βIβm going to make everything around me beautiful β that will be my life.β βElsie de Wolfe Β· My entire life has been saturated in the natural and domestic spheres β both creation and creating. Here I share about not only my art and design work, but the other elements that make up a creative life β home, cooking, sewing, inspiration, nature, travel, adventure.
Did you all wear your green today? I did! Here is a shot of me today, even rocking out the green shamrock shades my dad sent me that I mentioned the other day:
I’m sorry my greens don’t match, oh well, at least I’m not getting pinched! π Hope you all have a fabulous St. Patrick’s Day!
I got a card today from my Dad. I think he meant for me to get it before break, but I didn’t have time to check my mail before we left to visit the little girls. Anyway, it had a couple quotes in it that he thought I would enjoy:
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. -Albert Einstein
It is good to have an end to journey toward but, it is the journey that matters in the end. -Ursala K. LeGuin
I think that is something that we all definitely need to be reminded of now and then. I’m sure we all get caught up in getting too anxious to get where we are headed that we forget to enjoy the journey that takes us there. I know I do. It is hard to remember to focus on the little things in life instead of only the major milestones. I can’t wait to graduate, I can’t wait to get married, I can’t wait to have my own house to decorate, I can’t wait to have kids… my list goes on of big things in my future that I’m excited about. I’m glad that I have things I want to do, but today, and all the little things that make up each day, matter too.
Slow down and enjoy life. It is not only the scenery you miss by going too fast–you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. -Eddie Cantor
He also sent me a pair of green shamrock lens glasses for St. Patrick’s Day. Haha π
Happy Monday! Oh and it is also Pi day too! (3.14…)
Drew and I have been working on our budget. We are pretty thrifty people anyway, but Drew has a weakness for going out to eat. I cook almost all the meals we eat around here, but Drew doesn’t like doing the dishes, so very often he offers to just go out to eat rather than dirtying up more dishes. There are just two of us, so going out shouldn’t be too bad, but in New Orleans there isn’t anywhere that we can eat for under $20 (total). It usually is more like $30. I can buy all the fresh meat and veggies we need to make over a week worth of meals for $30! I like to cook anyway, so we are cracking down and putting a stop to the eating out. (not that we do it all the time or anything, but once is more than we have the money to spend it on.) We’ve got to be saving for our wedding/honeymoon.
Tonight I made Chinese! (I LOVE Chinese food!) I even cooked in a wok and made fried rice and homemade Chinese white sauce for our meat and veggies! It turned out really good! (I thought about making egg drop soup as well, but I already had too much going on to handle another dish!)
Speaking of budgeting, we’ve been working on the wedding budget this weekend. I had talked to possible photographers already, but I also looked into prices for flowers, venues, and catering this weekend. Plus I tried on dresses last week (and looked at the price tags!). Weddings are soooo expensive! How on Earth can people afford these! Did you know that the majority of Americans spend between $18,000 and $30,000 on a wedding! That doesn’t include the cost of a honeymoon or engagement ring either!
I’m trying to do as many things myself, but still, there are just a lot of things you have to pay for! Our draft guest list is at almost 250 people and that is mostly all family and several of our parents’ close friends. There aren’t very many excess people that we could cut off to cut costs. If each person cost $8 a meal, that is already $2,000, just in food! (and I can see people charging more than $8 a person! One of the caterers I looked at was $16 a head!) The photographer I want with digital copies of our pictures is $1,500. Flowers for bouquets, boutonnieres, and 20-30 tables at the reception is going to be around $500 (and that price is low for that many table arrangements). The dress that I really liked at the bridal shop was $1329. (that price was pretty average too) I’m definitely going to try to find something much cheaper than that though, no matter how much I liked it.
I’m worried about how much the venue for the reception will cost. I want to have the ceremony outside at my house, so other than plants and clean-up that is free. The reception I wanted to have in a pretty old wooden barn, but we don’t have one of those. (my grandparents have a barn, but it isn’t big enough and is falling apart) I don’t know where I can find one close to home either. Plus most wouldn’t even have a floor, not to mention electricity or bathrooms. A big white tent for the backyard is upwards of $3,000. Where would people use the bathroom at? What if it rains? Is the ground going to be muddy in the springtime? Up go the costs of renting tables and chairs as well. π
Still I’ve got the costs of wedding rings, tuxes, bridesmaids dresses, shoes, veil, jewelry, hair appointments, decorations, cake/dessert, tablecloths, glass bottles for the table arrangements, invitations, save-the-dates, postage for invitations and save-the-dates, bridal shower, marriage license, and the list goes on and on and on! Hope no one wants to drink at our wedding. We can’t afford to pay for drinks. We can’t even afford to pay to feed anyone!
