{sophomoric.}

That's what my album will be called if I ever get around to putting pictures up. This second year has thus far been filled with square dancing, befriending the freshmen, going to Ke$ha, finally getting a chance to wear my onesie in public, finding a church, studying up a storm, celebrating birthdays, committing to too many things, going to Jack's Mannequin and Guster at Ravinnia, living at Caribou, feeling comfortable with my friends instead of freaking out about meeting absolutely everyone, loving my new dorm and remembering to call home this year. 

Fall is coming. 

Listening to:

Ben Rector

The Tallest Man on Earth

Guster

goodbye to summer

Last day in town...surreal. I'm definitely ready for school to start. For most of the summer, I wanted more free time. Every week I worked I counted down the hours to weekend. But, after two weeks of no job and no responsibilities really, I'm starting to realize that, no, I actually do need something to do. I'm driving myself crazy. I hang out with friends, or think about maybe starting to pack, and then I just start baking. Its gotten slightly ridiculous. This whole week, in fact, I've made something that my sister and I devour while watching one of the movies from our summer list (every holiday/break, we make this super ambitious list of things to do, books to read, movies to watch, skills to acquire....rarely is it even close to accomplished.) 

So this is what I've been up to, in pictures. It basically involved combining eating with some other activity.

-Making shepherd's pie (brought on partly out of nostalgia for Shannon's and partly because Karen and I spent the afternoon speaking in our kind-of-passable British/New Zealand accents).

-Watching Inglourious Basterds and spending the rest of the week yelling "Au revoir, Shoshanna!" and "Ob-LIGE him!" at each other.

-Watching Rabbit Hole and then making blueberry crumble to cheer ourselves up.

-Finally reading all the books that have been sitting neglected on my dresser (whilst having a lovely cup of tea). Every time I read something by C.S. Lewis, I'm like "why don't I read this stuff all the time?"

-Watching our deck be torn down and then rebuilt. This is probably the trippiest thing that's ever occurred in our house. For a couple days, our second story door, that used to open onto the deck, opened  to thin air. Unfortunately, my mom decided that my sister and I were not responsible enough to handle dangling ourselves out the door and taking silly pictures, so she duct-taped it shut. 

-And my crowning achievement, beignets de tomates vertes avec fromage du chevre, also known as fried green tomatoes with goat cheese. SO GOOD. This is pretty much the one and only part of Southern cuisine I've fallen in love with. And I'm getting all fancy now and Frenchifying them after a visit to South City Kitchen in Atlanta, which does the whole upscale-Southern food thing with aplomb. 

My little brother and I had a very pleasant lunch/afternoon snack of wilted spinach, fried green tomatoes, more goat cheese, and apples. 

And now, I'm getting back into the college swing of things by catching up on work in Starbucks and seeing my friends for the last time in a while.

Its odd, thinking back to this time a year ago. Last year, leaving meant having to start over. It was an exciting yet completely terrifying experience. Everyone I met, I would think, "Will we end up friends? What will you mean to me? How will you fit into my life, or I into yours?" Everything was fast. This year, I'm not heading off, I'm coming home. 

This isn't how I planned my summer to be, but I ended up enjoying it. Or most of it, anyway. A big thank you to all my hometown friends on that account. Thank you for the support, the love, the encouragement, the crazy random fun, and the endless photos. 

That being said, I'm beyond excited to see all my Wheaties again. I've missed you guys more than I thought possible. And oh my gosh thank you for all the letters! I absolutely love getting mail, and this:

made my day every time a letter/package/postcard arrived.

I don't know what's going to happen blog-wise. The key ingredient for this was free time (which, even without a full time job, is going to be thin on the ground in college). Also, the fact that most of the people who read this go to Wheaton makes it a little redundant. It's been fun though. And hopefully sharpened my photography/writing skills a little. So...we'll see. Thanks to everyone for reading. 

Seeing as I leave first thing tomorrow, I should probably start packing now.

