broke out the guitar again today. playing a few tunes definitely helped me get out of my funk that recent life events put me in. i always encourage clients to express themselves through poetry, writing, art, music, dance, etc so it's only fair i practice what i preach. artistic expression is always a good coping skill and everyone should try it, whether they are professionals or just amateurs (like me). there is no right or wrong when expressing yourself. 

So it's been a pretty tough week/month. Full of fun adventures and also tough work challenges. When I got home from work today I was greeted with wonderful surprises. Flowers from my boyfriend and a wonderful gift from a dear college friend. The timing for these couldn't have been better. I wonderful supportive people in my life. Thank you for the reminder! 

these sweet pups are our neighbors dogs that we tend to kidnap every now and then :) here they are soaking up some rays waiting for us to walk them to the farmers market this past Sunday. 

my boyfriend is always eating apples. this month he has a birthday so every week i have been coming up with small surprises to celebrate. when i found out there was a great orchard not to far north i decided we had to go check it out. here are a few photos from our first apple picking experience this past weekend. he was pleasantly surprised :) 

we have been celebrating jason's birthday a little bit each week this month. a few days ago i bought him an ice cream cone :) 

my wonderful man and i started off this unusually cold fall weekend off right. we were able to attend the Johnny Cash Musical Festival. Pictured here is Rosanne Cash. We also Willie Nelson and The Civil Wars. 

Lately I have been really into cooking. It's turned into a therapeutic release that just kinda snuck up on me. I didn't realize that I had begun to rely on it as a way to calm down after work. It's not that I am outright stressed, but I do stay pretty busy working with the kids all day long. It's been fun the past few weeks being creative in the kitchen. However, all creative ventures do not always turn out as planned. Last night I attempted Saffron-Vanilla Snickerdoodles. 

I really had to squish these guys into a ball because....

this is what dough looks like when you do not have a mixer...very crumbly!!! 

the cookies turned out to be more like biscuits but were so good!!! the ladies at my book club loved them AND gave me a good idea. Serve them with some ice cream and strawberries as a more healthy strawberry shortcake dessert! :)