we're just a couple of city girls

So, on Tuesday, I met the littlest seester at her school (Austin High) and rode the city bus to our dad's house with her - so she would know what she needed to do if she missed the school bus and couldn't get a ride.  We stayed downtown for a while and ate some chicken/eggplant parmesan at my favorite hole in the wall Italian place.  I love having Larisa in Austin because she loves the city as much as I do.

all photos by Larisa Corder

Just FYI

I changed my settings so that you don't have to have a Google account to comment.  So, feel free to say "Hi!" or "Dear heavens, you have exquisite taste!" or "Wow, this is the wittiest blog post I've ever read about pancakes" or "I've never been so interested in bathroom graffiti."*  I mean, whatever you want to say.  Those were just suggestions.


* I wish I could say that last part is a joke, but I seem to write about bathroom graffiti a lot.  Only the best and wittiest, of course.  If I ever go through and make tags for each post, there will definitely have to be a "bathroom graffiti" tag.  Those are sad words to admit.

** FYI part dos (the unnecessary information edition)  The post above is the first time I've ever hit the spell check button and not had a single word misspelled.

*** FYI part tres (the embarrassing information edition) The "FYI part dos" above did have a misspelled word in it.

EDIT: Since you don't have to sign in now to write a comment... Tell me who you are!

Pretty, pretty things...

So, before Pinterest existed, I used iPhoto on my computer as a way to organize and collect photos of rooms, parties, furniture, etc., that I loved.  iPhoto lets you organize your photos in groups and besides the groups of photos that I had actually taken myself, I had a million different photos stolen off of the internet - grouped in an overwhelmingly detailed fashion.

I thought I'd show you one from each - demonstrating my OCD that comes and goes (Seriously, I'm so all or nothing.  I'm either ridiculously organized or a giant mess.  These photos are definitely on the OCD side.  So is my iTunes. That thing has 1500 songs, all organized and labeled in a specific and detailed way.  It's disgusting.  But it makes me so happy!)

"My dream wedding" - This group actually doesn't really have a lot of wedding things in it.  It's mostly little random detail shots from weddings I liked or invitations.  A pretty unhelpful iPhoto group.

Oh!  The cakes!

"Little home details" - Again, made up of detail shots, this group has two big themes: tree branches as poles for hanging clothes and terrariums.

 I love terrariums... But throw a plastic dinosaur in there?  I'm all over it.

I'm also really obsessed with clothes not being hid away in closets.

I think I like to pretend I'm 97% less messy than I actually am.

"Wall art/treatments" - This group is mostly murals for little kid's rooms, but it also includes the most amazing modern sewing room ever.  (Well, actually, just a shot of one wall in a room, but I imagine it's the "most amazing modern sewing room ever.")

Cross-stitching... on a wall?  Perfect.  I think I'd like it a little more if it was in a more modern room, for contrast.

I'm not crazy, right?  Even though you can't actually see this whole room, it's obviously amaze-balls.  The clean, white, rustic architecture?  That chair?  The thread and its glorious color?

"Furniture" - This group makes me wish I wasn't poor. Anybody want to fund my "actually buy all of this stuff I drool over" initiative?

Classic wingback covered in a vintage suzani?  I vote yes.

I want one of those flat file cabinets.  And that print.  And the owls.

"Tablescapes"- Yes, I know that sounds like the lady from "Semi-Homemade."  Whatever.  There are pretty tables in here.

I always love the outdoor ones.  Oh!  I want a dinner party-able rooftop someday!

"Flower arrangements" - I love me some flowers.  The best job I ever had was at a florist in high school.

Can this be my life?

"Event Details"  - I weirdly like this group better than my "Dream Wedding" group, even though most of the pictures are from weddings.  I would make such a killer party planner.

Why do boring place cards when you could have spray painted elephants?

"Living Rooms" - Though most of these were saved 2 or 3 years ago, I still find myself loving some of these rooms as much as I did when I first saw them.