{odds and ends}

I've begun a habit of accidentally collecting things in the front of my purses. Usually it was just a couple things, like plane tickets that I needed to hang onto, maps, etc. But I was looking for a receipt in the purse I use now and I found all this stuff. How exactly I didn't notice this mushrooming collection is beyond me. I was going to clear it out, but its kind of cool to have it all there. Like a little, skewed snapshot of what I've been up to in the last year or so.

-a street map of Paris

-two train tickets

-an info slip for open rehearsal for Gospel Choir

-a ten rupee note (my dad brought it back from his last trip to India)

-a saints bracelet from Notre Dame

-two iTunes/Starbucks music of the week cards

-an El pass

-movie tickets to Super 8 and Deathly Hallows Part 2

-a magnet from my eye doctor

-a slip to reactivate my lost student ID

-a business card from our hotel in Paris

-a card from The Paris Market in Savannah
-a postcard from Prague

-a card from Marie Catrib's (really good sandwich shop) in Grand Rapids

-a postcard from Santa Barbara that I never got around to sending

-ticket from the Noah & the Whale concert I missed

-two hair ties

-a sticker from the blood drive

-a fortune cookie fortune that reads "You will get an offer that will be hard to turn down"

-ticket stub from Billy Elliot on Broadway

-a pin from the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern

and, finally,

-a baggage claim slip from Salt Lake to LAX
It'd be really interesting to see what someone would assume about me based on all this stuff.

{coffeeshop soundtrack}

Ahh. Today is a good day. Yesterday I took my history final and am officially DONE with history classes from this point onward. So now when I hang out in Starbucks (because my house has become a construction zone) I can do more interesting things. Namely, writing lots of emails, uploading photos, researching internships, co-writing my screenplay, read Let the Great World Spin which I just borrowed from a friend, and creep on the other people here. Wow. Between the four moms who have set up court in the back and look Real Housewives-worthy, the two nurses who must have three hour lunch breaks or some neglected patients, my former pastor, a lawyer with a two foot stack of case material (re-thinking law school...), the hipster couple on the couches who are talking really really loud and the cute blonde guy in the corner, its much more interesting in here than you might think. 

Only a week and a half til school starts and I have to start doing real work again. 

I'm really enjoying just hanging out with friends and doing silly things like obsessing over ridiculous TV shows, driving for hours trying to find the town of Serenbe, zumba, and enjoying the fact that for this small window in time, and in life really, we have no obligations.

In some good news from the world, stock market's up (for now) and the London riots are slightly more under control.

Listening to: the entire For Emma, Forever Ago album, Bon Iver (sidebar: the governor of Wisconsin named July 22nd Bon Iver Day. Who knew?)

still i am not from barcelona...

A lovely weekend filled with:

-trying new Middle Eastern restaurants

-celebrating birthdays

-reunions with long-lost (well, for two months anyway) friends

-sleeping in (no more seven am wake-up call!)

-the wonderful feeling that is having your hair newly cut

-trying to sort through the piles of new music I've accumulated

-kind of sort of studying for my history final
-going to a completely adorable wedding for one of my childhood friends

-making stuff for my room next year

-sending little sister and brother, senior and freshman respectively, off to high school

-Fat Phoebe parties

I don't remember where I heard/read the idea, but I think the basic idea was that these girls used to know someone named Phoebe who was like manic-depressive or something and would throw parties with tons of champagne and chocolate when she was in a down cycle (which was apparently a lot), and they continued the tradition by throwing them for friends who were having a rough time. 

Well, my sister, paradoxical overacheiver and procrastinator that she is, still wasn't done with her summer reading. So I stayed up to keep her company and threw this together,

because truffles and chocolate covered strawberries make even annotating All the King's Men bearable.

Listening to: King of Spain--The Tallest Man on Earth

We Turn it Up--Oh Land

Watching: this.

Reading: Franny & Zooey. Again. I should really be working on the stack I collected over freshmen year...

a nanny no longer

The nannying is over, the nannying is done, 

I have minimal responsibilities as school hasn't begun.

Taking care of kids is a much harder job than you think until you actually do it. You, essentially, are a mom without the mom power. You have no control over how the house runs, how the kids were brought up. Factor in being in the suburbs without a car and that leaves a lot of quality together time in a house that is concurrently having the air conditioning, refrigerator and alarm systems repaired and a pool built.

