Meet Anna.

If you follow me on Instagram, this is old news.  But if you don't WE GOT A PUPPY!  Miss Anna is nearly five months old and only a little bit annoying.  She was a rescue filled with worms (a lot of worms) and instalove for Frances.  She followed me around non-stop for the first month and for the first week I had to have my hand INSIDE HER CRATE the entire night or else she'd loose it and no one would sleep.

Now she follows Frances around all of the time and sleeps happily in her crate on the other side of the bedroom.  She absolutely needs a morning walk and an afternoon run in order to not drive me up the wall.  Turns out yelling "I FUCKING HATE YOU TWO" does not stop the wrestling over toys.  It's never mean, just typically taking place on my feet while I'm trying to work, and possibly even on a call. But this means I'm running again and that is not a bad thing.

Frances doesn't yet LOVE Anna, but we're getting there.  Anna is allowed on the couch and the bed (Frances was in charge of the inviting, yes we have zero control of our older dog) and sometimes, SOMETIMES, she's even allowed in my lap at the same time as Frances.  There has been one instance of cuddling and it was brief, but now that it's cold outside I have high hopes that it will become a regular thing.  There has been no fighting, which has been a relief, and a lot of food sharing.

Frances is far more active, the house smells much more of farts and we're back to having to schedule our outings around a puppy that needs to be let out every four or so hours.  All in all it's been a pretty good thing.

Oh and possibly the best part, her actual biological sister lives just a couple of blocks from us.  THEY HAVE PLAYDATES.  It is adorable.

bad day.

apparently that walk this morning ... down the block and around the corner to the market, was just a bit too much.  or maybe she's heard the rumblings about the move?  or perhaps it was the offensive manner in which i tossed cheerios her way?  whatever it was, frances is having a very bad day.

what we did, where we went.

1. + 2. surprise trip to balsalm mtn preserve, oh my god amazing. 3. zip lining 4. hot springs, the first and last visit of ours. wnc hot spring weren't all we were hoping for. 5. + 6. chicago for a long weekend of eating here, here and here. 7. late summer flowers in asheville.

frances.

she's been vacationing with her grandparents for the last week and we've missed her so. i'm picking her up this afternoon, i cannot wait.

{celia sent this to me half way through our separation. mas and i both went all misty eyed.}

pissed.

i picked frances up from her grandparents house (a place she LOVES) yesterday and these are the faces she made. in fact, there was hardly any excitement out of her for the rest of the day ... until she saw mas that is (yeah i nearly made them sleep on the couch together). it's obvious she's still mad at me for dropping her off ten days ago, bitch.

so, i'm spending the weekend sucking up to my 14 lb dog ... what about you?

the fourth.

we sunned + slept under the stars. we ate thai food + bagels almost exclusively. there was reading. there was no cell reception, and very little wifi. there was swimming in the ocean. AND there was the first through fourth car ferry experience of my life.

lost before lost.

yesterday mas and i were lost in the woods, for at least two hours. at first it went unnoticed, but then, after a while, we just never quite made it back to the car, crossed creeks we really shouldn't have been crossing, and it was getting dark(ish). three hours after we turned around from our one and a half hour hike in there was mention made of perhaps reassessing our situation. random thoughts were blurted ... at least we have the chocolate bacon bar ... worst case scenario we sleep under our rain jackets ... i guess we could fill our empty water bottles with creek water ... perhaps we should have eaten lunch ... can you believe frances is still walking? but before i started hyperventilating* (sleeping under our rain jackets, are you KIDDING ME?) we figured out where to go, and two hours(ish) later we were back at the car with one blister and a craving for gatorade**.

so cut to 10 pm, we finally are home, dinner is on the stove and LOST is queued. we stay up until one (which is holy shit late for me) finish LOST and very nearly re-start the series from the pilot right then and there. but we can't because it's a school week and we are stupid tired. i guess that will just have to wait until tonight. because honestly i'm not sure how i feel about the ending and i think i need to watch the entire series again to be sure.


*it wasn't quite this bad, but only because mas started working on calming me down before i really even knew i was about to freak out ... i love him.
**frances was only slightly parched and fairly exhausted ... though you would not have known it in the wilderness.

it's because i live in the south.

i need things like pretty pink kate spade bike baskets. one for my groceries from the farmer's market that FINALLY started up again last weekend, and then another for my little dog frances to sit in. i mean COME ON, how cute would she be peeking out of this basket? i know, right?

we used to have an ocean.

but now we have a garden, and mas says we can get chickens, and i even have a bee keeping lesson on the horizon. our walls are still not painted, but we've been spending so much time out of doors i *almost* haven't noticed (my studio is painted crisp white and i have twinkle lights in here so that too helps). north carolina, you are starting to feel a bit like home.