Miscellaneous stuff I like right now

My Kindle. We bought it right before our huge roadtrip. I actually didn't use it very much until we got back (I'd rather knit than read it turns out). However, when we got back I started using it more often. I'm still not 100% sold on it for all my reading needs but I enjoy the convenience of it. As of today I have read since late-June: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (good but bizarre story), Bossypants by Tina Fey (loved.it.), The Help by Kathryn Stockett (hated it), Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner (liked it okay) and I'm in the middle of Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff and yesterday, thanks to a friend's recommendation, I downloaded two John Green books, Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns. Since I go through books so quickly I like that I can have a new book almost instantly. It is hard getting used to not having an actual book to look through though.

This yarn (Madelinetosh Merino Light in Mineral)

I have cast-on-itis, I'm going to use it to make this sweater but I'm not letting myself cast on until I finish the other half-dozen items I have on the needles. The color makes me extremely happy.

Salads, my current favorite salad is baby greens, toasted almonds, dried cranberries, goat cheese, turkey and balsamic vinaigrette. I can't say it's super healthy but it tastes good.

Mad Men, we are so behind on this. I know everyone has talked about how great this is forever but we're just now getting around to watching it. We just finished the first season and both of us love it. I told Doug it's like candy, not only is the storyline completely addictive, the set design/wardrobe is so fun to look at.

The most recent Bon Iver (Justin Vernon) record. Beautiful and eerie. 

He's also doing this with James Blake:

Rebekka Seale's Dear Friend, blog. She lives in Nashville, takes very lovely pictures and is also a very talented artist.

I'm obsessed with these chairs. I would love a set for the dining room, maybe with a long wooden table.

Tennessee sucks, in the summer

Memphis is under a heat advisory for several days. When I got into my car at lunch yesterday the temperature gauge said this:  

       

This is why Tennessee sucks in the summer (not sure if that's what Ryan Adams meant though).

My co-worker and I were all alone in the office (our bosses were out of town) so I went over to YoLo after lunch and got frozen yogurt for us. Mine was white chocolate with strawberries, chocolate granola & mochi.

I'm currently obsessed with this song. I especially like to turn it up really loud in my car.

I think we're going to the beach in three weeks, which means I'll be using up some of my precious vacation time but it might be worth it to spend a week doing almost nothing. 

 Doug and I have become addicted to Buffy (the tv series). One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago we got caught up in a marathon of it and couldn't stop watching. Luckily my friend Kenan has let us borrow seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Yesterday we watched five episodes.

We bought a Kindle and I'm trying to get used to it. I bought Bossypants, A Visit from the Goon Squad and Under the Banner of Heaven on it but I find it a little harder to sit down and use. Part of that could be my reluctance to put down my knitting. 

I got a really short haircut. I used to have short hair. The first time I cut my hair short was junior/senior year of high school. It was not quite cutting edge and more suburban mom than high school student. Eventually I grew it out. The second time I cut my hair short was about a year into dating Doug. I kept it short for several years and started growing it out after we got married. Over the last year I've been hemming and hawing about cutting it again but couldn't decide. Then the other week I got tired of blow-drying and frizzy hairs so I made an appointment and got it all snipped off on Saturday. I love it so much. There are no frizzy hairs and the blow-dryer is put away for a bit. Plus since it's 104 degrees outside there's no hair sticking to the back of my neck. I'm hoping the new 'do doesn't make me look too much older.  

The Road Trip to End All Road Trips

So here's further proof my husband and I are un-sane. We're leaving tomorrow morning and driving from our home in Memphis to Seattle and back. In ten days. In a compact car.

As one person I told put it "That sounds like a terrible trip". Yeah maybe it does, but it's going to be one hell of a trip. This is our route going:

Memphis to Lincoln, NE

Lincoln, NE to Salt Lake City, UT

Salt Lake City, UT to Portland, OR

Portland, OR to Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA to Missoula, MT

Missoula, MT to Spearfish, SD

Spearfish, SD to Lawrence, KS

Lawrence, KS to HOME

Along the way we're planning on stopping to see a few relatives and friends, visit roadside attractions like the Corn Palace, see a couple of natural wonders, eat a lot of bad diner food and fight for control of the radio. We're pretty excited.

Here's some road songs to get us in the mood:

Music that isn't depressing

I got a new car last month and it came with six-months of Sirius radio free. I kind of ignored it at first but then I got a little addicted. I still listen to my beloved WEVL on regular radio, but I've picked up on a lot of new songs on satellite radio. A lot of songs that are way less doom and gloom than my regular musical tastes.

