tis time. time once again for texas football. college football. saturdays where entire populations point towards their respective stadiums. lots of people describe baseball as America's great national pastime. maybe those people sucked at football.

to say i'm excited is an understatement. our tailgate has been months in the making. there have been at least 150 emails about preparations. we basically bought all the hamburger meat they had at costco. i don't even eat red meat and this excites me. last night i was making bacon to put in a variation of these suckers and was thrilled because i was making something other than lean meat, whole grains, or veggies. it's healthy, i know, blah blah but ermahgerd. boring. our tailgate beer sponsor, MillerCoors, came through again so the triple hops brewed beer will flow like the Guadalupe River. us girls have all of our burnt orange apparel from Longhorn Fashions picked out and coordinated so that we don't show up wearing the same outfit. the HORROR. can you imagine? i need my smelling salts. please know i'm kidding. about the smelling salts. not the outfit coordination. that is very, very serious.

anyway, the point is i couldn't be more excited about the longhorns. the game. the food. the drink. the cowboy boots. the camaraderie. the competition. and certainly not least of all: the tunes.

so this week, i bring you a tailgate edition of friday tunes. many of these are a Texan's version of an Irish drinking ballad. i can guarantee that my friends from school have either hiccuped, sang, or stumbled their way through a two-step to these songs. sometimes all three at the same time! we're multi-talented like that. of course i capped it off with the Texas fight song. if you like what you hear, subscribe to my "tailgate" playlist on spotify.



can't have a friday tunes: tailgate edition without mentioning our very own in-house musician and close friend of mine, John Edward Baumann. he'll be playing most of our tailgates and is an up and coming Texas musician. he is a seriously talented wordsmith, and his songs always make me smile. or cry. I'M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION. i've included some of my faves.








in the spirit of competition...please see my newest favorite quote regarding Austin/UT Football from Drew Magary's 2012 Hater's Lover's Guide to the Top 25.

"All the food in Austin is dirt cheap and impossibly good, and when I went to Franklin BBQ I deliberately tried to give myself a heart attack by stuffing my face with brisket and very small bourbon pies. The women there are not unattractive, and the folks all look extremely content with their lives. Meanwhile, 20 million people voluntarily cram themselves into a New York City subway car every morning wanting either to kill everyone around them or to kill themselves because killing yourself is kind of easier. Austin is better. And I like that the University of Texas has the balls to cause entire conference shifts without actually moving anywhere. They just break apart alliances and leave other schools bankrupt for the sheer joy of it. That's my kind of heartless bureaucracy."

yep. hook 'em!

if you know me even a little bit, you know i love color, prints, and texture. growing up that's just always how our houses were- full of color. i so wish i could do the minimal, stark thing. i appreciate it. but paring things down has never been my strong suit. raccoon : shiny objects : : molly : loud design. on that note, i also like shiny objects.

that being said, i have had white walls in my bedroom in austin since i moved here. three months ago. it's been driving me insane. i know how much time painting a whole room takes, and i did not care to invest that kind of time myself. (been there, done that, lost the deposit, ugh. no thanks.) nor did i have a budget to hire painters. enter: the accent wall.

when i purchased the paint for my DIY stripe curtains, i did it with the accent wall in mind. i knew i wanted my room to be blue-gray, and that turned out to be a great color for the curtains as well. enough to make the stripes on the curtains pop, but light enough to not get too nautical.  the curtains took about half a gallon of paint, and i probably used another quart to paint my accent wall. leaving me with another quart to play with soon. :)

so saturday morning i headed to home depot, got my paint shaken, picked up a few random supplies, and grabbed an iced coffee. i had basically all the supplies i needed...except for one crucial thing. muscles. brawn. that tim "the toolman" grunt. i needed a dude to help me move my bed. enter: the King of Everything (as i have henceforth dubbed him), Dom. The King of Everything volunteered not only to help move my bed, but to paint as well. this is why he is the King of Everything. also, he's a singer/songwriter! ladies- holler atcher boy.

all in all, counting the trip to home depot, moving all my furniture out of my room, painting, and moving everything back in, this project probably took two hours. max. the actually painting took MAYBE thirty minutes? such a great, easy way to liven up the space. best part: SUPER CHEAP, too. because i had the paint and most of my supplies already, i think i spent a total of $8 on an edger and a roller handle. moral of the story: plan out your paint projects and see if one gallon can have multiple uses. and save your painting supplies!

another small project i took care of was a bit of clean-up/organization in the utility room. i was tired of looking at all the crap on our shelves (we use the utility room not only for laundry storage, but cookie cutters, light-bulbs, koozies, and shot glasses. you know. the staples.) i just needed some plastic bins to store everything, but didn't want to spend an arm and a leg.


i wouldn't have thought of this, but thankfully now i have pinterest to do all that pesky thinking for me. dollar store to the rescue, yall! grand total of $6. BOOM.

lastly, i went to half-price books to find some coffee-table books for chizzeap. i found some great deals on four coffee table books (two of which are Edward Gorey, which makes me very happy!) also, i picked up a copy of David Sedaris' Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. i've read it before, but his books get funnier every time. came home and opened it up to find this:


a signed hardback copy for $5? seriously, Half-Price Books should call themselves We Will Pay You To Read, Basically.

HOORAY DEALS!

welp, it was bound to happen sometime. things were going so smoothly. this saturday, i was supposed to jump on the elliptical for six miles (my furthest to date). this saturday, i did not do that. i sclathed around my apartment, napped, and stayed in with the kitty to watch olympics for a rare weekend night in. it was glorious, but there was the looming guilt cloud over me. the "i'll just do it tomorrow" guilt cloud. oh, how it loomed.

i woke up on sunday full of energy and driven by a decent-sized to-do list. step one: clean out my closets. check. one of my favorite things to do. i'm kind of an organizational freak. i make my bed every day before work. if i don't make my bed, something is wrong with me. i hang my towels after every shower. i never have clothes on the floor. i fold blankets when i'm done using them. just how i am. anywho, after cleaning out my closets, step two was to take my unwanted items to buffalo exchange. this is another favorite thing to do. it is a win/win/win. they pay me for the clothes they take, they donate the rest to charity (their charities vary by day), and my closet smiles at me. step one and step two complete. step three, head to the gym.

then i got the call. the call every austinite waits for each saturday and sunday. the, "want to go on the boat?" call. i struggled. i wrestled with the idea in my mind. i knew if i got on the boat that there would be no elliptical for me, and then i would be REALLY behind. so i turned it down. straight up said no to going to the lake on a gorgeous sunday. i cried. not really. THEN i got the text. the text from a friend who had also been invited to the lake. "boatingg?!?" the one word i needed from my friend that sent me over the edge. i immediately called the boat-owner back. "i'm in," i said.

pretty long-winded way of saying i'm behind on training and feeling like crap about it. the part of me that compulsively organizes, folds towels, and makes perfect creases in sheets wants to stick to a schedule. the part of me that moved to austin to be able to do things like jump on a boat with my friends on a sunday doesn't feel that bad about it. i'm having a real natalie imbruglia moment about it.

lake austin. i wish i knew how to quit you. but not really. but kind of. I'M TORN!

i know everyone slips up every now and then. i think it's fine as long as i don't let things like this become a regular occurrence. would you agree? what would you have done? what do you do to keep yourself on track?

i saw this movie at the alamo drafthouse (south lamar location) on saturday. i am in love. definitely one of my favorite wes anderson movies and a great way to get in the summer mood. even if it looks a little quirky for your taste...please see it. there are several laugh out loud moments. these moments are even funnier if you, like me, enjoy some of the drafthouse's wine and beer selections during the film.