I haven’t said anything yet about a honeymoon either! I hadn’t even thought about the costs for that because I’ve never had to pay for a trip before. If we go somewhere for 5 days and pay an average hotel fee of $200 a night, that is already $1,000. Add in at least $800 in airfare. How are we going to get around? A rental car? That is around $30 a day! Plus gas! What about food? What about sightseeing? At minimum the honeymoon would be $2,000. That is leaving $200 for car, food, gas, sightseeing, etc.. which isn’t very practical. I know it will cost more than that.
I’ll be working this summer, but even if I worked all day long, every day of the summer, at minimum wage I couldn’t even save up enough for the honeymoon alone! The estimated cost of the wedding is at almost $10,000! I can’t even imagine telling my parents that! My dad has no clue how much a wedding is going to cost. That price isn’t even for anything extravagant! That is no alcohol, catering for one entree and two sides, water and lemonade, venue, flowers, photography, clothing, and decorations. That doesn’t include the honeymoon. Maybe I’ll be able to afford this wedding when I’m 40! I know realistically that I could get married in my living room by my dad for free. (others have done it) But I have had this picture in my head of what I wanted for my wedding since I was 8 years old! I don’t know what to cut out and still make it work with my vision. I’m only getting married once, I want it to be nice! Why is everything so stinking expensive!? π
Some may call me a little old-fashioned. I actually had a teacher last year that asked me if I got lonely because I seemed to have ideals, that were no longer “ideal” in this world of ours.
In my American Literature class, we are learning all about post-modernism. That is, that we live in a post-modern world. A world of questioning and ever-changing identity. One that lacks stability because everything is constantly changing and we are constantly coming up with new solutions and new ideas on things. There are many things that I do agree with about post-modernism. But I wonder if things are starting to move away from it? Or maybe we are on the brink of a new time.
Because of the lack of stability in our world, I think that has lead many people to search for stability. To rely less on our ever changing economy and be more dependent upon themselves.
For example, I’m a big believer in old-fashioned, natural, organic, simplistic, down-to-our-roots kind of living. I want to grow my own vegetables in my garden, live in a old farmhouse with a wooden barn, have farm animals, use organic remedies and rely less on modern medicine, be creative, sew, be a do-it-yourself-er, and in general, try my best to make my own little world that is mostly dependent upon my own hard work, and less on the unreliably of our society today.
Today in society we are all so reliant upon someone else doing everything for us and us just being able to go to the store and get whatever it is that we need. What happens if something in that system changes? Will we know how to cope? I wonder what percentage of people in the world would even know where to start to grow their own food? (I even wonder sometimes if people even know what vegetables are anymore. I’ve seen people that live solely off of cereal and processed foods!) What about being able to make your own furniture? Build your own house? Make your own laundry detergent? Sew your own clothes? Find the natural remedies to help aches and pains? These are things that our grandparents or great-grandparents used to do on a daily basis. The people that know how to do things like this are mostly not around anymore. We need to not forget our roots.
I thought that I was one of the few people that seemed to value things like this. However, lately I have been really into blogging and found that there are many other people out there that also have similar ideals, even if they aren’t exactly the same as mine.
Going Home to Roost is a blog I stumbled across the other day. She shares her tips on simple living, organic gardening, raising chickens, cooking, and normal everyday stuff. A lot of the things that she is interested in are very similar to my interests. The Pioneer Woman shares similar stories of her encounters as well. There are many blogs out there like this, and many people that don’t have blogs that live like this too.
I was just reading Young House Love this morning when I read this post. It is all about bringing stodgy back. Stodgy meaning old-fashioned. You need to check out this video. Read about Stodgy is Sexy’s About. Here is an excerpt from Stodgy is Sexy’s about statement:
The MOVEMENT.
We live in conservative times. Cars are getting smaller, less flashy, and more fuel-efficient. Slender and pale is in, muscled and tan is out. Sport jackets have made a comeback for men, as have dresses and hats for women. With our economy in ruins, Democrats and Republicans fight to prove who is more fiscally conservative. A recent survey revealed that, for perhaps the first time ever, a majority of young people say they are more attracted to brains than beauty. Suddenly, boringly sensible is the new sexy. In a word:
Stodgy is Sexy.
Prudence, modesty, and stability may be boring, but boring is something we can trust in a turbulent world. Maybe thatβs stodgy. But at this moment and for the foreseeable future, stodgy is sexy.
They have an interesting project going on. It does make me wonder if the post-modern world is slowing moving into another one. The nice thing about our world is that it is modern. There are lots of great conveniences. Which make it so much easier to incorporate old-fashioned values into your life in your own way. People wearing vintage clothing, caring about the environment, building things and renovating themselves, growing your own food, being less wasteful etc… There are tons of little old-fashioned things that are coming back into style. I guess only time will tell if this is a change in values or just a fad. I’m curious to see. π
This week was quite nice! Lots of relaxing and playing with my nieces. It was much cooler and rainier in Nashville than in New Orleans, but I didn’t mind. Gigi and I were too busy running around the house. I was sad when we had to leave! They are just too cute! I already miss Gigi’s kisses! But they were going up to Harrisburg for the weekend and we were going to Chattanooga to visit Drew’s friend Ryan and then back to New Orleans for this weekend.
