Como te llama?

I LOVE NAMES.

I love them. I always have. When I was growing up, I used to read AVON magazines-- absorbing the title of every shade of lipstick, eyeshadow and nail polish color. I memorized all the cool sounding names of Crayons (cerulean! burnt sienna! cornflower! cadet blue! periwinkle! dandelion! denim!) When I started writing stories, I AGONIZED over the names of my characters, scouring baby name books (because there were no websites, way back when) for meaningful, unique monikers.

When I started to have favorite movies with ensemble casts, I would write out all the character names in my school notebooks and pick out the ones I liked best. I ALWAYS had a favorite boy name and girl name, as well as running lists of names that I loved and might want to use for something. I always looked forward to getting new stuffed animals and or pets, because I got to choose names for them all by myself. (Back in 1995 when my family finally got a computer, I remember typing a roster of all my stuffed animals, complete with names and physical descriptions of each. Just in case, you know?)

I was also always interested to know people's middle names. I remember being SO disappointed the few times I discovered that one of my friends had NO middle name. I was appalled. I was like "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR PARENTS?! WHY WOULD YOU BYPASS SUCH AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY?!"

Naming something or someone is a huge privilege to me.

A few names from my past that I was rather proud of included:

• Cable- my dad's truck, the first car I drove on a regular basis in high school. Named after an obscure superhero.
• Jade- MY first car. People though it was because she was green, but really it's because I was a huge nerd. Jade was just her first name.
  
• Jack- my dad's little black Civic, which we got during the summer that the first Pirates movie came out. So of course it was originally the Black Pearl, but you can't call your car that when you're yelling at/coaxing it. So Jack it became.
• Bruce Wayne- my laptop. When I got it, it was sleek and very high tech with lots of gadgets. It felt appropriate.
• Sawyer- the guitar I bought from a pawn shop after my old one got stolen when my car got broken into.
• Gotham- my sweet, rotten, furry boy who is dark as the night/knight himself.

Pretty much all of my important stuff is named after nerdy things. Pretty sure at least one of our kids will follow suit.

I still keep a running list of names that I love. I collect them in a notes app on my phone. Every time I get the alumni publication from my alma mater, I comb the "Born to be a Wildcat" section, reading all the names of the new babies and silently judge people for their lack or overabundance of creativity. And I think I pester Todd one a week about what we should name our kids.

I CANNOT WAIT TO NAME OUR (currently nonexistent) KIDS.

I think about it all the time. I mean, is there any greater task than branding a person with the title they will use for life?! Not a job to be taken lightly.

I want to tell you my top four (current) kid names so badly. But I won't. I don't know why, but I won't.

I will tell you this. They are all named after characters, but not in a glaring way. The boy names are more well known characters (and one is kind of glaring, but whatever. I think it's cool and noble.) And the girl names are similar to each other-- and similar to mine too. And all the middle names are family-related. Except one. But that one relates to the family in a different way.

I just typed them all out. And deleted them. Maybe I'll spill when I'm pregnant. :)

p.s. In college, I was voted (by my roommates) "Most Likely to Name Her Children After Superheroes"-- I don't want to disappoint.

Any unique names that you're fond of, but wouldn't inflict on your kids?

F-O-X.

Well... I apologize for keeping you out of the loop, but there's been a LOT going on... far too much to blog about. Weddings and baby showers and new jobs and contests and concerts and high school reunions and birthdays and holidays and road trips and contracts and Gospel Communities and carpooling and babysitting.

The Gentemans are a flurry, nay, a whirlwind of activity as of late.

Oh and a tornado! One of those happened too.

All that to say, I still don't have time to update you. Because this Thursday, Todd and I are signing the papers to close on our first home! We've packed about 4 boxes. But we've sold a bit of furniture and somewhere between me having jury duty and wrapping up Morning Reading at Peabody, we're going to move to Fox Park, a city neighborhood just a mile and a half from where we are now in Soulard.
Sorry I don't have time to manipulate this poster in photoshop and put an X on Fox Park. But see the long skinny blue neighborhood on the far right (Southeast)? Soulard is the gold-colored neighborhood to the left of it. And to the left of that, there's a tiny red neighborhood and a larger white one (McKinley Heights & Benton Park, respectively.) and then there's small gold-ish neighborhood right next to McKinley Heights. That's Fox Park.

