Wyldwood & Quilt-top #4

This weekend my roommate and I went to a show at this venue called Wyldwood. It is such a cool place. It's someone's house (Andrew & Amy) and they use their backyard as the venue. The deck is the stage with twinkling lights wrapped around the trees, although I guess they don't twinkle. There's a suggested $10 donation; people bring lawn chairs or blankets, a bottle of wine, appetizers or whatever you plan to eat and the hosts provide hot dogs and usually s'mores. They haven't had s'mores the last few times because there's a burn ban in effect, but hopefully later this year they will.

I love this place.

It's so quaint and slightly magical. I love the atmosphere and the fact that a bajillion people aren't there, talking over the music. Usually just roommate and I go, and it's really fun. This past Saturday Danny Malone was playing. He's not one of my favorites, though roommate loves him. However this past week he redeemed himself in my eyes. It probably helped that he was hammered and hilarious and I had just eaten the most amazing dinner of chicken potstickers and stone ground wheat crackers with goat's cheese paired with a Fresca sitting on a picnic blanket under a starry sky with twinkle lights in the foreground. What can I say? I'm classy like that. Please excuse my camera phone.




Yesterday (technically last night around 1 am) I finished my fourth quilt top. I think it's my favorite. I need to see about getting my mom to quilt it the next time I'm in Houston. I'm ready to take it on my next picnic/Wyldwood visit already. I should invest in a real camera; the colors are so much better in real life.




Classes start tomorrow. Wicked at the Bass Concert Hall Thursday. And Michaela and Megan are hanging out in Austin this weekend! Michaela I'm so excited that you're coming to visit!

Oh. My. DANG

My friend Kara just introduced me to this thing called Take Away Shows. Basically, the organizer invites different bands to play in weird places - alley ways, restaurants, streets, etc. Most of the videos seem to be in Paris. He connects them to a microphone and achieves the most amazing sound quality. What you see them singing in the video is what they're singing right then. Phenomenal. So so many of the bands are ones I love: Bon Iver, Guillemots, Vampire Weekend (the audio on "Kids Don't Stand A Chance" is unreal!) Sufjan Stephens, The Kooks, and Jason Mraz even did a few videos (which truly showcase his talent. Sometimes I write him off, but then I remember his concert I went to years back...the guy can sing).

Two of them you must absolutely, absolutely watch. Absolutely.

First one is Arcade Fire. No joke, they get in an elevator and one guy is ripping pages out of a magazine to create...just an awesome cohesive sound. This video is particularly long, but worth it. Did I mention they were IN an ELEVATOR?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-5XK-2Ufd4


AND! If you've seen the Where the Wild Things Are trailer and wondered what that awesome song was, they perform it at the end of the video. If you just want to watch that part (don't be lame watch the whole video) you can jump to about 8:50 right before they start. Sigh, I would have loved to have been there. I have it playing in the background right now. So. Good!

The second that you must see is Sigur Ros. And if you've never heard anything by Sigor Ros....it's like you're experiencing something spiritual. They're an Icelandic band and it's just too beautiful to describe. I, mm, honestly just love Sigur Ros. Que belle!

Sigur Ros - Við spilum endalaust - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/3814849

So, let me just make it easy on you: Take Away Shows: All Artists Personally, I think you should view the French side of the website, but I just like French, so don't stress yourself out trying to translate things.

I hope that link works. If it doesn't, google "take away shows"

Love this song

Listen to the Dark Side by Charlie Mars

It's a good song. Listen to it. Haven't watched the video so I can't vouch for what it's about, but the song is good.


Did I mention the song is good? Or did I mention that I finished my class this morning? Or that I'm TWELVE hours shy of graduating? Did I? Well, shoot. Let me tell you!

Also, happy birthday to my roommate! Off to El Chilito for tacos and beer (or soda).

