Welcome to my virtual home!

TEC @ the Railway Exchange Building is my new office space. Arch Grants (I'm not posting the web link quite yet b/c it's under revision and looks pretty archaic at the moment) is my latest project and a team of four amazing individuals pitched in to relocate our entire office for me last night. Here are some photos so you can see the massive piles of office supplies we basically pilfered from an office that went out of business. Ok, full disclosure: we did NOT steal these supplies, we just got them for a steal. Turns out office desks can be pretty darn heavy but thankfully John and the Arch Grants' intern, Carter, were on-hand for the heavy lifting. John's turning into quite a mover after helping a Nepali family on Sunday relocate a few blocks away. So anyway, this is where I'm now spending my days. No views of the Arch but I do have a window that looks onto an old building with lions' and dogs'(?) heads attached (look closely since my computer camera

before you worry, st. louis will probably never be "home home" for either of us but i had the thought last night that john and i were beginning to make ourselves at home in this city. a couple vignettes that come to mind . . . john watching the football game with a few guys from church; wandering about downtown, getting to know my area better and appreciating the local architectural marvels like the Old Cathedral and Old Courthouse ; actually having people to hug or say, "hi" to when we go to church. i'll keep building the list because it helps to recognize how blessed we are to be here!

Many have been asking about a tour of our home so here ya go. I'll walk you through it . . . First you enter our entryway. We hung onto a couple small tables our landlord left in the house and have a favorite verse hanging near family photos. Through the door on the left of the entryway, you enter the kitchen. We've had to be creative with storage and use the island shown and another island that came with the home for pots and pans then there's another cupboard in the hallway, opposite the powder room where we store mugs, our veggie steamer, plates, bowls, etc. Moving through the door on the right side of the kitchen photo, you enter the hallway with the cupboard and the pow der room which is really a fancy name for a half bath but since the home was built in 1921 it is actually correct to call it the powder room (not pretentious at all!). Moving through the hallway, you ente r the dining room where we also have our Christmas tree. There's a ton of light in our home

Yes, Kelly was right. The survey derived from a game of Apples to Apples where Kelly and I held that fundraising was more violent than Dracula (who Grant and John thought surely more violent than fundraising). Due to the low response rate, John might have to pose this question to his facebook friends. For a moment, however, consider those evening fundraising calls or images of opponents used to raise funds for political campaigns or the marketing tactics of organizations that prey upon the elderly. Surely those could be deemed violent, at least at times. Furthermore, fundraising really exists whereas Dracula is merely fictitious so any supposed violence is pretend. There. I rest my case.