We're moving over the weekend. Praise the Lord for all he has provided! I promise more of an update soon. Possibly with video.

I Don't Want It To End.

I just made this. The second half is sitting on my coffee table. Even you're vegetarian, read on-- you could always change your mind for a sec if you came across some humanely raised pork product.

Start with two pieces of bread. Or a roll. Whatever.

Now you need bacon. Cook it to your desired level of crispiness. (I use the oven so it cooks while I'm doing other stuff. Stick it in a pan/on cookie sheet on 350. 10-12 minutes should do the trick.)

In the meantime, find you some cheese (I used sliced colby jack) a granny smith apple and some dijon mustard.

Bread: Mustard on one side, butter on the other. (Like a grilled cheese. unless you don't want it toasted, then, nix the butter.)

Apple: Peeled, cored, thinly sliced. (I only used half an apple for 2 sandwiches.)

Find a skillet. Turn the heat up to low-medium. Depending on how impatient you are. If you have a toaster, oven that'll work too. I pre-toasted in the skillet, then moved it to the toaster oven so it would get more melty without burning.

Bacon: cook, blot, rip in half.

Assemble as follows: Hot skillet --> bread, butter side down --> layered bacon strips --> layered apple slices --> layered cheese --> bread, butter side up.

Toast to desired brownness. Flip. Repeat toasting. Stick it in the toaster oven if your cheese isn't melty enough or if your bread is super thick.

Let cool ever so slightly.

Eat your new favorite sandwich and have your face melted off.

Sad Puppy

Todd just broke Gotham's spirit by putting a band-aid on his back right foot.

Last week, Gotham somehow got a small laceration on his back foot and has been prancing and dancing around on it for days. But today, Todd decided to doctor it a little with some peroxide and neosporin. He put a large band-aid on it so the puppy wouldn't lick everything off. And of course, Gotham immediately tried to rip it off. Todd told him no and we fussed at him every time he turned his head toward the band-aid.

Within 5 minutes, Gotham's entire life was ruined.

He walked around for awhile like a maimed deer (not like he was in pain, just like a cat does when you put tape on its paws) ears back and little nubby tail all tucked away. Finally, he crawled under the dining room table (which he never does) and laid down, staring at us with big ol sad puppy eyes. SO pathetic. I love that lil boy.

And good to know that when he's being really annoying, all I have to do is break out the band-aids.


p.s. He just moved spots. Now he's laying halfway under the coffee table.

Aspen Adventure

Yesterday I got snowed in-- in Aspen. I've been here 4 days now and it has been an adventure since the beginning.

I woke up to snow on the morning of my 27th birthday (last Saturday), and my sweet husband managed to get me to the airport with time to spare. I bid goodbye to him and our big furry child and caught my first flight into Denver. It was delayed over an hour because of snow and lack of de-icer. I spent 25 minutes on the phone changing my connecting flight because I was bound to miss it.

I enjoyed all the leg room that accompanies the emergency exit seat and when I arrived in Denver, I found that my connecting flight had been canceled. I located a co-worker who I was traveling with and she told me that she booked seats for us on a shuttle to Denver, which left at 12:30pm. So I had an hour and a half to get my bag and get on the road. No problem, right?

Wrong. I left Denver in a van with 11 other people and nothing but my purse and laptop bag. Captained by a red-headed Kiwi man, we trudged for 6 hours through the ice and snow and traffic until we finally made it to Aspen.

Aspen was ridiculous. We stayed in the Cold Stream Trout Lodge, which is an 8000 square foot log cabin on a little river/stream that's owned by the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller. (We also had dinner at his incredibly gorgeous barn on Saturday night.) The trout lodge featured a moose head over the giant fireplace and a bear rug on the floor. It snowed constantly. We had a chef who cooked us three meals a day, and most of them were made from healthy, organic, local ingredients. I went to a spa on Sunday and got an 80 minute massage. On Monday, we spent a full day talking about visioning and then went and had an incredible dinner together at a different ranch (peach margaritas with tiny chunks of fresh peach in them, wilted kale salad with currant, pine nuts and parmesean, melt-in-your-mouth peppercorn crusted beef tenderloin with cherry port reduction, garlic mashed potatoes and brocollini, chocolate mousse cake and raspberry vanilla cheesecake for dessert. Ridiculous.) and were then entertained for an hour by a bluegrass playing trio of older country gentleman who called themselves Timber Mill. Twirp, Cash & Randy played lots of John Denver songs and a little "Devil Went Down To Georgia", "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and one of the best versions of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" I've ever heard. I'm so sad I didn't get a recording of that one.

