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I just tweeted that effective immediately I would be avoiding Facebook and twitter news feeds due to the mother’s day well-wishing going on in both places. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade and this mother’s day is hard for me and my family. It’s our first year without a mom here to celebrate and it’s the anniversary of a time in our lives that changed everything.
That said, I do want to take a moment to also say that my mom was an amazing, strong, convicted, and passionate woman and I miss her very much. We fought a lot, she could make me furious faster than anyone else I know, but I know she loved me, I know that she was proud of me even when she didn’t say it.
Mom mom isn’t here this mother’s day, but I do have many beautiful, courageous, and strong woman in my life to celebrate. Some are mothers, some are not, but all of them have helped me be strong over the last several months and I’d like to say thank you.
Mumford and Sons
I’m extremely attracted to music that involves banjos. I can’t help myself… it’s like the way I feel about brushes on a snare drum, I love the sound.
The thing is that I’m also a lyrics person as well… I need both, good music and strong lyrics and if I compromise (don’t hate me all of my musician friends) it’s on the side of lyrics usually.
Fortunately there’s no need for compromise with Mumford and Sons. You get both great music and great lyrics!
Today I’m posting the lyrics to one of Mumford and Sons songs called Roll Away Your Stone. This was the first song itunes played for me this morning and I found it particularly relevant considering the state I woke up in. Enjoy… then go to itunes for the album (Sigh No More).
Roll Away Your Stone
Roll away your stone I will roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don’t leave me alone at this time
For I’m afraid of what I will discover inside
You told me that I would find a home
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals
Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think
Yet it dominates the things I see
It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say ‘That’s exactly how this grace thing works’
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with a re-start
Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think
And yet it dominates the things I see (x2)
Stars hide your fires
For these here are my desires
And I won’t give them up to you this time around
And so I will be found
With my stake stuck in this ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul (x2)
And you, you’ve gone too far this time
You have neither reason nor rhyme
With which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine
... because who doesn't love to hate on "Michelle Mole Hair"?
It should be no secret by now that I am a HUGE fan of The Bachelor, it’s a sick obsession, I know, but come on, everyone is allowed at least one.
This season is proving to be especially good/infuriating and drama-filled, but this is, of course, why we watch. For he cat-fights, to pick our team and route for them the whole way through.
So if you, like me, are addicted to the who Bachelor world, please, please, make time in your busy week to stop by here and read Entertainment Weekly’s Bachelor recap. You wont regret it, I promise! I look forward to these recaps almost as much as the show its self and it’s a guarantee that you will laugh until you cry tears that would give even this seasons boo-hooing bachelorettes a run for their money. =)
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 5 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 170 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 206 posts. There were 558 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 302mb. That’s about 2 pictures per day.
The busiest day of the year was February 3rd with 1 views. The most popular post that day was Please, don’t try this at home..
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, mail.yahoo.com, search.aol.com, en.wordpress.com, and twitter.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for eva longoria, edward cullen, channing tatum, spanx, and harem pants.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
Please, don’t try this at home. September 2009
42 comments
2
Why I will _never_ read another Nicholas Sparks book again… January 2010
6 comments
3
Hayley Williams hair November 2010
1 comment
4
Oh Pants… August 2009
5
Romantic comedy may be the death of me. January 2010
2 comments
One thing that I will be sad about when I move next year is not being so close to a Nordstrom Rack (that I know of). The Park Lane shops is one of my favorite places to be in this area. There are days when I feel like I need to excuse my appreciation for cosmetics, clothes, shoes, and accessories, but today is not one of those days…
On my last visit to Nordstrom Rack I found this (featured at the top) perfect pair of Marc by Marc Jacobs sunglasses. These sunglasses are the very essence of Audrey Hepburn come to life on my face and marked down to $34 from $120 I could hardly leave them all lonely on the shelf!
I actually text my boss for back up and she confirmed that they were just to good to pass up, so I took them home with me and have felt glad ever since!
Be warned, if you’re thinking of doing some sunglass shopping at Nordstrom Rack, they don’t provide cases for them, so now I’m trying to hunt down a case which is kind of silly feeling (especially since the perfectionist in me is insisting on finding a Marc Jacobs case because God forbid the glasses have to live in something that doesn’t match). Anyway, sunglass cases are easy to come by, so as long as that doesn’t bother you, shop away!
