Less stuff, more happiness

Here's another really great TED talk, and it completely justifies all this picture scanning...

How to Start a Movement

I did scan some pictures today, but I kind of feel like we need a break from that.  Instead, I thought I'd post a TED talk I watched today.  I love TED talks.

For those not familiar with TED:
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design...

This one is on "How to Start a Movement" and is only about 3 minutes long.

Still Digitizing Life - Day 4

I think we're about one-third of the way there...

Tonight I scanned 124, bringing us to a total of 419.  We're currently in the midst of Sophomore year.  There was a lot of Highstepper activity.

Highstepper Kidnapping:

Highstepper camp:

 

Highsteppers in football season:

Highsteppers in competition season:

My friends came over for my 16th birthday (it was a weeknight - I must have cool parents):

And one time I stuck a basketball hoop suction cup thing to my forehead - when I tried to take it off, it basically gave me a giant hickey.  This is what my forehead looked like for TWO WEEKS:

Digitizing Life - Day 3

Today was a bit of a light scanning day.  I scanned 65, which brings us to a total of 295.

Tonight, we jumped back to Freshman Year - 1996 (15 years ago!).

Me and Abby on the first day of school (we're still friends - I helped throw her a baby shower yesterday).  Everyone (really EVERYONE) should recognize the plaque behind us where the hidden key was...

McCullough Caillies - this was at Super Halftime.  I'm sure I felt really cool because Lauren was a Highstepper officer.

I think this was our last ski trip before someone finally mentioned they didn't really like it, and the rest of us agreed.

Me and my best friends Pam, Abby, and Abbey - we did an ensemble together.  I have dozens of pictures of the 4 of us.

And my last Boni's dance recital - I'd been doing them since I was probably 3.  That's little Kathryn on the bottom right!  (And again with Abby and Pam - other Abbey wasn't in ballet or else I'm sure she'd be in the picture.)

Digitizing Life - Day 2

The first album had 230 pics, which have now all been scanned.  Which means I was a very aggressive scanner today - 148 total today.

Here's my senior year Homecoming dress (one of my faves):

 My Grandpa came to my high school graduation:

Doesn't Chris Tomlin play at everyone's high school graduation party?

When given the option, always dress in costume.

80s YL club junior year:

Girl Scouts (senior year):

70s (senior year):

Cowgirls (YL camp after senior year):

Bandits (YL camp after senior yr):

Nerd prom (UM Army after senior year - my date Dan made me a corsage out of paper napkins):

Digitizing Life

My parents had given me most of my "treasures" that I had left behind in my old room when they moved out of their house 2 years ago. They recently emptied their storage unit and gave me my last 2 boxes. I had no clue what was going to be in these, but it ends up that they were full of old books, CDs, and photo albums...none of which I was particularly missing.

I started unloading and decided pretty quickly to donate most of the books to the library. And then decided to put the CDs in iTunes and donate most of those to the library as well (and in the process inspired Jay to do the same with most of his DVDs).

And then there were the photo albums...Well I just decided that October is going to be the month of photo scanning, and then I'm going to THROW THEM AWAY! That's right - in the trash.

We live in the digital age people! Jay and I never put a CD in a player - we listen to music off the computer or an iPod. We don't use DVDs - we watch movies off of the Apple TV, which comes off of the computer. We don't read books because we just don't read books. And we have never gotten out a photo album to look at pictures. They will be more useful when digital - more organized, searchable, emailable, and takes up no space! And you can always reprint if you need a physical copy.

So tonight was Night 1. I scanned 82. There are 6 albums, and I'm guessing on average they have 250 pics for a total of 1,500. At this rate, I think I can do it. 18 nights of scanning...

I decided I should post a few each time I scan. IT'S SO EASY NOW THAT THEY'RE DIGITIZED!

Here is Sophomore year Homecoming...check out those mums! I'll have to find pics of subsequent years because they just got bigger from here...


And another...I like this dress...


My last dance recital before quitting ballet. I was a doll in the party scene of the Nutcracker. I got to ride in that box with the candy canes on it onto the stage with my matching doll partner, and then we came out of the box to do our little dance.


Kath's bday in 1998. I think everything we are wearing in this is Abercrombie. And check out Lauren's overalls!


This is me and my friend Ashley at UM Army the summer before our Junior year. I just wanted to put this one on here because I lifeguarded this summer, and it's the most tan I've ever been.


And Junior year Homecoming (I've decided I should put one up from each because I like my dresses!). Once again benefiting from the lifeguard tan...


Between his hair and my socks, this picture is pretty amazing (in the mall parking lot getting ready to leave for Wilderness).

Quicksand River

Jay has been playing some shows with his friend Brent Nettles, who just released his first album called "Quicksand River." Jay said it's one of the most enjoyable times he's had playing music live.

