holiday spirit

we haz it.

sterl girl

marley dog

day 24: where i live

via

i'm a southern girl, born and bred. i cherish bbq festivals on the mighty mississippi (for the good times with friends as opposed to the bbq i don't eat):


southern gents in their summer finery:

dad, burruss and captain fantastic on easter. yes, i am wearing a coat. never said i like/understand memphis weather.

downtown tomfoolery with life-long friends:

bachelorette partay at raiford's

hometown basketball pride:

GO TIGERS!

...and a bunch of other stuff that i don't have pictures to illustrate.

a few hours to the east gives you the great smoky mountains

a few hours west gives you the ozarks


a few hours south gives you the white sand beaches of the gulf


but my favorite spot is right here at home:

waiting for daddy circa 2009

memphis, tennessee

spring cleaning the garage, hence the redneck back yard. very tennessee of us, no?

day 23: a video

just try to tell me this isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen. try.

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

day 22: a website

websites i visit every day:

gmail.com - to check my electronic mails
hotmail.com - to check my junk electronic mails (store mailing lists, coupons, etc)
thebreastcancersite.com et al - free donating! duh!

and my google reader page, to check my embarrassingly-large amount of blogs. reader currently says that i have 1000+ unread items, if that gives you an idea. so far behind, google reader doesn't even count that high. sad story.

day 21: a recipe

note the title of this post is not "a fancy recipe." which is appropriate, as fancy i am not. delicious, however, i am. rather, this recipe is.

if you come to my house, you will most likely be eating this.

(i like the smoked variety, though it gets less melty than regular)

+

wrapped around the wheel of cheese

+

sprinkled on top. i've used a variety of spices, and all are tasty. kinda can't go wrong.

bake for 12-15 minutesish, until it's lovely golden brown outside and melty inside. serve with crackers, or just dig in with a knife and your fingers. it's the poor man's baked brie. or the man who doesn't like baked brie's baked brie ( here's looking at you, dad). "recipe" courtesy of my mama, queen of party food.

want a real recipe? check out my pal the blue jean gourmet. girlfriend knows how to cook!

day 20: a hobby of yours

my biggest, longest, love-of-my life hobby? making things. in general. from sewing purses for my bridesmaids to drawing my own cards for every occasion since birth to painstakingly painting furniture for myself and others, i'm always making something. usually the most complicated slash detailed something i can possibly make. for example: waste baskets. i have been dying to make some hand-painted waste baskets for quite some time now. i finally found some suitable wooden numbers, just in time for a collection of birthdays and holidays. for my first go-round, a birthday gift for my chic new york lawyer pal (whose new digs she plans to outfit in navy velvet upholstery, acrylic bar stools and mirrored case goods) i had the perfect pattern in mind: the illustrious kwid imperial trellis. painted by hand, with love. the most important ingredient in all my projects. aaaaaawwwwwww.

amidst victoria's packing paraphernalia before the big move

i made a stencil and traced it onto the sides, then painted all the blue bits by hand.

guess what's on all my friends' birthday wish lists this year?

day 19: a talent of yours

are you impressed?

day 18: my wedding

this has been pretty well covered. check out my first anniversary post for a quick recap.

day 17: an art piece

what about an artist?

john robinette. a memphian who paints delta things. i love his series of moons over cotton fields and country churches. in real life, they practically glow. there was a showing of his work at the restaurant we chose for our rehearsal dinner last june, and i'd be lying if i said that didn't play a large role in the decision.

these are the only paintings i could find online. magical.

day 16: a song that makes you cry

in a good, nostalgic way

day 15: your dream house

captain fantastic LOVES it when i talk about my dream house. his hair starts falling out and his pupils turn into flashing dollar signs. but it's a dream house! come on!

dream house requirements:

fireplace. slash fireplaces. flanked by either built-in shelves or window seats.


open kitchen. that's where everyone wants to hang out!

gwyn duggan

powder room. wallpapered festively.

massucco warner miller

lonny

enough bedrooms rooms for our hopeful future family and guests.

phoebe howard

full house

decor pad

lori tippins

thibault

spiral topiaries. (with gardner to prune)

traditional home

en suite master bath.

jim howard

closet space. copious.

dream big people! house beautiful

harlequin windows.


garage. NOT on the front of the house.


maid.

and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

day 14: a non-fiction book

this is about as non-fiction as it can get. imma get all anthropological up in here.

we're not allowed to refer to people as primitive anymore, margaret mead

this was the first book assigned in my first anthropology class during my first semester of college. it's an ethnographic study of colin turnbull's three years living with the pygmies in the congo in the 1950s. fascinating. i loved my professor, loved the book, loved the discovery channel, decided to major in anthropology. and for that, i say: eff you, forest people.