And what people forget is that nannying is a nine-to-five, real job (well, 7.30-to-5.30, but who's counting). I'd never had one of those before. It. is. hard. Knowing that at the end of every day you have  a few hours before you need to sleep and then get up and do it all over again. And again. And although, yeah, sometimes I got to do fun things like go to the pool or get ice cream, I paid for it by the hours spent refereeing, arguing, laying down the law, setting time outs, and playing endless, endless games of two-room hide-and-seek.

I'll admit, I was envious of other friends who nannied this summer. Who got kids who were precocious, sweet, and inquisitive. Who asked questions about heaven and God and right and wrong. I was even envious of some of the kids' friends who came over, kids who were better mannered and frankly more interesting.

I got kids whose only interests were softball and television, who hated reading (and their required reading time), who acted four and seven but were actually ten and twelve, who fought constantly, who didn't listen. who refused to eat anything healthy, who didn't ever want to do anything.

I learned a lot about love and patience this summer. Its easy to show love to a child who is a mini version of yourself. Yes, I probably would have had more fun with kids who loved The Chronicles of Narnia, who liked helping me bake, who wanted to color and create things, who were inventive.

My daily challenge was being patient and understanding with the kids. I got a letter from a friend (and fellow nanny) in which she reminded me how vulnerable kids are how things that seem small are a much bigger deal when you're that age.

So I tried putting myself in their shoes. And I remembered that I always wanted to watch a lot more TV than I got to. And isn't that what summer's about? Getting to do more of what you want than during the school year? I conceded that between softball practice every night, the hundred degree weather and the fact that their backyard was a construction zone, they weren't missing out on a classic childhood summer by staying inside. I compromised by letting them watch TV in the morning while we all woke up and had breakfast, but we had to get out of the house at some point during the day.

My resolve to be eternally kind and understanding didn't always work. Actually, it usually didn't, especially with the twins. But when faced with children (almost ten year olds, mind you) who bite and punch each other in the face and laugh about it, who showed their frustrations by secretly calling their parents at work, who would do things like get a fork for the other one and say "now you owe me", who would bring up things from six months ago as grounds for current retaliation, who broke down in public places when it was time to leave and started throwing their clothes in the pool, who blatantly lied to me, I think it would have taken a saint not to.

They occasionally had their moments, though. I will try and remember things like taking them to the aquarium, playing with Nerf guns, decorating cupcakes for their tenth birthday instead of the screaming matches.

Cupcakes for the birthday kids and their friend Grace 

DeLayne, CassiDee, and Corey

Me, Corey, and CassiDee at the Georgia Aquarium 

I hope I made some kind of lasting impression on them. I tried so hard to make it clear that they could do better, they could behave better, and they would have to in school. I prayed that if my words were ever hurtful that they just wouldn't hear them.

What I got most from this experience was 1) respect for stay at home moms and 2) gratefulness for my own parents and how well they raised me. It is an impossible job.

Also, an encyclopaedic knowledge of Phineas and Ferb, Zeke and Luther, Shake It Up and any other show on Disney XD before ten AM. 

I'm really going to enjoy my two weeks off.  


And in a small departure from my normal music selections, I proudly present:
Lauren's List of Top Songs That Disney/Nickelodeon Specifically Engineered to Get Stuck in One's Head and Make One Feel Ridiculous for Singing Songs Meant for Seven Year Olds:
Best Friend's Brother --Victoria Justice
We Burnin' Up--Adam Hicks
Famous--Big Time Rush
The theme songs to most shows
Now you too can spend hours banging your head against a wall because that one song is just too dang catchy.

Entrants in the Philips-sponsored constrained cinema competition “Tell It Your Way” were restricted to six lines of dialogue: “What is that?,” “It’s a unicorn,” “Never seen one up close before,” “Beautiful,” “Get away, get away,” and “I’m sorry.”

