Fast forward a few years… my best friend Jamie and her wee family live there. Through the course of moving from Denton to Seattle and then back to Texas in Austin I’ve visited Denver probably eight or so times. Sometimes accompanied by a friend, or with my Mom like this time, and sometimes alone. The focus is always on my seeing my best friend, and now spending time with her almost two year old. Even though we may be far and wide, spread apart by miles of geography, I have always longed to be a part of her little family circle. So, I attempt to make it so.

There is just something about that cool air, the evergreen scent, climbing rocks and ascending roads that burrow through tunnels. The city is laidback and lovely, bursting at the seams with creativity and culture and bounded by a wild nature I was excited to show my Mom. My weekend in (short) review:

Shopping with my non-niece, Jasmine Ruth

Fell in love with a shop, SEWN

Watched Jasmine cringe in fear as goats, a donkey, an Alpaca and a mini pig bombarded her at the Cinco De Mayo Fest petting zoo

Played a little frisbee

Posed for portraits

Hunted for smooth river rocks with Mom

Soaked up a little peace

Breathed deep

Made Mom take pictures with me

Took in the view from Lookout Mountain

Smiled...

See the whole photo set on my Flickr page.

A couple of weeks ago the hubs, the dogs and I set out on a driving day trip from Austin to Brenham, on the hunt for those elusive bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes. We found them! And took gads of ridiculous pictures of the dogs posing in the roadside flowers. The scenery was wonderful, the air smelled grassy and flowery like a typical Texas spring day. With windows down and dog tongues slobbering half way out of mouths, we made our way in the ole FJ up to…

… the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory! I love ice cream, and as a kid growing up in the lone star state you eat a LOT of Blue Bell. I taste tested some cookies ‘n cream and rocky road, we took a couple of pics and then we were off on the road back home.

We don’t have kids, we have dogs. And the whole bluebonnet-picture-taking thing reminds me of when I was a kid. My mom might spot an especially good bluebonnet patch on the side of the road and before you know it, the car was careening towards the shoulder for a quick park and photo shoot.

Aahhh. Texas in the spring.

awaiting BBQ friends

Brett loves to cook, and to entertain, and I… well, I just like to eat and hang out. So when Wednesday rolls around and we start contemplating our weekend plans, inviting friends over for food, merriment and booze is usually in the cards. Last Friday we had some dear friends of ours and their two adorable littles over for an evening of pot pie and wine (they brought dessert!). If you only make one pot pie in your life, use this Ad Hoc recipe. You can thank me later.

Ad Hoc pot pies

This past weekend, since Brett just got his new Weber Smokey Mountain smoker (the super expensive smoker he bought has never worked right and has caused him a whole lotta grief, but that’s another story…) he was itching to try it out. Our maiden smoker voyage was a might tasty brisket! Brett also made deviled duck eggs, vegetarian baked beans and a pink lemonade icebox pie. YUM. About eight of our amigos came over with their potluck goodness, including: roasted cauliflower, vegan chocolate cake with peanut butter icing, fresh corn and zucchinni salad, sliced watermelon and German potato salad.

Weber Smokey Mountain

smoke rings in the brisket

After the BBQ madness, on Sunday I took Clem for a long walk along the lake on a sunny mid-80s day here in Austin. It was gorgeous, and a great mother-son field trip away from the house. We let Dad stay home and mow the front yard (with Iris enthusiastically looking on from the front porch). And then I promptly tripped and fell taking the trash out when I got home and sprained my ankle. </weekendfun> At least I ate good food and drank nice booze eh?

Clem dog

The lovely inspirational Frocks & Frou has been a big kickstarter for me. She’s a practical fashionista and always posts the most amazing fashion updates on what she wears (and I normally HATE those posts… perhaps because I feel subpar?). But really, it’s time to get dressed each day and love what I’m looking at. And that doesn’t mean spending a ton OR not feeling like myself.

Lately I’ve been doing a bit more exploring in the online realm of curvy (or plus size) clothing. A few sites that I’ve been frequenting as of late include Dorothy Perkins, eShakti and Asos. Poke around, let me know what you think. Part of what lit this clothing fire underneath my arse was when I stepped into my closet and realized that all my clothing was either drab, ill-fitting or cheap. I didn’t feel good in much of anything that was in there… and even though I’m self-conscious about my body image I STILL want to feel like I look pretty sometimes.

OH THE WOES OF A FAT GIRL.

So the hunt is on… I want to bulk up my wardrobe without spending too much, likely one piece at a time. I usually check these sites for sales pretty regularly (and always look for coupon codes to boot), and can sometimes find some decent deals. Some Asos looks I’m loving:

This year I just couldn’t get into it. I ended up not being able to take off work, and like an idiot (read: responsible, helpful, born leader) I volunteered to help plan my company’s SXSW party. In summary, I had virtually no time or energy to enjoy traipsing around town, sweating through my clothes, watching 18 year old hipsters learn how to smoke cigarettes and see bands that I initially was stoked over only to find out that their live show sucks balls.

fave band of the day: J Roddy Walston & the Business

So yeah. I’m glad SXSW is over. Did I mention I work in the music industry?

