It's The Small Things

When does the "holiday season" officially begin? I used to think it was with Thanksgiving, but this year it seems to have started with the first weekend in November for us. We have so many things and so many people to be thankful for and I guess November is just the month to be reminded of how lucky we truly are.

Today I'm going to share with you a few of the "little" things that made me especially happy this past week.

Remember this adorable wine bottle that Jacqueline brought with her from Iowa? It's called Penitentiary Red and it came with cute little handcuffs, but that wasn't even the best part. When we opened it up the cork popped out with the word GUILTY stamped on it. I just love little unexpected touches like that.

Something else unexpected happened while I was paying for my groceries at the Fresh Market.

The friendly man bagging my purchases handed me this perfect pink rose. OK, so he was passing them out to all of the customers that day, but it sure did make me feel special, and it just gave me one more reason to LOVE that store.

I also found these "fall like" tulips on sale at Trader Joe's. Can tulips be "fall like". I always think of them as spring flowers, but the yellow and red caught my eye not to mention the super cheap price. How does that store make any money?

I got out my tiny turkey candle holders from William-Sonoma. My friend Angela and I bought these together years ago and I just adore them.

They were just the right thing to go on the table last night when my cousin Edward came for dinner. He lives outside of Atlanta with his wife and girls and was in Louisville working on a book project. We haven't seen him in a few years, so it was nice to have a chance to catch up.

He brought us this sweet little box of Bourbon Truffles. I'm going to save them for a special occasion.

I have to say that dinner turned out to be quite yummy. I stuck with an autumn theme: Roasted Rosemary Pork Loin, Individual Sweet Potato Casseroles, Wild Rice Salad and of course Rosemary and Sea Salt Dinner Rolls from the Fresh Market. For desert I was going to serve Apple Turnovers with Vanilla Ice Cream, but we were all too full to enjoy them so we just had a cup of coffee instead. I forgot to take any pictures but I will go ahead and post some of the recipes for you just in case you need to whip up an Autumn feast for the people that you care about.

Finally, and I know you are getting tired of hearing about Trader Joe's, but these are my two favorite finds from this week. The Sweet and Spicy Pecans are great right out of the bag, but even better in the wild rice salad and sweet potatoes that I mentioned above. The Triple Ginger Snaps are just too good for words. I am a Ginger Snap kind of girl and all I can say is that these little cookies make me very happy.

I hope that you too are appreciating "the little things" this weekend.

Sally