This is the winning film.

sola frutas y vegetales

Today begins the three (or four, possibly) day cleanse. Don't worry, its not one of those crazy cayenne-pepper-and-lemon-juice deals. I'm only eating raw fruits and vegetables in an attempt to flush out toxins and other yucky things from my system.

This also isn't some sort of bizarre crash diet. Part of this is definitely just to see if I can do it...I'm very susceptible to challenges. Most of the stupid things I have done were the result of a dare. But this is like a personal challenge--can I only eat raw broccoli for four days? We'll see. 

So, here it goes. Wish me luck!

Ahh. I'm already craving bread. 

Listening to: spunky British music

Knock 'Em Out--Lily Allen

Merry Happy--Kate Nash 

I'm No Good--Amy Winehouse

Set Fire to the Rain--ADELE

After finally buckling down and finishing Things Fall Apart paper, I only have one pesky little exam until I am free of Gen. Ed. History! Hooray!
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about this ability of the Italian people to find pleasure in doing nothing, la bel far niente, just relaxing. I can't bring myself to do nothing nothing but I've recently taken up reading out on my sunny deck. But today I didn't want to read something too substantial. 

So to celebrate my momentous achievement, I sat outside and read all the magazines that have been piling up on desk. I recently got fed up with all fashion magazines so I've been on the lookout for a replacement. I've always wished they would conglomerate all magazines and then you could select topics online that fit all your interests and a customized magazine would be sent to you. So then I could get my fix of travel articles or British soccer or news from Washington without having to buy fifteen different magazines.

Well, that hasn't happened yet, but I have found some winners. 

1. RELEVANT magazine. I had a couple friends who always read this and recommended it to me and thus far I've been really impressed. It is a Christian magazine yet it avoids that "we only report on explicitly Christian things" isolationist attitude. They have stories about bands, books, the state of the world, etc. 

2. TIME magazine. Its fairly slanted, but they have gorgeous photography and its a good capsule of whats going on in the world. The Economist is better, but...its summertime. I don't have the energy for that.

3. NYLON magazine. Technically a fashion magazine, but its their music issue, always great new bands. Also Florence Welch, of my dearly beloved Florence + the Machine, graces the cover this month.

4. Random catalogs from my mom's stack of mail. Dorm shopping!

5. Psychology Today. The cover caught my attention, since I'm a wee bit paranoid I'm a narcissist (and I often find myself romantically attached to them). Its a pop psych magazine, not a journal or anything, and they have interesting articles.

6. Us Weekly. Total guilty pleasure. I just like seeing what celebrities are up to. Really, I just like hearing about other people's lives (including my friends), like most of us. 

Oh, also, currently I'm working on having less of a materialism bent. That's why I'm reading loads of magazines. Yep.
Listening to:
The Gardner--The Tallest Man on Earth
King of Spain--The Tallest Man on Earth

{savannah}

Back from the weekend, still recovering from the absolutely insane heat 'n' humidity and mosquito bites. It was worth it though. Two days with two of my favorites in a beautiful little Southern town.

Agenda for Saturday:

Drive to Savannah (this involves mostly sleeping in the backseat on my part)

Walk around the squares, take way too many pictures, get heatstroke (not actually).

Me & Emilia (photo by Emily)
Have lunch, which consisted of the best fried green tomato sandwiches ever, at B. Matthews. That might sound odd if you've never lived in the South, but it's actually really good. Take my word for it.

Go to Tybee Beach. This was kind of a shock to all of us, we've been spoiled by uncrowded beaches. Our solution to the issue of loud people playing football all over the beach was to lie down in the shallow part of the tide and sleep. 

Dinner was at Jazz'd, a blues-jazz live music tapas bar. Definitely a good call. The band there that night played blues (they played Ain't No Sunshine!) and the restaurant had a really fun atmosophere. And the food was amazing. Proscuitto wrapped asparagus, chorizo empanadas, stuffed mushrooms, southern crab cakes, hummus, tapas lasagna, leek fritattas, and a black bean soup for my vegetarian Emilia.

{food photos credits to emily}

Strolling around City Market at night, getting matching necklaces because we're still fifth graders at heart, running into people from high school randomly, hotel sleepover with so. many. pillows.

