Fly-over Country

Lately, St. Louis has felt less like a fly-over city and more like a stop-through town. I love it! In the past week, three friends from three different states have been through this city of ours.

Leigh Anne and Matt stopped in for less than 24 hours on their drive back from Wisconsin, but it was a fun-packed visit full of local eating at Pastaria and Half & Half and late-night catching up. Plus it's the first time we were all together since Jonathan and I got married - so that was bizarre/exciting! :)

Abby visited us the next weekend for what has become our annual March Abby visit - I really hope that's a tradition! Again we enjoyed some local eats at Dressel's Pub, Seoul Taco and brunch at Cucina Pazzo (lemon ricotta blueberry pancakes: you complete me), finally watched Frozen (Olaf! I love that singing snow man so much!) did some outlet mall shopping, and visited Bowood Farms so Jonathan could start a bonsai tree and I could try my hand at keeping a new houseplant alive (we'll see how I do...).

This is a chocolate chip cookie stuffed pretzel. Yes, you read that right.

Mistletoe fig ficus, I'll try my best to keep you this green.

And then! Thanks to the NCAA games happening in St. Louis, Amanda, my oldest friend from elementary school, was in town on Sunday to cheer on her UK Wildcats. So we got dinner at Pi after! Quick catch up, but oh so dear considering I saw her last at my wedding and before that it had been six years.

Moral of the story: St. Louis is the BEST place to reunite so come on through - plus we have delicious food to share with you!

Daylight

"... It's just a season thing. It's just this thing that seasons do. And that's the way this wheel keeps working now." Wheel, John Mayer

I'm so thankful for Daylight Saving Time. I know a lot of people complain about the lost hour of sleep and the adjustment in general, and I'll admit waking up in pitch black this morning threw me for a bit of a loop, BUT the fact that there was sunshine when I left work and when I got home trumps all of that!

I needed this time change bad. I don't think I ever fully adjusted when Daylight Saving Time ended last year... The fact that days were getting longer was already lifting my spirits. There's just a certain lazy inducing factor when you come home in the dark.

But when there's daylight? There's still so much that can be done in the day! I'm not saying the lack of daylight is what was keeping me from running a marathon or doing a slew of other athletic things, BUT it puts you in this homebody mentality (am I right?) And I love being a homebody as much as the next person. But for everything there is a season. And I am oh so thankful that there are seasons, both in life and in nature. It's so refreshing for mind, body and soul. Truly.

The extra daylight makes me excited for many reasons, namely:

• longer walks with our pup
• bike rides
• drinks and dinner al fresco
• maintaining my sanity in traffic (I think daylight helps with that...)
• the simple psychology that the day does not end when work does

Enjoy the daylight everyone! This girl sure is.

Pretty unrelated, but extra daylight makes me want to be outside more ... and bring the outdoors in! These succulents are adding some new life to our bathroom window.

Blue Monday

Apparently today is Blue Monday - "the most depressing day of the year." This is based on some pretty scientific things like:

• Twitter posts from the past 3 years
• People having to go back to work after the holiday break
• The reality of holiday expenses showing up on your bills
• New years resolutions already failing

Ok, so it's not scientific at all;) And the only reason I know it's Blue Monday is because I'm at home watching The Today Show. That's right - HOME! No Blue Monday for this girl - my office is closed today because of the foot of snow that fell this weekend (and it's frigid!). And it couldn't come at a more perfect time. 

Because this weekend we added four adorable paws to our little family. Meet Clover Klamm, a 1 1/2 year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix that we adopted from Petsmart on Saturday.

I think hers is a story of God's sweet, perfect timing. You see, we saw Clover at Petsmart back in October before we moved to our new, pet-friendly home. We saw her, she was adorable and we resisted (because we had to). Since then, we'd been back to Petsmart a handful of times and she was no longer there. We weren't seriously searching during this time though because we had just moved and the holidays were approaching which meant traveling and a lot of non-routine events for a new dog. We had our heart set on a lab/retriever mix of some sort, stalking a golden rescue organization on Facebook and getting used to the idea of starting our true adoption search at the end of January when Jonathan got back from a weeklong trade show in Las Vegas. In the meantime, we began nesting, ordering a crate, a cover for the trunk in Jonathan's new Pilot and even a DropCam (aka Puppy Cam) for us to keep our eyes on the pup when we're at work. We joked that we were crazy parents already and getting all these things prematurely. Then Saturday happened.

Mind you, this weekend the city of St. Louis was preparing for Snowmaggedon. Bread shelves were going bare at grocery stores. People were stocking up on shovels and salt. End of the world type stuff. No better time to peek into Petsmart adoption day, right? We pulled up to the parking lot and it was uncharacteristically chaotic. Again: people were preparing for the end of the world (which I guess means Target and Trader Joes for everyone). We drove around, no parking spots to be found, I said it's not worth it, let's just go home. Jonathan said go take a peek, I'll take a lap and come get you. I walked in and crate numero 1 held a familiar chocolate brown retriever baby. Clover. She had been returned a month ago. I rang Jonathan and I think at that point he already knew we weren't leaving that store empty handed.

She didn't mind the snow one bit before the temperatures got so frigid. 

Clover was adopted and returned twice. Her info sheet said she was high energy and got into everything. Red flags to most people, I suppose, but then again people who adopt a dog pre-snowmageddon are not your ordinary folks ;) She was mellow as could be in her crate so we took her out as her foster mom told us more about her. How she LOVES to play fetch, which we quickly learned. That she's great with people, dogs and cats. She just needs some consistency, a routine and to know what's expected of her. And a young couple to keep her active. Okay. Where do we sign. 

And that was it. We became a little family of three strolling through Petsmart, saying to each other, "We just did that. What are we doing?" buying all the other things we hadn't nested with yet (leash, collar, food, dog bowls, toys, treats -- dogs need lots of things!) I can't begin to imagine the process of preparing for and having a baby.

We got in some good play time in our backyard and a mile walk Saturday evening before we settled in and waited for the snow. She slept in her crate like a champ the first two nights and has only had two in house accidents so far (I'd like to see you try to potty in -7 degrees!). 

We love her. Every night the past few months we've said a little prayer that our future pup was somewhere safe and warm until we got her (we're just so silly...). Her timing, a little unorthodox (it's the dead of winter, Jonathan is traveling for work next week, I'm going home the following weekend), is a sweet reminder that our plans are small and timid compared to His.