Proper Oreo Etiquette

Is there such a thing? I was just on a study break to eat dinner and realized that I could follow dinner with a few Oreo's for dessert. As I was eating the first one I wondered if there was a proper way to eat an Oreo. The first one I just straight up dunked in my soy milk (which, if you haven't tried soy milk: it's wonderful); the second cookie I opened up with the intent of getting all the icing on one side, licked the icing off, stuck the cookie back together and then dunked it in milk; the last one I opened up, ate the icing and then dunked each side in separately to prolong the goodness that is Oreo. But my question remains: is there a proper way to eat an Oreo? How do you eat an Oreo? Does it matter? Has my brain begun to melt with the influx of Arab history material?

I feel the answer to all of these questions is: I don't know.

Maybe I will one day explore and formulate a thesis that analyzes a person's personality by the way they eat their Oreo's. I have feeling that those who don't consume Oreo's are going to score extremely poor.

And for all of my hard work I think I will reward myself with one more Oreo. Because hey, twenty-four hours from now I will only be 12 credit hours away from being an alumna. Six years in the making. Holla! And Hook 'Em!

Here's the quilt top I started last weekend. It's not completely finished - I still need to put borders on it. But the blocks are all assembled and put together. My camera phone doesn't really do it any favors, but the colors are a lot brighter in real life.


And, when I moved my sewing machine and sewing table up this past weekend I found the first two quilt tops I ever made.





I can't remember which of the two I made first...probably the green one, maybe. I know I was living in Huntsville at the time so it was between three and four years ago. I love sewing. I wish I had my mother's eye for color.

Quick Home Visit

This past Friday I drove to my parents' house in Houston for a short visit. They're leaving to go on vacation next weekend so I wanted to see them before they left and I had a few things to pick up/drop off as well. While I was there, my mom and I picked out some fabrics for a new quilt that I'm making.



I'll upload a picture of the quilt top once I finish it. The pattern is called "Turning Twenty" and you may have guessed this, but it requires 20 different fabrics. The blocks turned out to be a little dark after assembly, but when I cut them down to size I cropped the darker fabrics out so it's not quite so masculine looking. I also bought fabric for another quilt pattern that I'll start soon after the first quilt top is completed. I'm really excited about that quilt because I love the colors we found. Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend after my final.

Speaking of class, I can't believe this session is almost over. I have a paper due Wednesday and a final on the 15th, which is Saturday (!!!). Today class was canceled which was a wonderful blessing because I seriously needed to catch up on some reading and some sleep.

I carried my kayak down with me this weekend too, think I mentioned that last time. Here's a picture of my dad kayaking. The ducks were a little bewildered and I think my dad got a kick out of following them around.



After my dad tired himself and the ducks out, I got in for a spin around the little lake. On my way back in I heard the fountain turn on...you better believe I turned right around and paddled through the fountain/under the spray until my kayak had taken on about as much water as I felt comfortable with. SO. MUCH. FUN! The water was incredibly dirty though and smelled pretty foul - there's a large-ish duck population. But did I mention that it was ridiculously fun?

Good Gravy and a side of Melt-Down

If you're reading this on RSS feed, get yourself over to my actual blog and check out the new layout which cost me 6 oz of sanity and a good night's sleep. I used a custom blog template and then changed EVERYTHING. See that purple navigational bar? It was lobster red and not meant to be customized. I printed out the codes (17 pages worth) and read until I found the right code. There was a lot of trial and error, but it was worth it. I re-acquainted myself with Photoshop (forgot just how awesome that program is) and re-familiarized myself with html too. I'm a proud mama! If only I could figure out how to tweak the header so that it stretched further across...

This morning I took my dad and my kayak to one of the neighborhood lakes so he could try it out. I think he really enjoyed it. I took some pictures on my phone; I'm trying to figure out how to get those off the microSD card and onto the computer. I'll work on it. I feel like I'm catching up with technology today!

I've also been working on a quilt top since I've been at my parents' (just since yesterday afternoon). I'll get a picture of that too. Now ask me how much reading I've done and how much progress I've made on my paper? Ah, oh well. There are more important things in life. Like family. And I love mine.