check check! 1,2, 3...

 Hello internet! I missed you. I hope we're still friends. I am checking in, and would like to report that we are safely ensconced in our new rickety old house in Denton, Texas and having all manner of adventures and misadventures here in our new "small" town.

Evan is right this second playing drums and freestyle rapping about Jesse's dino pants, Ruby has stolen my vintage clip on earrings and has paired them with a strawberry polka dot shirt and stripes, and I am about to down a cold cup of coffee, dress like a vaguely hip prohibition girl and serve drinks with names like Aviation and French Pearl using such ingredients as liquor of crushed violets, mint leaves, absinthe and egg whites.

Here is a tiny comic I drew this summer for a project entitled "100 Days of Summer" in which I promptly got very behind and discouraged and I believe I squeezed out six whole days of summer. Anyway, Evan scanned them for your web pleasure.

I hope to not allow this blog to suffer the same fate as my house plants did, which was a slow death. Yesterday I dumped out their frozen wilty carcasses and dug up some nice green flowering something or others from the yard, put them in the pot and dragged them inside to a sunny window to beautify the "parlor". I promise to water you and love you and not let Evan talk me into no internet because it is good to take a break. Or something.

MURAL MATCH 4

Coldtowne Theatre

A red and white mural match with my old chum Jeff. This is possibly the last Austin one we'll do in quite a while since we quit this town in a week! Actually, I should stop fannying around on the internet and continue packing my life into cardboard.

Last night was our going away/Tacks listening party at my work and I got many warm hugs and high fives. It isn't hard to leave this city, but it will be hard not to see these friends I've made over the last decade and a half without a four hour drive beforehand. On the upside, our new house has guest quarters! Come and visit us.

Lamm"s Candies

Breaking up with cool cool Austin

Hello! This website is experiencing technical difficulties. Thank you for visiting. Please enjoy the archives and the mental image of yours truly surrounded in boxes and chaos. Actually I was miraculously able to upload this one photo using stolen neighbor internet. It took an hour.

Denton! It's actually happening. We have jobs, we've signed a lease, we move November 1st. Yikes. I had meant to do a thoughtful write up of why we are leaving this wonderful city and pros and cons punctuated by pertinent photos of both towns but! I have two pet monsters who love to eat my to-do lists and poo them out onto my clean laundry.

Instead I am including here a copy of a letter I wrote to a friend months ago in which I discuss the subject using parables and slang.

You were so aghast or possibly incredulous? when I mentioned leaving Austin's warm bosom that I feel like explaining a little more, plus I've been explaining a lot so it will be good to write it down.

If you asked me a couple of years ago if I wanted to leave Austin I made the same face as you did, but since then quite a few of my closest friends have left to seek their fortunes, my babies have gotten older, and my elbows have gotten very cramped in these close quarters. I missed the bus a decade ago when my money savvy friends were furtively buying properties on the east side and I was cocktailing, fooling around in the sculpture studio of ACC and working at the youth hostel. Now Austin is becoming a real city complete with crime, secret millionaires, rapidly disappearing view of the sky and so expensive that all the artists and brown people are being pushed farther and farther outside of town.

If I were single, I would stay forever, I would! But now I have this huge thing that is my family, and here I am trying to cram it into my old single lifestyle. I believe that Austin is the best place in the world to spend your twenties, but now I've outgrown it. The things Austin has to offer are better than ever, but they aren't important to me anymore...a dozen invitations per day to attend rock shows, birthday parties, festivals, fashion shows, mustache competitions, binge drinking contests. I don't even read them anymore. Amazing restaurants, mecca organic grocery stores, vintage boutiques, a bar on every corner. I can't afford any of it, nor do I have the free time to enjoy it if I could.

The things I dream about these days are big trees in which to build forts, an orchard full of fruit, a house that I can really call my own- that I can knock down a wall or paint a mural on without fear of losing my deposit. I want Ruby and Jesse to be able to venture further than ten feet from the front door without being in danger of a car flattening, I want them to have woods and chores and bb guns and food from a garden instead of Fiestamart.

I grew up the poor kid in a privileged school in suburbia because my dad was a graphic designer and my mom stayed home with us. We had a great time with each other but I really felt the lack of "fancy" stuff and "nature" and I don't want the same for my little monsters. Sure I could find a better job than bar work but no thanks if it means somebody else raises my kids.

I feel that kids are very like dogs. You can have dogs in the city, you can pick up their poop with your hand. You can take them on doggy playdates to the doggy park and leave them at doggy daycare and feed them chicken and rice and wash them at Shampooch and send them to doggy obedience school and treat them at the doggy bakery. That doggy would probably be happy. OR you could have two acres on the outskirts of town, pour chow in a bucket and the dog leaps and races and catches squirrels and protects the children and swims in the river and has the time of its life, leash free and on the cheap. I want my kids to be farm dogs, higher quality of life with less fussiness.

