CONSUME!!!

Our fridge arrived this week, after we'd been living out of a 2'x2' loaner "bar fridge" from Baillio's, our appliance dealer the past few weeks. It took them over three weeks to put a custom stainless slab on one side of the built-in fridge to make it look presentable. Our days of living on Subway sandwiches and Mexican takeout are over! (Thank goodness for Mom's dinners--it was so nice to have a home-cooked meal once in a while the past three weeks!)

The first thing we did when Val arrived from Boston was go to Costco to buy food to fill our fridge. We've never been good at buying bulk, but we were like kids in a candy store (see photo). We stocked up on the freshest meats, fruits, vegetables and cheeses we could find at a warehouse store, and we didn't do so bad--we made sure nearly everything we bought was local, organic/free-range/wild, and made in the USA (quite a challenge--we dare you to try it!), and Costco was pretty good about having several local products to choose from. For example, we chose a trio of salsas from Cervantes restaurant over the icky Pace stuff, which we would never eat anyway (can you say salsa snobs?). Cervantes is just around the corner from Val's folks' house. You can't get more local than that!

Gotta go--Val's brother Eric is visiting and it's time to BBQ and eat some of that yummy food!

Val Headed to Boston

Hi Folks!

Val's headed to Boston over the next few days for work. Thereafter, watch for news of our preparation for a golf tournament at the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Festival on Sunday -- wine and food served by Santa Fe's finest restaurants at every 3rd hole...mmmm mmmm good!

Fog has set in

San Francisco is following us....we woke up Friday morning and were covered in FOG!

Fog's somewhat a rare thing to see in New Mexico, but it's been raining quite a bit and we do live in the Rio Grande river valley. This is the most beautiful time of year to visit or live in New Mexico.

Our furniture has arrived!

After THREE WEEKS of sleeping on an air mattress, we finally have relief. With moving companies, you truly pay in time for what you save in money....

We also bought some new furniture--behold, the office:

Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Now here's a scenario for you: move from living in a 1000 sq. ft. loft in downtown San Francisco with a fast-paced, fine wine & dining lifestyle surrounded by your 30-something friends, to a rural area of New Mexico with lots of overgrown weeds (but with a fabulous house and property--sorry, we just love it!), and get to know your neighbors. Turns out, one of your neighbors has a small flock of sheep, and offers to unleash them on your back acre to cut down the weeds so he can save on feed. Here's what it would look like:
We can't help but giggle everytime we go outside. And the cats are fascinated with them--they sit at our back screen door quizically looking on as these creatures stuff themselves with tall, moist weeds from the deluge we had yesterday. But we can breathe a sigh of relief that an acre of weeds will be gone in the next few days! (They work fast...)

Psychology of Color

We put a lot of thought and research into our color palette for the house and discovered such interesting things about the psychology of color. For example, recent studies show that people are more productive in blue rooms. And because yellow is the hardest color on the eye (reflects the most colors on the sepctrum to your retina), it can incite tension (and oddly, also increase metabolism)? For that reason, people lose their tempers and babies cry more often in yellow rooms. So don't have difficult discussions in a yellow kitchen with your spouse!

More on color psychology (not to be confused with color symbolism) on wikipedia.com.

Painting the Night Away

We're going a little nuts with color in our new casita, but we absolutely love this Bunglehouse Blue from Sherwin Williams for our office. After shopping for and sampling several swatches over the past few weeks, we want jobs naming paints....

We chose an Arts & Crafts color palette for the house. Whattya think?

Great room & Kitchen:

Bedrooms:











Office: