Sorry so long...

I've been ignoring my blog probably because, although I'm hesitant to admit, I've become an avid facebooker. My on-line social life is really impressive and I network while in my slippers. I have found people who I haven't heard from in 13 years! But in the grand scope of things it turns out to be a bunch of random comments, pokes, and pictures of all my buddies partying as if they were still in college rather than a narrative, and as Damien pointed out, this blog has been a log of the last few years and I shouldn't neglect it especially during this huge new chapter of our lives. Furthermore, I've spent too much time looking at Persian rugs on ebay without ever bidding on one, and after I've looked at say, a million little thumbnail photos of Iranian craftmanship, I'm totally wiped. So, without further adieu, I present to you November, December, and January of the Schlaffer/Johnson household.

Juliet is more amazing than ever; I just cannot believe how profound and how beautiful it is to have her, and as I watch her two bottom teeth poking through, I realize how fast this precious time is passing. She turned 6 months old this month! I've been lucky to be able to stay home with her this first year, and I'm savoring every new development. Needless to say, I'm madly, hopelessly in love and that's paired with a mama bear instinct of epic proportions. This has allowed me to gladly give up all levels of coolness and suction a "Baby on Board"" sign on the back of my car in hopes of deterring the slightly sympathetic tailgater. It suffices as a warning that if you don't get off my ass this mama will, if not kill you, harm you without mercy because my girl is in the backseat. Oh I can truly feel the love rushing through my veins.

Having Juliet has made Damien and I especially excited for some dear friends who are also having babies...it's like baby mania! Kara & Mike just had a new baby boy Grant, I held a 5 day-old Wes Holdaway, son of Heather, Chris Storms and Julianna just had baby Huey, and Ed & Juliette patiently await their baby as she is now totally, absolutely 3 days overdue!

We now officially live in our new house after crashing at my parents' for months, moving in, moving back out, crashing at Di & Andy's for weeks, and moving back in again. This was all because fixing up a house turned out to be quite a toxic endeavor, and a new baby, toxins, and paranoid parents don't mix well. But after a lot lot lot of hours of labor, our new house is beautiful and about 3/4ths done. Damien would go straight to the house after work, work until 10pm, drive back, sleep, and then leave at 6 am to do it all over again for months. Our families and friends helped us so much we can't even fathom how to thank them enough. We absolutely couldn't do it without my cleaning, pruning, wallpaper peeling, wall demolishing parents, Aunt Di who is the queen of clean and the best babysitter to boot- she gets mad stuff done, Uncle Andy the awesome painter, will do anything you ask, is always there to lift, clean, move and drywall who had a hand in every room in the house, Uncle Jay the expert electrician, plumber, drywaller, whatever you need man of the hour, even Gregory helped(!); picture Ed Mooers holding up drywall to reach 9 foot ceilings, Marc Guillemette, the mad kitchen beautifer, tiling like the pro he is and hanging cabinets!, Patty the painter of the highest quality painting, Tim Ratkeiwitz sand blasting and powder coating our radiators, David & Tully the strong men drywalling a ceiling in like an hour, Luke carrying all kinds of heavy crap, and the list goes on and on. We love you.
This is our dining room. We hung these portraits Josh Bienko made us for our wedding (prized possession) and now have a light fixture too...
My mother hosted Thanksgiving which was absolutley wonderful- festivities galore. I think there were 40 people who I adore there. We certainly missed my grandparents a lot and thought of them while we ate like royalty and enjoyed one another.


December brought that good old New England snow we missed in Virginia, and Juliet appears to be a fan of the cold weather. Then we headed to Buffalo for a wild holiday week. We saw the whole Johnson clan for the holidays and got to introduce the bambina to a lot of wonderful friends too. I got a massage from Tara (gift from Patty), checked out Storms's new digs, got a spectacular tour of the Birchfield Penny museum by Tully, rung in the new year with Chris, Dana, Klug, Heather, Wes, Heath, Tara, Darren, Bill, Pete, Tully, Luke, Tim and some crazy good lasagnas, went out to eat with Kortni and Kristie, watched a documentary about black eagles at Heath's apartment, and relaxed at David & Patty's house.


January has been cold cold cold and Damien is a chaperone for the ski club at his school so they have been bravely facing the frigid nights and having an absolute ball at Jiminey Peak. In the meantime we continue to work on the house and be with the baby. Solid food has never been so fun! She just started eating the stuff and has so far tried rice & barley cereal, avocado (not the hit I had hoped- it puts a little kink in my plan to emigrate to Mexico), carrots, banana, and butternut squash. We have been seeing a lot of our wonderful old friends here in MA too and have been to a lot of great get-togethers. Halloween was a ball at Danielle's, Tracy and Abby hosted a fun evening and we celebrated the snow at Becky & Mark's party too.

So I think I better stop now and take care of my child. Until next time... see you on facebook! hahaha