housekeeping.

I feel a bit guilty about not having a recipe to share with you today, but my desire to write is still there, so I feel I must do something about it. With everything else happening these days, I decided I ought to take the pressure to bake-bake-bake off my shoulders and learn to savor the flavor a bit more. Life happens so quickly, doesn't it? So I gave my blog a bit of a face-lift in honor of my mini-revelation, and I do hope you'll stick around. Don't worry, there will still be copious amounts of butter and sugar around here, but in just nine short days, the only people at my table on a regular basis will be Mr. Policeman and his little wife, and there's just not enough stomach room for all that cake. I've got dozens of savory recipes lined up, I even grilled a steak last weekend!



But lately, I've been up to my gills in cowboy wallpaper.



Some might say I am way in over my head in trying to redecorate a room while we are still moving in and planning the wedding - but when I go into our house cabin, it still feels like someone else lives there. When I stand in the foyer and see the kitty-printed wallpaper, I cringe knowing we are "dog people." And somehow I missed the rodeo room, the guest room that was covered with lasso-slingin' Westerners from floor to ceiling. I assume the little boy who lived there had quite an imagination.



But my heart pines for vintage, shabby, chic, rustic decor, something Justin could never understand since he is currently taking measurements for where to hang his deer head on the wall. I so want it to feel like ours, a place where we live and sleep and make memories. So my Mom and I spent hours scraping and peeling the paper off the walls only to find the paper was actually under the trim and baseboards and we had to use a razorblade to get it out. Thank you, previous owners.



And if that wasn't enough, Justin is refinishing an antique dresser my parents gave us, a dresser that has gone through more members of my family than I can remember. I suppose I could figure out who has previously owned it based on the pencil doodles and chewed gum that line the drawers, but some things are better left a mystery. God bless him, he spends hours each day sanding, stripping, dusting, wiping, and staining the dresser and I spend hours...well, cheering him on.



Perhaps we'd been huffing too much paint thinner or the fumes of the wallpaper remover finally infiltrated my brain, but halfway through the day on Saturday we found a 1920's porcelain-top stove for sale and brought it home to our garage within the hour. Now this book you have to judge by its cover, because the innards are so incredibly rusted and rotted you'll get lockjaw just by looking at it. But we are equipped to restore, my friends!



And so our life together begins so very soon. Hallelujah.