A glimpse in the new house

We survived the stint without gas.


It's an incredible tale of perseverance, one I'm sure one day will be made into a Lifetime movie. Long winter nights in front of the fire place, boiling water to wash the dishes. Good thing for Scott's "loven," a halogen light oven that helped us make egg bakes and toast when we didn't have gas. Thank God for IKEA meatballs and egg noodles, too.




Scott, many of you may know, is a friend of mine from college. He's Troy's younger brother, whom I met when he was just a shaggy haired football player from Lockwood. He is on an adventure away from Missouri for awhile. We're lucky he picked Austin.

He just moved into his new place today, which isn't far from ours. It's our first night completely alone in our new house, so I'm going to try not to spend it all on the computer.

Here are a few photos from the past weeks. I'll keep this post restricted to new house photos and a Julian album, including photos of his new tricycle, will be posted soon.

One last highlight from the week that was: Pork tamales that came with a sauce that tasted enough like chili that I couldn't help but top it with Fritos. Mmmm, tamale Frito pie. Why isn't someone selling this already?


And now, Shiva's guided tour of the house as of last week:

Moving ain't easy

I used to love to move. Maybe it's because I moved so much I was forced to love it. A year here, a semester there. We spent two years in our most recent place, the longest I've lived in the same place outside my parents' home. That little old apartment was also the most dynamic of the places I've lived.

As the Pregnant One, I got off the hook when we moved in two years ago, letting my uncles and cousins trek up and down those stairs carrying heavy boxes. A few months after we moved it, the apartment served as the home we welcomed Julian into, the one where he'd eventually learn to walk and sleep in his own room. A television crew and two stylish celebrities also blitzed through that house, ridding of our lives more than just holey jeans and stretched-out shirts. I learned how to tip-toe down those stairs in shiny new shoes, and then I quickly figured out how to haul back up them -- still in the heels remember -- with bags full of new cookbooks, food magazines and product samples to try out.

We knew we'd need a yard and more space when Julian entered toddlerhood, which didn't exactly coincide with our lease expiring, but we made do for the months in between.

When it was time to find a new home, we looked for weeks and nothing stuck, until we happened upon a nice duplex with a big yard and a kind landlord just 200 yards from our apartment.

We signed the lease and started moving in the same day. Well, Ian started moving. Thanksgiving week happens to be one of the busiest for any food writer, so I couldn't do much until Wednesday, which is also when my parents arrived to help. By Wednesday night, I still wasn't doing much moving because I was bowing to the porcelain gods after a bad something or other at work. Triste, ineed.

By Thanksgiving morning, I was feeling better, and the family had most of the important stuff moved. We had dinner at Uncle Tom's house, but I wasn't that into it, either because of the menu or my weakened appetite, I'm still not sure. We decided we'd spend our first night in the new house on Thanksgiving, even though said kind landlord hadn't had the gas turned on, so we were without heat, a stove or a water heater. Mega triste, I know.

Thanks to a big fireplace, lots of wood from Uncle Tom's and a house full of folks, we made it through the long holiday weekend just fine.

My parents took off Saturday night, just a few hours before another Missourian arrived. Scott, who has been in the process of moving to Austin since spring, will use us as a home base while he figures things out this week. With all the piddling to be done, Ian and I are grateful for the help with Julian and for keeping that fireplace going until we get the gas going on Tuesday.

On one of our final trips back to the old place, I scrubbed and scrubbed to get the crayon off the wall, with little success. Ian vacuumed, and Julian shrieked as he playfully ran from empty room to empty room.

I forgot how hard it is to adjust to completely new surroundings. I think about what it's like for the little guy, who now, in addition to having a whole new house to adjust to is also learning how to sleep for the first time in a bed, not a crib.

To be continued when I have time to add photos and update on the new house with gas and Internet...

Florida farewell

Even as I left Florida by Ricci

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My friend Ricci is leaving Florida. She's lived here since she and Troy moved there after graduation. So two years-ish. She's a journalist, a seeker, a good spirit. I didn't know her that well in college, just through Troy, and Troy was her roommate in Sarasota when he died in June 2006. It was hard enough for me to lose my best friend while I was thousands of miles away; I could not imagine going through how she has. Sorting his books and clothes. Walking down the same sidewalks, the same beaches. There is much more to be said about this, but not here.

I'm posting Ricci's farewell video to Florida; she's moving to Senagal, moving on from her first jobs out of college. I can't wait to hear about her adventures. Makes me realize even more that she's going to make this dream of freelancing really come true. But she had to say goodbye. I really liked this style of video, the music, the pace, the colors. Watching Troy's last months come alive before my eyes. When all of those pictures were taken, I was in Austin, starting a new chapter of my own. I hadn't had the chance to visit him, so the people, the places, the stories were always diluted by the static through which he told me about them over the phone.

Ricci's very brave in leaving what looks like an incredible time behind. I'm sure there are many more for this awesome girl to come.

From the vast archival desert...

...I pull this photo of my mom and me from way back in May 2002. We were driving through the Arizona (or hell, it could have been New Mexico, to a Midwestern girl like me, they all looked captivatingly the same), en route to San Diego.

It was the first of two summers I interned at KPBS radio, worked myriad jobs (holla, Kinko's) and got my fill of sweet coastal California life. Uncle Chris invited me out there at the end of his Pioneers and Settlers speech, one of the pivotal invitations I've received in my life. He opened his home and his family to me. I helped grocery shop and cook (and ate plenty, I'm sure. Gez, lay off the Pokey sticks, would ya, Ads?). Mother's and Father's Day. Birthdays. I felt like an adopted daughter. They were so patient as a stumbled and triumphed in my new surrounding. It's still a time period of my life of which I am so proud. Making friends out there. Going to movies, parks, festivals and beaches entirely on my own. Discovering Addie outside Missouri was thrilling. It was the exciting taste of exploration that led to me studying in Spain my junior year of college and, eventually, to move to Austin.

And my mom, literally my life's connection to Missouri, came with me on my journey across the country to drop me off on this new chapter. Neither of us really comprehended the impact of my time out there, which, as a The New York Times article last week concluded, is better. No preachy parting words. No defiance of parental authority (I'd had my fill of that the previous two semesters as a freshman at MU). Just buzzing through the CDs and random truck stops along I-40, observing the now, recalling the past and hinting at the future along the way.

I fell in love a couple of times in San Diego, but fresh out of my chrysalis, I mainly fell in love with me. You're supposed to do that in college. You finally get to make all these concrete decisions based on whatever the hell you want. I'm just so thankful that they gave me the opportunity to do that. The Cooks for providing a home away from home. My parents for the good old '98 Corolla I still drive and for keeping me company along the way.

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Randomly from the archives: Dearest Scott Schnelle, always the animal lover, took in a pair of skunks right before I took off that summer. On one of those trips to Lockwood to visit Troy, he showed them off inside their little cardboard box homes. If I remember correctly, one of the little guys stuck around and, though he lived outside, hung around the house for awhile. Unless I'm getting my animal stories swapped. Scott has so many run-ins with critters, it's hard to keep the tales straight. Ask him about the bobcat sometime. Or maybe the two Jills.

Thought I might showcase a different baby every now and then.