While was in the area, I stopped by Ulta ( see “fraternizing with the enemy”) to pick up some Essie nail polish. Essie is by far my favorite brand of nail color… probably because they have 5 bazillion shades of nude/nudey pink which is, for the most part, all I can bring myself to wear on my fingernails. The shade I picked up is called Ballet Slipper, and I’m really happy with it. I’m pretty fair and sometimes light-colored polishes either a.) make my hands look dead, or b.) look dingy yellow, which I hate. Ballet Slipper has just enough pink in it that it looks really soft against my skin instead of dead, and zero yellow-ness. Also, there’s no chipping yet, and it’s been two days (which let’s face it, is saying a lot considering some nail polishes, no matter what they claim, will start to chip after 24 hours). I have a shipment shift to work this evening though, which will be the true test. =)
Not to make this too personal, but I lost my mom 2 weeks ago and in the middle of that there was no time for blogging. As such, I won’t be going back to the 14 Days of Red posts (or to wearing red, for that matter). It’s time for a fresh start and what’s better for a fresh start than “fresh handmade cosmetics”?
Lush goodies from left to right : Soak and Float shampoo, 9 to 5 cleansing lotion, Tea Tree Water
I have oddly sensitive skin as it is anyway, but after the recent stress and extreme emotions I’ve been through, to say that my skin has been distressed would be a huge understatement. My first priority problem was that I had a burning, flakey, scalp that nothing seemed to sooth. I don’t know if it was the stress or a styling product that irritated my scalp, or perhaps a combination of both, but it was really frustrating, to say the least.
A friend recommended the Soak and Float shampoo bar from Lush and upon speaking to my Lush girl, she agreed. This product is a miracle… and I don’t say that lightly. I find it very difficult to trust reviews that only offer praise, but as far as this product goes, the only criticism I can bring is in the smell, which at first will make you grimace (it smells strongly of what I interpret as wood smoke), however, even the smell is growing on me now. Once you get past the initial smokey smell, there’s a kind of rich clean-like-the-forrest scent underneath, and I find it rather pleasant! The shampoo completely soothed my scalp, no more flaking, no more burning. I did find my hair was a little dry, BUT I follow up with Retread conditioner and my hair feels soft and bouncy when it’s try!
Next problem to solve was my suddenly dry-as-the-desert skin… which is problematic considering the tremendous amount of makeup I have to wear. There’s no going easy on a face covered in glitter, my friends. For this I was directed to the new 9 to 5 cleansing lotion. If you’re not familiar with cleansing lotions, they’re the texture of a body lotion, they do not get sudsy (to keep from stripping the skin) and are typically best on dry/ sensitive skin. The trouble I’ve found in the past is that they tend not to be the greatest with makeup removal. With that said, I do strongly urge everyone to at LEAST use a makeup removing wipe of some sort before you actually cleans your skin and not waste your good cleanser on just removing a layer of makeup from your face, but the fact is that there’s still going to be some makeup left, and your cleanser has to be able to handle that. Fortunately 9 to 5 packs a punch for all it’s gentleness. The stubborn eye liner I always have issues with getting off, slipped away with no struggle whatsoever! It also leaves my skin feeling incredibly soft as well. Because I tend (normally) to be more combination, I also purchased the Tea Tree Water toner ( the Lush girl said I should massage my cleanser onto my face, then spray the toner over the cleanser and the wipe clean). So far this seems to be treating my distressed skin very well! Just be warned if you are very oily, you’re not likely to appreciate a cleansing lotion. =)
Welcome back me… anyway…
I probably should have gotten back to blogging at the beginning of last week, but I’ve been sorting through some personal things that rendered me completely useless in terms of writing things down in an orderly fashion.
My vacation was wonderful, it was a spot of unexpected calm in the midst of the tumultuousness that my personal life has been the last 6 months.
Instead of trying to write in detail about how I spent the last 3 weeks, here’s a slide show…
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And also… as of today, I’m launching a series called “14 Days Of Red”… I have to wear red lips for the next two weeks and I’m going to do my best to make it interesting. =)
There are times when certain music’s theatrics are perfectly justified… I’m supposed to be asleep right now, but I just can’t.
It can be a single sound… the hum of guitar strings just after they’ve been strum, the echoing cling of pipes, the soft whisper of a brush on a snare. Sometimes it’s it’s several chords, sometimes it’s only one, whatever it is, it grabs you. Your breath catches in your throat, your heartbeat quickens, you feel the irresistible urge to close your eyes, and you can’t help but stop what you’re doing and let it have your full attention.
This is music at it’s finest, it’s music that you know to your core because it’s not just speaking to you, it’s moving through you. It is your pulse, the rhythm your life and the language of the something, though you might not be sure what. One thing that you can be sure of is that not everyone hears this the way you do, not everyone is listening the way you are, and you get it because you know where it comes from, you know what it cost to carry this particular sound from where it started to where you are hearing it.