But that doesn’t mean that I left without lots of hugs and kisses. π
Blair and I also went WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING this week while I was there! We went to this cute little shop in her town and I tried on several dresses that I really liked. One in particular I really, really liked! They wouldn’t let us take pictures though. π Sad, I know. I really, really like this one dress. It could be the one! I wanted my mom to see it though, so hopefully soon we are going to make another trip when mom and Kelsey and Jill can come too. π YAY! I can’t wait to get wedding plans rolling a little more! π
I hope you all are having a wonderful Mardi Gras? How did you choose to celebrate the day? Drew, Blair and I ended up going to Evie’s school and giving a presentation to her first grade class about Mardi Gras! We took them beads, made and brought king cake, and did a quick little slide show about everything Mardi Gras. I think they enjoyed it! We spent the rest of the day relaxing, playing with Georgiana, cooking, baking, and just spending time with family. It was a great day! π
Yesterday, after spending the majority of the day driving, we (Blair, Bob, Evie, Gigi, Drew, my mom, and I) went to a young authors presentation for Evie at her school. It was really cute!
Evie posing with her first book. Written and illustrated by herself!
Her teacher projected the books onto a screen, so that the kids could read them and the parents/audience could see the illustrations as well. A cute idea! I got these pictures of Evie’s book as she was reading it. Sorry that they aren’t perfect, I had to snap them super fast because Evie was reading so fast! π
And of course, as if the young authors weren’t enough in the way of entertainment, we had this cutie on our hands:
She has grown so much since I saw her last! So cute and full of personality! π
She even gave a big round of applause for all the aspiring authors. π
Of course, my favorite, is when she gives me cutie little kisses. π
Today is Lundi Gras! We are celebrating by driving to Nashville! I know we won’t be in New Orleans for actual Mardi Gras this year, but we wanted to get to visit with some family over our spring break as well. Drew’s parents headed back home today too, so we spent our day yesterday in the French Quarter enjoying the last bit of Mardi Gras. π
Susie’s cousin, Howell, lives in the French Quarter, so it is always a must to go visit with him and all the people that come and stay with him for Mardi Gras every year. His house is so neat!
His courtyard is so pretty! I’ve seen it a thousand times, but I still take a picture every time! π
Plus there are such pretty views of the French Quarter from Howell’s balcony!
All the views are pretty!
A little wagon parade came down the street in front of Howell’s house, playing music and throwing beads. They even threw beads up to us on the balcony! π You can see the Saint Louis Cathedral down the street from Howell’s house too here.
We walked up to Canal Street to try and catch some of the bigger parades and we found a filming crew for the upcoming movie, Medallion.
Here is the track the cameraman rolls along. π
Maybe you’ll just see a little glimpse of us in the movie! We did talk to some of the extras for a while. This one guy we were talking to had been an extra in over 100 films! He and his wife did it as a hobby.
We also saw Nicholas Cage! He is the lead role of the movie! Bob and Susie caught this picture of him. π
We walked down along the Mississippi River too. One of my favorite things to do down there. π
We also walked along Jackson Square and around the St. Louis Cathedral, of course. It is good to act like tourists every once and a while. π
We also ran into Captain Morgan. π
Bob got to park for free in the parking garage at Harrah’s, so when we went to leave, I was able to get a couple pretty cool pictures from the 9th floor of the parking garage looking down onto Poydras Street. Neat to see the city and a parade from above, huh? π
You couldn’t see as well from this side, but here is a little view of the winding Mississippi, the Riverwalk, and the Riverfront Streetcar. π
It was a pretty great day and a fun way to celebrate the rest of our Mardi Gras. Hope you all are having fun celebrations with your families wherever you are. I’m on my way with beads and king cake to visit with my nieces! π
Goodness, I haven’t posted much this week! That is unusual for me lately! The last couple weeks have been insane for me and last week was no different. I had several midterms and so much to get done before the end of the week, mainly because now I’m on SPRING BREAK! Whoohooo! I’ve never needed a break more in my life. Its also a pretty exciting time here in New Orleans because Tuesday is MARDI GRAS!
For most people in the world, their idea of New Orleans doesn’t exist without some idea of Mardi Gras. It is a pretty fun time here, with all the hustle and bustle and the people and parades and king cakes and beads and the list goes on and on. It is an event that you can pretty much make what you want out of. The parades are super family friendly and there are all kinds of people there. People from all over visiting, locals, kids, older people, drunk people, sober people, everyone. The floats go by and everyone crowds around shouting and grabbing for the beads, cups, tokens, whatever the parade krewe is throwing out. It is most definitely a contest to see who can get the most beads.