Sleigh Bells "Rill Rill"

Passion Pit "Little Secrets"


Amos Lee "Windows Are Rolled Down"


The Naked and Famous "Young Blood"

Iron & Wine

Last night I finally got to see Iron & Wine aka Mr. Sam Beam, live in Memphis. It was lovely. I bought tickets as soon as I found out he was coming to town back in September. I have loved Iron & Wine for awhile but he had never been to Memphis and the few times he was in Nashville/Atlanta I couldn't make it. 

The concert was at Minglewood and we stood but I loved it. I didn't bring my camera because I couldn't find out whether or not they were 'allowed' so I took craptastic iPhone pictures. 

He opened with Flightless Bird, American Mouth and it was just him on stage with an acoustic guitar, it totally made me cry, but probably more of an emotional reaction to everything that's been happening the last few weeks. 

He also played my favorite song of his, The Trapeze Swinger, love.so.much. 

We did leave before the last song because my back was killing me and it was a 'school night' but I am so glad we went.

Melting

Oh my gosh, it isn't even officially summer yet and we're already melting. We've been under a heat advisory since Saturday and it doesn't seem to be cooling off very much at night either. As I type this it's 91 degrees but feels like 103, ugh and tonight's low is going to be 78, double ugh.

Despite the ridiculous temperatures, the two of us, along with some friends, braved the heat and went to the free Cowboy Junkies show at the Levitt Shell Saturday night. It was a packed house (or lawn rather?) and so flipping hot. We did a potluck, Kenan made a really great vinegar based slaw, Lynsey and Ted made yummy brisket and diced chicken thighs served with corn tortillas and several amazing sauces to go along with them. I made a black-eyed pea salad with cilantro, tomatoes, lime juice and jalapeno and blueberry cheesecake bars for dessert.I burned the hell out of my finger tips with the jalapeno. I don't use them a lot so I didn't think anything about chopping them and not wearing gloves, this was a total mistake. We tried putting everything on them that the internet suggested for capsaicin burns, baking soda, milk, canola oil, alcohol but nothing seemed to alleviate the pain. At one point I had Doug tape a plastic baggie of cold water and baking soda to my hand so I could get some relief, hence the photo of me looking like a crazy person. Eventually the burning sensation wore off, about eight hours after my initial jalapeno contact. So lesson learned, wear gloves when working with jalapenos!

The cheesecake bars were good, especially cold. The recipe is from here, the blueberries were great but I bet they'd be just as good with raspberries or blackberries (but probably not strawberries because of the moisture content).I'm off to bask in wonder that is air conditioning.

Music in the rain

What a warm and rainy weekend we had. Saturday night we had tickets for the Big Star tribute/concert at the Levitt Shell and sat with these friends. The rain held off for a little bit and then started up about an hour into the show, luckily it wasn't torrential. It was a very nice concert and the Shell is a great outdoor venue, I'm looking forward to the new season of shows there.

Local(ish) love

Last week when I was catching up on my Google Reader I saw Kerry's (aka I Love Memphis) post mentioning 901 Love's t-shirts. A few clicks later and I bought this shirt via the 901 Love website and within a couple of days it was delivered to my front door. I really dig the design and the t-shirt itself is super comfortable.

If you live in Memphis chances are you know about WEVL, our volunteer radio station. I think it's one of the best things about Memphis and I back that up with my wallet and my free time. I'm an off-air volunteer which means I help stuffing envelopes, answering the phones during pledge drives, selling WEVL merchandise at Main Street Trolley Night or the RiverArts Fest or pretty much anything they need volunteers for. Right now they're in the middle of their spring pledge drive and one of the pledge gifts they offered was the new Harlan T. Bobo CD uniquely autographed by Mr. Bobo himself. I made my pledge and got one of the CD's before they were all gone. Not only is the music great but the autograph and drawing makes it even better. I've been listening to it since Sunday and so far my favorite song is "Mlle. Chatte." If you're so inclined you can donate online at www.wevl.org or wait until Friday night between 8-10PM to call (901) 528-1990 and I'll be answering the phone to take your pledge!

Olive & Sinclair isn't exactly local - they're about 3.5 hours from being local. They're a Nashville-based artisan 'bean to bar' chocolate company and the chocolate is fantastic. I bought a bar of their 67% Dark Chocolate at Crema in Nashville when we were there in January. Then during a recent trip to Whole Foods (in Memphis) I found a bar of the 75% Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt and OMG it was so good. I spent the better part of a week rationing it off to myself in small pieces. Chocolate and salt is probably the best combination since peanut butter and jelly.

