The Comforts of Home

Comforting indeed. Check out the other photo series titled "Georgia Boy." It is equally good.
Via Wesley M. Cummings.

The season is shaping up to be rather sleepy and warm—and that's fine by me. Summer's here are different: rain mostly in the afternoon, a complete lack of humidity, our cabin is without screens on any windows (bugs are few to none) and we've no need for an a/c unit. The down side of it all? Any fresh body of water in the mountains is all snow run-off, so swimming is always painful!

The fire ban has been lifted and our hair is often laced with charcoal smoke. Sean's cooking, outside of Monday Moxie Meals, attempts to employ the grill as often as possible. And since our neighbors inherited a keg of Sawtooth (Ramzy designed this site, by the way) and they don't even like it, we constantly refill our growlers just next door. We let the girls run around outside, while we sip beer and mull over hot coals; The cabin has never been so dreamy.

We went down to town for Derby Juleps last weekend and had a dinner date. Married dates are so much better than non-married; Never arguing over who pays, zero awkward conversations or lame ice-breakers, and you always go home together ;)

Monday Moxie Meals

My handsome and über talented husband, Sean, has always been a fantastic chef, but no one would know because he only cooks for me and our immediate family. Well, we got to talking one night after work and it was decided that Sean needed an audience, and my coworkers wanted to be it. And so Monday Moxie Meals were born!

Every Monday Sean comes in after work and makes the whole agency a full dinner! It's been a great culinary experience for him as he authors each meal's menu with much consideration (since we have non-pork eaters, vegetarians and gluten intolerables). The overall goal is to make everything from scratch and Sean takes that super seriously.

This week: Greek night! So we were treated to homemade hummus, dolmas, falafel, apricot and toasted almond couscous and even gyro meat (we bought a rotisserie to cook the lamb, for pete's sake...). He finally put to use our ice cream maker too—one of those vintage hand-churners—and topped the dessert with a beautifully crafted date tamarind sauce. We gathered some Greek favorites on vinyl for ambiance, Sean wore his Greek fisherman hat and it all came together quite nicely.

I wish I'd have taken pictures of the meal, but I was too busy serving coworkers and cleaning the office afterwards. I did manage to snap a shot our friend making the menu board though. Next Monday Meal? Vietnamese Banh Mi with spring rolls and sweet potato fries. What I would give for a Vietnamese coffee... seems like too much hardware to bother, but it won't be the same without!

FoundRe: Furnishings

Not the most breaking news, but one of our very very good friends, Raun Meyn, opened up his official store front in Wicker Park, Chicago. He's always been in the business of making frames, but a few years ago he started doing his own thing in a 2-car garage in the alley of his apartment building. Since then he's rented larger and larger studio space to meets the demands of commissions pouring in, and now! his shop FoundRe's got their own store front (with new and improved studio in the back).

The frames and furniture that come out of Raun's shop are always one-of-a-kind, really. Each piece is crafted from distressed doors, tables, over-painted paneling and weathered wood (each with unique surfaces and colors) that he salvages in the surrounding Chicago area. It's genius, and I'm so happy his success is only getting greater.

Go check out the store front, you won't regret it.

"Every sign of man had disappeared."

Allow me, please, to be completely candid for a moment. I've never experienced such an intense emotional bond with a film like the bond I felt with Paris, Texas. Where do I start? Wim Wenders, this German director I've never heard of, really should be commissioned by the Texas Tourism Department to do more. The music too—I strongly urge you to listen to this track above while you read on. For fear of stumbling around my words, trying to express my profound fondness for this movie (ugh, I'm smitten!!), I'll quote someone else.

"And it is that mythos of the American southwest, of the American west in general, that Paris, Texas evokes so well. It is an America not only of myth, of the cinema—shot through Wenders outsider perspective—but also an America of bracing reality, the reality that is ingrained in most of Sam Shepard’s written work. And because of this, it is a credit to both Wenders and Shepard that they have made a film that is so unified, that evokes so many similar feelings, so many shared experiences, and yet is so intimate and specific. There are no gimmicks here, no high-end visual effects; it is the kind of story—like the gas stations and motels in the film—that seems to be slowly vanishing, falling indelibly into the past."