Joy and Tourism

As we drove away from the airport, my friend rolled down the windows. "Okay, Laura," she said. "You can wax philosophical about the Wisconsin landscape now."

She knows me pretty well.

Wisconsin in the summertime is a long lost friend. We spend time apart. We lose track of each other's daily lives. We drift.  But we always find our way back to each other every August and nothing feels out of place.

As we drove through the familiar farmland of my home state, my friend and I stopped at an sunflower field at the edge of town I had never known existed. I suddenly felt like a tourist as we walked the foot path and the sunflowers towered above us.

That feeling didn't go away when my parents and I made the long drive back to my hometown. I suddenly wanted to revisit everything as if it were new.

      


      


It turns out, you can be a tourist just about anywhere.

So that's what I want to do. I want to blog again, this time as a tourist. I want to appreciate the ordinary and not take it for granted. I want to view things without judgment or critique, the way a good tourist does. This blog was intended to be about finding joy and my favorite entries were usually about the joy I found in things right under my nose. It's been hard lately to find gratitude, but I'm looking for it. With new eyes.

I could eat this all day.

 

Joy comes from a bowl of caprese salad on a day that feels like summer.

A note to my three readers...

It shouldn't come as any surprise that when a blog about joy doesn't get updated for two months, friends start to question the writer if she has a case of the blues. Then again, when things get very joyful, blog writing tends to fall to the wayside. I'm happy to say that the latter is the explanation for the quiet around here. Here's to an honest attempt to make more noise!

Starting with this picture of a fluffy puppy.

You're welcome.

True

(via robot heart)

Four things

Four things that keep me grinning

1. Texas snow days (1 inch is all ya need...)

2. The Packers in the super bowl

3.  Johnny Cash on the jukebox

4. Potato soup on the stove

"Quote"

So this is the new year.

 

(via pursuitofhappiness)

In 2011, resolve to...

Take long, deliberate breaths in moments of stress.

Make serious contributions to future crow's feet.

Give more, take less.

Find the joy. Blog about it.

Danny & Annie

Can you think of anything more beautiful than this?

I can't.

I'll go to the corner.

I live in a small apartment. Given its layout, it is very possible to be standing in the kitchen and the living room at the same time; my couch is so close to the bed that the thought of being "too tired to make it to the bedroom" seems particularly absurd (although has happened more times than I care to mention). Everything about my apartment has a place, and that's partially why I love it. What it lacks in hosting space and decorative furniture, it makes up in efficiency and low utility bills.

My favorite place in the apartment is a small corner in the bedroom dedicated to my love for all things musical. Most weekends include at least a little time sitting in front of the record player - albums I've pillaged  from my parents over the years and ones I've collected from friends and garage sales are piled up in a heap underneath. The album selections range from credible (The Velvet Underground) to ridiculous (The Electric Prunes) and everything in between. Mostly, my record player belts out a steady stream of folksy Paul Simon or James Taylor. The crackling hiss of the album makes John Denver stop sounding like some Colorado-lovin' dweeb and turns him into something of a poet.

Sometimes, I spend time in the corner with Betty, my poor excuse for an acoustic. Those critters on the right? Meet my audience. I much prefer Kermit the Frog and Pokey to humans with refined musical palettes. If I played for a real audience, they would quickly spot my shoddy guitar skills or tendency to play songs primarily in the key of G. I don't need the pressure.

I'm sure they're out there, but I don't know many people who don't get at least some joy from music. For me, it's an infinite source of joy so it's nice to have a spot in my apartment reserved just for that. Maybe one day my living space will surpass 500 square feet and I'll have room to spread out my musical joy - but for now, a corner will do.

Summing it up.

(via Elise)

The hotel lights were ours.

The famously awesome Austin Motel

 

 

JC would be proud.

It's Thursday night.

I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow.

Things are getting biblical.

(but not in a dirty way)

unsolicited advice.

pumpkin mayhem!