Whoosh

That's the sound I hear as the weekend flies by. Actually this entire week was a whoosh. Tuesday night was knitting, Wednesday night was the Neko Case concert with friends, Thursday night was volunteering, Friday night was spent having dinner and catching up with old friends at Pearl's Oyster House downtown. We had dessert at the Kooky Canuck, mainly because of the skillet cookie and the table top s'mores. We like fire.Saturday I ran errands and make a dinner for pledge drive volunteers at WEVL. I made Emeril's Mushroom & Spinach Lasagna (recipe here), salad, cheese toast and Cran-Apple Crisp (Tuesday's TWD recipe). Saturday night we went to the wedding of friends, it was masquerade-themed and the couple was gorgeous and deliriously happy. I bought cheapie masks from Michael's, Doug spray painted his silver and I stuck some Martha Stewart butterfly stickers, also from Michael's on mine. I had hoped to have time to make something more impressive but that didn't work out.Sunday I made pumpkin pancakes (recipe here), we watched The Maltese Falcon, one of the movies on our 85-Movies-in-85-Weeks list, I knit, visited a friend in the hospital, played catch up with laundry and other mundane household tasks, made biscotti and went to bed early. Hope you had an eventful (or relaxing) weekend!

A day made of fail

We all have them and today it was my turn. I'm under a huuuuge amount of pressure right now at work (deadlines, deadlines, deadlines) and it was just one of those days where nothing I did came out right - even in the kitchen. I made cupcakes last night for Doug's D&D gathering tonight, but I didn't make the frosting because I was out of butter. So this morning I went to the store on the way to work and planned on making frosting when I came home for lunch - hah! The baking gods did not find me worthy and my chocolate seized up and burned (I've never burned chocolate before!) the butter was mushy, I used every bowl/pot/utensil I could find, etc. The frosting was 'meh' definitely sub par, I was a little embarrassed to send them, but hopefully they'll eat them anyway.

The bright spot of the day was coming home and finding happy little packages. New cupcake papers from Bake It Pretty and earrings from Oh, Hello Friend.I just 'discovered' the Oh, Hello Friend blog (so gorgeous!) and her Etsy shop The package was wrapped up so nicely too, just lovely. The earrings are much bigger than I normally wear (I knew that though) but I really like them, the design is so sweet. I'm now lusting over these earrings.I'm spending the night listening to Iron and Wine, knitting on the Francis/Francie sweater and hoping for a better tomorrow.

Things I'm crushing on right this minute

• Little wooden chair we picked up at an estate sale a few weeks ago, $45. It's a little creaky but I think Doug can tighten the joints. Once I saw the seat cushion with the koi I had to have it.

• Bon Iver

• Snowglobe

• Haagen Dazs Five coffee flavor - best ice cream ever. EVER.

• Malabrigo Organic Cotton - I ordered two sweaters worth from Yarnzilla (it was on sale). I'm making the Ophelia cardigan from A Mingled Yarn, that's the very beginning of it. This colorway is Plata and it's gray with faint blue undertones. It was a little stiff but as I'm knitting with it it's softening up a bit.

• Savage Love podcasts, he's kind of fabulous. However be warned, he is not for the faint of heart. Or ears.

• Stitcher Radio app for my iPhone, I can listen to NPR shows like Car Talk, Fresh Air, etc. while I water the garden and get eaten by mosquitoes. If Doug could marry this app he would, mainly because he can listen to NBC Nightly News, 60 Minutes and Face the Nation.

• Raspberry Buttermilk Cake from Smitten Kitchen via Gourmet, seriously I made this last weekend and it was gone almost instantly. And there was only two of us.

• Posie Gets Cozy, I've been a blog stalker of hers for awhile but her posts about her garden and the accompanying pictures make me want to move to Portland immediately.

• Handknit socks from my super-fabulous friend Lynsey. She's out of town for awhile and I miss her lots. She made these socks in honor of me learning how to ride a bike! (more about that later).

Estate sale finds

I have my friend Lynsey to thank for getting me interested in estate sales. She introduced me last fall. Doug and I started going together in January, he likes to look for older woodworking tools and I like to look for linens and books. One of the first things we bought was a stereo/record player, it was $10 and I think it's around the same age as I am. Since it's purchase, we've been building a random collection of records. Prior to this the only record I ever owned was the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. I could sing every word of "Hungry Eyes". Some Saturdays we have no luck and go home with almost nothing, but this past weekend we came home with a Jeep full of stuff. It's all the record player's fault. We needed a piece of furniture to set the player/speakers on in the living room and at the first sale of the day Saturday Doug noticed a console General Electric record player, we think its from the early 1960's. It's in almost perfect condition, the exception being that it doesn't work right now. Mr. Fix-It thinks he can get it to work but even if he doesn't it's a nice piece of furniture. Doug cleaned it up and we relocated it to the living room. It's kind of perfect there.The next sale we went to I found this framed map of "The Ghost Fleet of the Outer Banks" - it was $10. Doug found an assortment of records, mostly musicals and classical but he did catch a Dylan Thomas recording and he found a hardback of Kinsey's Sexual Behavior of the Human Female. The last sale we went to was alerted to us by Lynsey because it had a ton of records. And it was a crazy little house with a lot of stairs and a creepy collection of dolls. Doug bought nineteen records there, mostly KISS (not my choice).

