Simplicity in Soup

Sometimes, in my busy, very grown-up sophisticated life, I forget about some little things.  The salt of life, easily forgettable yet intolerably important details that make life richer and grander and at the same time simpler.  Wearing socks when it's cold is once example.  Making sure your eyeglass/contact prescription is up to date to prevent headaches and partial blindness could be another. 

Today the nuance I remembered that has improved my immediate life beyond measure, is to put crackers in my soup.

So please take this moment to think of what details you're forgetting, and I urge you to right that wrong. 

And guys, stay warm.

Holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving, all y'all.  Sorry I've been MIA for a little bit.  I've been spending some time getting ready for this big ol' happy Christmas that's on it's way, and then I got burnt out from that and stayed up late being not productive.  (Cough.)  BUT.  Today is Thanksgiving, oh joyous day of happiness and thankfulness and eating until you puke.  !  Our Thanksgiving will not be very big.  But that's okay.  No family coming in from out of town (shame on them), and probably not a gigantic smorgasbord of foods, but I'm sure it will be sizeable and at any rate delicious, because my beautiful Mommy and lovely sis-in-law Julia and I will be making it, and I ask you how that could not be ideal?  As this is my first Thanksgiving as an Official Married Person with a Home of My Own and the responsibilities thereof, I will be contributing in a smallish way,  by bringing only a desert and a salad.  But oh a desert and salad they will be.  You see, they will be these:

A Pumpkin Roll Cake

and

A Spinach Pomegranate Salad.

I know you know that sounds scrumptious, positively.  I'm about to head to the store to get the needed supplies before I turn my kitchen into a cavern of things that smell good and are yummy, and maybe I will let you know how the recipes are after I conquer them.  I even made my own vinaigrette for the salad, so my tastebuds at least are preparing for an epic experience this eve. 

I sincerely truly hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, and that your Thanksgiving Evenings will be equally awesome.  If you are finding in yourself a lack of enthusiasm, might I suggest turning on Pandora and creating a station around Jenny Lewis and Empire of the Sun?  Because that, even being not holiday music, has been filling my home with an atmosphere quite festive and has helped me along whilst I vacuumed and scrubbed and swept and de-greased in preparation for the baking which is about to happen.  Dance as well, cause you're home alone with the pup and you know you want to.

Here's a wintry photo I found a long time ago from I don't know where, to help you get into the spirit of things:

lub,
kayla

Suddenly, pictures! Lots and lots of pictures.

Tony's best friend, Enrique, works at a gold mine about 5 hours into Nevada, in a teeny town called Round Mountain.  Really, there's nothing there at all.  As you can imagine, it gets pretty lonely out in the middle of nowhere, so we went to visit him last weekend. 

Tony and Enrique are all into guns right now, and on a previous trip they discovered this mining settlement that had been abandoned for one reason or another which also serves as the perfect place to unload a lot of ammo.  So we went shooting.

This is Enrique and me.  Enrique is an incredible shot and shamed us horribly.  I wasn't too bad with this one gun, for some reason.

Here's a righteous photo of the boys.  Note Tony's security with his manliness in wielding that adorable little gun.

I love the kid.

The dogs came too.  The cute little one is Lily, Enrique's pitbull puppy.  The black one is our baby, Maya.

It was a little chilly, so I spent part of the day huddled in the truck, knitting.  Cause I'm just cool, you know?

The location was completely rad .  It reminded me of Fallout: New Vegas, for those of you who know what I'm talking about.  While the guys were setting up targets I wandered around and took some photos.  I really wanted to capture the sun-bleached, atmospheric desert quality that I felt there, so I tried to let tons of light into the lens and get all the desaturated deserty colors I was loving so much.  (The minty sage green and ultra pale yellows and browns are my color combo crush right now.)

You can see the whole set at my Flickr account.  I'm pleased with how they turned out.  It was refreshing to just let loose with the camera and snap to my heart's content.

Peace out e'rybody.  I made vanilla pudding from scratch tonight and there's no way I'm going to let it just sit in the fridge for later.  Night!
kayla

Underwater Bridals

Are you even kidding me?  Excuse me while I lapse into a fantasy-induced coma.

Photography by the talented Ashlee Raubach.

