Here are some of the things I hope to accomplish this weekend:

• Paint my nails. (I took off the old polish last week, to pave the way.)
• Cook the quince. (I bought more on Thursday to accommodate trying a couple more recipes.)
• Finish my book. (I just have a few chapters to go.)
• Spend several hours outside in the sunshine on Saturday (and again on Sunday if there is any).
• Dig up the potatoes from the garden and pick any ripe peppers.
• Write a coffeeneuring blog post.
• Finish some work. (I left a little early to get to dinner at some friends’ tonight.)
• Mop the bathroom and kitchen floors and return the bathroom cart to its rightful location.
• Assess my Christmas card situation. (I can’t remember what I have left over from last year and therefore if I need to buy more than I have.)
• Buy parsnips at the market for Rudi’s Thanskgiving dish.

What’s on your agenda this weekend?

Things I’m hoping to get around to this weekend:

• Check out an alpaca festival.
• Go for a bike ride or two.
• Shop at the farmers market.
• Start a new book (or, rather, re-start it).
• Finish a knitting project.
• Cook quince.
• Do laundry.
• String a new strand of lights around the living room.
• Visit the garden.
• Watch a movie.
• Mop the kitchen and bathroom floors.
• Paint my nails.

Today’s Ten on Tuesday topic is Collections I’ve Had over the Years.

To my surprise, I was able to hit the mark without having to resort to collections wholly in storage.

1. Books. I dream of the day when I live someplace with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and of the day I’ll be reunited with the books stored in my parents’ attic.
2. Music. This is an inherited hobby, as my parents (and my dad, in particular) have an extensive collection of records, tapes, and cds. Rudi also collects music, so it’s one of the first things you notice in our apartment. (No, there’s not really an order to any of it.)
3. Yarn. For such a new collection, it has grown vigorously.
4. Related: Hand-knit socks.
5. Nail polish. (If I call it a collection, will that make Rudi less irritated about the bottles that fall out of the bathroom cabinet when he’s hunting for something in there?)
6. Plastic Smurf figurines (of the ’80s version, rather than the ’10s film version). There is also an extensive collection of glass/ceramic (non-Smurf) figurines also in storage at my parents’ house.
7. Christmas ornaments. I’ve bought them as souvenirs while traveling. I’ve inherited/stolen them from family collections. I’ve made them. I’ve received them as gifts.
8. Stickers. I like to add them to real mail I’m sending out.
9. Jam. Another thing that tends to return from travels (and trips to the farmers market). Also another thing I have in common with my parents.
10. Photos. Mostly they aren’t displayed, but I’d really like to rectify that.

The weekend included:

• Pumpkin Fest (clearly the highlight)
• Reading
• Hanging out at coffeehouses
• Shopping at the farmers market
• A short bike ride
• Knitting
• Working at the garden (I planted some cold weather seeds with hope, moved around some mache, and yanked all but one of the tomato plants)
• Cooking with Rudi
• Listening to a final episode of Car Talk

How was your weekend?

Early in the fall, Rudi began buying pumpkin beers, eager to try those he encountered. He mentioned this to our friends John and Nicole, and John expressed interest in trading a few from his collection for some in Rudi’s, and I suggested they should do have a tasting evening.

Somehow this grew into much more.

While we were on vacation, Rudi hunted high and low for new pumpkin beers, and by the time we returned home, we had a total of 19. John had another seven.

Clearly they were going to need more people than just the two of them to drink them all. (Nicole is not a fan of pumpkin beer, and I’m not a fan of beer, period.)

I ran into John and Nicole a couple weeks ago and suggested we expand beyond beer and make it a whole pumpkin-themed evening, with food focused on squash, as well, which she and I would enjoy, too. They agreed and Pumpkin Fest 2014 was scheduled.

I bought a ton of winter squash in the last week. There were canned varieties, as well as the actual thick-skinned varieties—delicata, butternut, carnival, longnecked, blue hubbard, and, of course, pumpkin (two kinds). Clearly, scale is not my strong suit.

Our plans were grandiose, but got scaled back as today went on. John and Nicole are dog-sitting, so offered to host (a total mitzvah), so we were just responsible for bringing a couple dishes (preferably vegan, so Nicole could try everything) and the beer.

A plan for pumpkin-ale pretzel rolls was tabled after the dough failed to rise sufficiently (old yeast was probably at fault). A pumpkin curry got sidelined. Ingredients for pumpkin juice never made it off my web browser to my shopping list.

We did each manage a dish, though. Rudi made a squash chili, which was tasty and hearty. And I made pumpkin pasties (with dough from here and savory filling inspired by this post). I am inexact, though, so I sort of broke off dough pieces that looked like they’d be the right size and rolled them out to ovalish shapes and just squeezed the edges together instead of crimping. The filling had maple syrup added to it, I subbed soy sauce for the amino acid, and I mashed the pumpkin instead of cubing it (it was really hot and I didn’t want to touch it any longer than necessary!). Also, I had no soy milk, so I skipped the wash.

They were very tasty.

Nicole made pumpkin muffins, a quinoa-pumpkin-kale-almond salad, and a pumpkin bread pudding. One guest made a spicy butternut dip, which she served with sweet potato chips, and another brought a pumpkin pie from a local pie shop. Nicole kept me supplied with a Grenadan-inspired drink of lime, pineapple juice, and seltzer water and Earl Grey tea.

Everything was delicious, and judging by the fact the party lasted until past one, I’d say the guests had a good time, too.

The guys definitely had a favorite pumpkin beer, but I can’t remember which one (hopefully Rudi will chime in in the comments with that info). Between everyone, 13 beers were sampled, with an average consumption of a gallon of beer apiece over the 8 hours we lasted.

We brought home tons of pumpkin beer, but Rudi assures me this is not a hardship. He assures me they’ll be gone before our Christmas party in a month.

This weekend included:

• Halloween: carving pumpkins, chasing down trick-or-treaters who overlooked our basement denizen, dozing through Young Frankenstein
• Sleeping in both days
• Washing the whole can of orange hairspray back out of my hair (except for where I dyed my scalp orange (oops))
• Brunch with friends
• Harvesting the last handfuls of tomatoes and the basil plants from the garden before overnight temps dipped into the 30s
• Watching the first season of Black Books again
• Eating delicious vegetarian stew that Rudi put together from the random veg in our fridge
• Consuming more Halloween candy than was wise
• Hitting up the farmers market (highlights include honeynut squash, quince & pear jam, and what may be the last raspberries of the season)
• Biking up to Petworth to check out a new bookstore on its opening weekend and visiting a well-liked coffeehouse on the way home
• Laundry, including the first load of handwashing of the season
• Knitting and reading

How about you? What were you up to this weekend?

Weekending along with Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise.