the ill pill

the echols are collectively loyal to just a few things: pecan pie, frank lloyd wright and the beastie boys.

here's our budding mike-d, with congestion and a 102.5 temp and performing time to get ill.

1. i'm not sure where she got that thumb thing.
 2. the lyrics are "what's the time, it's time to get ill".

sick as a stick

the flu blew through our house the last two weeks, we didn't even go to thanksgiving in austin this year. margaret hosted thanksgiving in shifts to sequester the sick and healthy.

for four days, em watched shaun the sheep (thanks john john)

 or found a dog to lay beside.

sick kids are sad.

his and hers

some updated pictures of the house...

the stone is almost complete around the house, next will be the cedar siding.

 stone will go around the door way as well, which jse says will keep it from looking like a mobile home. some people compare their homes to tuscan villas or a swiss chalet. we like to keep things humble.

 this is the 7x7 "storm shelter". there used to be framing on this part of the house but jose ran the tractor through the wall.

 at age 3 1/2, this is not the first tractor she's driven, no surprise here.

 the left window is esther margaret's, the right is a guest room.

november half update

well it was so hot and now it's frigid. i just bought a pressure cooker and am having a fantastic time making soups and stews.

we went to austin for halloween, em wanted to be a sheep like her favorite animal, baa. i found a pattern on etsy and had the shop seamstress make it for her. i never tried it on her until we were at the party. unfortunately it was a bit of a hybrid between sheep, flying nun and white supremacist. and the elastic was too thick so it kept pulling down over her eyes.

 still they had fun. it turns out that our aloof, reserved child is motivated wildly by candy. she even outlasted her cousin in trick or treating.

 at olive and june's, making a series of faces. maybe this one was "mad".

 we went to a jr league event with friends to make this gingerbread house. em was only focused on eating candy. another mom-powered project. another white american holiday i have never really had a clue about.

 her drawings are starting to look more realistic, here is a cat with a "band aid" on its head. look at how many teeth it has!

 her new trick while she's going #2.

 house is wrapped, windows are in, even have a front door! the stone we ordered has come in, but the installation has taken some thinking. jse has had to trouble shoot substantially at every step, the stone is no exception. hoping to have an exterior by the end of the week!

old house new house

a crazy storm came through a few weeks ago, we lost power at our house and at the store for a couple of days. some areas have still not recovered. 

this was right by my store

 this was in our front yard for a while

at the new house, foundation is done, roof and eaves are repaired. we are replacing all of the windows and making some new ones. this was one small window that j is turning into two larger ones. toward the right is the old garage which is turning into the master bedroom. two nice big windows in there too.

october, in a word

some shots from the last month...

a cat mask from a cute shop in LA called yolk. scandanavian children obviously have smaller heads than my asian melon head. returned the next day.

 my kid is a troy surratt fan!! so edgy.

 petting animals at the zoo

 we spent 9 dollars riding the merry go round

 the happy face before her first roller coaster. was not smiling afterwards.

 the six dollar corn dog she ate every last bite of

 brunch in austin with evan eleven

 i've been making every variety of kale chip i can find. this is how i keep em busy while i'm prepping.

 with landon at the pumpkin patch (chambray top by petit bateau, a cute brand for girls)

 this is jeremy's truck

 this is his boot in the freezer

 EM has really enjoyed the cowboy hat we got in west texas

 we've had some crazy poo poo issues. we have had to threaten her with the booty bullet before, luckily this has been working itself out...

the farmer in the barrio

em loves to sing. she often mixes up books and songs in her lyrics. some would call this creative license.

it's no joke

at heb, 8am

tell your ride

slowly getting caught up on life.

jeremy and i went to telluride a couple of weekends ago for a wedding. some of our trips are serious disasters, we have both learned to "manage expectations".

the trip started with a delayed flight out of waco, which meant that we would miss the connecting flight from dallas to colorado. while we were going through security at the airport here, a tsa agent found a saw in jeremy's backpack that he forgot to take out. serious questioning ensues, and somehow mr charmer of the year gets it back and takes it out to the car. nice one tex.

american airlines puts us up in a super 8 motel, not ideal, but we did meet a triple phd petroleum engineer on the van ride over.

our room

 for whatever reason, i had gone the whole day without eating and i found this fortune cookie in my bag at 10:30p, when we finally got to our room. how fortunate indeed! aa did end up issuing us meal vouchers so we ended up going to denny's with a friend, armando from michigan, who we met along the way.

 we caught a flight at 6a, hopped over to denver, and took our final to montrose. here is jse enjoying the fresh air, waiting for his bag.

 everyone told us to watch the fence line from montrose to telluride, that suddenly it would become super nice for miles. this nice fence and the 20,000 acres inside belongs to ralph lauren.

our hotel and room was awesome. you get a lot more bang for your buck here than in nyc.

the trees are like charcoal sketches

 my outfit to the rehearsal dinner, which i pretty much thought was the coolest thing i had worn all 2014. jse, not so much.

at the wedding the next day, we were supposed to go to the top of this mountain but it rained heavily the night before so the ceremony was held at the hotel. but the view was still spectacular.

 

 we hung around telluride for another half a day before we headed to grand junction, where we flew out of the next day.

not hard to spot the cowboy in the airplane.

 ...or in the airport

we were anxious to get home, so we could see this nuggie

what's seven times seven

a college roommate and i used to watch two things ALL the time junior year: natalie imbruglia's "torn" music video and the movie clueless. clueless somehow became the anthem for our lives, a strange scope to view the world and it's still in our top 5 favorite movies of all time. she and i are still good friends, even though i am still in the heart of texas and she is a big time person in nyc. 

recently, she was working on the set of a show and jeremy sisto's trailer was nearby the place where the crew were having lunch. while she wanted to ask him to do the hand wave to "rollin with the homies", she restrained herself. in her own words:

So when I drove onto the base camp for lunch, Jeremy Sisto and I TOTALLY had eye contact.  As he walked to line up for lunch, he looked into my car and looked right at me.  It was totally "a moment."

And this is the lunch I shared with him [pictured below, she is the very excited girl wearing a scarf on the right, he is sitting at the table behind her].  I was clearly very excited to eat. With him.

And, in real life, his voice is that great.  And he's a nice, big, tall dude.  

xox

if it were me, i would have possibly asked him if he had found his cranberries cd. 

"don't you know who my father is?"

that year she really loved sublime, maybe i was going through my portishead stage. we both loved dave matthews and ate a lot of key lime pie. 

great american hero

my outfit today

 let's be honest, hair and pants look like lady jaye. minus the boobs.

update 9/2

currently in the stage when things look worse than when we started.

porch removed, trench dug all around the house

 plan b with foundation, and now we have to re-do the exterior. brick coming off...

 just in case you thought we were going to be without a 20 ft tall antenna, think again.

 roane and mouse are living here now

 not applying to be featured in elle decor

 kitchen demo