Epic July

It seems like this month has been super busy, but I'm kind of loving it! Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.

On Friday the 13th, Robert and I got to see Fiona Apple perform at the Ryman Auditorium.  She was pretty amazing, but I think about 75% of the audience wanted a quiet, respectful concert while the other 25% was set on screaming out, "WE LOVE YOU FIONA" and "WELCOME TO NASHVILLE" during every quiet moment of the show.  It was a little bit infuriating, and I think she ended early because of it.  The first thing she said to the audience, right before the last song of the night, was, "Okay, pretend it's 2 minutes later and you've been cheering for me."  That was our encore!

This past week, I attended THIS fantastic little event with a couple of friends while Robert and his buddy watched Audrey.  (Go check out the pictures!  I'm the only one wearing stripes in the group photo.) 

Turbo Fruits, opening band for GBV - they were great!

The next night, right after my girl's night out, we went and saw Guided By Voices!  They are basically Robert's favorite band ever, and the only thing he's listened to for nearly 2 years now... Ha!  We had so much fun.  I have sort of declared for the last few years that I'm not a fan of crowds or going to shows where I have to stand up the whole time, but this was just awesome.  It made me feel like a 16 year old again, and we could have stood there all night!! 

Robert Pollard is an amazing performer.  The band and the crowd were just having such a good time.  If you want to get into them, I don't even know where to tell you to start... (Here are all the videos I shot.)  This guy has so many side projects and puts out so many albums a year, that my Robert seriously has a spreadsheet that I've caught him working on to catalog all of them and see which ones he needs to collect.  That's dedication!  We left after the second encore because we thought it was over, but I'm pretty sure they came back for a third.

And what have we been doing on the home front?

Lots of early morning snuggling with Audrey, while the sun rises.  Lots of visiting with family, since Robert's parents are Audrey's main babysitters.  Also... lots of watching old 21 Jump Street episodes, because that's how we roll.

How was your July?  I can't believe it's almost August!!

two cute gardeners

Yesterday morning Robert and Audrey were outside repotting our little basil plant, and I had to run out and take some pictures!  Aren't they the cutest?  Check out that SAD, wilted bush next to our shed.  It has been so hot and dry here.  We finally got some rain this evening, but it didn't feel like much.  

Things have been quiet over here because real life is NOISY right now!  So much going on.  Robert's parents came to visit us for the 4th of July, and his grandparents came over yesterday to meet Audrey for the first time.  We went out to dinner and she had her first high chair experience at a restaurant... It wasn't too bad!  We learned some lessons for next time. :) 

This week is looking to be pretty exciting as well.  A friend who hasn't seen Audrey for a few months is coming to dinner tomorrow night, and on Friday we're going to see Fiona Apple at the Ryman Auditorium!  I'm really looking forward to it!  If you haven't heard her new album, it's amazing.  It took a few listens to click for me, but then I became somewhat obsessive about it.  Current favorite music!!  And the Ryman is the best place for concerts - it's where we saw the Pixies and Arcade Fire a couple of years ago.  We're having a really nice summer so far!

a night out

Robert and I went on a date last night!  And by "date" I mean we went somewhere by ourselves for the first time in over 2 months.  We were super nervous about leaving Audrey with a babysitter (our good friend), but I was finally able to relax and enjoy myself.  It was a lovely night!

We saw Jason Isbell play at the Franklin Theatre, the old movie theater in downtown Franklin that was recently renovated.  It was so nice to just sit in the dark and listen to music, and not worry about having to jump up and take care of the baby!  Of course, the show started at our usual bedtime, so we were super sleepy... but it was fun all the same.  When we came home Audrey was already asleep.  So good!

We love our little buddy, but it was good to get a break.  We may need to do that more often!  We have a whole waiting list of babysitters.  Keep up the charm, baby!

pixies

It's sort of old news now, but we saw the Pixies play at the Ryman Auditorium about a week and a half ago. This is the same place where we saw Arcade Fire last month, but we had much better seats this time: we were in the front row of the balcony! Wonderful view. The lighting and smoke machines made it hard to get many good pictures, but you can see the rest of mine here if you're interested.

Before they came out and during the first song or so, Un Chien Andalou was playing on the screen behind the stage. That was exciting! During other songs they had mini avant-garde movies playing. The concert was great. They played all of Doolittle and a lot of B-sides, along with a few other things.

