for the past few days i've been at my other home, in illinois, spending time with family and friends, playing music, and enjoying some culinary delights that just don't exist in my little town. and i don't know what i was thinking planning so much time on farms and in little towns during my vacation from the farm, but i did just that and i enjoyed it so.

mum and i went apple picking. we snuck into the honey crisp row when we should have been picking liberties, we ate apple cider donuts, and we pet goats and cows and alpacas. it was the awkward apple picking temperature of 80 degrees out, but it was delightful. the next day, jaclyn, katie, and i went to the adorable downtown area of long grove for their apple fest. more apple cider donuts, chocolate covered grapes (weird but good!), a pond-side lunch, and a caramel apple macaron. yum.

my one bit of time in the city was spent at the super cute hideout, a quaint house hidden in an industrial area of lincoln park, playing with san fermin. it was so much funnnn!! their music is such a head-boppy, sing-along, get nostalgic type of good. i brought the band 'sun' sick cakes (named after the song "sonsick"): they were fiery like the sun-- chili chocolate cake with saffron chili cream cheese frosting.

other highlights: eating good blue cheese (i had forgotten the pleasures of that), clearing out the trader joe's nut aisle, and picking up some cacao nibs, dukkah, and pumpkin spice coffee to bring back to north dakota.

also: mum flexed her mother skills and forced a bunch of really awesome winter clothing on me in preparation for the crazy weather that is to come. there is snow in the forecast for saturday!

-yeh!!!

as much as i do love the countryside, holy crap, was it difficult to return to minnesota after 10 wild and stimulating days in israel. it was like coming home from camp... i got that weird feeling when i woke up for breakfast and realized i couldn't sit with my 12 new best friends to discuss the juicy gossip from the previous night.

but eggboy was such a patient pat! he let me talk his ear off allll about my new friends and my new favorite foods. he loves israeli salad now.

and in a further effort to cheer me up, he brought me to the omgsupercute lakeside town of bemidji! we visited the chocolate shop for salted caramel fudge and frosted cake saltwater taffy, i had yummy fluffy wild rice pancakes at the adorable minnesota nice cafe, and then we took inappropriate photos with the paul bunyan statue that made eggboy think i was going to get arrested.

hehehehe. we had lots of fun! i do love a good small town.

-yeh!

p.s. update on our big fat move (!!!): in a long story of where exactly are we going to live when we first move out to the farm ?!?!?1? eggboy and i have found a kickbutt loft in the teensy adorable downtown area that is a few minutes from his farm. and it's over the state border. in north dakota. wtf!

"hey molly-of-one-year-ago, you're moving to north dakota."

"HAHAHAHAHA good one but that's NNNNEVUR HAPPENING."