Anyway... there was dancing involved, and during one particularly bluegrassy number, we discovered that one of the girls in attendance had spent years as a clogger. After some encouragement, she busted out into this incredible clogging routine and tore it UP. It was incredible and so funny!

I tried to come home on Tuesday, I really did. But the snow was so intense that everyone's flights got cancelled and we ended up back at the lodge for another night. It was good though, because I got to hole up and write on a project I'm working on for almost 4 hours. Wednesday morning, the weather cleared up completely and I made it to the airport by noon. After a non-eventful flight back to Denver and a 6 hour layover in the Denver airport, I made it back to St. Louis, 9pm on Wednesday night.

Surrounded By Snow.

And likely to remain so. I left work at 11:45 yesterday, my office is closed today and we're snowed in! The streets are utterly covered in ice and snow and it's not supposed to let up until tomorrow night.

I told Todd I wanted to re-watch one of three movies on our snow day.
1) Equilibrium
2) The Prestige
3) Australia

Ten minutes after I said that, I realized the common threads:
1) Christian Bale
2) Christian Bale & Hugh Jackman
3) Hugh Jackman

That was unintentional. We haven't watched any of those yet. Instead, we watched Shades of Ray, which is an indie rom-com about interracial relationships, starring Zac Levi, and The Lottery, which is a doc about charter schools vs. public schools in Harlem. Both were really good for totally different reasons. Also, we just got The Mighty Ducks on Netflix (I was in a throwback mood... and I really just wanted to watch D2, but I thought I should watch the original first, since it's been like... almost 20 years.) But I just found out that my office is closed tomorrow too. So there's time. :)

How nice that the week I leave for Aspen is a double snow day week that means I get two days to stay at home with my man.

Wait, did I mention the thing about Aspen? Or the job?

I don't think I did. Well, here's the short version.

In December, I interviewed for a position with an alternate division of the company I've been working temp for. (Barry-Wehmiller is the parent company, Design Group and ControlTech Automation are divisions. Design Group does mostly consulting and engineering from 15 different offices nationwide. St. Louis is the main office. ControlTech does on-site manufacturing of electronic panels for various factories around the country and the world, i.e. Coca-Cola, MillerCoors, Unilever, Pepsi Bottling, Nestle Purina, etc.) I've been an admin assistant at ControlTech for about 4 months now, and back in December, I was told that a new opportunity was opening up at Design Group's corporate office in Clayton. Since they like to fill positions from within, my manager passed my resume on to Design Group and in short, they liked it and asked me to interview for the job. After 2 interviews, 5 meetings with different managers at Design Group, and approximately 5 weeks of waiting through the holiday season-- they offered me the job! On a couple of conditions:

1) That I stay at ControlTech until they find a new admin-- who I will be training.
2) That I'm okay with not starting in Clayton till March.
3) That I accompany the rest of the marketing/communications peeps from around the US (about 15 of us total) to a weekend conference, February 5-8, at the company lodge in Aspen.

I accepted. :) So this blog now belongs to Design Group STL's newest (and first... and only...) Marketing Coordinator! All my college-going and "hard work, ain't been in vain for nothin." :) I'll be doing internal and external marketing work for Design Group, a lot of work on the website and be working on company re-branding as well. It's going to be a LOT of work. A LOT of organizing and re-prioritizing. Just-- a LOT in general. (I'm praying about all of it already, and I covet your prayers too.) But I am SO excited for the opportunity, and for the trust that the DG executives have placed in me by offering me a place in this company.

And... I'm going to Aspen this weekend. For free. To stay in a lodge and eat dinner with the CEO on Saturday night and get an 80 minute hot stone massage on Sunday, and go to meetings on Monday and Tuesday. For free. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm going to miss my fellas SO much... but again, I'm delighted to have a couple of free days this week to spend cuddled up on the couch with them.

This time last year, I was workin hard at the Arch. And now, every time we drive past it, I'm praising Jesus for his provision. His timing is really pretty awesome. :)

Bowling Pin Lamps & Stained Glass Windows

Last night via craigslist, Todd told this woman he'd come pick up a pair of free, vintage bowling pin lamps. (For the church office, not the house. Still, it feels like something out of A Christmas Story.)

