Kate

How weird it must be to see pictures of your young self everywhere.

dec six

taco bell

A Conversation on Cool

Stole my current desktop photo (love Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg) from this recently found blog - I wish I had paid attention to where the link came from. It's filled with interesting photos and quotes, and completely timeless style. Doesn't everything look cooler in black and white?

categorical imperative

One of E. Jean's secrets of adulthood that resonated with me when I read it months ago:

If you don’t question what you believe in, you end up making the same mistakes over and over. When we find ourselves in a romantic quagmire or struggling for an eternally denied promotion at work and our old ideas aren’t working, we must, must, must ask ourselves two questions: (A) Is this idea I’m acting on even effing true? (e.g., Am I so irresistible that this time he really is going to leave his wife?) And (B) What would happen if everyone in the world believed this idea and behaved as I’m behaving now? (This is our old friend Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative—view every action you take as a universal law. Meaning, if you’re considering lying to your boss to save your job, imagine a universal law that says everyone must lie to his or her boss.)

I love her!

cowgirl

If only I had started working out sooner - like, 10 years ago - I would totally copy this for a cowgirl Halloween costume this year:

Maybe with some modifications?

last week

I finally got down to visit my family.

There was book-reading:

(I really wanted to like this, because it was highly recommended by my sister, but I just didn't.)

and cat-petting:

(how do they have less cat hair in a house with five, than I do with only one?)

and snow-ball-eating:

(mine was Irish cream with condensed milk, and my niece had half cotton-candy, half chocolate with gummy bears. I spent a long time trying to decide on a flavor, but honestly, I hardly matters as there is no bad snow-balls.)

and sushi-picking-up:

(I could eat a seaweed salad every day and be happy.)

and birthday-partying:

(which included filling a bunch of water balloons. Seriously, my sister bought 500 balloons!)

and magazine-reading:

(I really want - need! - this dress if I ever have a ball to attend or red carpet to walk...)

and finally, home-returning:

(my own sweet cat was very happy to see me.)

dinner tradition

Just about every single night, hubby and I sit down to dinner with a glass of wine and a game of Skip-bo. We keep the cards in a lovely sparkly bowl in the center of the table, and he usually shuffles and deals while I serve the food. It's pretty hilarious, and one of my favorite parts of the day.

little things

This year, the little presents were the best:

Skeleton pirate finger puppets (from sil).

Jesus hates it when you smoke patio ashtray (from other sil).

Skipbo stocking stuffer, a new dinnertime tradition.

just for you, baby

fall...

is so here! The best part about fall it is this:

Although how weird is it to have Halloween-themed eggnog?

The worst part is that it is still well over 80 degrees on most days. Which means that Halloween will be hot again this year. This floppy hat is part of my costume; I love it. It's Jessica Simpson-brand, which makes it even better, right?

this weekend...

we had nothing to do and so we basically did nothing except watch netflix movies. It was so nice and relaxing and I'm sad that it's over!

kindle

Photo by Gubatron.

The thought of a kindle is slowing creeping up on me. I've resisted electronic books for a while, but, hey, I also resisted iPods and iPhones and now can't imagine life the old way. Plus, instant book downloads and not needing any more bookshelves are very appealing. And, then, I could be reading Twilight in public and no one would know. On the other hand, I could be reading War and Peace in public and no one would know.

things i love

Yesterday, my husband came with me to a doctor's appointment. He came home on his lunch break, and drove me there, and waited with me, and even came in the room with me. I realized I've never had anyone do that before (and never had anyone I'd want to do that before). It's so nice, being married to someone you love. Being always with them. This makes me sad.

That is the big thing. Here are some little things:

Candy. Especially Strawberry Twizzlers and m&ms. Especially the Valentine's Day M&Ms that come in shades of pinks and reds. I love them. And I really love make cookies with them instead of chocolate chips:

And if they could bottle the smell of Twizzlers, I would totally wear it as perfume or light candles of it throughout my house. (Wait, what? They. Have. That.?! I'm so going there.) I ate the whole bag by myself:

New music. Listening to a Kings of Leon album right now that I bought from iTunes yesterday. I actually remember when we used to have to go to a record store to get new music. And hope it was there or have them order it for you. Or tape it from the radio. So easy now. Other news and olds on my playlist right now: The Cult, Fiona Apple, Lacuna Coil, Lush, Muse, Pixies, Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson (I know, really), PJ Harvey, Poe, Sonic Youth, Veruca Salt, The Who, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I seems like there is an infinite amount of music to be listened to!

Ever heard of her?:

Wine. I don't drink wine too often, but I'm learning how to choose it a little better when I do. The last two bottles were both hits. I only like red, so that narrows it a good deal already and I learned another secret - those little rating numbers on the grocery tag. They seem to be right (so far). We also got a wine stopper thingie as a gift from our neighbors which makes me feel very grown-up and fancy. And I can open a bottle pretty well now. I kind of hate wine too, because I tend to go all amnestic after too much of it and nothing's more embarrassing then socializing with people and then not remembering whether you said anything stupid, or insulting, or just embarrassing (I can be guilty of way TMI).

