Cheese Please…: Heidi's Family Apple Sauce and My Weekend

I've had a great weekend. I think it's partly due to the fact that I'm feeling happier and more at ease here in Madison, and well, it's the weekend and I always feel better on the weekend. Plus, I did some fun stuff which always cheers me up.

Yesterday I went shopping with friends Kathryn and Courtney from Mark's department. They picked me up at 10 in the morning and we drove out to EastTowne Mall which is only 3 miles from my place. It felt really good to pall around with the girls and shop. We first went to The Boston Store, new to me since we don't have 'em in Seattle, and bought some Cuddle Duds, which Kathryn raves about. Basically, they're nice long underwear and keep you very warm. I got about three pairs and have been wearing them all day today, it was very good timing because it's been snowy and 30 deg.

Then we had lunch and walked around the mall. We tried on clothes, mostly sweaters because anything else doesn't really make sense right now, and went into Victoria's Secret and talked about how we shouldn't buy any more shoes. Then after being burned out on the mall, which happens very easily for me, we went to the surrounding strip mall to an Old Navy. I didn't get anything for myself, but got Mark a sweater. All in all, I was really happy to hang out with the girls and be social. I'm also glad we weren't at a bar for once and could hang out during the day, I feel like you can really see someones personality better when your not partying or in a big group. Also, it was nice to have girl time, something which I haven't had much of since moving here, being far away from all my good girlfriends has been challenging in this way.

Later that night Mark and I made dinner, an amazing pizza we did ourselves, and we watched a movie on the FIXED TV! Yeah!! All Mark had to do was open up the TV and jot down the dimensions of the broken glass, then the glass shop down the street cut a new mirror the proper size. Then Mark picked it up and installed it into the TV, where the broken one had been, and it's as good as new. The nice thing is we didn't have to pay the 250.00 to the TV repair place for labor. Mark just did it himself and it was easy. Now that the TV was fixed we decided to celebrate by watching a movie I have been wanting to see for a few months now, Serenity. It's a movie made by Joss Whedon, its an extension of his infamous television show Firefly, which I watched this summer with Mark and really enjoyed. Great movie, but if you are gonna see it, I suggest seeing the TV series first.

Then, today I made applesauce from Heidi's family recipe and it turned out great. I was really surprised how easy it was to make, I just used my apple peeler which actually cut and cored the apples too and then threw them into a pot with a cup of water and let them simmer down until the they became saucy. I added lots of cinnamon, brown sugar, and apple pie spice at the end and now it's cooling in the fridge. I took some pictures of my process.