Marvelous Monday: Week 38

This week is starting out in a marvelous way, especially because I haven't had to google "my dog ate part of a baseball" yet in Week 38.  Sigh. Wish is fine. I don't know how we're going to make our home baseball-free, but it's going to happen.

Anyway, here are five more marvelous tidbits:

1) Josh and I have stocked up on a bunch of soup staples, and as I was browsing recipes over the weekend, I realized I had every ingredient except sweet potatoes already on hand for a crockpot soup recipe. (I love when that happens, mostly because I'm not too many years removed from having to go to the store and buy every single ingredient for a recipe whenever I wanted to cook.) Eight hours later: Jamaican Pumpkin Soup! Like the author says, it is really good with a little drizzle of whipping cream.

Other recipes last week: the black bean dip from yesterday, which I will definitely make for parties (or for myself) many times in the future, and another pumpkin-black bean soup. This week I will work on the Moosewood vegetarian chili that we love. (We eat a lot of soup in the fall.)

Also, can you tell I am trying to go to the grocery store only once this week?

2) Reading report: I am wrapping up The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. She writes about her family's experience, from their journey from Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand to arriving in the United States (St. Paul, actually) several years later. The Twin Cities has the second-highest Hmong population in the U.S., and I wish I had read this book a long time ago, because I am learning so much. I recommend it to anyone.

Next up: Gone Girl is waiting for me at the library!

3) There are exciting things coming up this week: Twin Cities Marathon prep with my committee, dinner with a friend, a possible trip to a museum and another race this weekend. Also, all of this is happening with the backdrop of fall, which I love!

4) There's a lot that will happen between now and Halloween (going to Montreal, running a marathon, etc.), but the seasonal switch has me considering what I might do for Halloween: for the Gray Ghost 5K, for the home, and, um, for the dog.

5) After a long time resisting it, I have officially leapt onto the Greek yogurt bandwagon. (Just what you were coming to Miles and Laurel to read, right?)  I love Chobani with fruit! I love the protein! That's all.

What is marvelous about today for you, Reader? What are you reading and cooking? Can you predict when I'll settle down about fall's arrival?