Out With The Old and In With The New

Just sold my faithful college car last night. It was a bittersweet moment. That car got me from A to B at 39 miles to the gallon, and besides regular maintenance I had under $100 worth of repairs during the 5 years that I owned it. A nice college student just purchased it after I had placed an ad on Craigslist. I love Craigslist so much. James and I have gotten some really neat inexpensive items using it, as well as selling a lot of our junk. Why we just used it to get a really good deal on our new car we picked up last week. Whoop Whoop!

A look at The Corolla's history with Megs Megs

People try to tell me I'm wrong about Corolla's racing abilities, but I'm holding strong on my facts.

Look at those factory rims. Gangsta hot and stuff.

From old to....

New!

Wall Art

Finally got to put up two frames James and I received as a wedding gift from my old college roommate. I printed out some 5x7 of my favorite Silhouette Master Piece Theatre art, which I had blogged about earlier. We put them up on either side of our built-in dining room cabinet.

Puppy Love

Sorry guys. I couldn't resist.





Jack puffing out his chest! such a show off for the camera...

New Curtains

Gone are the apartment-like mini blinds and in its place our new 'wheat' colored drapes. We got them at Target for $20 per panel, which were a lot cheaper than purchasing fabric and making them ourselves. They are therma drapes, so our drafty 1930's home will stay nice and toasty this winter.
.

Pi

Math usually makes me bored, but recently it has made me hungry.
That's right. Math makes me hungry.
Better yet, Pi makes me hungry.

π=3.14159265358979323......boring and old news. Right?

So how about....
π=insanely delicious pizza. YAY!

Pi Pizzeria off of Delmar street is hands down amazing. Not only
do they serve award winning deep dish pizza, but they are also
a green restaurant. James and I finally made it down to this
much talked about restaurant when our plans to go to the
Balloon Glow in Forest Park got changed because of the crazy
amount of traffic. After hearing horror stories about wait times
we were relieved to find we only had a twenty minute wait
before being seated.We got garlic bread to start out, a couple
of beers, some vodka and Red Bull's
(I was a little under the weather), and made our own deep dish
with onions, mushrooms,and green peppers. Must have been
some confusion in the kitchen because our pizza got delivered
to the table next to us. After a nice apology from the manager
we got our pizza after a brief wait and they comped it! I'm not
sure if it was the alcohol or the energy I got from the
cornmeal pizza crust, but I was fueled enough to do a pretty
amazing robot impression for my husband that lasted for a
good 5 minutes and only ended when he started throwing ice
cubes at me.

Many of the items in the restaurant are donated pieces or
reused items.

Good God, I wish I had a piece now.

OHHHhhhh Scary

Nothing like that first chilly night in September to get you really excited for Halloween. In the spirit of fall, James built a great big fire the other night in our backyard. I lit torches and some bowl candles we got from Crate and Barrel that will be great to put along our front walkway on Halloween night.

Crate and Barrel bowl candles are only around during the spring/summer months so good thing we have 5 on hand ;)

My mom is really big on Halloween. She recently admitted to having over 15 full boxes of Halloween decorations. I have a feeling my need to decorate for Halloween will never be 15 boxes strong, but I did get excited when I went to MarthaStewart.com and looked at all their great images of fun and unusual ways to decorate this season with pumpkins.

S0 classy and would work great for Thanksgiving, too!

My absolute favorite grouping of pumpkins EVER

Carrot noses, which might pose a problem if they are outside with the squirrels and the birds...

Reminds me of an Indian porcelain incense burner

A great way to recycle some old tin cans

Real Estate Ads

After I left the marketing world I teamed up with my sister and brother-in-law in a investment real estate company called Midwest Area Properties, which is located in Kansas City and St. Robert, MO. When I first started I took a look around at all my competition and their ads. Being that St. Robert is located right next to the Fort Leonard Wood base and that our main customers are serving in the military most of the real estate companies focused their advertisements on USA themed ads. How was I going to stand out from the crowd in a positive way without going red, white, and blue in all my print? I decided to focus on the home part of house sales. Many of these soldiers are uprooted more than they would like and crave that feeling of home. I used images associated with homes to help remind people that their home can be in St. Robert, even if they are just temporarily living here for a couple of years. I'm out of real estate and ready to get back to marketing. Let me know what you think!

Hiking/Trail Running/Mountain Biking

James and I hit up a couple of great trails this week that are pretty close to our house. James did some mountain biking, while Mischka and I hiked and did some trail running at Matson Hill and Castlewood State Park. Matson Hill is a 3-mile singletrack that climbs and descends over 400 feet per lap. It has a pretty rugged terrain with several creek crossings and is dark even on sunny days due to the tall, old growth trees. Castlewood State Park used to be resort that was popular in the 1915's to 1940. Today, the 1,818-acre Park stretches for nearly five miles, straddling both sides of the Meramec River. Unfortunately, I only took pictures of Castlewood State Park.

One of the many lookouts on Lone Wolf Trail


Mischka leading the way

Looking at the railroad tracks that James told me not to go past, but....I did anyway :)

Mischka getting a little dirty. Becoming more like our 'country' dog then our 'city' dog.



My glistening forehead

Misch Misch getting a joy ride from papa

Her expression is priceless in this one!

Montelle Winery

Headed down to Montelle Winery in Augusta, MO for a couple of hours to watch the sunset on their amazing deck with our friend Jayme. You truly feel like you live in West Virginia with all the vegetation and the rolling hills. All their wine is very sweet so stick with the dry reds and whites. We got two bottles of the Chardonel to go with our cheese and herb focaccia bread.

James looking like a determined wine drinker

This picture doesn't do the view justice

Hardly Labor

Hope everyone had a great labor day weekend! Sorry I haven't been posting as much. Just keeping a little bit too busy. Here is a run down on our long weekend....

Scooping out the new autumn Target merchandise and falling in love with it all!


Love, love this hourglass....James said no because he could envision it falling over and us having to deal with cleaning up sand. Boo!

James fixing the chimney on our 12x12(!) pitch roof. Thank god he has rock climbing gear.

James isn't only a handy man...he also helps pick out fabric for drapes. Oh la la ladies!

So many great fabrics, but we were actually able to find what we where looking for at (you guessed it) Target. I'll be posting pics soon!

Headed over to Schlafly's patio for a lunch after hanging out at the Science Center. Yay for drinking!

Schlafly pumpkin beer signaling the beginning of fall.... a full-bodied, deep reddish amber beer made with pumpkin and butternut squash and spiced with nutmeg, clove and cinnamon = yummy!