The Reason for My Absence

I’ve been away for quite some time, but you see, I have a really, really, really good excuse: We bought a house and have been moving into it the past few weeks!

It’s a long, complicated, crazy story with a happy ending which I intend to devote an entire blog series to from beginning to end, but for now, I just wanted to check in and say that we’re alive and well despite the modest 3-hour nightly rests we have been getting. No complaints other than the universe allotting only a meager 24 hours in a day.

The story of this purchase will take nothing less than 30 posts to cover! Some people may have noticed that I’ve been increasingly absent for months and months now. This process has been going on since last fall and grew to be a full-time job in itself.

Today is Dustin’s 29th birthday (when is he going to be in his 30s?! – groan – ) so I’m going to make this a short post with a few pics of our new pad. Oh, and some salads because I love salad.

The house is 4-years-old and 4,800 square feet (over 7,000SF including the basement) overlooking the Hudson River. We can see boats passing from our bed!

This is the view from our seemingly never ending (203+ feet total) wrap-around deck:

The front:

There’s still the back side but I don’t have that image ready at the moment. I’ll have a whole gallery and tour set up soon, promise.

The day we changed the locks and got the keys!

Dustin talking with the builder…

This is what I consider to be the pièce de résistance: The kitchen!

The island alone was worth buying the house for. It’s 8’3” (99 inches!) long! And I love every sweet inch of it.

I’m very excited about the lazy Susan, I haven’t have one in years! More storage space = ALWAYS good!

The dishwasher came with the house; the fridge did not. So we bought the same model that was here previously:

I’ll have a post with lots of pics on the fridge soon. I’m in love with the French doors!!

These pics are just a tease. There’s so much more to cover but so little time today (and every other day).

Meanwhile, during our little heat wave last week, fresh fruit + salads were at the top of my menu. We did a ton of exhausting physical work during the hot humid days, so I was craving lots of salt to restore my electrolyte balance.

Salty romaine lettuce + tomato salad with shaved parmesan cheese, pickles, garlic olives, and extra++ pink Himalayan salt and black pepper:

I’m on a black pepper kick lately. Can’t get enough of it.

This was a use-up-other-house-fresh-produce vegetarian Cobb salad with mushrooms instead of turkey and no egg because I was too impatient to boil it.

Chopped romaine, blue cheese, diced tomato, diced mushroom, diced avocado, generous sprinkle of pink Himalayan salt + black pepper, the tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Not a true Cobb salad like we had at the Hollywood Brown Derby in Florida last November, but pretty tasty and refreshing on a hot summer spring day. Mushroom is an excellent meat replacement.

More house and moving details and yummy foods to come! It’s after noon and I haven’t even looked at the shower yet.

Happy birthday to Dustin!

Tagged as: birthdays, house, kitchen, river, salads