My (someday) kids are totally getting a swing in the living room.

The living room of an old Domino editor.  You guys!!!!!!!  Dominio is coming back!

"Bedrooms" - Dude.  I have some seriously disappointing bedroom photos on my computer.  I don't really like any of them.  I will skip this.

"Dining Rooms" - I'm also a bit disappointed in my dining room collection.  Why is this going downhill so quickly?

This color palette is insane.

"Kitchens" - Ok, things are getting much better now.  If I had a kitchen like one of these, I swear I would be an amazing cook.

This is the office kitchen at Drew Barrymore's production company.  Love the floors, the wall color, the fridge and the bunny.

The cabinets!

This kitchen belongs to a lady who works at Anthropologie (of course) and I've got every picture I could find of her house saved.  

"Others" - This is mostly offices and patios.  

True story:  Once, my college friend Cesar and I were talking about this room (Why? I don't know; I think I sent it to him and said, "You have to live here.") and I promised him I could do it for him.  I then went online and found pictures of every element in this photo.  I guess... to prove that I could really do it?

Love.

"Bathrooms" - In (not-so) shocking news, almost every single picture in this group has a claw-foot tub in it.  Guys, I've been known to take 4 hour baths.  No lie.  When I say I love baths, I mean it.

Can you imagine?!?!

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I wanted to also say that I've been working really hard lately to make sure I source all of my photos.  That's one reason I like Pinterest, is because you can almost always get to an original post of the photo (and therefore find who to give credit to.)  Unfortunately, I didn't save any sort of info with these pictures, and so I have no idea where I found them or who took them.  I need to always give credit where credit is due, so sorry I can't do that this time.

wherein I do things that cool people do on their weekends.

Lots of work.  Whatever.

Some studying.  Whatever.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddddd...

WICKED!

Lauren, a friend of mine, got tickets for Wicked at Bass Concert Hall last night and invited me to go.  (Of course, I immediately said yes!)  There were 5 of us that went and nobody previously knew each other (except that we all knew Lauren) but we all got along famously.  We had sushi and sake at Afin (I had a killer veggie tempura) before and then crowded in one car, found some magical campus parking (I never knew you could find such a thing before this) and headed into Bass.

 I've seen the show once live, but I keep the soundtrack on a pretty constant rotation in my iTunes.  It's based on a novel by Gregory Maguire called Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.  I have the book (it's about how the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz story came to be so wicked) and it's pretty awesome, but you know me, I like anything better once there's singing involved.

(But definitely check the book out)

The musical originated with Idina Menzel (who also holds a giant place in my heart for her original casting in Rent as Maureen) as Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda (who I played quite memorably in Dripping Springs High School's 2002 production of The Wizard of Oz - ha!) and they pretty much ruined the roles for anyone that followed.  (Enough parentheses in that sentence?)

The actresses last night did a great job (especially considering I listened to the music with Kristen and Idina's voices in my head) but I wasn't the giant-est fan of the lady who played Elphaba.  She had a weird nasal tone to her voice and seemed like she was listening to the same recording I was (the Idina Menzel one).  Despite her killer rendition of "No Good Deed", I definitely preferred Glinda in the show.  Kristin's voice is so unique and full of life, but it's her personality that made Glinda so beloved in the original casting of the show.  I think that makes it a little easier for a someone new to step into the role, and last night's actress took advantage of that.  She definitely put her own personality in the performance, and I loved her take on the song "Popular".

The sets are in-freakin-sane.  Seriously.  They're these giant, imaginative, fantastical things that have crazy mechanical dragons and all these gears and clocks that make it look like a steampunk version of the best Emerald City you ever imagined.  Seriously.

It was a little disappointing last night, though.  Elphaba didn't fly.  Now, admitting that I noticed a technical malfunction during the big number that ends the first act is a little nerdy.  But let's be honest, this whole blog post is about a Broadway musical I saw last night, so I can't exactly pretend I'm being super cool right now.  She was supposed to fly - it's very exciting and poignant, just trust me.