seriously though, good read. if you like ethnographies. neeeeerd.

day 13: a fictional book

growing up, we had a cocker spaniel named sophie.

r.i.p.

i hate to speak ill of the dead, but sophie was probably the least intelligent dog of all time. poor girl. she didn't understand commands (aside from "gimme five," which she mastered for some reason), never quite got the hang of house training, often got her upper lip stuck in an elvis-curl, and had the same hairdo as george stephanopoulus.

she also liked to eat. favorite delicacies included eyeglasses, expensive video game controllers and pencil erasers, which she hoarded en masse under my bed. sophie got in trouble a lot.

after years of yelling, my parents decided maybe we would try a new discipline. we would shame her. when sophie did something bad, we'd look down, shake our heads, and say "shame on sophie. shaaaaaame on sophie. baaaad girl." all calm-and-disappointed-like.

my little brother, who was probably about 10 at the time, didn't quite get it. when sophie committed a transgression on his watch, he'd scream bloody murder "SHAME!!! SHAAAAME!!! SHAAAAAAAAME!!!!" completely defeating the purpose of the shame technique. surprisingly, neither method was effective.

the point of this story is shaaaame on lauren for taking a week-long vacation from work and neglecting blogging duties, then being on deadline after vacation and failing to blog some more. shame. shaaame. shaaaaaaaame.

so. here's a fictional book. one that i failed to mention in the last post on favorite books. this one's for you dad!


this was my favorite book from before i was old enough to remember what my favorite book was. according to legend, i was making the "hush" sound to the "old lady whispering hush" part at like 6 months or something. because i was obviously a genius.

but seriously, who doesn't love this book?

day 12: something you are ocd about

haaaaahahahahaha hooooooboy. that's hilarious. i am supposed to pick ONE thing that i am ocd about? it'd be easier to pick one thing i'm NOT ocd about. which would be this: nothing.

but i prefer to say "perfectionist" or "particular." even "extremely refined in taste and preference."

probably the things i am most overtly ocd about are:

1) cleanliness. not like from germs - i'm not cloroxing every surface - i just like things to feel and appear clean. i like my bed made. i like dirty clothes in the hamper. i like dog hair vacuumed (ok, dog hair is an ocd chapter unto itself...). i like kitchen counters wiped. i like myself and my husband showered before getting in the bed (much to captain fantastic's unending chagrin).

this is what i think of when sterling shakes and the hair flies...sigh

2) food. i've been a vegetarian for 16 years, mainly because i can't stand gristle and tendons and nasty stuff like that. i also will not eat pudding or yogurt, because gross. my doctor once told me that i have somewhat of an allergy to corn, and that could be to blame for my irritable bowels. and for like 2 years i was a label-reading machine. have you ever tried to cut corn from your diet? nigh impossible. at any rate, thank goodness for cheese sandwiches and luna bars. and don't worry; the foods i am not eating out of pickiness are more than compensated for in chocolate. and carbs.

i feel you, buddy

i'll stop there, but you can expand this list by imagining anything it is possible to be ocd about. and knowing that i am.

day 11: a photo of you recently (and a sneak peek)

i don't know about y'all, but i'm getting mighty tired of pictures of me. alas, another one. this is me with captain fantastic and my mama a few weeks ago when we had my parents over for mom's birthday dinner (hence the apron). then last week, i took her on a date to see wicked at the orpheum. it was faaaaabulous.


since y'all are so nicely putting up with this 30 days of blogging bidness, i'll share with you a sneak peek of my slowly-evolving dining room. here it was in days of yore, before we tore out the carpet and redid the hardwoods last november:

blogland loves c-fan and the puppies, blogland gets c-fan and the puppies

an awkward, small den with c-fan's futon, heinous aztec-print chairs, and enormous tv. the room has a door to the kitchen on one wall (at c-fan's feet in that picture), a door to the hall on the opposite wall, two windows on the third wall, and a closet smack-dab in the middle of the fourth wall (behind c-fan's head)...so awkward for furniture placement.

the estate sale aztec chairs....and can you believe, i married him still

here is the birthday girl, pretending to be surprised by the birthday cupcakes, in the dining room today:


refinished hardwoods + sisal area rug, fresh paint + drapes i sewed, plate rack + wedding china, table and chairs from in-laws + burlap runner and fall festivus. note plant that will surely succumb to my black thumb any day now. feel sorry for it.

we've currently got a little bar against the wall opposite my mom, which i'd love to replace with a skirted buffet, like this. i have a vision for the painting i will eventually paint to hang above it, flanked by my sconces. work in progress. drastically different from where it was this time last year though, that's for sure!