Weekend in Instagram...

 ...when your best friend in the world comes to visit (aka my HLP), all the way from Cleveland.

 The pre-arrival of said HLP will look something like this:  pajamas, Basset Hound snuggling, and How I Met Your Mother watching...

After around 9pm, your best friend will arrive and there will be much jubilation...namely from the previously zonked-out Basset Hound.

Since the boyfriend will be watching the world series on the living room tv, you will tell your best friend that you two will be resuming your four year long Dr. Quinn marathon upstairs in your bedroom.  However, your relatively low-lit bedside lamps and the wine on either night stand will set a strangely romantic mood that you will point out to the boyfriend when you say, "It looks like I'm trying to get lucky with Amanda".  But your HLP, being awesome, will laugh and you will proceed cross two more horrific DQ episodes (we're on the last season...and it's not pretty!  Well, except for Sully....Sully is pretty!) off the list.

 Oh, and Gui will snuggle right in between you and said HLP during the DQ marathon and wine drinking in bed.

 The next day you will go to the Halloween tea at your sister's tea house.  Your HLP will look adorable in her cowgirl outfit and at the very last minute you will put together a costume after much nagging from your sister (I love you Michelle!).  Having had brie and baguette earlier in the week and deciding you love French people mainly only because they invented these two wonderful things...you decide to honor them by going to tea as a French person.  Complete with permanent marker stache!

After tea there will be some unsuccessful shopping for an electric blanket, because the boyfriend and HLP are babies and you refuse to turn on the heat in your house.  Then, you and your HLP will stuff your faces full of glorious cheese fries from PRC.  Then you will both, being nearly comatose, cover yourselves with many blankets and watch How I Met Your Mother until dinner time rolls around.

 

 During this time, Cheese will fall asleep on your lap and look completely adorable, as per usual.

 The next day, before lunch, you and the HLP will take a little itty-bitty walk around Eden Park where trees appear to be on fire!

And spider webs are filled with little rain droplets instead of spiders.

Then, after a delicious lunch at Ambar your one and only HLP will make her way back to that far far land to the north and you and the Basset Hound will proceed to mope...

The End

I had a fantastic weekend full of good friend-time and too much delicious food!  I hope that you all had a equally wonderful Halloween weekend.  Stay tuned tomorrow as the beginning of November brings NaBloPoMo where I will blog EVERY-FLIPPIN'-DAY!  Eek!

Weekend in Instagram

 Cheese enjoys it when we clean off the loveseat.  I think having his own couch makes him feel special.

 After he refused to sleep in his new bed all week, Antoine moved it over 3 feet to the left and now Gui loves it!  What a weirdo!

 Me, sporting my new Rx sunglasses and a Heidi braid (for the first time)...on my way to tea.

 There's a chill in the air...that means it soup time.  Thai chicken noodle to be exact.

 One of my favorite Fall activities is picking pumpkins, so naturally two other autumnal activities I adore are carving pumpkins and watching horror movies.

Cheese thought he should help with the pumpkin carving.

Here's a couple of the pumpkins Antoine and I carved.  And we've still got a couple more to do.

You can find me on Instagram under the user name theclusterf__k

The Cuteness Abounds

Remember when Cheese went completely insane because a bright green rug and a fluffy cat? Well, this is the calm after the storm! 
 

 

 
Both the calm and the storm are, in my humble opinion, ridiculously adorable.

Pumpkins and Bugs

(To clarify, Antoine is neither a pumpkin or a bug)

Fungus Among Us

Anyone who knows me knows I despise mushrooms.  Hate them, in fact!  On the list of my least favorite foods, mushrooms are right up there with mayonnaise and veal.  Bleh!  Seriously, when I eat anything containing a mushroom bad things happen...mainly with my face.  It's like a cross between the face a 4 year old would make if you made them eat a brussel sprouts and what I imagine Mr. Hyde looks like.  Not pretty.

