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!

Busy Times

 We had visitors on the Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend. Mary and Michael Neumann stopped by on their way across the country. Mary is a great friend of both Michael and I from our school days back in Wellsboro and we had the pleasure of meeting Michael a few years ago before we were all married. Michael Neumann and I tend to have a love/hate relationship though, depending on where we are in the football season (Steelers fans and Ravens fans generally don't mix come playoff time) ;-)

 We had a great time with them though, enjoying a late dinner on Sunday then getting up early on Monday morning to go downtown. We spent some time in the park around the Arch and played in the flooded Mississippi river. This was our first time seeing the Arch up close. 

 It is pretty impressive I have to admit. 

Mary played paparazzi with my dream camera (Nikon D90) while I took pictures with my Android.

After the Arch we walked back into the city through the amazing CityGarden and eventually we ended up eating lunch at the famous St Louis establishment, Blueberry Hill. 

After the guests left on Memorial day we fired up the grill and made these amazing smoked ribs and a great and refreshing macaroni salad. That night we went to Emily's last Martini Monday (friends that get together every Monday for drinks, a weekly event that was invented by Emily) at an amazing rooftop bar that's not too far from our house. 

 This is Emily. She is sad in this picture because our candle holder in front of her exploded while she and another Emily were over for dinner a few weeks ago. I spent a few days after Memorial day helping her pack up for her move to Boston. She and I became quick friends after we met approximately one month ago. I feel like I've known her for years which makes me very sad that she is gone but also very happy for her that she finally gets to be in a non-long-distance relationship with her boyfriend of three years.

 This is a cowl (raveled here) that I have been knitting in my spare time for the past month or so. It was a lovely (and free!) pattern but it wasn't quite the mindless knitting that I tend to enjoy. The changing pattern every row meant I couldn't space out and watch tv while knitting it. It did turn out well though, and went to Emily before she left. I'm just waiting for a picture of her wearing its so it makes a bit more sense. Unfortunately, since the cowl is made of wool, this might not happen for half a year or so.

 After that the week seemed to fly by and before we knew it Thursday was here along with our first CSA (or farm share, if you prefer)delivery including:

Strawberries (already gone)

Wheat Berries

Iceberg lettuce (1/2 gone)

Free-range eggs (2/3 gone)

Green Garlic (almost gone)

Spring Onions (will be used tonight)

Russian Turnips (will be used tonight)

Red Mustard Greens (one leaf eaten by Pepin)

Romaine Lettuce (mostly gone)

Radishes (1/2 gone)

Broccoli (maybe I'll throw them in tonight too)

We're trying hard to get through everything so the fridge is cleaned out before our next delivery the day before we fly back to PA to finish...

...this cake for my brother Ben and soon-to-be sister-in-law's wedding this weekend. We can't wait to celebrate with family and friends and mostly, I can't wait to see all 9 nieces and nephews!

We didn't sit down for a minute...(cont)

My parents and Grandma set out on the 800+ mile drive on that Friday morning. The original plan was to stay the night along the way and arrive Saturday afternoon. I called it though, I told Michael the night before to expect a phone call saying that they were just going to tough it out and drive straight through on Friday. And the phone call came, happily, meaning one more day with the crew all here.

As you can see, Pep warmed up to the visitors quickly.

I'm not sure what we did on Saturday...I think we were a bit lazy, which was understandable for those who had spent 12.5 hours in the truck on the previous day. We did however manage to get out of the house and to the grocery store to pick up dinner supplies and tulips to adorn the table for our first meal at it.

Everyone is smiling in this picture but really, they are probably cringing from the pain of sitting on seatless chairs since up until this point, we still only had one solid chair that included a seat (Grandma is sitting on that one).

Sunday morning we hopped in the car and headed out MO rt100 towards the wine region. Grandma claims she was falling over from exhaustion in this picture but I think she was just being camera-shy.

Here's the group taking a tour of the wine cellars at Stone Hill Winery in Branson, MO.

And here we are during the post-tour wine-tasting. We cut Grandma off at this point (kidding...kidding).

I don't know what we did up until the afternoon on Monday but when Michael got off of work we met at an unfinished furniture store to fill out our dining room set with some chairs (with seats). We bought four for now and plan to get two more in the near future (although, since our TV just crapped out, I don't know when we'll be able to afford two more chairs).

I'll post more on the finishing process in another post.

Anyway, on Tuesday, we realized that our hometown Pirates were in town playing the Cardinals and get this: the Pirates had won the previous night's game against the Cards!

Sadly, the Cardinals won this game (but lost the next night's), but we did have a great time with a great view. I am anxious to go to another game to cheer for the Cards. I really tried at this game, but I just couldn't bring myself to root against the Pirates.

On Wednesday we loaded up into the truck and drove across the Mississippi river into Illinois to visit the Cahokia Indian Mounds.

Here we are at the top (Grandma didn't bother, there were lots of steps up). Dad and I may look a little tired. This was taken seconds after we raced up the stairs. Unfortunately Michael wasn't able to come along on this trip since he had to work. (boo.)

We may have been miles away but from the (relatively) high viewpoint on top of the mound, we were able to pick out the arch in the distance.

On our way back from the Mounds we stopped off at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

The walls, ceilings, floors, everything is covered with 41.5 million mosaic pieces.

Coincidentially, after posting these photos to facebook I was told by Michael's Aunt Susie that "Many of these were done by the Frei Studio or Ravena (sp) Mosiacs...Joe's (Michael's Uncle Joe, that is) grandfather's/great-grandfather's company."

We have an exciting familial St. Louis claim to fame.

I particularly loved the red on the ceiling in this chapel, made to symbolize the blood of Christ.

And in this chapel we have the Cardinal hats, left to hang until they turn to dust. Literally.

After the day's excitement, Mom and I did more work on the chair we had been caning all week while Pep drank our cane soaking water.

On Thursday, while dad whipped up a balcony planter box for us, Mom, Grandma and I hit up the botanical gardens. There was much more color on this visit.

It looked as if an Easter basket had exploded.

I love tulips.

We visited the local gardening center at the Botanical gardens so I could drool over the raised bed gardens,

And the cold boxes.

And on Friday we hit up the free (with the exception of the 12.50 parking pass, unless you want to walk 1 mile for free parking, which is what we did) Zoo where we had the pleasure of seeing some incredible birds,

A tiger losing his lunch,

This rather large giraffe,

Pairs of penguins,

And an elephant coating himself in mud to stay cool. (I missed this one, I was busy fetching the truck from a mile away.)

And after the swealtering heat (something like 85°) at the Zoo, we were in need of some lunch and cold beer, so we headed off to Schlafly Bottleworks. After an excellent lunch we took the tour and...

(You guessed it!)...tasted!

And on their last night here we ordered take out BBQ from one of the highest rated St Louis BBQ joints and spent the evening finishing up the chair.

And we moved this beautiful family piece to it's final placement and filled it with all of our (mostly wonderful hand-me-down) china. I forgot to mention earlier that this China cabinet, my Grandparents' (first belonging to my Grandpa's parents) China cabinet, came with my family in the truck so that we wouldn't have to keep all of our special dishes in boxes in the corner of the dining room. Thanks again Grandma!

And thanks to all three of you for the visit, we had a wonderful time!