on the nature of the unintended hiatus

You know how you get behind on something, and then you finally get a minute to do that thing, but you're so behind that you don't know where to start so you don't? And then you just get more behind and it seems like too much to even begin, and the whole thing just kind of snowballs into a big icy ball of Do Not Want?

Welcome to the last two months of website non-updateyness.

We have been busy, yes, but not significantly more than our usual Hamster Wheel O'Crazy, so it's not attributable to some new escalation. And some of those busy things have included many fun and exciting things. Things which include adventures and hilarity and sometimes even photographic evidence! Things that are, in short, terrific website fodder. The radio silence is therefore also not attributable to a lack of material about which to post.

So we will chalk it up to a case of needing to cut something out for awhile in order to maintain sanity. Also: laziness.

In any case...hello! I have many things to tell you about! I will probably tell you about most of them! If I feel like it! I will probably forget something I meant to tell you about! I will include pictures! If it's not too much work! It will probably be too much work! Because I am lazy, as previously established! Some of the topics I plan to tell you about if I'm not overcome by an overpowering desire to do something else:

• The Great Gallstone Adventure of 2012!
• Why family is totes the best!
• Sal's birthday!
• All of the many movies we have seen recently! See also: geeks are the greatest.
• That time I was 20 feet from Gary Lightbody and totally didn't lose my shit! Except for maybe a little bit!
• Girls' Road Trip!
• Girls' Art Weekend! Launched with an actual Mad Hatters' Party! Because I am the raddest.

So, you know. Those things might be stuff to look forward to hearing about. Although that really puts a lot of pressure on me to make them interesting, and I don't need the stress (see also: gallstones), so I make no promises. Also, vacation starts in two weeks so I am a kitten distracted by shiny objects right now.

Anyway.

the hallway comes to droid

Fabulous! The website software platform we use for the site just released (FINALLY!) their droid app. Which means we can finally post on the go!

the rain to the wind said

I took yesterday off to spend some time on writing and holy crap, did I ever pick a great weekend to do it. We've had the most terrific series of storms rolling through since Friday night, feeding my mood to be curled up at home and be all author-ly. Have we forgotten how much I love bad weather (as long as I'm not in it)? No? Okay, moving on.

Because this weather also makes me ridiculously nest-y, I also spent a hilarious amount of time working on plans for the project I alluded to last week. Which I wouldn't have thought possible, since autumn is already the time when I get downright Martha Stewart anyway, but with a fun and exciting house project on the horizon? Cranked up to eleven, you guys.

Don't worry, I'll spill the beans soon since I won't be able to keep it a secret. But first, I need to get some updates done on this here website about house projects we've completed. So look for more tales of home improvement gone ludicrously awry and pictorial evidence thereof to tide you over until the project gets underway and you'll have a whole new round of entertainment.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• pork roast and root vegetable stew -- beets, parsnips, rutabaga, kale, rainbow chard, onions, and tomatoes (we had some produce to use up, in case that wasn't obvious)
• baked potato with a bit of sour cream and garlic-dill cheese curds
• orange sections; pears and bananas cooked with cinnamon and brown sugar (a sort of quickie pear-banana sauce) with walnuts for garnish

The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
          — Robert Frost

freakin' hallelujah

OMG YOU GUYS WEB HOSTING IS HARD.

So. As you've probably experienced in the last month or so, the site has been intermittently inaccessible. It's been a frustrating troubleshooting problem, complicated by my insane schedule and the fact that I would start to make some progress, then have to leave it for a few days because I didn't have time, then have to come back and figure out where I left off. Two steps forward, yada yada.

But I'm (tentatively) excited that I may have finally FINALLY figured out the problem and solved it*. We'll see how the next week goes. If you get any kind of error when you access the site in the next few days (or ever, really), please let me know. But hopefully it won't be necessary!

*In other news, editing the DNS Zone with the correct configuration for MX, A, mail, and CNAME records for a site split across two hosting accounts with two permanent redirects and three domain-specific email addresses is WAY beyond my paygrade. God bless unbeatable tech support.

the hallway's back, bitchez!

The site's been live for awhile, but we're nearing the official launch, with the switchover of the domain pointing to the new site. Not everything's been ported over yet, but if we waited until that was done, it'd be another four years before the site ever got updated. (Well hopefully, not, but still!)

Some of the more recent work on the house has yet to be written up and posted, and only some of the pictures from our various vacations and getaways in the last few years have been posted. Oh, and I know we've got pictures from activities around Portland to get on here, too. And AND! There will soon be pics of Sal's brewing (mis)adventures, which should be fun, and he'll no doubt be posting on this here blog about his continuing experimentations from time to time.

But this is a good start. We've got all the latest in my ongoing bento obsession, and pictures we know you haven't seen yet from some more recent trips (and more to come) and even on a house project or two. AND! Some never-before-seen pictures of the house before we moved in.  And some other little surprises here and there.

We've got some neat new features, too. The RSS feed, of course, and a bunch of social networking widgets so you can find us in other places (the top row is my accounts, the bottom row is Sal's). You can search the site now, and comment on entries, something that many of you have wanted for a long time. Oh! And over there in the right hand sidebar, the "Recently Updated" section will tell you the 10 most recent changes made to the site, outside this main journal page, including new pictures posted, additional entries made to the Hall House section, new links added. Pretty wicked, no? You should totally check this place out, you guys.

We're excited to be back to using the site again and to give people a way to stay updated on what we're up to. We hope you'll check back regularly, subscribe to the RSS feed, and even comment if you're so inclined. You know how we love feedback!