We called it a day after that. When we got home I did a little internet sleuthing and found that the Kinsey book is actually a first edition, in great shape, just missing the dust jacket. It's the best find we've had so far because we only paid $3 for it. Oh and when we opened the book, this photo of two Siamese cats, dated 1954 fell out.

All my titles are beginning to sound the same

It was Valentine's Day weekend and I had intended to post on Saturday but got too busy doing other things. Saturday morning I got up early and headed to North Memphis to help a friend of mine with a community garden he's been working on. Essentially I spent the morning working with composted horse manure. I've felt like a massive slug lately so it felt good to be outside actually working, even if it was with manure. I'm paying for it now thought because my muscles are screaming at me. After I went home and cleaned the dirt off Doug and I had a late lunch at Lou's Pizza Pie in Cooper-Young. Great pizza, I was introduced to Lou's by a friend and it is extremely delicious. We also wandered over to Burke's Bookstore right down the street. Since we're working on soon-to-be library I wanted to add some classics to our book collection. We already have a ton of books but I'm of the mindset that you really can't ever have enough books.We also exchanged gifts, we never do anything big, usually just fun thing we know the other person will like. I bought Doug this Big Lebowski tshirt, he's a huge fan. He got me a Harlan T. Bobo record, so yes I am actually getting into this record player thing. V-day night we went to Cafe Eclectic and saw our friend's improv group.

Sunday I had a lunch dim sum date with some fabulous friends and we also hit a couple of estate sales. I got these doilies and again I haven't the foggiest idea what I'll do with them but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

I'm also working on another first sock. I'm beginning to be concerned that I'll never actually finish a complete sock. I've frogged the other first sock that was entirely ribbing. It seemed like no matter how much I knit on it and never got any longer. This is the Carolina pattern from Socktopia done in Lime & Violet Sasquatch sock yarn. The colorway is Marilyn Monroe, pinks and greens with a little pale yellow mixed in. I'm also worried because mine doesn't really look as crisp as the others I've seen on Ravelry. It does fit though, I tried it on. It just doesn't look that great, it could be destined for the frog pond.

Fun mail

I love getting mail. Only fun mail though, the bills and insurance EOB's are not my idea of fun mail. I've ordered a few things lately and always get a thrill when I come home and I have a little package (this can be dangerous to my bank account however). Recently I got the following:

- Felt Circle necklace from Get Felt Up on Etsy (only $12.00!) Her stuff is so cute and affordable.- A collection of socks from Sock Dreams. I have been coveting nearly everything in this store for awhile and then a friend ordered some and that encouraged me to take the plunge and order. Most of their socks are made in the USA and shipping is free in the US. I really like all of the ones I ordered. There are a couple of pairs that are really, really long, but that is not their fault. I'm 5'2 and have short, stumpy legs.- Baking goodies from Bake It Pretty. She has got such a sweet collection of packaging, decorations, tools and little 'extras'. I bought two cookie cutters - a mushroom and a US map (I had a Inauguration day plan for this but ended up not having enough time), a frosting tip for cupcakes, cupcake liners and a package of old fashioned valentines. I'm contemplating ordering this candy mold, maybe for Easter? It looks very Spring-like.-Ball winder from Knit Picks. Doug built me a swift and he thought he could come up with some type of ball winder but I got impatient and just ordered one from Knit Picks. Now I make my own yarn 'cakes'. Sweet. (that's Fleece Artist Trail Sock on the winder)- This tunic dress from AD LOVE on Etsy. I love, love, love it. I don't know if I'm hip enough to pull it off but I don't really care at this point.

I did not get this in the mail but I downloaded some music from the Mountain Goats a few weeks ago. I 'found' their songs while watching Moral Orel on Adult Swim. It's hard to acurately describe Moral Orel. It's odd and sad/funny/beautiful and really twisted. The Moutain Goats had a few songs on the show and I dug around and found their music and was immediately drawn to it. Their Wikipedia page better describes the music and the songs.