A lot of updating...

Holy hell! Was my last post really on September 30th? WOW. Well, my only excuse is that I've been madly cooking and blogging over at Scraping the Skillet. I do have a lot of things to update y'all on, though. Really, there should have been a bunch of posts between September and now...here's a brief recap of what's been going on:

NINI AND ADAM GOT MARRIED! Yes, my little sister is married! I have a bunch of photos posted on Flickr, but here's one to get you started...

I was back in Chicago for a glorious 10 days around her wedding. It was great to spend time with family and friends - we don't get to see them enough! Highlights? Bocce ball in Merrimack Park. Glorious fall leaves. TO DIE FOR Italian food (by an Irish chef, no less). Oh yeah, and the wedding. That was pretty awesome too ;)

2. I took a new job. Actually, I did this before the wedding by a few months. It just didn't seem top of the list. It's not an exciting or challenging job, but it is flexible and the people are nice. Now you know why I've been flakier than usual about returning e-mails, etc. Job + Food Blog = crazy busy.

3. Dylan and I have made a new resolution to go hiking more often. I mean, we live 5 minutes from a National Park but we haven't hit the trail in over a year? Crazy. The first hike was The Bellota trail up on Mt. Lemmon. Gorgeous scenery and a relatively easy hike. Amazing views after just a short hike to the ridge. Here we are:


This weekend we hiked up and around Sabino Canyon. It was also beautiful and we got to see lots of cool stuff, like a desert box turtle and a desert kitty cave. Check Flickr for pictures soon (D took the camera with him to Miami).

4. Speaking of Miami, the Canyon Ranch Miami project that D has been working on since we moved here is opening! He's there now for the soft soft opening. I was starting to wonder if this would ever happen!

5. Caleb has been battling some peeing issues. He's gotten all blocked up twice and had to spend the night at the Vet (he relapsed after the first drain). To help him manage better in the future we have officially put him on the Weekly World News Juice Diet. Mrow.

That's all the news that's fit to print.

I'll leave you with this thought:

Helpfulness...

Helpfulness..., originally uploaded by sunpath.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Caleb! Please, how about you lay on this chair - or the kitchen counter - instead.

Caleb: (jumps off counter where I have placed him as , apparently, the paper I set up for him there (bills!) is not adequate for his needs)

Me: sigh. As long as you leave the piece I am working on alone.

Caleb: (makes a nice nest before determining that his chosen paper is missing a key component. A sort of je ne sais quoi... Oh yes, my undivided attention, that's it)

Me: No - Caleb! Why do you have to lay on the one piece of paper I need to work with?!?

And so on ...

I e-mailed this picture to Dylan...for a midday laugh. His response?

"Of course! That is what he lives for :)"

And, of course, he is right. Paper? All over the table? Caleb must have died and gone to heaven.

Meme Mosaic

Meme Mosaic, originally uploaded by sunpath.

I got the idea for this meme mosaic via Flickr from the Boastful Baker...It seemed like a fun break from what I've been working on so I went for it. Here's how it works:

Rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab's mosaic maker.

Questions:
1. What is your first name? (Micha)
2. What is your favorite food? (Sushi - though this was really hard for me)
3. What high school did you go to? (OPRF)
4. What is your favorite color? (blue)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Johnny Depp)
6. Favorite drink? (green tea)
7. Dream vacation? (India)
8. Favorite dessert? (brownie)
9. What you want to be when you grow up? (free)
10. What do you love most in life? (Dylan)
11. One Word to describe you. (creative)
12. Your flickr name. (sunpath)

(incidentally, it's amazing how little of what comes up on the first page of a search is actually a picture of your search term...)

1. Poldi, Micha, Schweini: " Viel zu hoch ! ", 2. "What? Sushi? What is it?", 3. Dandelions at dusk, 4. Just hanging around, 5. JOHNNY DEPP, 6. green tea & sunshine, 7. Taj Mahal, 8. Cho Cho Cho, 9. Mulher Maravilha, 10. *waves*, 11. air, 12. sunpath.