All that super nerdy stuff to say, I had a phenomenal time.  Lauren and I often say that we're the exact same person and oh, did that show itself last night...  We kept turning to each other during the show to say stuff like, "This is my favorite song" or "Oh! That was her best performance so far" and sadly, "Why didn't she fly?"

There are still tickets, (though they're pretty expensive now, I think) and I can't encourage you enough to catch the show while it's still playing in Austin.

Now, I'm gonna go do something cool and totally un-nerdy, like... study.

This is how you pretend you're a really good cook.

It's really easy to fool someone into greatly over-estimating your culinary skills.  All you have to do is have a handful of seemingly difficult (but secretly easy) and impressive dishes in your pocket.  You pull one (or more) of those out on appropriate occasions and voila!  You look like a serious cook.  It's not until someone eats multiple meals that you're cooking that they realize that you only know how to make so many things.  The goal is, that by the time your subterfuge has been discovered, they've fallen in love with you/become your best friend/are so enthralled by your sparking personality and wit that your dismal abilities in the kitchen don't even matter anymore.

I did this on a bigger scale with Thanksgiving dinner in 2010 for my father and it totally worked.  He loved the entire thing and thinks I'm a killer cook.  (I kind of ruined it this Thanksgiving when it didn't turn out as well, but the glory of a year ago might still be enough to cloud the sad memories of this year.)

I'm starting to gather recipes that will fulfill this deceitful plan. (I really wanted to use the word nefarious instead of deceitful, but I know the situation isn't dire enough to use it.  Wouldn't that be awesome though? A plan involving recipes that is wicked and criminal enough to actually warrant the use of nefarious?)

Anyways, Hannah and I came up with a killer peanut sauce (by came up with, I mean, googled, obviously) and realized that making spring rolls is deceptively easy.  (Why am I using so many ridiculous words when I'm talking about cooking?  Deceitful, killer, subterfuge... nefarious?)

We use rice noodles and rice paper, cucumber, lettuce, carrots, avocado, shrimp (optional), mint and cilantro.  

Just google summer/spring rolls.  It's so easy.

What did I say?  Impressive, right?

I found a dessert to add to my list.  (The other dessert I can whip up?  So easy... Take your George Forman grill, and throw sliced peaches on it.  Right as you take them off - and arrange them beautifully - sprinkle some brown sugar on them.  It'll melt and be amaze-balls.)  This is called a Three-Ingredient Nectarine Galette, but I totally count four ingredients.  I'm not stressing about the accounting inconsistency, because this thing looks GORGEOUS!  (Imagine I just sang out that word.)

Riiiight?!?!?!

It says that you can use berries, apples, cherries, or any seasonal fruit.  I'm so excited about trying this one out.  I'm pretty sure I'd look like a total bad-ass pulling this out of the oven.  (In my world, bad-assness involves nonchalantly pulling complicated-looking pastries out of the oven.)  

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Other super easy/looks complicated/tastes amazing recipes I'm willing to share? This sun-dried tomato pesto couscous is fantastic.  I always up the pesto to couscous ratio and add a few more sun-dried tomatoes to the mix.  Take out the Parmesan/butter (totally do-able) and it's vegan!

We can't forget the entire dinner from Katrina's 30th birthday party.  That was a total pretend-like-we-know-what-we're-doing-because-we-suddenly-don't-have-anyone-to-cook-dinner moment and we rocked it.  Bri, Loryn, Mel, and Matt?  You know how awesome we are, right?

If you didn't already love her...

You will now.

