stay tuned!

For the record, the Philiraos are alive and well and will blog again! I know you were worried.

We have had a dearth of fun "after" photos lately as we assemble the moving parts for our next set of projects, but I have a preview of our framing extravaganza in the works. This includes a shout-out to our beloved borough for being a place we can get ten13x16 matboards for under $20, making it the cheapest part of our framing project.

In the mean time, we have been fully enjoying our reinvigorated living room, watching movies on the Movie Sofa, vacuuming up a storm, possibly knitting a ranch house (see the greatest film ever made for this reference), and entertaining family and friends. One of the greatest perks of this project has been the initiative to have people over more often. Not only are we proud of what we've done, we have tons of seating in the living room, and a conversation-oriented layout to boot! We had one of our closest friends over on Friday (for mushroom-centered dinner and some Magnolia cupcakes) and we my in-laws over yesterday for a big pot of soup (pictures to follow) and other Mark Bittman specialties.

We were absolutely triumphant both times! On Friday I added the garlic at the wrong moment (too late), but the wine and beer had already started flowing, so no one cared. If all eat semi-raw garlic, no one notices. That's your pro tip of the day.

Yesterday was extra triumphant because I made biscuits from scratch and was totally unstressed! Husband entertained with amuse-bouches (olives and hummus) in the living room while I used a wine glass to cut biscuits (pro tip #2: don't buy biscuit cutters if your drawer space is limited; you're bound to have a glass in the correct size).

We then amused the parental units with canned Greek specialties at our local European store, got rid of a box of VHS tapes (remember those?) and sent them home with leftovers.  Homemade minestrone for the win!

I have the day off tomorrow (it's Election Day and I work at a university--another win!), so I am planning do my civic duty:  laundry.  There are no contested races in my area, so voting is not as imperative as it could be. We may make an appearance anyway, because we're cool like that. I also hope to blog about our awesome framing project. You are going to love it. I know I do.