If I could marry an instrument...

This is long overdue.  About two months ago my dad -- who is also the greatest dad in all the world -- helped me buy my very own, very beautiful, very wonderful, (and now very tuned) piano! 

I know excitement doesn't translate very well via internet, so you're just going to have to believe me when I tell you how completely stoked I was.  Like, the excitement level was almost comparable to when I got married. 

Anyway, we've all been settled in nice and cozy for a while now.  I took some pictures a few weeks ago and never got around to editing them. 

Once on the computer I realized how awful they are (like, really bad), so I'm going to retake them with the nicer camera someday.  The bunting I made with a thrifted Ikea duvet cover and the doilies I made with scrap fabric and lace; black statue we got on our honeymoon in Mexico; the birdies were a wedding gift, the oil warmer we bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, the vase thingy was thrifted; awesome succulent candle was a wedding gift; sweet silhouette picture was a wedding gift from my cousin - she used a picture she took of Tony and I on our wedding day and came up with that  beautiful piece of art.

I'm in love with my piano.  On my list of most cherished items, it's right there at the top with the Holy Scriptures and my glitter gold Toms.  It's sound is deliciously rich and full, not tinny or twangy or too sensitive.  Perfect.

Still editing trip pictures and such.  Tony's making venison stew in the crockpot for dinner that smells amazing.  And I noticed last night that I now have 10 followers!  Hooray!  Thank you!

Happy Saturday! love, kayla

Oh, a whale of a tale I'll tell ya, lads

Can I get some rejoicing up in here for the weekend?

It's about time.

I've been spending my lovely Friday evening in my living room, with the pup and a coffee table piled high with nail polish.  Turns out I have a lot of pink (didn't know that).  Also, I really like this brand:

image taken from here

In fact, I really wish I had that green up there.  I bought that sparkly pink beauty a few days ago and it is now adorning each of my fingers.  ($2 a bottle which I don't think is too outrageous.)  My toes are a delicious conglomeration of alternating yellow and cotton-candy blue, and to be honest I'm feeling pretty fulfilled.

Tony stuck with me for a little while before retreating to bed.  We were watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the old Disney version with Kirk Douglas, because a few days ago I had the song stuck in my head and showed it to him on YouTube.  Neither of us had seen the movie before, and I think I've been wildly malinformed because I always thought the only thing the story is about was some people go really deep into the ocean and fight a giant octopus, WHICH HAPPENS (only not) but for only about 20 seconds.  To be honest I got kinda bored with it all (except for Kirk Douglas' sexy) and am thinking maybe I'll just read the book.  If it's better.  Is it?

 This guy:

...always makes me want to watch Casablanca.

Anyway, we polished off another batch of caramel popcorn.  That's 3 times in about 2 weeks, people!  I'm alive to tell you that there is such thing as too much of a good thing.  (So I'll probably stick to half batches from now on.)  I balanced it out with some penne & marinara for dinner, though.

I'm working on editing the pictures I took from our middle-o-nowhere shooting trip, and also some homey pictures, and also pictures from Halloween.  I finally signed up for a Flickr account.  Yay me!

I hope all of you have plans to enjoy your weekend.  I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm sure we'll think of something.  We both got new shoes last weekend and we're still pretty stoked about it.  I'd promise pictures, but I try not to set myself up for failure.  See ya later!

kayla

MungoCrafts Giveaway

Remember that super awesome sweatshirt I'm drooling over?  Well it's by the lovely MungoCrafts, and it just so happens she's holding a giveaway, sponsored by The Dainty Squid.  The winner gets a handmade hoodie of her choosing from Mungo's Etsy shop (which, if you haven't checked it out already, you must DO SO, because her stuff is cool.)

So head over to The Dainty Squid to enter!  Ends November 11.

Home is for Happiness

We just got back from a little weekend roadtrip to the Middle of Nowhere.  I took some pictures I hope are good, but I can't share them yet because they aren't edited and don't you remember how we just got back?  I have pizza to eat and a couch (not a car) to sit in.