Sunday Agenda:

Up early morning the next day to go tourist it up at Ft. Pulaski and the wildlife reserve (which is where the bulk of the mosquito tragedies happened).

Lunch at a burger joint with a menu more complex than NASA shuttle manuals.

Shopping and walking through Broughton St. 

And the absolute coolest store in the world: The Paris Market. 

Anything vintage, Parisian, or both can be found here. Its partly an antiques store, but not everything is ridiculously expensive. They play forties music and wrap up your purchases like presents. 

{photo creds to Emily}

Basically, this is want my house to look like. I could live in here. And I exercised a lot of self control by not buying lots of fabulous things. Just these. 

They had a trunk-ful of "vintage jewelry grab-bags". Just a little bag full of odds and ends of antique jewelry. So obviously I got one.
Also, a map of Paris. Kate, Mary, hopefully you like this since its going on our wall next year. 
After that, I picked up some pralines as souvenirs for the family back home and headed off. 

So, if you find yourself in Savannah, enjoy the restaurants and quiet streets, brace yourself for the humidity, try some sweet tea, and take lots of pictures.

Listening to (partially inspired by The Paris Market):

Quelqu'un M'a Dit--Carla Bruni

Le Temps Perdu--Carla Bruni

Ain't No Sunshine--Bill Withers

I'll Be Seeing You--Billie Holiday

decisions are best made before midnight

First off:

After thirty five days, hours spent with our fabulous insurance agent Angeline and even more hours spent with their hack-job "insurance company", several delays on the body work, and countless "not yet" responses to the Anderson family question of the summer "Is the car fixed yet?"...

MY CAR IS BACK.

We got the call last night, I decided this warranted some sort of little celebration. A celebration in the form of chocolate ganache cupcakes with sea salt caramel and chocolate frosting. 

These things take absolutely forever to make. Its one of those deals where you break out the baking sheet at around eight o' clock, figuring it'll be an hour, tops. Then you start reading the recipe (http://foodgawker.com/favorites/lca925/ , first recipe after the jump) which includes instructions like "pour in two shots of espresso" (this means, of course, you must make espresso), "make caramel" or "let frosting chill for two hours". And so at eleven, when everything's baked and made, it seems silly to have spent all that time and have the frosting look bad.

That's when the pastry bag comes out. Best thing my mom has ever bought me.

Fair warning, these things are addictive. And terrible. They are essentially a hodge-podge of things that are bad for you (coffee, butter, sugar) and things that are worse (heavy cream, caramel, vast quantities of chocolate) consolidated into one tiny cupcake. But since its all from scratch, its not processed (good!). So it all sort of evens out.
And they are by far the best cupcakes I've ever made/had. Even beating out NYC spring break three-quarter pound Oreo cupcakes.

Listening to: Rumour Has It, ADELE

{getting splendid post}

i love getting mail. when i was little i used to sit out after school and wait for the mail truck to come, hoping one of my pen pals had written me. i still write people letters, too. And postcards that take months to get halfway across the country. (What is up with the mail nowadays? I sent a letter to Israel--granted, fairly far--and it took four weeks to get there)

i also love surprises. and so it made my day yesterday to come home and find a package from my lovely friend Su, in which she had enclosed these cool tshirts she had gotten at her internship (i think). 

(I don't know what "The Send" is, though. Is it like...a gift? a "God"send? A demand? A band? I could just Google it, but I think I'm going to make up my own story.)

So, I was already pretty psyched about the whole getting-completely-unexpected-gifts in the mail. And then today, it happened AGAIN! 

My grandpa is a wonderful man in many respects, keeping track of dates and time is not one of them. I've gotten three "Happy sixteenth birthday!" cards from him. Usually what happens is whenever we're in Santa Barbara he'll just get us our birthday/Christmas/graduation presents there in one fell swoop. We didn't really do much shopping this trip, but I guess he remembered me pointing out this:

because it arrived in the mail today :) 

Other good things:

I'm going to Savannah this weekend with two beautiful amazing girls and it shall be wonderful.