Here are a couple of videos that I made! I was so happy that no one was standing in front of us. I was also VERY happy about the guy standing next to me. He was a really conservative looking man, probably about 50 years old, and he was wearing earplugs. But he was rocking out so hard in his own way. And by that, I mean he was standing with his hands folded in front of him, and every once in a while he would play air drums or guitar. It was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Now, for the adorable La La Love You:



Monkey Gone to Heaven:



Kim Deal also made me really happy, because she kept smiling and she just seemed so excited to be there. She's the best! During their first encore, they played Into The White [check out that video to see them all in 1991 and how much they've changed...], but something went wrong and like half of the microphones stopped working, so we didn't get to hear Kim sing the whole thing! That was sad. After a really long intermission (I've never stayed at a concert for that long afterward with nothing going on), they came back and did a second encore, with all systems working.

More videos can be found here! Some aren't complete (either because I didn't start recording for a few seconds or because my camera ran out of room and stopped recording..), but I feel they're pretty nice!

painting detective

I've had a few days off recently, and finally decided to tackle one of the larger projects I've had on my to-do list. We've been in our house for over 6 months, and I'm finally getting around to repainting the baseboards!

Ugly baseboards in our bedroom!

Some of the rooms in our house are just fine, but the bedrooms show evidence of many paint changes that were never quite finalized. For example: the above picture, taken in our bedroom. As I've been repainting, I've pieced together the history of this room, like a detective. Here's what I think is going on...

At some point in time, our bedroom was wallpapered. Later on, someone painted over the wallpaper with red. Also at some point, the trim around the room was painted green.... and then someone put carpet in the room. Somebody repainted the trim a white color, obviously while the carpet was still in. And then someone came along, painted the room green, and pulled up the carpet. This is where we came into the story! The baseboards are cream with a layer of green at the bottom, as well as carpet fibers still stuck in the corners.

I've been going around sanding down the weird texture where the carpet met the wood (I guess it's glue I'm sanding off?), pulling bits off carpet off, and repainting everything white. After this I'll need to touch up the green paint, because you can still see some red at the edges. The reason I believe there's wallpaper under there is that the paint seems to curl up at the edges, making it really hard to get a clean line. Maybe one day we'll strip everything down and see what's under there! For now, I just want a pretty cover-up job. That's what all of the previous residents tried to do, I suppose. Everyone who's lived in this house for the past 48 years has been really lazy. That's what I'm going to assume. We will carry on the tradition.

P.S. We saw the Pixies last weekend!! Anyone who's interested can check out my pictures here. I'm planning a bigger post for later about it -- I made a few videos too! Robert wants to clean up the sound on them before we put them online. He's a magician or something.

move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass

A few nights ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Arcade Fire play at the Ryman Auditorium.


If you don't know about them, you pretty much need to. Hands down the BEST concert I've ever been to.


They're so talented and full of energy - between every song it seemed like they would run around and trade instruments.


These are just a few of my favorites, but I made a flickr album with all the rest! Go check it out if you're interested -- I think I got some pretty good shots!


A few days before they came to Nashville, they played in New York and it was broadcast live. We watched that and got really psyched for the concert we were about to go to. You can check out some of the videos here, to get a feel for their shows. It was just the neatest thing I've experienced! Being at the Ryman was a big part of it: that's the first time we've been there, but it was AWESOME. It's actually an old church, full of rows of pews. So you can sit down if you like, but when everybody is rocking out during the show, you don't have to get too close to any strangers. Pretty neat!

Their new album The Suburbs is really wonderful! And I will admit that I feel a silly kinship with it because Win Butler grew up in The Woodlands, Texas, and I lived there for a while. I actually spent most of my childhood just south of there. So although many of the sentiments could apply to any old suburbs, they were inspired by the suburbs of Houston - those are MY 'burbs! Haha.

record store day recap

Last Saturday was Record Store Day. Although I lugged my camera around, I didn't take any pictures. We spent much of the day in East Nashville hanging out with some new [amazingly awesome] buddies. I got lost on the wrong side of the river once and we spotted a wax museum -- I would have taken a photo of that, but I was busy driving. There were several other silly moments that needed to be captured, but luckily someone else had a camera and mine stayed tucked away. I get really camera-shy around other people: not afraid to have my picture taken, but afraid to take pictures. It happens!