Pet donkeys for riding and camping. Chickens, milking goats, studio and cabins for recording albums. Art barn for woodworking, ceramics and large projects, library, gardens, writing and illustrating new children's books. That's our big adventure.

I'm excited but nervous, and every time I get stuck in traffic or pay for parking I snip one more thread that binds my heart to the city.
Ya dig?

ever much
Shayla

Eyeball Feasting Fashion

The club in which I work used to do big fashion shows all the time, and though everyone took it VERY seriously, it always felt kinda smalltown even coming from my limited background of the Houston modelling industry. I guess Austin is finally a city now because I'm hightailing it out of here, and we're finally getting the whisperings of a credible fashion name.

My dad considered going into the fashion industry because he had a knack for design and my mom dabbled in jewelry inventions so I genetically had no chance of escaping the secret love of fashion. I've just discovered this Austin based designer and am taken with her vintage fabrics and shimmery laces. My eyes feel fat from feasting.

"Dawn Younger-Smith, former model, muse, and make-up artist to the stars, is the artist behind the line Boudoir Queen. After years of working in the fashion industry as a make up artist and developing her own cosmetics line, Poor Little Rich Girl, her sense of style and affinity for the past turned her to designing her own vintage inspired pieces. In 1997, the Boudoir Queen brand was born, and Dawn began creating ’20s and ’30s-inspired pieces using vintage fabrics."

Read the rest and see more lovely pictures at atxstreetstyle.

that's so pinteresting...

 

 

Because of my recent extreme busyness (5 weddings since April, moving across state-NO BIG DEAL) and loss of technical capabilities I accidentally dove headfirst into the Pinterest river of time wasting the other day. I've decorated my entire future music ranch and filled it with food and well dressed babies. And cats.

Shayla's pretty stuff here.

Crickets

gospel brunch at threadgills

Crickets, like silence. Not like a human choir sped up. I do think about the blog every day, but we've decided to sell this computer at our garage sale this Saturday for sixty bucks. (because it doesn't actually work. Fifteen minutes to upload six photos)

Should I put phone pictures up? I just got a cell phone after a year hiatus. That's right! Cell phone free for one whole year to the chagrin of my friends and poor Doctor Grey who (unfortunately for her) is the new owner of my old number and has fielded all of my birthday wishes and coffee appointments with much grace.

p.s. We're moving to Denton, Texas in about two weeks.

!!!

Divine Style

Things that make me not an atheist.

"Pillars of Creation" Interstellar formation known as elephant trunks in the Eagle Nebula, part of the Milky Way.

I've believed in God ever since I was very small, and I've just never been able to shake it. I like to think of him as an artist, and like all artists, he has a definite style. Note how lightning in slow motion looks like tree branches and the human nervous system. Crickets chirping sounds like a human choir. Even the cold, dark outer reaches of space hold breathtaking beauty. It makes me feel so tiny, but in an amazing way.

Copyright 2012. Magnifying the Universe by Number Sleuth.

"sleep"overs and newlyweds

Sleepovers. We're having two in a row. Last night was my house, tonight is Ariel's. Chaos weekend- Evan has three shows, I work two nights until nearly 4am and today is our five year anniversary. We did it! That's some kind of mile marker right? We still love each other and everything! We haven't sold our children to the gypsies (though it's a regular threat). If I cared about receiving gifts I would demand an awesome one. As it is, I pretty much only care about coffee, and I get that every day. We'll celebrate later this week, at least we didn't both forget like last year.

I have so many pictures from the last fortnight (sorry, reading too much Thomas Hardy in bed) that it is quite daunting. Brooke's wedding, mountain adventuring, Madison's bridal shower, shaving cream fight. I'll tackle the sifting and cropping soon, and luckily my best Alison already did an awesome post about said shaving cream, (with lot's of unwarranted compliments to me) which you can enjoy HERE.

 This is my favorite photo from the Central City nuptials yet, can't wait to see the rest! Huzzah Brooke and David! LUCKY B-WORD DAVID.

BIG

 Big things are happening. Big things with our family, our jobs, our friends, our home, our genius children. Hmm? What.

Why YES Ruby learned to write her name and Oh Yeah! Taught herself to swim.

No big deal.

She's four.

Above average you say? Very good looking? Brave? My, that's kind of you. I agree.

We've been traveling, finishing records, raising funds, planning bachelorette parties, end of summer parties, you name it. We fly to Colorado tomorrow for my baby sister's wedding.

