Chubby Canvas and a Carnival

A story about two adventures in one day. We're just three mothers trying to enrich the lives of the little ones even though it's so hot that a kid can barely enjoy a popsicle. I met a couple of my favorite mommies downtown for an "art in the park" event for kids, featuring live music by local celebrities the Biscuit Brothers, stroller parking, various craft tables and free ice cream.

There were clowns, there were paper hats, there was music-but the show was so packed we just wandered around drinking lemonade in paper cups and trying not to grab the wrong children.

At some point in the confusion Hannah spontaneously lost her British citizenship when she was coerced, not only to give a high five (horrid fratboy gesture) but to give it to none other than Ronald McDonald in the flesh. Sorry about that.

Alison was cool and breezy, and didn't care a whit about the sweltering mouth that was the weather or the thousands of strange children swarming around our feet trying to sweep our own dear progeny into oblivion.

We stayed just long enough for free ice cream, (identical to some I had in my freezer) and when I saw the look on Jesse's face I knew there wasn't too much fun left to be had at the wilted art tables. Not to mention the line for face painting was longer than the line for the bathroom at SXSW. I invited everyone to come to our messy house for conditioned air, snacks and face painting without the wait.

"flying-dactyl"

accidental cleavage, sorry Mam

two ummm....cats?

Elia made sure Alison didn't get left out

lion and butterfly

the end.



*donate to 
Evan's album 
project

We are to Picnic

 

I know it must be summertime when I realize that the only two things I've worn today are pajamas and a bathing suit. Also, we can't stop picnicking. Here we are again frolicking in the sunset like a pack of peanut butter loving monkeys. Refined monkeys who love a free symphony.

One of my favorite things about having my own little family is the inventing of your own holidays and weird/awesome traditions. We have a camping holiday, daily brunches, sunset picnics, crafternoon, weekly book hunting, songs we made up just for our family. It's thrilling to imagine what we'll come up with next.

 

*donate to Evan's

 album project

Tacks, the boy disaster- Twelve Lions' Paws

The long awaited full length album! The songs are written, recorded, slaved over, picked apart, rewritten, re-recorded, rearranged, tried in different sounding rooms with different engineers over the course of five years of love and hatred. Missed family dinners, two children, four houses, and four rotating band members later it is actually done. It is a beautiful thing.

Evan has poured his whole soul into this, spending countless evenings scrawling lyrics, listening to hundreds of hours of recordings, practicing singing, banging away on the piano. This was his full time job-unpaid. We got by on his private piano lessons, the odd jazz gig and my bartending. Only the final mastering remains, which will happen in the next few days.

Here is a dorky and endearing video the boys made for a program called Kickstarter, which is an online donation project designed to help artists and musicians reach goals without going into personal debt. They call upon friends, family and fans to donate whatever they can in exchange for different levels of incentives, ranging from a feeling of euphoria to an advance copy of the record to a private concert. If they don't reach their goal within 30 days the money goes back to you.

The guys are projecting a pretty modest goal, just enough to cover the costs of studio time and the engineers. This doesn't include tshirts, buying gear, future tours, pocket money or even the printing and pressing of said album. (any overages will certainly go that direction) Though it rubs my fur backwards a bit to panhandle on the internet, what better cause to humble myself? This is the future of our family, and I married a musician with this kind of life before my eyes. A house full of music, children and laughter, our income invested in keyboards and microphones and lovely noises rather than the nasdaq or a large home in a safe part of town.

If you feel so led, you can be a part of this project HERE.
If you'd rather just give us a hearty high five- spreading, sharing, and re-posting this link all over the wide web is just as good as money to us.

Thank you kindly for stopping by this corner of the web where I keep my ravings. I think you're pretty.

Beets Me!

 Pickled beets! I totally did it! I've been wanting to try this ever since I had fried beets dipped in spicy mayo from a downtown food cart (East Side Kings), but was daunted because I thought pickling=preserving. Wrong. Pickling is just soaking something in brine whereas preserving necessitates equipment and know how and a surplus of produce to squirrel away for winter. Now I know, elementary kitchen trivia. Stop laughing at me, Miranda Brown.

 Anyway, it was easy but took longer than I thought. I used this recipe but don't be fooled by their breezy "slip off the skins" step. It was like peeling a boiled egg for every single little bugger, and my kitchen smelled like the pickled devil and looked like I'd been doing murder. Look at that platter of boiled beets, it's like I'm the woodsman and those are the hearts of every Disney princess EVER.

I skipped the "cooling the brine overnight" step (because I don't mind having peppercorns mixed in with my pickles) and tossed it together immediately, saving one whole day of waiting.

 I also tie-dyed two tank tops in the beet juice because it was such a gorgeous shade of purple. They didn't turn out how I'd envisioned. *cough

The beets however, turned out delicious. Serve over wilted kale fried in coconut oil and topped with goat cheese, or in a martini in place of olives. 

Cocktail naming winner:

Two-piece Beetini

MURAL MATCH 3: Castle Hill Graffitti

Wow! We bit off a little more than we could chew with this one. We hit the mural mother lode! This is both good and bad because we had so many to choose from that we didn't know what to wear in order to "match" any particular wall and ended up flinging three bags of colorful things and random accessories into the car, planning on some luck and a couple of costume changes.

What really happened? We depleted our camera batteries, patience and sweat within fifteen minutes. There were stumble holes crisscrossed with brambles and the ground was spangled with broken glass. There were at least four other groups mugging around with cameras and the kids started choosing their own clothes (my tshirts) instead of matching ones and I was so hot I stopped caring about anything. I think my brain was getting a little melty.

Luckily Sarah was with us and helped me talk the monsters off of the narrow walls (which they were using as balance beams) and took great pictures despite the 2000 degree heat. Check out her lovely design/creative blog and adventures living in a houseboat in Amsterdam. Afterward we bought overpriced smoothies at the hippie yoga place and summer dresses at the thrift store. (cheaper than the smoothies)

There are so many cool murals in this town that it could take years to dance in front of all of them. I might have to come back to Castle Hill because there were three more levels we didn't even get to! Here's an article talking about the public art project.

Happy Wednesday

3 frowns