Hey, yall! You can find my blog post for today over at Pancakes & Beet Juice. PC&BJ is written by my friend, Lilly. I'm moderately obsessed with her. She blogs gluten-free recipes/restaurant reviews, home renovation, newly-wedded life, and pretty much just things that are awesome. Her through line, I would say, is the snarky snarkiness she throws in each post. She's in Seaside this week (I would hate her, but my California adventure is in two days...), so she asked for a guest post, and I was happy to oblige. Click the pic to chizzeck it out.

Good morning and happy Friday, campers. We're in that awkward time in Austin where it's still warm and humid and always seemingly on the brink of rain. As in, it has to rain soon. It is not possible for it to be this humid if there is not the promise of rain. The clouds are like giant bloated cow udders just begging for some relief. --Hope you were ready for disgusting imagery! You weren't? Sawly!-- Well today is the day that the clouds have been waiting for- I think we are getting rain. It says there's a 95% chance, but you seriously never know in this town.

So, today I'm happy to bring you a Rainy Work Day edition of Friday Tunes. Remember how my elliptical playlist was heavy on the beats? This...isn't. Just a mix of slow, easy tunes to get you through an hour of work on this (hopefully) rainy Friday. (Have I ever typed a more geriatric sentence? Meh, I'm just gonna go with it.) Hopefully you get some pitter-patter on your window for some back up percussion. If you'd prefer, you can listen on Spotify under my "rainy work day edition" playlist.

What do yall like to listen to when you're stuck at work on rainy days?

Trips trips trips! I've got a couple fun things planned from now til February that I want to share.

Dallas- TX/OU followed by ACL

Not so much a "trip" as a 24 hour stay in town. For those who do not exist in the Longhorn/Texas Ex/Austin, Texas bubble...we have been faced with a terrible decision. For the first time, The Powers That Be have scheduled ACL Music Festival on the same weekend as the Red River Shootout (the Texas v. Oklahoma football game). This is blasphemy! THIS IS MADNESS! I have only missed ACL once since I started going in 2006, and I regretted it all that year. I've never missed a TX/OU weekend in Dallas since I started attending UT. So torn. So, some of us have decided to do both. Saturday, Dallas for the game. Sunday, ACL. Monday, work. Ugh. Kind of the best of both worlds, though...I'll drink a thousand beers and eat my weight in fried guacamole at the fair, and walk/dance it off Sunday at ACL.

New Orleans- Mardi Gras Baybee!

Can I just say HOW EXCITED I AM FOR THIS? I've been to New Orleans three times now, and it just keeps getting better. If I didn't have the distinct pleasure of living in Austin, I would move to New Orleans in a heartbeat. I've never been for Mardi Gras, though. We've got a hotel booked that appears to be clean and orderly, and is located in the French Quarter. Yah, it's a Best Western. But it's a Landmark Best Western. Only the best for my honey booboos. Also, it would appear that everyone has an actual bed to sleep in, which is a step up for my krewe. <-- see what I did there?

So, I need your help. Please pass along any Mardi Gras survival tips. How does one not get lost? Do you just become okay with the fact that you'll probably get lost, and embrace NOLA strangers as friends? (I can feel my mom's heart quickening as she reads this. Just kidding, Mama. I won't talk to strangers.) Should I bring an extra suitcase for all the beads I'm going to bring back? But what will I WEAR?

Los Angeles- Argo Premiere

This. Is a real thing. That is really happening. But every time I talk about it, it seems more and more far-fetched. In a nutshell: my uncle, Tony Mendez, was in the CIA during the Iran hostage crisis. He was a disguise and exfiltration expert enlisted in recovering six American diplomats who had evaded capture but were stranded in Iran. After his mission was declassified, he wrote about it in his book The Master of Disguise. No relation to the Dana Carvey movie... (turtle! turtle!) Anyway, somewhere along the way George Clooney bought the rights to his story and decided to produce the movie, and Ben Affleck signed on to star and direct. NO BIG DEAL.The movie is called Argo and the LA premiere is next week.

This has been a long time in the making, and the family has been squealing and excited the whole way through. Now the stars have aligned and we have been invited to attend the premiere of the movie in LA. I've never been to California, but I'm told this is the right way to do it. I'm certainly fine with it. So, if you need me next Thursday, I'll be poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel hanging out with Ben Affleck, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler (!! TEXAS FOREVEROMG BLEEPBLOPBLOOP), and who the hell knows who else. And my family! Thank God. I'll need them if I'm going to attempt to stay grounded/conscious.