They have bands and dance groups in between all the floats, so it is a loud, exciting party of sorts. In the neutral ground (the median basically–in between the two parts of the road), there are people that camp out all day saving their places and they put up big tents with grills and they sit outside and barbecue all day. I’ve seen people that move couches and recliners out there and basically set up their whole living room in the neutral ground. Yesterday on the way to the grocery store, we drove down one of the streets that is used in one of the bigger parade routes, and there were people building a deck on the side of the road, so that they could stand up higher when the parade came through and get more beads. Obviously, people get really into it.
Drew’s parents came down on Wednesday to stay for the weekend. They like going to every single parade. I think that parades are fun, but they are basically mostly all the same and so I like to go to a couple each year, but I don’t necessarily want to sit outside all day saving spots for every parade. Last year, we decided that we wanted to get lots of beads so that we could decorate our Christmas tree with them, so we were on a mission to get lots of beads. Now we have more than enough for our tree, and there really isn’t a whole lot of use for a million beads outside of Mardi Gras time, so I don’t care as much about getting a ton of them this year. Originally they threw out glass bead necklaces (before they started making a ton of cheap ones in China) and the glass ones are really cool. Some of the parades throw out a couple of glass beads each year, so that is always a neat thing to try to catch.
On Thursday night, we went to my favorite parade–Muses. Most of the parades basically all have political themes (except for some of the kids parades with fairy tale themes), and Muses does somewhat, but it is a super girly parade. They have mostly girls on it, all dressed up and they throw out high heels. High heeled shaped beads, necklaces, bracelets, all kinds of high heeled stuff. Every so often, they even throw out glittery decorated real high heels. It is pretty fun. They also throw out the typical plastic cups, pink frisbees, glowing necklaces, etc… I even caught a package of Muses silly bands.
This was the parade before Muses. It is like most of the other ones, with men dressed up like clowns or something in the krewe.
Here is the start of Muses. See, much prettier. π
Big High Heel π
They are hard to see, but these are the Flambeaux. They are men that carry these torch-like things in between the floats. It is basically just tradition. Back in the day, this is how they lit the whole parade. Here, is more on them.
Contrary to popular belief, raising your hands, shouting, and catching is all that is required to get beads. Not flashing. (that is called public indecency, even in New Orleans) Although you might have to fight with the people around you to get anything that is thrown out.
Drew acts sad when he doesn’t catch anything. π
I caught a glowing ring. π Bling Bling!
They all usually have clever names, mostly with political motifs. Some of the ones above were “poll dancing,” “fox trot,” and the one right above was “app dance.”
Of course, almost every parade had at least one float about the oil spill.
He finally caught something. π
Susie caught a color changing glowing Muses ball.
New Orleans isn’t complete without something Saints related. π
We caught a few more beads as the night went on. π
Here is a close-up of some of the high-heeled memorabilia we caught. π
We didn’t catch any of the real high heels. We saw a few, but they didn’t throw them close to us. I wanted to get a picture of us catching something, but everything was moving so fast and the camera wasn’t taking the pictures fast enough, but anyway, it was a fun evening. All the traditions around Mardi Gras are pretty neat. It is nice to take time out of your day and just remember to enjoy life. That is one of my favorite things about New Orleans. People here celebrate everything. It is easy to get so caught up in the seriousness of life, it is good to take time out to enjoy it.
That reminds me of a quote I saw this week:
βNever get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.β
-Anonymous
So take a little break this weekend and enjoy Mardi Gras wherever you are. Bake a king cake, buy some beads, have some friends over, and enjoy life. π
Drew bought me some flowers today. π He’s cute, I know. Although I’d been saying for a while that I thought we needed some flowers to liven up the house, especially since we were having company. He bought them while I was at school and had them in some glass bottles that they didn’t fit in very well, so I rearranged them into little bouquets. π I even made him a little bouquet and put a couple in a empty strawberry Abita bottle. π I should have taken a picture of it.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to my Dad today! π
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
-Lewis Carroll
For some reason, I have that quote stuck in my head. I think I saw it somewhere yesterday when I was thinking about fairy tales. Anyway, I just put it up there so you all could have it stuck in your heads.
I have a lot of reading that I need to get done this weekend, so Drew and I decided to go sit on a quilt in the park and enjoy the nice weather while we read.
except that it was really windy and my pages kept getting blown around…
and we happened to sit our blanket down on an anthill…
So we only stayed for an hour or so. It was nice to get some fresh air and be outside for a while, but the wind was irritating when trying to read, and it made it a little too cool outside for me. So anyway, now I’m stuck inside reading. Hope you all had wonderful Sundays. π