Before I go, though, check out this beautiful, inspiring, all-around awesome birth story by the equally beautiful, inspiring, and all-around awesome Natalie of Nat the Fat Rat.  I had a minor pregnancy scare this weekend - my period was a few days late and so of course I thought "Oh dear, what does that mean?!"  but then it came and I'm not pregnant and my emotions are all mixed together about it.  Anyway, the above post, and actually Natalie's entire blog, always get to my heart.  Give it a good read.

Now I must pizza.

Two months away and I'm already panicking.

I would like to put forth the proposition that men are infinitely more difficult to shop for than women.  Seriously, WHAT do you buy them?  Etsy suggests men want: beer-flavored soap (to suck on?), ironic vintage knick-knacks (to decorate with?), big bulky rings (for punching?), something to wear for an elegant night out i.e. a tie or cuff links (because guys love dressing up in uncomfortable clothes to go do things they don't want to do.)

Okay so maybe just my guy is hard to shop for.  A bar of novelty soap - however interesting and/or delicious smelling - would gather dust somewhere, as would a knick-knack of any kind.  My guy does hard, dirty, non-delicate work with his hands and I'm pretty sure the only ring he's going to tolerate is his wedding band.  (I mean, how many guys actually like wearing rings anyway?  Like, to accessorize with.  You know?)  We're church-going folk so a tie is something that would get worn on a fairly weekly basis, but you can buy a man only so many ties.  Cuff links would be a complete waste of money and wit, if they were the witty kind.

When I think of gifts for guys I feel they must be a) practical, b) useful, c) not something that screams "Ugh I wish you were a girl!", and d) not something that's really for me.  And also meaningful.  As with any gift.

This is why very few people ever receive gifts from me.  Not because I don't care, but because I can't freaking come up with anything good.

*sigh*  It's a problem.

The sugar high leads to musings

On my drive home today I did some thinking.  This thinking was spurred indirectly by the decision to take city streets instead of the boring, bland ol' freeway.

Familiar streets, streets with memories wrapped around them.  Also streets with yarn stores and independent clothing stores and coffee shops and neat, little old houses on them.  My kind of streets.  This happened on this corner, and Remember all those things that happened here? and I could write a book about this dollar theatre.  This is my town, and a lot of my life has played out right here, in tiny seperate sequences that are usually the ones which stand out in memory most.

You know: boys dated, solid friends I don't talk to anymore, funny stories with friends of friends, the lingering ache of heartbreak.

And then I thought a thought that was so sticky it got stuck to the inside of my head before it could disappear.  I thought, "These are old memories."  Old!  I'm not old by almost any standard, and yet it was true.  Such old memories these were!  And I realized I've been clinging on to these old memories for so long, wishing they were yesterday, today, yet to come.  Missing them.

And this was all probably inspire by my musings lately about  the "vintage" and "retro" coolness phase everyone seems to be going through.  (Even me.)  I've made a few vintage finds of my own, and can drool over vintage-styled modern homes as well as anyone, but the past little while it's all left a funny taste in my mouth.  Pastness is good, of course, but is it possible to dwell on it a bit too much?  In a mad sort of way?  I can look at those same photos of beautiful 60's-ish living rooms and feel the past closing in on me, like a slightly discomforting dream I wouldn't be able to wake from.  It's why I like to watch TV: a something in my personal world to let modern in, to help me feel connected with the world as it's happening.

I know I'm weird, so maybe this all makes sense only to me.

Back to my sticky thought.  I don't want to clutch these memories so tightly anymore.  I want to make new ones.  It's time to embrace the beautiful things that can happen tomorrow, or even right now.  I'm a different person than I was in highschool, in subtle, gigantic ways.  And I will keep on changing.  Isn't it grand?

Someone else to live vicariously through

I love Ashley for all sorts of reasons.  She's funny, ultra-talented, is a fantastic photographer yet seems approachable and is always giving away awesome tips for free.  Her home, family, and self are all beautiful. 

But now the circle is complete.  Check out her family's Halloween costumes.  I'm not kidding, go look at them.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a gigantic Star Wars nerd so these make me understandably giddy, but even if you're not a fan you can't deny how adorable and happy her kids and husband look in their costumes, and how stylish a Princess Leia Ashley makes.

Someday, when we have a brood of our own, I'm totally doing this.  And hiring Ashley to take our pictures.