I'd like to thank my old friend Jack (from my first waiting tables job at the Olive Garden) for letting me see this little clip.  He's got a killer blog (in name and content) called Motorcycle Sidecar Drama and every time I read it, I feel a little less cool about my iTunes contents. I'm pretty sure he might be one of the funniest people I've ever known, and despite the fact that I haven't seen him in at least 5 or 6 years, the internet/facebook lets me keep up with his  hilarious status updates and KILLER Halloween costumes.  (Otherwise known as facebook stalking.  Don't judge me, you all do it.)  (Oh, and if I've ever been talking to you about awesome Halloween costumes and I ever said, "Oh! I've know the best ones ever!" and then I went on facebook and showed you pictures of some guy you don't know...  That's this guy.)

Dear god, Jack.  How did this blog about how cute Kristen Bell is on Ellen turn into love letter to you?

Anyways, Jack posted this video on facebook and I think it might be the most charming thing I've seen in a while.  Evidently Kristen Bell really loves sloths and when she... Well, just watch the video.  You won't regret it.

I got really into Veronica Mars a while ago, and I'm pretty sure we (Kristen Bell and I) would be really good friends.  This just cemented it.

Favorite line: "He's coming for the party?"

EDIT: I was going to add a photo Jack and I once took that is probably in the running for best photo ever.  However... I can't find it.  This is very disappointing.  But... it actually might be a good thing; I'm pretty sure (from what I can remember) that it's a pretty embarrassing picture.  I'll try to find it so I can show you (or not, if it turns out to be as ridiculous as I remember.)

Who wants boring folders?

Not me, obviously.  I bypassed all of the cheesy "GO UT! HOOK 'EM!" ones for brown recycled folders that remind me of my beloved kraft paper/make-every-present-look-so-chic wrapping paper.  A sharpie doodle later and they're perfect.

I'm at Epoch (my favorite coffee shop ever) doing a little catch up on school work.  You see, because I'm a super cheap-o, I refused to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for my textbooks at the Co-op (UT's official bookstore) this year and searched for them online.  I probably saved about $250 doing it this way, but they were at least a week and a half later than they said they would be.  This is why, exactly 2 weeks into the school year, I'm a week and a half behind on homework.  I got caught up (ish) in one of my classes today, so I'd really like to get on schedule in the others.

Unfortunately, the internet has a lot of things with which to distract me.  I'm fighting valiantly against it, but the past has shown I've not much a chance of winning.  I did get a chance to hang with the littlest seester for about an hour after class tonight, so the night's not a total waste.  (Blog shout out, Larisa!  Oh, everyone should follow her on instagram (laweesa) - she's really popular, for good reason.  Excellent taste does run in the family.)

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In writing that first paragraph about my folders, I've realized that I really have searched high and low for substitutes for "typical" college school supplies.  I spent last semester practically ruining my beloved teal suede fringe purse with my massive/heavy textbooks.  (By the way, "teal suede fringe" is pretty much the best combination of words ever - to describe a purse, that is.) So, I spent a lot of time combing the internet for a perfectly sized bag with enough durability to hold my stuff and enough style to suffice as a purse during the day.

I found this one at Urban Outfitters and though it's not exactly the color the photo shows, I still love how it holds everything I need.

I also refused to use the horribly designed (yet completely ubiquitous on campus) planners the Co-op sells, so I searched high and low last semester for one.  I discovered this undated one from Little Otsu last year and I la-huv it.

This thing takes a little commitment and concentration at first, because as an undated planner, you have to go in and write all of the months and days in yourself.  It was totally worth it for me, because besides being able to use my own handwriting (which I pretty much love) I get to use a 100% hand-drawn planner that starts whenever I need it to.  (Starting a planner in August is much more useful to me than one that begins in January.)  I've got plans to keep buying the newest volume for next year (and from what I can see from the past volumes, it'll be just as perfect.)

Anyways, I didn't mean for this little note to turn out as long as the original post, I just feel the need to laugh at myself sometimes.  It wouldn't be that bad to use mass-produced and aesthetically-unpleasant school supplies... It just makes me so happy to find/make cuter versions for myself.  I had enough of the ugly stuff that first college go around.