Long time, no see

These photos are of two friends who had not seen each other in over 10 years! This is Susan...and she was one of my BFFs in college. After college, I ended up in Missouri and she ended up in Maine. We tried to stay in touch over the years with the occasional phone call and Christmas cards but these things are not the same as being with someone in person.

In college I always wanted to be just like Susan. She was super smart, confident, creative, beautiful and compassionate. Well, it turns out that she is still all of these things (no surprise!).

She was recently in St. Louis for the weekend and we got the chance to catch up on the last 1o years. We talked weddings and introduced husbands. We talked about jobs, homes and families. I took her to see the Arch and to my favorite place, The City Museuem. It was like no time had passed at all, as if we picked up right where we left off.

The older I get the more amazed I am by how people come and go through my life. I never really thought I would get to see Susan again, but now that I have, I can't believe I let so much time pass between us. It is actually really comforting to know that no matter how much time passes until the next time we can share a meal, a walk or a slide (wink, wink, Susan!), I know that I will be happy to see her and that she will be happy to see me. I know that even if another 10 years pass I can always call Susan my friend.

My goal is to not let another 10 years pass. I have always wanted to see Maine and Andrew and I have a deep appreciation for lobster so with a little planning I think we will see Susan again very soon. Thank you for tracking me down Susan! I miss you and love you lots!

W

How sad that I forgot to talk about the hotel we stayed at in Chicago...considering I can't go anywhere in public without staring at the floors, walls, ceilings and furniture for at least 10 minutes before I can breathe or have a conversation.

Check out pictures here...

I really liked our room but the lobby in this hotel was over the top, way too trendy for me... I must be getting old.

Windy City

First off....my hubby of 366 days has a new blog (his fourth). As he is a much better writer than I, I suggest you go and visit his blog to read about our little weekend getaway to Chicago this past weekend. The trip was mostly to get out of the house, since we haven't traveled for fun since our honeymoon, however my other motivation was to see the Smart House at the Museum of Science and Industry. Other side benefits, my darling friend Rachel lives in Chicago and it happened to be our first anniversary.

While Andrew's recap is great I'll throw in my two cents. We decided to take the train to Chicago to 1. save money and 2. be good to the earth. The train ride up wasn't so great, but mostly because we were delayed 2 hours and didn't get to Chicago until 1:30 am. The train ride home was great! We had our own sleeper room, had dinner with a very interesting 78 year old German gentleman from Toronto and had a great time watching the scenery pass by.





The Smart Home was disappointing. They rushed you through the house in groups of twenty and only gave you moments to take everything in. It was way too rushed and I thought our guide was not very well educated on all things "Green". She couldn't answer any off script questions and explained VOCs incorrectly. The only highlight of the Smart Home were the bathrooms. Andrew and I are planning to renovate our main bath soon and both baths in this house were exactly what we were envisioning. We ended up getting a great list of resources to look into.

The architectural river tour was awesome, an unexpected treat.

Seeing my darling Rachel was also awesome! You look great Rachel and we loved spending time with you!


For opinions on our meals....see Andrew's blog.

Other things going on.....

• Andrew started fixing the plaster wall in the dining room. Lesson learned: take the time to cover your furniture before sanding plaster for 30 min. There is still white dust covering parts of the living and dining room...
• I was very surprised by all the cards and phone calls we got for our anniversary. So, so sweet to know that there is so much love and support out there for us.
• Getting ready for a family visit. My mom and two aunts are on there way to St. Louis soon. Got to clean up the plaster dust!

Some items of interest:

• I found this musician via Dooce and have been listening nonstop for the last few weeks.
• Get rid of your vinyl shower curtain! It is full of toxic chemicals. Get a nylon curtain that you can wash, over, and over in the laundry.
• Found this bag designer over the weekend in Chicago...I'm lusting after this one for the work days and this one for the weekends.
  

Chateau V

A lot has been going on here at Chateau V.

As some of you may, or may not know, St. Louis has had the wettest spring on record. And strangely all of this rain started showing up in our basement, in very large amounts. Then last Friday we had a heavy storm and Andrew ran to the basement to see water gushing out of two drains in the basement floor. Gushing so hard that the water blew the grates off of both drains! Ankle deep water filled the basement and Andrew rushed to Home Depot to get a pump to help get the water out. Needless to say, it was a stressful event and we realized that this wasn't a home repair we could ignore. On Saturday morning a very nice man with a very large roto-rooter came and cleaned out our pipe. He said that phosphorous from our laundry detergent built up in the pipe and created a clogged artery of sorts. Such an easy fix for so much worry! Thank you, thank you universe for not being a broken pipe and just a clogged pipe!

The pipe cleaning inspired us to keep the home improvements going and this week we have had some men tuckpointing the front of our house. This is something that has been weighing on my mind a great deal because there were a lot of spots where there was NO MORTAR left between the bricks. These men grinded out the existing mortar and replaced it with new mortar. Despite the HUGE amounts of mortar dusk covering the front (and BACK!) yard I have to say that the front of the house looks much, much better. And now I don't have to lose any more sleep thinking about the front of the house falling down.

The contractor that we found to tuckpoint the house is also helping us get a carpenter and painter to finish some more repairs to the front of the house. We don't have a final bid yet, so I'm not sure how much we will get done but it feels so good to see things getting done.

Mom...the house is going to look beautiful when you come in July!!!

I've been SUPER busy at work the last two weeks, working late and on the weekends. I was also busy coordinating my team for the Relay for Life which was last Friday. We raised over $3500.00 for the American Cancer Society! WooHoo! It was a really fun event, although it was moved indoors and shortened to 6 hours due to severe weather (hello water in the basement!!).

But after so much work and fundraising I am fried. Andrew and I decided that next weekend (our one year wedding anniversary!) will be spent in Chicago. We really want to see the Smart House by Michelle Kaufman, we will also visit my dear friend Rachel, and I'm sure eat lots and lots of good food. Here is to working and playing hard!

the knot