Inspirations as of late.

MY HEALTH. It's never too late to take care of your body. Eat good things. Exercise. And LOVE your body.





ANTHROPOLOGIE. If I'm ever feeling uninspired as far as fashion goes, Anthropologie never fails to reinspire. They always have something new on their sight and their catalogues are equally as rad. Always worth a look.
www.anthropologie.com

PEGGY SUE. I went to Lexington last weekend for a show with the boy and ended up going by their local record shop, (which is pretty much amazing, by the way). While the boy was slowly searching through every LP, 7-inch and cassette tape in there, I was at the listening station, discovering some new tunes. Peggy Sue was my best discovery. 2 girls with a ton of random instruments. Haunting harmonies throughout it all. Something I read described them as "gothic folk" I would say that is a fairly accurate description. Look it up. It's worth it.



That's all for now. Perhaps some new inspiration will come my way as the week comes to an end.

Free bunny.

I have a pet bunny that desperately needs a good home. I cannot take him to graduate school with me because of apartment limitations, (most apartments don't allow rabbits- or anything except cat's for that matter). He is the cutest, sweetest thing. Short, dark gray hair with upright ears. Only 5 months old. I will give him to anyone interested as long as you give him a good home. He is litter trained to go in his cage as long as you have litter in there. He is fairly tame and usually just runs around my apartment. Please let me know if you live close to Murray, KY and are interested!

new website discovery

www.shopplasticland.com

This site has lots of cool home decor stuff including some pretty sweet art prints. They also sell clothing, shoes, jewelry, etc. Pretty nifty litte web space.

ideas.

I am moving. In a month and a half.

Alright, now that I have the scary job of admitting how soon the move is over with, I can start thinking of ideas. color schemes. furniture placement. I have an apartment in mind righ now that I am desperately trying to pay a deposit on so it can be mine and all mine. Hardwood floors. high ceilings. white walls. big window. black and white tile bathroom. BIG kitchen with pantry. balcony. It's just grand.

With all above things in mind, I have been turning my wheels about color schemes for each room. Thoughts so far:

Living Room: light tans, browns, and white. I want it to be a clean space with the wood floors showing through as the main color.

Bedroom: White, amber, and yellow. My bed will be all white with yellow and amber accent pillows. I have a beautiful amber glass hanging lamp that will hang from ceiling. Looking for more ideas here.

Kitchen: Yellow walls- accent colors I am thinking of either red or turquoisey blues.

Bathroom: black and white tile, yellow walls, turquoise/blue will be accent colors.

Hallway: keeping all pictures on walls black and white, (I have an abundance of black and white framed stuff so this should work out well).

Favorite parts of this place:
*old radiators still there in living room and bedroom. Thinking about making these in to plant stands since they are both near the window.
*Blueish glass sliding doors in shower.
*Black and white tile in bathroom.

Now, let's just hope this place will be mine by tomorrow. :)

new apartment obsession.

Alright, so, as I have recently discovered, moving to a city where you do not live and searching for an apartment in that city is not an exciting experience. It is just stressful. That is all there is to it. However, in my effort to be a little less stressed and a bit more excited I have been therapizing.

www.apartmenttherapy.com is my interior decorating lover. You can pick from many big US cities and look through houses that have been chosen by the creators of the website. Here are some of my favorites from San Francisco.

Weekly peddler.

Every Friday, after a week of working, I treat myself to some thrift/flea market/yard sale/etc. goodness. Today, the winners were the local Goodwill and Peddlers Mall, (the most amazing flea market in the are). I came upon some good things I wanted to share.

It was a hot day today. I was in desperate need of a cool beverage after my Goodwill extravaganza. At this point, I was planning on returning home to make some delicious crystal light raspberry lemonade when I remembered that my one and only pitcher for making drinks broke! Total crisis. Soooo... this is what originally gave me the excuse to go to Peddlers Mall. For a pitcher. And I found a pretty darn good one if I may say so myself. I'm a sucker for old mason jars and I had never seen an actual pitcher mason jar. Oh, Peddlers mall, how you never cease to amaze a girl. Only $3.50 for this adorable little thing.


Now, at first glance, I wasn't sold on these... However, the more I looked at those darling little owls, the more convinced I was that I needed 2 more mugs to add to my ridiculously large mug collection. What can I say? I drink a ridiculous amount of hot tea.


The Goodwill PJ section was a hit today. I absolutely love finding old, beautiful nightgowns/slips/etc. At the goodwill today, I ran into this vintage Gloria Vanderbilt lacey nightgown. I haven't decided whether this is actually going to be worn as a nightgown or perhaps as a dress belted with a slip underneath, (as the top is entirely see-through lace, as you can see). My favorite part of this one is the tiny little satin stitched flower/paisley sewn into the lace top. Cute Cute Cute.


At first glance, this was very old lady. At second glance, I was thinking, "hmmm, kinda classy". And at third glance, I was sold. At only $2.00, I am convinced that this will be a lovely edition to my bathroom for nailpolishes and random toiletries. OR it very well might be my new and improved tights storage unit. I kind of have this other addiction that goes along with the mugs... yep... tights.


Coming in as my last purchase was another owl. Isn't this the cutest little thing? Now to figure out where to put it. Hmmm.

Movie.

Have you seen Harold and Maude? If not, stop everything, get in car, drive to movie store, rent, watch. One of my all-time favorites. I have never heard of anyone not liking this one. Enjoy.

EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS - 40 DAY DREAM LIVE @ THE REGENT

Here is another fantastic song by these guys. If every show is this energy infused, I'm going to be seeing them soon. Memphis on July 8th anyone?

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home [2009]

Late night youtubing just led me to something pretty incredible. I might be a bit late on this bandwagon but GOOD GOD this stuff is just great. GREAT. enjoy.

Sleepy time tunes.

Music is an integral part of my nightime ritual. I almost always listen to music to go to sleep and I am going to share with you some of the great sleepy time tunage that I enjoy. Keep in mind, this is all very chill, ambient, relaxing musi , (for the most part). You probably aren't going to feel like partaking in the middle of the day if you react to music like I do.
Sigur Ros

Beth Gibbons

Phosphorescent

Horse Feathers

Bill Callahan

Old Time Radio.

I think that it is extremely unfortunate that listening to the radio has gone "out of style". There are so many other media outlets in which to receive information now that not many people listen to the radio anymore. I am as guilty as anyone. I generally tune in to "Prairie Home Companion" every Saturday for an hour and listen to a few NPR shows here and there, but that is really it.

Last week, thanks to a friend, I discovered old time radio horror stories. They are like movies/tv shows for radio. They are really, REALLY great and they force you to just listen. No watching. No feeling. Just listening. I love it.

Here is a website where you can download some of them for fairly cheaply:
http://www.otrcat.com/mysteryhorror-c-113.html
You can also download them for free on limewire or buy them more cheaply on ITUNES.

Enjoy!

bicycle goodness.

As of last summer I have a wonderful Trek road bike that I LOVE riding every time I get the opportunity. I got the bike thinking I was going to get really serious about it all and do races and such. That dream wasn't exactly realized last summer. This summer, I am setting some new bicycle goals.

My boyfriend and I both have nice bikes that we enjoy riding so we went on a 16-mile ride together on Sunday and it was great. So here are my new goals for the summer on the bicycle:

1. Ride at least twice a week, (this means REALLY ride, not just piddle around town).
2. Get up to riding 30 miles at a time.
3. Up my average speed to about 15/16 mph.
4. Buy new pedals, new helmet, cycling shorts and a computer for bike.

On another note, those of you that have a bike, ride it! It is such a pleasant, easy and enjoyable way to get exercise. Especially if you can ride it out in the country and take your camera with you. Last week I was on vacation in the FL Keys and I took my bike... and my camera. And those two things were fairly inseperable for the entire trip. Take a ride out in the country and take some pictures. Exercise and create all at the same time. :)

long overdue musical suggestions.

So it has been WAY too long since I have last added some musical suggestion so the blogsy. So here goes nothing.

Artist: The tallest man on earth. (Not seriously, just the name of the artist.)
What is it? Folky goodness.
How does it make me feel? Like I need to buy a banjo and learn to write songs.


Artist: Willy Mason
What is it? make a difference music.
How does it make me feel? Like I need to go out into the world and make a difference in the world.
P.S. If you look back a few posts, I posted a song of his (lyrics only). That songs says it all really.


Song: Rock, salt and nails
What is it?: Pure, bluegrassy goodness
How does it make me feel? Like love sucks and that I never want to be in a relationship again, (but in the best way you could ever imagine.)
P.S. The song was written by a songwriter by the name of Utah Phillips and performed first by Steve Young. But many, many artists have covered and do cover this song.

mi vacacione.

Last year was my first time to experience the Florida Keys. After my college graduation, my mother decided to take the whole family down to the keys and camp for a week. Well, I can honestly say it is one of my favorite places now. With clear blue carribean-like waters, white sandy beaches, tons of marine life to see and most importantly, WARM SUN, you really can't beat it if you are looking for a beach vacation.

Bahia Honda state park is our camping destination. But we venture out of the state park daily to do snorkeling, kayaking, diving (if you are my sister and her boyfriend), renting boats, and even checking out of the local eateries, shops, etc. It is also about an hour drive from key west (where the southern most point of the US is). Key west is a VERY cool, hip little town with lots of cool things to get into. We are hoping with the recent devistating oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, the keys won't be affected. knock on wood. Here are some pictures just to make you extremely jealous. :)

Willy Mason.

Willy Mason, musician-songwriter, is the writer of my latest song obsession. This song makes me want to be better. And make a difference. In everything. Thanks, Willy.

OXYGEN
by: Willy Mason

I wanna be better than oxygen, So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin, For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v. For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs, If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry, As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance, Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

I wanna see through all the lies of society, To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity, Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I wan't to live beyond the modern mentality. Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America? Justice, equality, freedom to every race?
Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy, Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see, How many of them are happy and free?
I know it sounds like a dream, But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe, But it's easy to see that something here isn't rightI know the future looks dark, But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

If i'm afraid to catch a dream, I weave your baskets and I'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.

I wanna be better than oxygen, So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin, For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v., For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs, If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry, As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance, Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew

braids.

I love braids. I have kept my hair fairly short for a while now making it impossible to braid it into beautiful, long, braids. However, I have been telling myself for a while now that I cannot get the hair cut again so I can have beautiful braids. Well, my hair is officially long enough and I'm loving it. Here is a wonderful dedication to all the amazing hair and braids in the world.

summer projects.

1. I have an outrageously large jar of buttons at my house. I need to figure out something crafty/cute to do with these buttons. Ideas?





2. Buy a Holga camera and take ridiculously cool pictures.









MORE TO COME.