Quick and Dirty (no, really. see the last photo)

 So...all of this stuff has happened recently. 

I made Michael install a fan.

 I can't sleep without air circulation.

 We enjoyed a fabulous weekend at a friend's lake house. Thank you, Sean!

 We hosted visitors (Michael's parents) and promptly put them to work.

 We had some fun too.

 But mostly we just made them work.

 We hosted more visitors. We didn't make this group work though. They were already exhausted from their cross country trip including song-playing and movie-making. (Really, I'll do more on this later but it will require a loooong post to explain the peculiarities of this story).

 Pep made fast friends with the band/movie crew. He'll sleep with anyone willing to be lazy with him though. 

 Drywall went up on the stove wall. This wall wasn't particularly difficult. 

 The bay window walls were a bit more difficult, requiring the building of mini-walls.

 Michael installed canister lights.

 Aren't they pretty?

 We attended a birthday party for two of our friends that entailed me sewing a Medieval dress for myself and a tunic for Michael. It was a lot of fun!

 The bay window turned out quite well, especially now that I've accepted that the walls will never be truly level in this house. Sigh. 

 And we started to work on slapping drywall on the sink wall. This was truly the most difficult part of the project so far. 

 Frieda developed some separation anxiety. She sits with her head up on the back of the couch and watched and wimpers every morning as Michael drives away. 

And we've acquired a mud dog.

And the sad thing is that this won't even be considered catching up since I can't currently locate my camera cord therefore, all new photos are off-limits.

Photos to come include finished kitchen drywall, mudding and skim coating of all the walls in the kitchen (I'm so excited at how good it is looking), and pulling up the laminate floors (plural!) that have been laid on top of the lovely hardwood in the kitchen.

Vogler Visit-A-Palooza

My Mom, Malena, my Dad, and all of his tools arrived just about two weeks ago.  

 Give my dad a week and his tools (and 24 hr access to the house that you're not evening living in yet) and before you know it, 

 Every pipe that runs though your basement will be found lying on the floor of said basement.

 Yup, every one. 

 And you'll find him tinkering with the circuit box. 

 This is our pretty new plumbing stack. This wasn't courtesy of my dad but of the sellers and a great plumber.

 Here are more pipes lying in the (one full) bathroom floor.

 And just when we get on a roll (in this case, tearing down the kitchen soffit and just about to slice his ear open)

 Michael comes home and informs you that his car is "broken",

 As in, makes a grating noise every time he tries to brake. So they spend the next couple hours taking off tires,

 And having the car fall off the jack (but thankfully, hot hurting anyone aside form a few scrapes), and eventually getting it fixed (Michael now knows how to change brakes!).

 Malena made herself at home, as always.

 And right when we were getting into the plumbing groove, I had a freak accident where I dropped a piece of copper pipe that I was in the process of cutting on the spigot of our hot water heater. Water surged out of the heater and it was unusable for the next 3 or so days that it took us to locate a new spigot and a tap to make some new threads. 

 The soffit is almost gone!

 And on to the most dreaded part of the week (as soon as we were able to find another strapping young man to help us), moving my 500lb mixer into the basement. 

 Smooth so far

 There's bits of kitchen debris in the wheelburrow, lumber for our raised-bed garden and a big mixer all occupying our back yard.

 The scariest part, down the stairs.

 Mischief managed

 And there's a mixer in my basement! (and new copper pipe behind!)

 Hello best friend. Too bad I have no oven to bake anything I make in you.

 Later on: stretching and petting 

 And more petting

 Why won't anyone play wiffle ball with me?

 It's didn't take long for Malena to usurp the couch.

 Raised-bed garden going in

 And 8 heirloom tomato plants to go in the garden.

 We had another puppy visitor, I just had to see Fozzie (and Carolyn) before the move to DC.

 Slowly, slowly filling up.

And on our last night together, Malena got to go to a restaurant with and clean all of those yummy plates.

Thank you SO MUCH Mom and Dad! Without you coming out to visit, we'd have no garden planted and terrible water pressure!

The Triumphant Return

My, it's been a long and crazy couple of months. 

Here's a bit of what you missed:

(OK, maybe more than a bit.)

 Our joint Christmas presents

 Christmas presents to one another

 A Christmas dinner of truffle-stuffed chicken (a.k.a. poulet demi-deuil or chicken in half-mourning)

And a statue cat watching over the feast

 A long trip home to visit the [kitty] grandparents

 A fun-filled visit with family

 And friends

 And Roman!

 The hanging of a vintage Peruvian tapestry (Thanks, D&K!)

 My recent obsession with knitting socks

 Finally finishing some Pinterest Christmas ornaments

 "The best hot chocolate in the world"...not really, but it was decent

(With my dear foodie-friend Lucy)

 A pâte à choux stealing (1-year-old!!!) kitten

 Some amazing Japanese beer, sake

And sushi

 St Louis' first (and maybe last) snow of the season

 Being social at Plush

The beginning of an epic knitted quilt

(which will be documented as it progresses over the next 20 or so years)

And more socializing for Kevin's Birthday at Diablitos

Along with the crazyness of the past few months there has been a trend of eating to much bad food. I know it comes with the territory of traveling home and celebrating the holidays but we need to get our eating habits back on track. 

To kick-start the change, we've made a plan to spend at least the next month eating a pescetarian (mostly vegetarian) diet. We already have some favorite veggie-centric meals in our repertoire but I'm planning to seek out lots of new recipes. I'll be sharing our favorites, new and old on here in case anyone else is feeling the post-holiday sluggishness as well. 

And along with this already exciting plan for the near future of the blog, we'll also be detailing our first splash into the real estate market here in Saint Louis. Eek!