The world is upside down! More updates soon, but this old computerbox is on its last leg and every time I sit down to upload some memories there are at least a dozen things I am putting off to do so.

ever bloody heaps,

Mami

Steak Pie

That's right! Pie. With steak in it. And GRAVY. Sometimes I crave things that don't actually exist. I read the Robin Hood stories years ago and never forgot the slices of meat pie they used to eat, full of savory meat and dripping with gravy. I tried to look up a recipe and the only kind of meat pies I could find were chicken pot pie or simply a crust full of ground beef and onions. (blarg)

If it doesn't exist, just make it yourself! I used a pot pie recipe as a guide but then changed everything and added steak. Since it was my very first pie ever (I don't really bake) I cheated and used ready made roll-out pastry and it turned out divine. I will definitely be making this again. (not too often...heavy whipping cream directly to thigh danger) It is special enough to maybe become a new birthday tradition. "birthday boating and steak pie". I could definitely get behind that.

I haven't been blogging as much as usual which means I've been trying new recipes as a creative outlet and my house is a bit cleaner. I had a lovely quinoa salad at a friend's place made with black beans, avocado, lime, cilantro, olive oil and mangoes. When I made it at home I substituted peaches and coconut oil and added grilled salmon. DO THIS. You won't be sorry.

I also figured out that you can make gravy out of anything. I made chicken fried chicken with mashed potatoes and onion gravy the other day. I wish I had known that when I was a vegetarian. I also mimicked an asian chicken salad we had at a restaurant with chopped cabbage, sauteed kale, soy ginger sauce and those fun crunchy things. I love adding new things to my mental menu. Check out these beautiful little egg flowers!

happy feasting.
love,
Mami

Crafternoon: altered found photos and light

A present for Wolfie. Besides underwater themed art and photography, I also have a penchant for using light in art, glowing art, strange lamps, 6 foot ladies with light bulb heads.

When I saw these pieces utilizing vintage photographs AND light, I knew I had to try to make something like it. This was my first attempt and as you can see, somewhat poorly executed, but still pretty satisfying.

I plan to find the perfect photo incorporating water and people, have it printed on a huge canvas, then shine lights through it so that I have  an entire beautiful wall. I already made a large piece like this on a movie set to act as a romantic headboard for a steamy love scene but it only featured cherry blossoms.

I think a photo of actual people staring out of the past illuminated will be much more interesting, though slightly less *cough erotic.

My Dinner with Edie

I love an intimate dinner party. So much more meaningful than a restaurant or a huge bash. Home cooked meals, fresh baked bread, new exciting toys for the monsters, a peek into the daily life of old friends. Long discussions of real life. Books, film, art, parenting, God. Things completely unrelated to tv shows or the internet over chilly pinot grigio and gelato. Does it get much better than this?

I adore this peter pan window seat. Built with love.

*donate to Evan's album project
(only 10 days left!)

Mary Cassat

Ah Mary! How I love her. Some of her favorite subjects are mothers with their babies doing mundane every day things, but she can capture a look in the woman's eye or an accidentally marvelous pose of the limbs and it becomes extravagantly beautiful and moving. Fat infants being bathed or reaching to caress a face, the morning toilette, the mixed splashy patterns of rug, dress and wall papers. At the risk of extreme cheesiness, seeing these women make the same adoring faces and gestures that I make on a daily basis is almost like time travel.

In our modern world I sometimes feel that all the good dirty wholesomeness of human life has been lost with the advent of television, the internet, cars, running water, microwaves. We scarcely even sweat anymore, unless we pay a gymnasium to let us do repetitive motions on a machine in an air conditioned room in order to sculpt our bodies to look amazing at the beach- which we slaved away hunched at a desk all year and flew a plane in order to reach. Even a mere one hundred years ago people were fit because they looked after crops, made their own furniture, chopped firewood, milked cows. They read anything they could get their hands on, taught themselves music and drawing and they rode horses for fun. I'm not entirely anti-technology, I mean- this is a blog after all full of digital pictures taken with a camera that works black devil magic. However, we all seem to think that we get smarter and smarter each generation because new things to help us be more comfortable keep being invented. It's all a lie!

Have you ever read the Bronte sisters? The books they wrote before the age of 25 would shame any English speaking blogger today. There are a million other examples, including native Americans and their herbal cures or the 1839 McGuffey's Reader (meant for ages 7-8) not to mention those pesky pyramids, but what I'm actually trying to say is that these paintings give me hope because I am just like these women. Nothing much has really changed when you can still see the intense love between mother and child. It is a wild, wolfish, ancient love and technology hasn't managed to killed it yet.