I'll also get to see one of my very best girlfriends from high school- she works for WB and will be acting as the family's handler that night. Such a great, small world we live in. Needless to say, I am thrilled and terrified all at once. Check out the trailer below. The critics love it, and it's looking like an Oscar front-runner.



I'll attempt to take a few pictures while I'm there, if I'm not too starstruck. And of course will update my loyal subjects (the ~3 people that read this.) Wish me luck!

Hey dudes...since my last post there have been two Texas tailgates, one away game, a trip home to Dallas, some exciting news regarding a several trips in the upcoming future, Emmy's, a smattering of new fall TV, and just ya know, LIFE.

let's touch base and regroup on the basics.

FOOTBALL

Texas is doing pretty...pretty good! We've got a couple major tests coming up with West Virginia and Oklahoma, but so far this season and the tailgating that has gone along with it has been vewwwy fun. I've got a camping trip scheduled for this Saturday, aka our first conference game against Oklahoma State, so...I'm trying to figure that out. Do they have outlets in the woods? Wifi? How does one...watch..TV...in the wilderness? I now FULLY understand why our dads were so concerned with getting their radios to work on Indian Princess campouts. "Here, honey...I got you a stick and a knife. You use the knife to slowly wittle the stick down. No, yah, it's totally safe. Just let me know when you're done, and I'll find you another stick. No, this really is something your Native American ancestors used to do and in no way is me trying to occupy your time so I can listen to the game. Have fun!"

Roomie and I at the tailgate

DALLAS

I went home for the first time since May this past weekend and it was so great. I checked off all the basics-seeing old co-workers, spending time with the Dallas friends at Oktoberfest, lazy time and a home cooked meal at my Mama's, and related to that- cuddle time with all the kitties and puppies at home. And of course, I saw my hairdresser. I've been seeing her for the past TWELVE YEARS, YALL. We may be separated by 200 miles, but this is a long distance relationship that I am committed to making work.

Dallas, you so shiny and pretty.

Taken before I left. Look how sad they look...

TEE-VEE

I'm kind of a TV junkie. I love good television. Thanks to the wonders of Netflix and DVR, I can enjoy good TV AND not be couch-bound every night. That being said, I was really looking forward to the Emmy's. But man...other than Louis C.K. getting some well-deserved writing awards, Claire Danes getting recognized for her amazing performance on Homeland, and Jessica Lange still being the Empress of Everything, I was SO disappointed. Jon Hamm and Christina Hendricks got R O B B E D. Mad Men in general got robbed. 0 wins for 17 nominations. I like Homeland, I really do, but come ON. On that note, I'm toying with the idea of re-capping some of my favorite shows for you guys. (Community? New Girl? Dexter? AHS? we'll see...)

ELLIPTICAL MARATHON...YUP

Oh, just a major reason I started this blog. Maybe I should touch on this subject. I'm still at the gym 3-4 times a week. I've been spicing things up with spin class and some weight lifting...yall, I got a little burned out of being on the elliptical that much every week. I also felt like I hit a bit of a plateau. I'm re-working a training schedule that includes some non-elliptical activity so that I can keep my pea-brain entertained and keep my body from zoning out. BREAK!

TRIPS!

some exciting travel coming up! going to put this very much in a nutshell, because i'll be doing a full post soon. in summary: Los Angeles! Dallas (again)! New Orleans Mardi Gras!

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!

it's that time of year. the time where you have to peel yourself off your driver's seat every time you exit your vehicle. the time where it's too hot to lay out, and not much better in the pool. the time where other people in far-away lands start talking about cozy sweaters and just the thought of that makes you itch and sweat. when i was little, i used to flip through the back to school copies of lands' end and wonder where in the hell these people lived that would be wearing tights or corduroy on their first day of school. meanwhile, some demented person decided it would be a good idea to make our school uniforms out of some type of 100% unbreathable plastic. i wish i was joking. one time my mother melted my skirt while she was ironing it...

and yet i cling to summer. the long days, the warm nights- i love it. the many hours spent doing nothing around various bodies of water. cold beers that stay cold just long enough to continue to be refreshing. that sense of unrest because summer is so unscheduled. it's the best.


so i'll say a reluctant goodbye to august and to summer with a few pictures of what's been going on this month.