I like a lot of different kinds of music. So many different kinds, in fact, that I often have trouble answering when someone asks me what I like. It can be a little frustrating sometimes, especially considering that every social networking profile asks you to list the things you like. A lot of what I like doesn’t fit anywhere, I can’t organize it into any of my neat and tidy iTunes categories by genre. There’s no genre that can contain it.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a lot of popular music… some I should probably be ashamed of for some reason or another, but I tend to want to consider what I enjoy and what I like as two very different things. The way I see it, I can enjoy something without it necessarily being central to who I am. I can enjoy it for it’s association with other things. But I like something for itself. For example, I might enjoy jumping up and down to a song in a club that I’m at with a group of friends on a night that I’m in a really good mood, but I wouldn’t necessarily like the song on it’s own.My enjoying it is directly connected to the set of circumstances I’m experiencing it in.
A lot of what I like about music is in the details, which gave me an idea an idea that helped sort out my unsortable music tastes. I’m a person who deeply appreciates metephores and analogies, and I also like using them, so while I was thinking of how to classify the music I like that seems to have no place in the genre world, the first thing that came to my mind was, “music couture”.
Couture fashion is something you have to understand in order to really appreciate it. The vast majority of people don’t get couture fashion because the vast majority of couture fashion isn’t mainstream, it isn’t wearable, it isn’t what you’re used to, and while it may not be particularly offensive, it doesn’t quite make sense either. Appreciating, liking, couture fashion isn’t about seeing something on the runway and thinking “I could pull that off, I could wear that.” It’s about understanding the process.
Someone who truly “gets it” is someone who can see the craftmanship, they understand what it took to create the lines of a particular piece, or they see the detailed stitching in another. It’s about understanding the processes and appreciating the outcome based on the process of creation and not just the creation itself.
This is the music that awakens that core reaction,that gets me to really stop and listen instead of just enjoying it at face value; music that is the manifestation of the process. Music that is simply the outcome of the process can’t be classified by genre, and it is difficult to find. It’s like a diamond in the rough, you can’t see it’s value unless you know what to look for.
If I can, I’ll try to make clear what I mean by “ can’t be classified by genre”. A specific genre dictates a specific outcome, which thus gives the process specific guidelines within which it can work, and what you end up withis a Pop song, or rock, or what have you. Certainly there are different factors that can be played in to make one song distinct from another within a genre, but the guidelines are still the same.
It’s like making a skirt… you already know that your end result is going to be a skirt, so you buy a skirt pattern and you follow the rules for creating that skirt. You have choices, will it be an a-line skirt, or a pencil skirt? You can choose the fabric, the color, the length, but at the end of the day, what you’ve made will be classified as a skirt.
If the process is left to lead, without the dictating voice of genre, what do you classify the outcome you arrive at as a result? At this point my idea begins to overwhelm me a little and I feel like I need the opinion of someone who is really right in the thick of the process, there’s only so far I can take this from the sidelines. So I asked a musician friend what his thoughts were on the idea of couture music and this is his take:
Years ago, when music was expensive and took effort to acquire, people who weren’t all that into music would sit down every once in a while and do nothing but listen to some music. While, people who were really into music had it on all the time but didn’t pay much attention to it. Now that music is cheap/free and easy to get, the roles are reversed in some sense; casual listeners are awash in music everywhere all the time. Stores all have music, bars, restaurants. People have iPods on the train, in the car, at the gym, and so on. But they don’t really seem to care much about what it is that they hear. It is all completely disposable and it comes and goes. Now, people who really like music may still listen all the time; but they’ll own certain, special, music that was hard to get and maybe expensive, and when they listen to that they stop, and sit, and listen. That’s what couture music is to me; the stuff that, in a culture -buried- in music, will make someone stop, and sit, and listen.
I’ve been harboring this idea in the back of my mind for literally months now. I started working on it before I moved to Dallas and have finally had the energy to come back to it. Honestly, I feel like there’s a lot more to say about it, but I don’t have adequate words to give it further shape, so I’m leaving this open ended and inviting the opinions of anyone who might take time to read this. =)
I know this is coming a bit late… sorry… today I baked cookies for the first time and that took over my entire afternoon (more about that on Wednesday).
This week I’m pulling an “Oh no you dih ent!” moment on yours truly, me myself and I. Rest assured this will not happen often, but let it be known from this point forward during these Friday posts that I’m not a hypocrite and am willing to call myself out when necessary. So here we go…
I spent the entirety of yesterday afternoon… looking up hip hop dance how to videos on YouTube and upon finding the video featured below, attempted to follow it until I memorized the whole dance.
Don’t go getting your hopes up, I may be humble enough to call myself out, but I’m not so humble as to be willing to make myself the laughing stock of the entire internet. There will be no video footage of me dancing (much to my baby sisters dismay), and personal performances will be limited to very specific circumstances, to which the appropriate parties have been made aware.
However, I will provide the video I was dancing with so that you too might make yourself a fool on an afternoon you have an hour to spare.
Also, in closing I would like to mention that on the same day I willingly broke every muscle in my body trying to do hip hop, I also successfully mooned a good portion of the Skillman/Abrams Dallas area. Appreciation can be sent to My Skirt and The Wind.