Only two more days until I have another week off! (never have I been so grateful for out of state youth softball tournaments)

Sidebar: I didn't realize how many people read this...at all. One of my friends was telling me that like six people at her work read this, and I've never even met them! I was under the impression that about two people read this, because I think that's how many people 'follow' me. (However, you, dear reader, are welcome to 'follow'....it doesn't do anything fancy, I believe it just sends you an email when I post and also lets me know who's reading this. Plus then I can give you little shoutouts. Always fun.)

Listening to: Dream a Little Dream of Me--Cass Elliot

a lazy sunday

perfect weather (for the first all summer) + recovering from the first late late night I'd had in a while + hanging out with two amazing girls + reading up on the emerging GOP candidates because I am a dork + watching ridiculous TV shows + running + new music + finding out my car should be back by Thursday (fingers crossed) + lots of my little projects/long term plans coming together + great sermon in church today  = good weekend and the perfect cap to a wonderful two week vacation.

back to work tomorrow--hopefully it will go well and I will be able to come up with activities for the kiddos.

Listening to:

The Civil Wars. I've had their music for a while but I never got around to listening to them--they're fantastic. 

Also, I have this thing where I create playlists for very specific sub-genres of music. The songs have to fit a certain mood or have a feel to them that matches the others. I keep these four song playlists around for years with no change and then one day, bam!, I'll hear a song and go "Wow, that's absolutely perfect for my nordic lighthouse playlist!"

 One of my favorites I have christened "Bluesy Harmonica Put to Good Use". Most of the songs do have harmonica, but in general they're folksy-bluesy-alt rock songs with stomp to them that simultaneously remind me of Cold Mountain and taking a road trip through the Carolinas. And with my (re)discovery of the Civil Wars, there is a new addition! Fair warning, if you don't like the first track, you won't like the rest of 'em. 

Barton Hollow--The Civil Wars

Believer--Viva Voce

Follow Suit--Trent Dabbs

Wagon Wheel (cover)--Against Me

Complicated Shadows--Elvis Costello

Fault Line--Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Done All Wrong--Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

The Civil Wars--Barton Hollow

anatomy of a costume

Alternately titled, what I did with my Thursday morning. As you all probably know, tonight is the motion picture event we've been waiting for--the U.S. midnight premiere of the last Harry Potter movie (unless you're super lucky and are currently in New Zealand cough *megan* cough and already saw it). And if you didn't know that, or are not a Rowling fan, just stop reading now. Because otherwise you will think I'm very strange.

As its the last movie, we're going all out and dressing up. I have decided to be Luna Lovegood because she's such a fun character and gives you lots of great costume options.

                  

Unfortunately, I do not have the time or patience to make a lion hat. But here is what I did do. 

My costume philosophy for established characters is somewhat akin to method acting. Yes, try and find whatever the book or movies had them wearing, but its perfectly acceptable to add something if it fits the character.

 Start with classic Ravenclaw uniform: black skirt, white button down, grey sweater, blue/silver tie:

Now, add a bunch of oddly patterned and assorted thing like scarves, knee socks, sneakers, giant purses. bonus points for wearing items in a fashion they were not intended for and/or not matching.

Next, add Luna-ish accesories. Lots of necklaces with pendants, that sort of thing.

The things the books mentioned were: necklaces made out of butterbeer corks, earrings made of radishes, copies of her father's magazine The Quibbler, and Spectrospecs.

For the final touches: Hair should be worn down and wavy, make it look as long as possible. If you want, stick flowers or something in it. Paint your nails an unusual color. Look spacey. 

Finished product:

And not to brag or anything, but I also turned my little brother into Professor Lupin and my sister into Hermione Granger. 

Also, a very merry happy birthday to my wonderful sister, who is officially of wizarding age today.

Birthday morning coffee cake.

Luna Lovegood inspired playlist:
I'm Not Calling You A Liar--Florence + the Machine
Eet--Regina Spektor
Possibility--Lykke Li
Starry Eyed--Ellie Goulding
Boy Lilikoi--Jonsi
Generator (Second Floor)--Freelance Whales
If You Can't Sleep--She & Him