remember the King of Everything from a few posts below? he knows all the best shows. another reason he is the King of Everything. this was a free show (also served free beer...pinch me) featuring Little Dragon, A-Trak, and Big Boi. it was hot, sweaty, and AWESOME. first show i've ever been front row for, which means i could actually see the bands. when you are my height this is very. exciting.
favorite song from each artist below:

Little Dragon- Shuffle A Dream
Yeah Yeah Yeahs (A-Trak remix)- Heads Will Roll
Big Boi- Shutterbug
i could do a whole post on this show. FYI, the King of Everything got me into this show, too. for free. i need to buy him a car or give him my firstborn or something to express my gratitude. this was Lindsey Buckingham playing solo in a very intimate show at Antone's. as Fleetwood Mac is one of my top 3 bands of all time, i was ecstatic to get to see him. we're talking about a guy that has done it all...and he was still so excited to be on stage at this small show. it was incredible. a few of my favorites he played are below.

Bleed to Love Her
Never Going Back Again
Big Love
random Tuesday night at Kung Fu with some friends. it's basically a grown-up arcade...they've got it all. buck hunter happened to be broken that night, so we focused our intellectual and physical efforts on to skeeball, foosball, and giant jenga. what they don't tell you when you're a kid at chuck e. cheese is these games are really easy unless you're playing them one handed because your other hand is holding a beer. so...yah. i blame my lack of skill on that. not too shabby for a Tuesday.
oh yes oh yes oh yes they both oh yes they both oh yes they both reached for...the controller. of the video game. roommate and i finally set up her old nintendo and let me tell you. within an hour we had defeated bowser, saved the princess, and were partying with toad and luigi. not really, we kept dying and only got to world five. still so fun. this reminds me. brother, if you're out there, and remember the cheats, send 'em my way.
saving the best for last...baby sister moved to Austin to start college! that's her little cherub self sitting on my dad's shoulders at the beach. she just finished rush- talk about sweating. christ. the whole thing was a fricking nail biter. for her, sure, but me too. it's over and had a happy ending but GEEZ i'm glad she only has to do that once. she started classes yesterday and my pangs of jealousy and pining for yesteryear started right around the same time. i made her dinner last night, as any good matronly-spinster-older-sister would.

i'm so happy to have her around. what is it about baby sisters. they keep you young. they make you laugh. and then you see a picture like this and they just break your heart with their cuteness. look at her little face. those eyes! those curls!

as you may have noticed, i have been absent from this little blog for a while. i've been busy...and i've been thinking.

i jumped into this blogging thing as a fun hobby for my project-driven self. now that i've been in the real world for a few years, and the post-college dust has settled, i'm finding that i have an abundance of time. i work. i go to the gym. i hang with my friends. i watch tv. i read books. but i don't create, or i didn't, until i started RIC.

part of blogging, for me, is reading other blogs. there is so. much. out there. it has been really fun to get a little peek into other people's lives in this way. to see that this weird need to create something expressive and informative and about oneself is something many of us share. that is the positive.

the negative is that there is this sheen over so many blogs. the sheen of perfection. i like a pretty ethereal bokeh as much as the next guy...but that is not real. i think it would be nice to read a blog entry titled "how to drag your ass out of bed and get to work when you REALLY don't feel like it" instead of "how to perfectly style your nightstand" or "DIY: ombre glitter nail polish tutorial."

so, in the interest of honesty:
i do not have a pet. i do not have a boyfriend. i do not own a home. i will not be starting a business anytime soon. sometimes, on sunday, the only productive thing that i get done is laundry. i probably spend an embarrassing portion of my income on food/drinks/entertainment. i am not sure if my nightstand meets "perfectly styled" qualifications.

and yet...i still lead a very enjoyable life.

i'm twenty five. a college grad. employed (in a field that actually has something to do with my major. finally.) i live in the best city in the U.S. (in my limited worldview opinion.) i have amazing friends. i have a wonderful, supportive family with whom i am very close. i laugh a lot. i consider myself a happy person. i regularly stay up late into the night, surrounded by friends laughing and doing stupid things. i don't apologize for any lingering immaturity because i am too busy drinking. it. in. i know that too soon those 4 a.m. conversations will be gone. and if all i'm left with at that point is ombre glittered nail polish...no, thank you to that.

i'd apologize for sounding negative, but that would contradict my point. just know that my plan is to remove any sheen from this here blog. it's my little corner of the internet, and i plan to give you a peek into my life. honestly.