Sometimes I cheat and go to Quack's instead.

Recipe progress so far...

pumpkin curry soup
pumpkin pudding
pumpkin bread
pumpkin pie parfait
pumpkin smoothies
pumpkin chocolate chip muffins




Next up... pumpkin cookies with salted caramel glaze. Homemade pumpkin spice latte. Pumpkin pie custard. Pumpkin pie gelatin mold collaboration with The Modern Gelatina.

I'll be the first to admit this is starting to get a bit out of hand...

smile and let me in.

local artist/local actress joy

Sailing away.

One year for her birthday, my sister received a shirt that was so absolutely awesome that it has come to symbolize my older sibling worship. Even twenty years later, we can still easily recall the details of The Coolest Shirt Ever without much prompting. I got the idea for this blog entry last week, and went on a fact-finding mission.

Me: Do you remember that shirt with the girl on the sailboat?
Sis: Yes! It was a white shirt with red, blue, and yellow accents.
Me: Right. Do you remember who gave it to you?
Sis:  No idea. Not mom?

What made this shirt so enviable to me was not so much the sailboat motif - I can count on one hand how many times my family and I have been on a boat together. In recent years we bandied about the idea of going on a casino cruise in Florida, but it quickly petered out in favor of a more traditional family activity of simply doing nothing at all.

No, what made this The Coolest Shirt Ever was the girl's boom box on the sailboat. Inside the snaps held a battery pack that when pressed omitted some sort of tinny-sounding song. My sister and I can't remember the specific tune, but it quickly became her favorite shirt. It was interactive! It was sea worthy! To this day I have to admire what an adult my mother was - to remove and return the battery pack after each washing. I can promise you that if I owned The Coolest Shirt Ever today, the battery pack would have lasted approximately three laundry loads before it went through the wash and was ruined.

Like any youngest of three, my clothing choices were almost 100% hand-me-downs. I knew if I would just bide my time, my sister would eventually outgrow The Coolest Shirt Ever and it would be mine. Victory was bittersweet, though. Despite my mom's diligence, the music had stopped playing and the battery pack was removed by the time it was tucked in my drawer.

It's stupid the things we remember from childhood. This shirt still reminds me of how I felt growing up. Simply put, my big sisters could do no wrong. If they liked it, well then it was the Coolest Thing Ever and all I could do was to be patient while I waited for it to be mine.

True.

 

South Congress Ave.

Austin, TX

Weekend joy!

Look who's comin' to Texas this weekend!

And look who's gettin' married!

Is it Friday yet?

Music of the month.

It must be weird being rich. I can't imagine walking into a store without making a beeline to the sales rack (my dad swears by that one) or choosing something at a restaraunt without at least considering its cheapest option first. I was taught to be a frugal bugal and this I shall remain.

Except at the beginning of each month. I only get paid monthly which is basically a huge problem. For a few days, I feel remarkably rich. Ask me to dinner, and I'll probably buy us dessert. Need another round at the bar? Don't worry, I got this one. Of course, as soon as my rent check is cashed, reality sets in and it's back to my penny pinching ways. And then by the end of the month, I'm eating pantry food selections and wondering how long I can put off that toilet paper purchase.

One of  my favorite first o' the month pasttimes is stocking up on a handful of new albums. I tend to grab whatever's on sale for $5 on Amazon with the occassional full price (!) choice. This month's selection?

Tift Merritt

See you on the moon

Mayer Hawthorne

A strange arrangement

Janis Joplin

Pearl

Natasha Bedingfield

Pocketful of sunshine

(Quit your hipster judgement.)

Maybe when I'm independently wealthy or marry up I'll be one of those music snobs who only buys directly from the artist and yammers on and on about how the art of creating an album is dead, that itunes and amazon is killing music industry, how vinyl is the only true musical medium worth listening to, yadda yadda yadda. In the mean time, I'll have to make do. At least I have first o' the month music to keep me feeling richer than I really am.