You should listen to Brent's music (you can download here). Jay's favorites are "Where We Will Go" and "Me and All My Friends" and I think mine is "A Dollar Bill":

90s Flashback: The Rest of It

In my quest to relive awesome music of the 90s, I realized that much of it is better to forget (MMM Bop or Tubthumpers anyone?) But here are some more of the good ones that we should remember together:

Matchbox 20 - "Hang" (1996):


Third Eye Blind - "Motorcycle Drive By" (which I already mentioned here...but I love it!...and this guy's pictures are hilarious with the words) and "God of Wine" (1997):




Oasis - "Champagne Supernova" (1995):

90s Flashback: Lisa Loeb

Remember Lisa Loeb?!? I guarantee you every girl between the ages of maybe 27 and 37 could still sing you every word to "Stay" off of her album "Tails" that came out in 1995 (that was 16 years ago!!).

I'm pretty sure I could sing most words to most songs off that album [update: actually not true - apparently I skipped quite a few that I didn't really like because I didn't even recognize a few], but these were my favorites:

Do You Sleep?:


Snow Day:


It's Over:

90s Flashback: Fiona Apple

Remember Fiona Apple? According to Wikipedia she's still out there making music, but she's kind of been off the radar since her first album called "Tidal." She was 19 when this record came out! This is the same record that has "Criminal" and "Shadowboxer," but these are my favorites:

Never is a Promise:


Pale September:


They sound sad, but they remind me of happiness and good weather.

Project Recap: Dining and Living Rooms

I talk a lot about projects we are in the middle of, but I realized that I very seldom actually show a finished product. Well with the purchase of a Craigslist coffee table last night, our front 2 rooms are nearly complete enough that I thought I'd have a little show-and-tell. Here's a recap of how we got here.

When we first moved in in 2009, we had pot lights put in, and Jay painted the walls and ceiling white. They were yellow. Yes, even the ceiling. Jay is not normally one to spearhead a painting project, but he HATES yellow. We actually spilled about half a gallon of paint on the dining room carpet but weren't too concerned knowing we had to get rid of it anyway.

You'll remember our record wall from last year we built when both of our dads gave Jay their old records, as well as the old record player from Jay's parents I painted white:



In August last year, I showed my chandelier painting project for the dining room. And I talked about painting an old lamp I took from my mom. My mom just got me this fun shade from Anthropologie for it:



In December of 2010, I showed our tree wall project for the dining room, and you can also see the new wood floors we had installed. (I never put pics of this process up and I just found a bunch, so I'll have to do a follow-up.)

Here is a pillow my mom helped me make around this time using Ikea fabric:



Back in February, I wrote about picking fabrics to recover all my Craiglist finds. Well we did it.

Couch went from this...


...to this:


And chair went from this...

[I can't find the before...I'm convinced I will though]

...to this:


My inspiration was this chair from Anthropologie that I always loved:

This shows the detail of the top of the table we bought last night (notice our wedding book, which I finally did this last Christmas 3.5 years after the fact...it's currently our only coffee table book). This table taught me perseverance with Craigslist - this was the 3rd table I contacted a seller about. I checked every day, multiple times a day once a lost the first 2.


I have learned my Craigslist lesson: upholstered furniture has to be reupholstered ($$$$) - wooden furniture just has to be wiped off.

And altogether, it looks like this!





The only thing we bought brand new besides the shade my mom got and the Ikea fabric for the pillows was the rug. Last December I was having a bad day and just decided I would feel better if I spent a good amount of money, and Jay said OK. So that's what I got.

The grey-ish chairs also came from my parents. They were pink - we had them recovered. And the table by the grey-ish chairs was also from their old house (I think it was in Kath's old room as a nightstand ????)

I have a few more ideas in here, but we've made a lot of progress over the last 2 years!

[Sidenote: New goal for self is to stop using my camera phone and actually get out our good camera!]

Unfinished Project Month - Update

So an update on unfinished projects...I'm still painting kitchen cabinets. Two down, three to go. I now remember why I never finished this 2 years ago.

Today while painting, I listened to Shiny Toy Guns, who Jay and I saw open years ago for Mute Math. They had some radio songs, but I decided today I really like this less-listened-to song:



And this is Jay's favorite off this album:


And this was in a Lincoln commercial:

The Worst Feeling...

...when you find something you love on Craigslist, email the person, and they never respond back.

[Sigh]

August = Unfinished Project Month

I decided a few weeks ago that August should be "unfinished project month." I have lots of ideas for new projects I want to do, so I figured we should finish up a handful of projects that have been sitting 99% complete for too long. We pretty much already had all the supplies we needed. And now that we have a nail gun, these were even easier!

