Love from Grandma

Tomorrow is the dreaded 2-5 for me. Not that I'm really dreading it. I'm actually pretty excited about the gift (kind of to myself) and dinner we have planned but more on that later.

On a related note, I thought I would share the card I received from my darling Grandma Baker. 

I do believe this is the only time I have ever been scolded by my grandmother. Before this, all I can remember is Fruity Pebbles and Riesen candy.

I am truly sorry though about the delay in posts. It has been a busy few weeks filled with flying, wedding cakes, 12-hr shifts and weird medical testing. I really need to work on fitting little posts into my suddenly hectic schedule. In the meantime...I Love You Grandma!

View from the Top

Last week we had some wonderful semi-visitors: the Reindl parents!

I say "semi-visitors" only because they actually stayed at a golf resort 1.5 hrs out of the city. It worked out nicely with us visiting them for a few days near the resort then they came up to Saint Louis for a few days of tourism. We hit up some well-known eateries, roamed through the botanical gardens on my day off and finally, after nearly 8 months living in St Louis, we made it up to the Gateway Arch.

Check out the (dirty) view of Busch stadium and downtown St Louis for yourself.

A List (cause I'm way behind)

1. Some of you may have gathered through family or even facebook that I am finally employed. It was a quick development; I dropped off a resume on a Friday, went in for an interview the following Wednesday, a kitchen interview the next day (Thursday) and on Saturday morning, I started my first day of work. I am doing something similar to my stint at CoCo's in Pittsburgh, working half in the front and half in the kitchen and while my ideal would have been to only bake, I do love my interactions with the customers. And it's a job! And I am enjoying it! Both the people (co-workers, employers, and customers) and the baked goods (all from scratch) have been wonderful to work with so far. I am really, very happy to be employed again after such a long break (1.5 years...gasp!).

2. Since beginning my job, we have had some serious issues with kitten separation anxiety. Case in point:

 And

3. A few projects were completed before I went back to work.

 My dad made me this stool when I was little and it has been used and abused, broken, fixed, glued and it was desperately in need of a new paint job. I'm loving the happy French blue color. 

 I'm realizing now that I have a thing for brightly colored furniture. I finished the orange weeks ago but it sat unused because we had no hardware for it. That is, until I came home from work to find that Michael had made handles from spare chair parts and a cork (on the door, which still needs to be messed with, but it works!).

And there it is with the matching wine rack and the pile of wine bottles we've been saving for this year's batch of wine.

4. Apparently, Kathy Lee's stylist and I are on the same wavelength. Thanks to my wonderful m-i-l Ginny for pointing out the match.

As a reminder, here's my dress from Megan and Mike's wonderful wedding.

 And here is Kathy Lee wearing my dress the very next week. At least I wore it first. And, I bet she didn't find hers on the Banana Republic Clearance rack with an extra 40% off!

5. After many failed attempts, I managed to remember that I can make a good baguette. The downside to that is that Michael will no longer accept Trader Joe's baguettes for his lunches.

5. We had a great visit with our friends from France, Megan and Joe last week. I'm hoping to post a more significant post on this later but they were in town for a poetry reading that Joe was the star of and despite having many friends to visit here (they lived in St. Louis before moving to France), they took an evening to share with us one of their favorite hole-in-the-wall pizza joints that I am sure will be come part of the Friday night rotation.

6. We've been tapping into our German roots lately with spätzel two nights in one week!

7. As a celebratory dinner this past weekend, Michael made me a very, very happy girl by buying two yummy lobsters so we could have my favorite meal of all time, lobster bake. Yummm!