pics from madrid

for our 40th birthday present to selves, dabney and i (along with our regular travel cohorts) decided that a nice trip to spain and morocco would suit us just fine.


dabney was excited that the wine in spain flowed freely and cheaply.


la bola taberna - the site of dabney's birthday dinner








hands down the best ham i've ever had was in spain

dog is my co-pilot

canvassing

friday stood by her democratic candidates this morning and got out the vote.

misheard lyrics

i could have written these myself. i love to belt out tunes while driving solo and i often mis-sing these exact same lyrics.

numero 2

have i revealed the fact that dabney and i are gonna be aunties again?



and once again, we'll reacquaint ourselves with this look.

i love JT(F)

if girls wore bowties, i'd be buying one now.

halloween

i neglected to post pics of our favorite holiday. actually, our halloween came early (as in last friday night). seems so long ago already.


surrealist shirley temple/annie/barbarella, the strongman (one of my fave costumes of the evening), rosie the riveter, and the sphinx. that's dabney (or i should say "princess die") down below.


the amish broke their rules and joined the party


money fairy and drag pirate


jellyfish


a swing voter


and yeah, that's me - the pot brownie - with a creepy skin guy (and party host extraordinaire)

lola, lolo, and lu

st. pete beach

one of my favorite pictures of my parents ever.

big and little

we've been dogsitting my dad's chihuahua this week.

this is kinda like life with friday.

click on the image for more.

chris & tyler's sense of stewardship

yesterday's house tour. this one was fancy schmancy.

recent antics

moon river

in honor of andy williams who passed away yesterday and my dad who loves andy williams, i am reposting this - my favorite andy song.

garage

click to embiggen.

dabby annieversary

nine years ago yesterday we tied the knot.

double valley

b side

this is a true story.

this is a true story. link above.

pig racing

home away from home

not sure if i've written about this place that i like to call our "home away from home" - and that's our local watering hole - the civil life.

the staff greets us with a smile. there always seating in its ample (and pet-friendly) biergarten. they have darts, board games, and that day's new york times is available for perusal.  they also happen to have the best sandwiches that $6 can buy.



did i mention that any one of their dozen+ handcrafted beers is delicious and refreshing?  they also always have dabney's favorite sauvignon blanc on hand.

monkeypod headboard

what was once a humble chunk monkeypod is now a glamorous yet rustic headboard.

that's zoe demonstrating what the end product will look like by wetting the wood.  it was her skilled hands that got that slab to go from whatevs to wahoo.



i am sure it took hours of sanding and polishing to go from that to this.





as much as i wanted to mail that slab home to STL (after over 3 years, we still don't have a headboard), it shall remain in florida - its birthplace - to adorn the formerly "world's ugliest condo."

here's a bad picture i took on my iphone.  it looks much better in person.

dining room chairs

we finally did it. after 3 years of sitting in old school chairs around our dining room, we got another set of old school chairs! ok, this new old set is much more comfortable.

out with the old:


in with the new:


and, no, we got those chairs via dabney's magic - not design outta reach.

read more about it here.

AT house tour

here's that tour. great comments so far.

AT house tour sneak peek

one our STL-based tours posts tomorrow. the pic above was one of my favorites. fun place obviously.

head full of doubt/road full of promise

i had never seen this lovely video before.

evan on lake champlain

tennis grunting

the sound of tennis grunting echoes through our home.



thank goodness espn's coverage of wimbledon is miles beyond its coverage of the french open, which was virtually non-existent. majors should be major.

welcome to lu's beauty salon

rivers & roads

i can't get enough of this band and this song in particular.

The Head and The Heart - Rivers & Roads (A Doe Bay Session Extra) from Sound on the Sound on Vimeo.

bunny neighbor

house numbers by phil

after nearly three years of a temporary transparency filling in for house numbers, our house/store finally got its due.









the artist left a subtle signature.