Oct 25th, 2010 | Fun, Grace in Small Things, life, St Louis | 1 Comment
A good chunk of my friends and I participated in the annual Tour de Moose bicycle pub crawl around St Louis on Saturday. The Moose in question is actually my friend Kevin, and the Tour celebrates his birthday, this year the big 4-0. Almost 80 people met up at Lemmon’s Saturday morning to drink beers and tune up before meandering around South City to Downtown and back. We finished the 19-mile ride at Lemmon’s, then ended our night at Double D’s, singing karaoke. My Grace In Small Things this week comes from that day.
1. Coasting down a slight decline on my bike.
2. With a slight buzz.
3. While eating a Gus’s pretzel.
4. Surrounded by friends.
5. On a cool, gorgeous, autumn day in October, leaves falling around us.
Oct 4th, 2010 | Food, Fun, Grace in Small Things, life | 1 Comment
I need this today.
1. Having a knitting project on needles for the first time in a long time. It’s this apple tree blanket. I’m doing it in “pickle” with a “mediterranean” border. I love the rhythmic nature of knitting, the clacking of the needles, and the slow expansion of a project growing. When I get into a groove, hours go by as I voraciously try to finish projects, and it’s very therapeutic and focusing.
2. Dinner with friends at Blueberry Hill before a Drive By Truckers show at the Pageant followed by the debut Chill Dawgz show.
3. Dulce de leche cake.
4. Fall in St Louis and wearing scarves again.
5. Perfectly comfy gray heather sweatpants, thieved from high school track team.
Sep 14th, 2010 | education, Fun, life, Sporty, St Louis | 12 Comments
New readers may not know that I play kickball for Team Awesome, a motley crew of Busch-swilling hardcore fans and the various people associated with them, including most of my St Louis girlfriends at one point or another. We used to be pretty good, but we’re old now. We even have team members who have kids and bring strollers and such to games. We’re losing our edge, I tell you, although there’s still plenty of mid-game smoking, boss tunes as at-bat anthems, and jorts-wearing. One dude wears manpris. We won’t discuss it. In any event, I know it’s a lame hipster whatever, but we have a good time and I fool myself into thinking it’s exercise. Except it becomes exercise sometimes. → continue reading
Aug 31st, 2010 | Food, Fun, life, St Louis | 2 Comments
This weekend was a damn fine weekend to live in St Louis. Chris had his fake football draft all day Saturday. I was going to work in the garden because it is a hot mess that I have a lot of shame over, but then I succumbed to peer pressure, as I so often do, and headed to LouFest.
LouFest is an unfortunately-named first-year music festival held in St Louis’s crown jewel, Forest Park, where Chris and I got married. The lineup was impressive (She&Him, Broken Social Scene, Lucero, Built to Spill, Jeff Tweedy), but not packed with bands we actively follow and love. Normally, we would have totally been down for going both days, but we ultimately decided not to spend the money on two-day passes for both of us. It seemed like my entire Twitter feed was going, though, and Friday I just decided to go for it and told my boy Mike D. that I was going to join him on Saturday. → continue reading
Aug 27th, 2010 | Food, Fun, life, St Louis, work | 4 Comments
I started a new part-time gig at a local kitchen shop that also offers cooking classes. All I do is prep the kitchens for classes, assist chefs who are teaching, and clean up during and after the classes. It’s a sweet gig for several reasons: → continue reading
Aug 10th, 2010 | bloggety stuff, Fun, life, MamaPop | 10 Comments
My trip to New York was a whirlwind of awesome. That pretty much sums it up.
There are fewer things better for the mind and soul than having high hopes that people you admire will like you back should you meet them and those hopes coming true. I think many of us still hold on to feelings of rejection from middle school or high school, and those can resurface at events like BlogHer. And when people aren’t snobs, and instead embrace you willingly, with arms oustretched, and shower you with positive thoughts, well, it’s nice. It’s better than nice. It’s fan-fucking-tastic. I finally met so many awesome, amazing people I’ve been sharing my life with online, and they were smarter, and funnier, and more intelligent and fun than I thought possible. And when I met these people, they gave me giant, genuine, real hugs. The level of positivity and emotional generosity is unlike anything I’ve experienced.
The highlights: → continue reading
Aug 4th, 2010 | family, Fun, life, photos | 1 Comment
We just spent a few days up at Clear Lake in northern Iowa with my family.We rented a house on the lake, just like we did in Blackduck, Minnesota two years ago, and cruised around on a pontoon while drinking beer and making pathetic attempts at catching fish (except for my dad; he caught fish). We didn’t get to town until almost midnight on Friday, as Chris had a workshop all day and we got caught in some crazy rainstorms that send many a less-fearless driver to the shoulder. Of course, we pull up, and Big Ed is waiting in the street to direct us in, despite the fact that I had received no less than three texts from my sister-in-law about Ed falling asleep in his camp chair. Midnight is really past Big Ed’s bedtime, for reals, but his love for directing parking is limitless. → continue reading
Jul 16th, 2010 | bloggety stuff, education, family, Fun, life, MamaPop, Uncategorized | No Comments
Sunday I turned 30. Truth be told, I have relatively little anxiety about it. I was too damn stressed last Thursday and Friday, what with the complete failure of my hard drive on Thursday and (delayed) travel to school on Friday. I have a lot of friends who are older than me, which must be because I’m so mature I pronounce it matoor, so it just wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m lucky to have the life that I have; it’s a damn good one. And, I lost 15 pounds in the last three months. → continue reading
Jun 28th, 2010 | family, Fun, life | 3 Comments
This dang pup is killing me.
→ continue reading
Jun 21st, 2010 | family, Fun, life | 9 Comments
So we agreed to dog sit for our friends Christine and Joe. They have two chill, agreeable dogs named Sunny and Sid, and even though we have a tiny house, we thought three dogs and a cat for one week is not a big deal in the scheme of favors to do for your friends. Asher would enjoy the company of his pals.
On Friday night, after having Sid and Sunny for about not even one day, Chris said, “You know, it’s not so bad with three dogs in here. We should get another dog” to which I said, “True. No.” → continue reading
A good chunk of my friends and I participated in the annual Tour de Moose bicycle pub crawl around St Louis on Saturday. The Moose in question is actually my friend Kevin, and the Tour celebrates his birthday, this year the big 4-0. Almost 80 people met up at Lemmon’s Saturday morning to drink beers and tune up before meandering around South City to Downtown and back. We finished the 19-mile ride at Lemmon’s, then ended our night at Double D’s, singing karaoke. My Grace In Small Things this week comes from that day.