Project #1: Quarter round in my closet
Procrastinated for: 1 year
Time to complete: 20 mins to cut and nail (40 mins if you include my trip to Lowes)
Cost: $4.69



Project #2: Install glass in guest bathroom cabinets
Procrastinated for: 1.5 years
Time to complete: 30 mins
Cost: free (that's right...we already had the glass cut and everything thanks to my mother over a year ago)


Project #3: Touch-up paint baseboards
Procrastinated for: 1 year
Time to complete: 2 hours
Cost: free

I've left the worst for last...painting the rest of the insides of our kitchen cabinets. I wrote about the horribleness of it here. What I didn't mention is that we didn't exactly finish. We didn't paint what we knew we wouldn't use. And we, in fact, don't use any that haven't been painted.

And here's a pic of Jay with my sister's baby Jack at a brewery (blurry because Jack wasn't digging the brewery). Just because they're both cute boys:

Backyard: Planning Phase 1

If there is one thing NOT lacking in our backyard, it's vision. I absolutely obsess over what COULD be because right now there is not a lot happening.

Well tonight was an exciting night, because I found 1 thing I was thinking we could use back there for free. These are now sitting in our garage:



I saw them on the side of the road (trust me, they weren't actually still in the person's yard...they were more on the road, which means you can take them). So right around 9 tonight, Jay and our neighbor Kevin loaded 3 up in the car. I knew Kevin's wife Stephanie would be totally on board with this and want a few, too. [I forgot to mention that they were REALLY heavy...Stephanie said, "They must really love us," as we stood there watching them get them in the car...]



So now the plan is to get a chain saw to cut each in half. We're thinking we'll need to strip the bark off, and I haven't decided about painting. But then they'll be nice little tables.

This is my plan for what I like to call "Phase 1" for the backyard:



We already have the lights, fire pit, stumps (!!), bench (antique store for $150), and captain's chairs (free from my mother...and apparently kind of in right now I discovered while Googling for a pic). I'm thinking about painting the chairs a funky bright color just for the heck of it.

So now we just need some tall plants and a brick patio. (As a side note, I found several palettes of bricks on Craigslist for $100, but you had to go pick them up and figure out how to get them loaded up and transported wherever you wanted them. For the sake of our marriage, I figured it was worth buying them somewhere that would deliver.)

David Ramirez - Fires

Another project Jay worked on. One of my favorites. Visit the Serial Box for an interview and pics.



Everything is tracked live (hence the video), and they typically only do 1 or 2 takes of each song. Jay engineered and mixed. Here is all the audio they did from the session (that you can download for free!):

Toothpick Sculpture

San Francisco, 35 years in the making:


By Scott Weaver. This news story talks to him a bit (and as someone with toothpick "sculpture" experience, I agree with him on the choice of Elmer's glue):

Fluorescent Light Sculpture

Now this is an interesting one to me because I admittedly find these a bit perplexing. But I've seen Dan Flavin installations in nearly every modern art museum I've ever been to.

They usually look something like this, and I thought I was missing something the first time I saw one in the corner of a museum:


This one is here in Houston in an old warehouse (actually an old grocery store), the design of which was completed by Flavin just 2 days before his death. There is something kind of cool about the intensity of the colors. (Jay lasted about 5 minutes when he went):


But like the paper and glass sculpture, what's impressive to me about this is the creative use of something common that we all know...Flavin "limited his materials to commercially available fluorescent tubing in standard sizes, shapes, and colors, extracting banal hardware from its utilitarian context and inserting it into the world of high art."

Glass Sculpture

The graphic designer I worked with years ago loved Dale Chihuly's work. He does these crazy, glass blown chandeliers and installations.

This one is at the Bellagio:

This one was a Christmas decoration at the White House and is now at the Clinton library in Little Rock (I saw it):

Related Story: When my parents were building their house, their builder took them through some of his biggest, baddest houses. My mom talked about how this one house that was over the top in every respect had a giant chandelier that hung 2-3 stories high in the entry way of the house and looked like sea urchins. Well it ends up the largest privately owned Chuhuly chandelier is in The Woodlands. Wowser.

Paper Sculpture

I write a lot about music on here, so I've decided to intentionally write about some other things for a bit. This week, I'm thinking artsy sculptural things.

First up, Peter Callesen.

I would consider myself pretty handy with an xacto blade, but this is incredible. This is the type of work that just blows my mind in terms of the creativity someone has (not to mention patience in execution).





"A large part of my work is made from A4 sheets of paper...The thin white paper gives the paper sculptures a frailty that underlines the tragic and romantic theme of my works...The paper cut sculptures explore the probable and magical transformation of the flat sheet of paper into figures that expand into the space surrounding them. The negative and absent 2 dimensional space left by the cut, points out the contrast to the 3 dimensional reality it creates, even though the figures still stick to their origin without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is also an aspect of something tragic in many of the cuts."