Anyway, we visited both The Groove and Grimey's. Here are the goodies we brought home! Not too many since we're on a tight budget, but good enough stuff.

Left to right: Decoration Day by the Drive-By Truckers, Misery Is A Butterfly by Blonde Redhead and a 7" single of We're Gonna Rise by The Breeders

The Breeders and Blonde Redhead albums were "my" purchases, while Robert picked up Decoration Day. I won't lie though, I wanted to own it too! The Drive-By Truckers are the the most rocking of Southern Rock bands ever to exist. None of these were special Record Store Day releases - we couldn't find any of the ones we were looking for! Either they sold out before we came, or our local stores didn't have them. It was still a nice day.

Our stuff came in this handy bag, which has a pocket inside for 45s. Blogger decided to turn the picture and I'm too lazy to fix it.

Vinyl is such a fun way to listen to music. I'm no audiophile and I can't truly tell if music sounds better on a record player, but it's definitely a more tactile experience: very hands-on. Listening to records is an activity within itself: you put the needle on, then you sit on the floor and look at the nice big album art [a must] and then you have to be around to flip the record over.

Here are some music videos!



The Breeders have probably been my absolute favorite band for the last couple of years. I listen to them nonstop. I see no reason to stop.



Before this musical era of my life, Blonde Redhead was probably my "favorite band" for a little while. Still think they're brilliant, but listening to them does remind me of glummer times in my life! Here's a more upbeat song, though the video is a little too... uncanny valley for me -- meaning, if you don't like creepy humanlike robots, don't watch it.

Happy listening!

cheery songs for a rainy thursday

Just this morning I decided that I like these two songs by She & Him. I know, I'm really slow at music and everyone else has been talking about these for a while. It's hard for me to get into certain music sometimes! But this morning these are just right. So far all of the other songs I've heard by She & Him are a bit too slow for me to enjoy.





I feel like these videos are simply an excuse for Zooey Deschanel to dress up and be adorable, but that's okay too.

I'm going to mop the floors of the entire house today, so I need some happy music to keep me going! Robert's family is coming up for a visit this weekend and it's time to get the house in tip top shape.

What are some of your favorite cheerful songs to listen to while getting things done?

1 year of blogging!

Tasty cupcakes from a long, long time ago.

Today is my blog's one year birthday! It's still just a baby, but it's grown a lot. I don't have anything special planned (for the blog or in real life), but I couldn't forget to mention it.

Thank you to everyone who reads along and leaves me sweet comments! You're greatly appreciated. I feel like I have a lovely community of inspiring people to learn from.

Happy Birthday, baby sloth!!

And a bit of trivia for everyone: for the first couple of weeks, my blog was named "has anyone seen the iguana?" for a line from the song Sinister Foxx by The Breeders! I figured that would get kinda old. Baby sloths never go out of style, though.

slow readers and slowreader

UPDATE: All Slow Reader activity now takes place in this Facebook group!

Image by Gabbi

Have you heard about the Slow Readers Book Club? I bet you have, since so many neat bloggers have joined it already. But I thought I'd do my part to spread the word (and formally declare myself a member). You can find more details over here at Diana's blog, but the main idea is to slow down and enjoy reading. The first book is going to be Half-Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, and we're going to review it on March 4th. That gives you plenty of time to locate the book (I'm checking it out at the library) and enjoy it! If you'd like to be added to the mailing list (for book discussion between now and the review date), email Diana at diana@ourcitylights.org!

And because the name reminded me of the band Slowreader, here is a song for you to listen to! It's a pretty / sad song!

today is my birthday

I'm officially 23 now! I will save the pictures and adventure-tales for a later post, when all is said and done! Thank you all for the lovely birthday wishes; so far it's going very well. :)

Here are some presents from me to you. I'd do something more exciting, but I guess I'm too uptight!



First, the song 'Birthday' by the Sugarcubes. Enjoy the preciousness of Bjork in 1987. I've got this song on vinyl, so I'm about to go listen to it while I'm getting ready for the day.