Art museums. Walking through them all by yourself and with absolutely no time frame so you can read every single little sign and stare at whichever ones you want for as long as you want. I love that sometimes if I think of an artist, I can remember real paintings from real memories hanging on a museum wall and not just pictures from a book or internet. I saw this, in DC, I remember it so well:

I saw this too, in Chicago:

That is so awesomely weird to me!

Life is really good, isn't it? Different than I thought, but, better.

barbie's gotten so cool!

I'm not going to lie, seeing this kind of stuff makes me really want a daughter.

twelve buck tuesday, pt. 2

Worn out from the weekend drama, but kept out summer Tuesday tradition of mini golf and (unlimited) arcade games:

Surprisingly, the weather cooperated. It felt great outside, after the sun went down a bit.

twelve buck tuesday

Free play on all the arcade games...

and the best pizza maybe ever...

I was just going to sit and watch the three boys play, but about half-way through I couldn't help myself and had to go buy a wristband of my own.

memorial day

Today we pick up the boys for a long summer vacation, which means last weekend was our last weekend in a while with just me and D. And we sure did fill it up!

Day 1:

Shorts shopping after work in which I find that Lucky Brand tank tops have it all over Old Navy's. I also found some short-shorts that I proceeded to wear the entire rest of the weekend.

Then an hour or so of our normal Rockband playing and guitar playing.

Then had a minor roach incident on the porch and walked over to the bar to get away for a few minutes. Seriously, how can there be so many roaches?

We had a beer and listened to a band, that was really just two guys with lots of gadgets but were really good, and then met up with our neighbors and hung out for a while.

Day 2:

Drove to Austin to hit up a few vintage stores. One was closed, two were really small, and one was Buffalo Exchange (which takes so long to look through we had to take a break mid-way through for to eat a hawaain hamburger - with teriaki and pineapple - from TEX Burger 2. It was simultaneously good and gross. I couldn't decide which was more.). I was very impressed by my husband, whom I couldn't really imagine shopping at thrift/vintage stores. He found some good stuff: couple t-shirts, gray jeans, and two pairs of shoes! I found a cute dress and a couple band t-shirts.

Vintage Rick Springfield:

Drove home, then stayed out on the porch until 3:30 am, drinking beer and wine with all of the neighbors. I love our apartment building!

Day 3:

Slept in!

Wore newly thrifted band t-shirts (that I washed that morning)!

Ate sushi in record time, and made it to the early showing of Date Night, and it was very funny. I love Marky Mark as an actor.

Walked over to the nearby bar and shared a ice cream brownie thingie (soooo good) and then sat outside on listening to the band for a while.

Then guitar, rockband, and bed.

Day 4:

Sex and the City 2. With a girlfriend. Can't remember last time I went to the movies with anyone except myself or D. or the boys. It was weird. The movie inexplicitly made me really sad, and it stuck with me for the rest of the night. (Date Night was so funny but made me a tiny bit sad too. I'm tired of seeing married couples that aren't happy with each other in movies: Get a divorce and find someone that you can't wait to come home to. Or don't get married in the first place.)

Then D. and I went to a nice Mexican restaurant, instead of the normal hole-in-the-wall, and had some margaritas and shrimp tacos. I need to just stick to comfort food like cheese enchiladas, but for some reason whenever we go to the nice places I switch it up and order something new, then regret it and think how much better I prefer the cheap-y places.

Then we watched a 30 Rock and Blow-Up, a 60s' movie which was pretty much exactly what I expected it would be, except with less Jane Birkin and no Bridgitte Bardot, and more screaming mimes. Let's just say I won't be getting it on dvd.

And then the weekend was over. But today summer vacation starts!

random iphone pics

I changed my computer's wallpaper to this beach photograph because I am so ready for summer, and because I love the colors in it.

I pretend I'm there while I drink my coffee in the morning. (I found it here, but unfortunately, don't know where she found it...)

I've gotten in the habit of running errands on Wednesday's after guitar lessons, including going to a certain grocery store, and every time I leave I buy a mineral water to drink on the way home and pretend I'm in Rome. Everyone, apparently, drinks mineral water there even with meals, so, when we were there, we did too. I couldn't stand mineral water before the trip, and still don't like it now, except that it reminds me so much of Rome.

I took some through-the-window pics to catch the Texan wildflowers on the drive last Sunday, and I guess I should have rolled the window down.

I also play a lot of iPhone solitaire on the drives, and last Sunday I made it to 1000 games won without having to quit even one! I consider that my greatest accomplishment... even though it's a very easy form of solitaire called Eight Off.

This may be weird to take a picture of, but look how dark the bathtub water turned when I was hand-washing my purple sarong! Crazy! I love things that remind you of things, for instance, deciding on the purple one when I was buying this sarong from a man walking down the beach in Mexico in 2005.