Devil-May-Care in Long Underwear

I am loving the beautiful South Carolina fall weather.  It's dipped down into the 50s a few days, but for the most part, every day is sunny and in the upper 60s.  Perfect.  And oh, the trees around our house!

This is the view from my home office window.  It is positively distracting!

The cooler night temps have brought one of our big camellia trees into bloom. 

Let the winter bouquets commence!

The cats, of course, are enjoying the sun...

...and I love seeing the turkeys every day!

I've been baking a lot.  I took a basic scone recipe, added cinnamon chips (of course) and almonds, and made "sconelettes".  YUM!

I also found my go-to pumpkin cupcake recipe, through a tasty trial-and-error process.

I used gold cupcake wrappers and gold sanding sugar in a kind of fall theme.

Here's the recipe.  The cupcakes are amazing - tender, flavorful, spicy.  Of course, I added cinnamon chips, which totally took them over the top.  And the cream cheese buttercream?  Oh yeah.

I started a new knitting project, too - a pair of German-style knee socks that I'm going to wear over tights this winter.

The calf shaping is a little complex, and so is the intricately cabled design, but much of the sock is plain stockinette, so it's going rather quickly.  Hooray! 

This warm-ish weather is nice, but I've still been suffering from the chills quite a bit.  I'm 45 pounds down from last winter and 95 down total from 2 winters ago, and I am positively shivering at 65 degrees.  I've been worried about upcoming trips to colder climates, and also the inevitable slide into freezing weather here.  But thanks to a friend's suggestion, I found these today:

Super warm non-bulky layers to wear under sweaters and jeans!  I'm so excited.  I am going to be able to leave the house again!  :)

Hope you're keeping warm.  Have a great week!