The lady lives in an area called Spanish Lake, which is probably 20 minutes from us. To get to Spanish Lake, you have to drive through parts of North Saint Louis, including Bellefontaine Neighbors-- both of which sound kind of ritzy... because both places were. A long time ago. Now it's mostly sad empty shops and run down mansions and cemeteries-- until you cross the county line and then it's pretty livable.

Anyway, so we're driving through North St. Louis and we pass a sprawling, iron-gated cemetery in the hills that is probably two miles long. I mean it goes forEVer and the grave markers at the tops of these hills are like shrines. HUGE. I've never seen such a thing. On the same road, we passed a plantation house that is now a museum, all white with huge columns and a wraparound porch.

Driving through places that that makes my imagination go crazy. What would it have been like to live here just 150 years ago? I wondered this aloud to Todd as we drove past the plantation house. "Can you imagine what it would've been like if we'd been born 150 years ago? Into the same families, just a different time?" Suddenly I was trying to work his character into a party in Gone With The Wind. (He cracked up when I told him what I really wondered is what HE would've been doing, because I'd most likely have been working in somebody's kitchen.) As we drove, I proceeded to make up a story about him being some charming farmer's son who made friends with the right people, did okay for himself, ended up in Texas trying to buy some property for farmland, having dinner at this property owner's house and falling in love at first sight with one of their servant girls and then spending all his money instead trying to buy her away from this man so she would be free and he could take her to the North to be his wife and start a church. :)

Anyway, so we finally made it to Spanish Lake (which is nowhere near as lovely as the name infers), picked up the lamps disassembled them and put them in the trunk, and headed home. On the way back, we detoured to take a look at a house Todd had found online. As we drove into the neighborhood, the first thing Todd pointed out was a house across the street from the one we were looking at. It has imposing, 12-foot doors out front, that are set with some kind of dark metal and glass.

We parked in front of the house we'd come to see, got out and were poking around the front yard when a man in his sixties spoke up to us from across the street. He asked if we were interested in the house and told us we were the first people who had shown any interest in years. He said if we had questions to let him know because he lived across the street.

In the house with the doors!

Todd had driven by the house before and had been admiring the doors for days now. So he mentioned to the man how much he liked them and the man said, "Well they're handcrafted stained glass, I made them myself. That's how I make my living. But you can't even see them properly right now." Todd asked what he meant. The man asked if we had a second and invited us inside.

Stained glass of course, is only visible from the darkest side. So outside in daylight, you see nothing but chunks of darkness, set between wooden and metal slats. But inside? It looks like this.

Un. Believable. Mr. Frei told us that his family has been in the business of stained glass since 1898 and has set windows in churches, cathedrals and basilicas all over the country, including half the churches in St. Louis. He's the 4th generation to own the business. His front doors were handmade over a period of 9 months and each door weighs about 400 pounds. It took 8 men to set them on hinges. (To read the remarkable history of the Frei family, check out the website. Stephen Frei is who we met today.)

We ended up spending over an hour with Mr. & Mrs. Frei today, talking about gentrification in the city, about how the answer does not lie in running out to the county, about sticking to a neighborhood for better or worse, about real estate and rehabbing a home, about their family and their business, even about raising kids in the city (they bought their house as a shell for almost nothing back in 1977, before the neighborhood even had roads or sidewalks. They rehabbed it slowly while raising 5 children. All their kids are grown now and they are grandparents!) It was unreal, completely random and incredibly cool. The Frei's were so encouraging, yet totally realistic about the heartaches and irritations of home ownership and rehabbing a house while raising a large family. Their home is beautiful, if still unfinished in places. It has such a story, as do they, and hearing their about their experiences was like uncovering buried treasure. We were riveted.

Now. Those of you who are worried, hear this-- the Gentemans are not about to do something brainless and buy an old, jacked up house because they heard some romantic stories from a 60 year old couple across the street. But-- at this rate, that house isn't going anywhere quickly. Not for the price the owner is trying to get for it. So we'll probably set up a time to go walk through it, have the damages assessed by a friend of ours who's a pro and maybe-- just maybe-- consider the possibility when the time comes.

For now, we've made some new friends. And we had a wonderful adventure this morning on the two year anniversary of the day we met. :)