Second, here is an insightful TIME article about the high price of cheap food. Read it! Learn something! Take action! Do it for my birthday? Ha ha.

bubble wrap effect

My best friend [a.k.a. husband] has gone off to work! This is my first day home alone since February-- it's been fairly productive so far! A lot of neglected chores have already been completed. Earlier I was listening to 'Join Hands' by Siouxsie and the Banshees (one of my favorite albums - sample here) on my record player while ironing some clothes. It made me want to be a housewife forever-- I'm only part-time now.

This past weekend ended up being pretty eventful. We got to visit with a few friends and make stops as Cafe Coco, Las Paletas and Grimey's. I have no photos to back up these claims! But here are some pictures I took for the last Souvenir Foto assignment.



The assignment was to take a blurred picture, with one option being to put plastic wrap over the camera lens. That wasn't doing anything too exciting for me, so I decided to try bubble wrap! Though it's tough to get a real subject in the background, I liked the effect this made. Sort of an underwater feel. I used the macro setting so the focus would be on the bubbles. Just a fun little experiment to try!

jump start on the weekend

Once again, apologies for my disappearing act and not keeping up with everyone's blog - I've been keeping busy! Here's what I've been doing since Thursday evening.

Photo by Robert, the only one tall enough to see anything.

Thursday evening we went to see Patterson Hood play at Grimey's. He did a short set with songs from his new record, Murdering Oscar, and then he signed stuff and talked to people. Robert was happy about shaking his hand and getting his record signed. That was pretty cute! If you're not aware of Patterson Hood, he's one of the singers for the Drive-By Truckers. Don't worry, I don't like country music. They're more Southern Rock, and they have some really amazing songs... but Robert is the #1 fan in our household. :)

I got a haircut after this picture was taken, so next time you see me it will be shorter!

Today we started (and finished) our apartment search. At the end of July we're going to be moving to a much nicer apartment which is larger and less expensive than where we live now. That's right, we'll be saving money and living in a better place! I'm really excited. The picture above was taken from one apartment that had an amazing view, but in the end we decided against that place.

These sandals are so visually pleasing to me.

Nice surprise in the mail today - my new sandals from lisazain on Etsy. Her shop is filled with amazing shoes! These are the ones I mentioned earlier... I asked if she would be willing to do a trade for something in my shop, and she said yes! I was so happy.

And finally, a recipe for Potato Soup is up on the hungry lemur! If you missed the last one, it was for Kebabs! And if you're lucky, we'll show you how to make graham crackers this week... YUM!

melora

Any real plans that I had for an insightful blog post today faded away as our internet sporadically died. Not sure what was going on, but we were without it for most of the day. Robert would say, "hey, it's working again!" and by the time I got around to checking my email, it wouldn't be working. However, it's fine this evening!

So, who else is in love with Melora Creager? If you don't know who she is, she basically IS the band Rasputina, an amazing cello-rock group. I was absolutely obsessed in high school and constantly tried to emulate Melora's fashion. (My mom would ask me, "are you goth?" I would laugh about it, but I secretly was glad she thought so... hahaha.) Rasputina has this creepy, Victorian asthetic that was just so intriguing and new to me back then [example: The Olde Headboard video]. Not only is Melora's music amazing, but she also tells hilarious jokes in between songs at her recitals. AND she's been known to get crafty, selling homemade perfumes and strange little satchels with mysterious things in them at shows and on the website. I've only seen Rasputina live once, in 2006, but it was without a doubt the most exciting show I've ever been to.

Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is because Melora was just on the cover of origiVation, a magazine I've never heard of. They did a feature on musicians' fashion, and she was one of the people featured. You can see the whole issue here (skip to pages 19 and 20 to see her). I personally prefer her white-blonde hair of the past, but I still love the outfits she wears. They are incredibly over the top, but she's allowed to do that. Best quote from this article:

"Less surprisingly, she admitted a love of ripping up vintage dresses and feeling like she's being naughty. 'But it's not like anyone's going to sue you,' she concedes."

Both pictures borrowed from here.

Besides that, she is friends with designer James Coviello, and once played at one of his fashion shows. You can watch some of that here. He is probably the only designer I know anything about, and it's solely because of Rasputina.

Oh, I could go on and on! I've been wanting to do a Rasputina fashion post, but it didn't seem relevant until now. I'm not suggesting anyone try dressing like Melora, but I do enjoy seeing what she wears. I've always felt more inspired (fashion-wise) by music than anything else. Anyone feel the same? Perhaps I'll talk about some more music/fashion icons at a later date!