I’m thinking that I may be getting old, that AGAIN my priorities are starting to change. The constant shifting is sometimes uncomfortable. Since I met my husband (then boyfriend) at the age of 20, I feel like my life/goals/ideas/life trajectory have been in constant flux. We move around, I end school and then start school, I intern and get new jobs, we buy a house and make new friends/lose old ones… it goes on. I guess this is what real life is like? Is it weird that it’s taken me this long to figure that out?

me, and my quasi-boss Courtney

School is still a pest, our pit Iris keeps splitting her tail on her crate wires in excitement when the lunch-time dog sitter comes over (and then spraying blood all over the walls), I still feel cash-strapped at times and I still guilt-trip myself when I don’t feel like I’ve been doing enough crafting/Etsy-selling/volunteering. So none of that has changed… but somehow I’m feeling good about stuff. I’m feeling positive.

And those shifting priorities I mentioned? I’m not sure what they’re shifting TOWARDS, but I can feel the movement. The wind that shears off it hits me straight in the face.

It’s just been one of those days. It happens… and sometimes these days are the hardest to get past for me. They put me in a funk, a mood. And then my neighbor knocked on the door. She had just seen a car hit a cat in the street and drive away. The cat had hobbled up into a side yard and collapsed. My husband ended up taking it to the emergency vet, where the cat passed way.

It wasn’t my cat. It wasn’t my fault. In fact, we did everything we could to help it. But it just feels heart-wrenching. We put so much into taking care of our three pets. They’re our family, our pack, our loves. Sure, they’re animals… housepets. But they’ve taught me so much about myself, about other people and about love. I feel sorrowful for this tabby cat that died today, but I feel lucky to be around my little family, human and pet alike.

And I think we’re going to rescue another cat.

Hang tight for a real deal house tour… you know, when we get everything set up just right. So FOREVER from now.

But the painting… painting one or two rooms turned into painting every room but one. Once we patched some holes and got matching paint to fix it up, we realized our “matched” paint doesn’t really match. So we had to paint that whole room again.

It’s going to look good (at least I’m clinging to that idea), so we’re trudging forward. Word to the wise though:

If you have a 1400 sq. ft. house to paint + one week in the evenings to accomplish it + one other relative newbie to painting = you should GET HELP. And I don’t mean your friends. No one wants to help you paint your house. Hire someone who knows what they’re doing to at least lend a hand and speed the process along.

That being said, we now know how to paint an entire house now. And I’m riding high (and almost throwing up) on those glorious paint fumes…

the whole set of BEFORE pics of the interior of the house

We’re also going to do a little painting, some storm door installs, more attic insulation and some house weatherizing. For the attic insulation and the weatherization we’ll get a bit back from the city energy company to help compensate for the cost. Plus, our utility bills shouldn’t be quite as high as they normally would. Which is good… have you lived in Texas in the summer? Yeah.

We bought this cute buffet hutch thing from Modern Salvage here in Austin, and we think it will be just DARLING in our open kitchen/dining area. I want to put our vintage mugs, antique percolator and other fun kitcheny items in the top glass shelf area. I’ve been on the search for the perfect, affordable vintage dining table but so far have come up empty. In lieu of vintage we may purchase one these expensive (I’m kinda cheap, okay!?) Industrial Dining Tables from West Elm, though I wanted this angled leg table because it was expandable AND cheaper. But now it’s discontinued. BOOO.

True to my crafty inclinations, I’m also slowly working on a larger-scale embroidery of the front of our house. I wanted to commemorate our first house purchase! I’m excited to get it finished, though I’m in the very beginning stages of making it. I can’t wait to hang it up on the wall of the very first house we have ever owned!

The journey so far in house-buying has been a bit stressful. We didn’t win a bid on the first house we THOUGHT we wanted. Then we had our other option picked out and we were just SO sure of it. So damn sure. It was perfect for us, mostly. The backyard was perfect. And I mean that… perfect.

But then, we just couldn’t get our neighbor’s house out of our heads. We’re good friends with our next door neighbors and had been to their house many times. We admired it’s style from the first day we moved into our rental. And then it went up for sale. We joked HAHAHAH we could move in next door. That idea was so funny… but we didn’t want to stay in our neighborhood. Or so we thought.

We finally gave in. We decided that even though it was a bit smaller than we were hoping for, and it would be super duper hard making a large financial deal with a good friend and neighbor, that it just seemed like the house for us. And it was right there, all along. I don’t want to jinx it y’all (waiting on final financial dealings to clear!) but we’re SO excited to have a place of our own! It means so much more that we’ll be living in the space that our friends and their wee little girlies (and four pets) have called home and cared for over the years. It’s a good step in the right direction for us…

I won’t tell anymore, for fear of spoiling the surprise (and jinxing our first home-buying ordeal). But we love our new place. And I’ve ALREADY put together a Pinterest inspiration board for it. What do ya think?