don't wind up taking them around with me), until I finally give up halfway (or less) through the book and buy a big one again.
Dinner last night was perfect fall yum: Sean made butternut squash soup and fresh rolls, and I made apple pie. Man, we make a good team. The vodka pie crust trick worked amazingly well! I had my doubts: at first the dough was almost too sticky to handle, but after an hour and a half in the fridge it was perfect for rolling out, it was so easy! And sure enough, the alcohol evaporated without creating more gluten, so the crust wound up light and flaky. I'm using this trick from now on! (I learned this trick from the current issue of Cook's Illustrated, which is worth the cover price for the pie crust recipe alone.)
In other exciting news, Otto is finally starting to speak English (he's been babbling for a long time, but nothing we could make heads or tails of). Here's a list of his current words:
hi (or "hi there")
bye (or "bye-bye")
dada
mama (and he just added "mom")
uh-oh
light
yeah
that
car
train
hotdog
cheese
gameboy ("aimboy")
good night
where
(I might be forgetting some... Sean, please help me out if I am!)