Anyway, a curious thing happened last weekend while Antoine and I were walking through the woods in Yellow Springs...I found myself mesmerized by the all the mushrooms and fungi around us.  I'd never really paid attention before, but they're all really kind of awesome.  They are all so different and interesting looking.  I still have no desire to eat any, but it makes me appreciate them in a new way.

 

 

Autumn Walk

This past weekend was great.  Saturday I got to see my best friend, who lives in Cleveland now (read: sad face).  We ate delicious grilled cheese sandwiches, spent too much money at Target, devoured some tasty frozen yogurt., and caught up on life stuff.  It was good times.  Then I headed to my parents and Sunday I got to visit my grandparents and have lunch with my mom.  Also, good times.  The only thing missing from my weekend...the big A; Antoine.  While I headed north this weekend, Antoine stayed home to snuggle with the Cheese (and bath him, because he was getting smelly), do yard work and some major housework, and hang out with one of his friends.  We both had good, productive weekends...but I have to say, I've grown accustomed to our weekends together, and I miss the guy.

Last weekend Antoine and I spent the weekend together and drove up to Yellow Springs on Sunday for a perfect Fall day.  It's no secret that I love Fall, but there's no more perfect autumnal activities that pumpkin picking, hiking, and drinking cider.  It just doesn't get much better.  And Yellow Springs is the absolute perfect place to do all three.  In fact, no trip to Yellow Springs is complete (at least for us) without a trip to Glen Helen for a hike, Piefer Orchards for cider and whatever seasonal picking is going on, and Young's Diary for some ice cream (and now that we've tried their fried cheese curds...fried cheese curds!  YUM!).  Here's a peek into (part of) our walk through Glen Helen:

 Apparently, Antoine can makes things levitate!  Who knew!?

I have much more to share from our perfect Autumn weekend, so stay tuned.

Guess Who's Coming to Etsy?!

You may or may not have noticed that delightful little banner to the right...psst, over there --->  You know, the one that says "My Etsy Shop"?  Yeah, that one!  That's right, this lady has finally opened up an Etsy shop.  A nerderific Etsy shop filled with blank books/journals/sketchbook made by yours truly, featuring some of my marbled papers and hand-dyed linen bookcloth.  I'm pretty excited about it, even though I'm not 100% satisfied with my pictures.  But hey, I'm learning and I plan on fixing them as I go along.  Please check it out and pass it along!

"Green Rugs Make Me CRAZY!!"

Living with a basset hound is a special thing.  Especially when that basset hound happens to still be in his puppy-phase.  From manic outburst to practically unconscious in a matter of minutes.  It's actually pretty hilarious most of the time.  Well, except when someone comes over and he decides to flip-the-shit-out and run around like he's on crack flavored candy.  Yeah, that's not so great.  But most of the time the spastic personality of a basset hound is an awesome thing.  You never know when a mood change is going to happen...except when it comes to carrots.  Carrots = extreme focus + palpable excitement.

Last Sunday, while Antoine and I were finally putting together our dining room we found out just exactly how said basset hound will react to a bright green rug.  Bright green rug + basset hound + fluffy cat = crazy shit-storm of manic awesomeness.  I don't know if it was the color that threw him into madness or that the rug was new and hadn't been there before, but as soon as we rolled out that rug Cheese started to go ape-shit.  He decided the rug was HIS and he wasn't going to share it's spectacular fantasticism with some stupid fluffy cat!  Here's how things played out...

 "This rug is MINE, you silly cat!"

 "You hear me?!"

 "I'M FLIPPIN' CRAZY!!"

 "BHLAGHAHAHAARGH!!"

"Oh yeah, cat, I almost forgot about you in my manic fury.  Beat it!"

 "BHLAGHAHAHAARGH!!"

 "Hey owner, you think this is funny!?"

"BHLAGHAHAHAARGH!!"

And after about five minutes a manic chaos, barking at the cat, rolling on the fun, running in circles...he passed out.  Oh the joys of having a basset hound!