Friday Five

I recently discovered that two good friends of mine have never seen The Sound of Music. I was shocked. Wasn't that a normal part of everyone's childhood? Didn't everybody watch it every year at their grandmother's house at Thanksgiving? Didn't everyone grow up singing about doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles?

Apparently not.

I tried to help these friends get their lives back on track, but our plans to watch it fell through. Twice. Ironically, I ended up watching it earlier this week with a different group of friends...Which inspired me to make a list of just a few of the things I've learned from Fraulein Maria:

Five Life Lessons Learned From The Sound of Music

1. Singing can make any situation – from starting a new job to thunderstorms to your dad being mad at you to having to go to bed early -- better. Unless, of course, you are trying to hide from Nazis.

2. It is possible to make a full set of matching outfits out of old curtains. It is also possible to convince a sixteen-year-old girl to wear old curtains and match her six siblings.

3. Every preteen girl dreams of being sixteen going on seventeen. And having a boy who is seventeen going on eighteen dance her around a gazebo. (And hopefully not turn out to be a Nazi.)

4. It is okay to fast forward Mother Superior’s song. And to skip the majority of the second half (from when Maria returns to the wedding) to get to the good part at the end. Even if you actually only watch 2/3 of the entire movie ever, you can still say you love it.

5. It is always the butler. 


I realize this list barely scratches the surface of the wonder that is The Sound of Music. So if you have any to add, please do so.


[All images via We Heart It]

Friday Five

I like weekend mornings because my fave blogs post lists of links from around the web that bring me into a happy oblivion of happy clicking around the beautiful/interesting/amusing things of the internet. Or something like that. I thought I could share that experience with you a little bit...so here are five friday links for you!

• Margaret (my housemate!) and Abigail are traveling around the country, taking pictures (Marg) and writing poetry (Abigail). No, I'm not jealous, obviously. You can check out their adventures here, and join me in being not-jealous...

• I always love a good tumblr. Dear Photograph is a wonderful one. (via A Cup of Jo)

• How to pack like you're traveling the world for 6 months.

• Pottermore. WHAT IS IT?? (Sidenote: I just watched the HP 7 part 2 trailer, and now I kind of want to reread the book in preparation. Even though I also reread it in preparation for part 1...)

• Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day is giving away a trip for 2 to Paris. Well, why not enter?

Enjoy, y'all.

Friday Five

I love the beach. I really do. I love beach vacations where your whole family piles onto the sand with beach chairs and coolers and sodas and you spend hours out there. I love walking as far down the beach as you can, ankle-deep in ocean and keeping an eye out for treasures like starfish or horseshoe crab skeletons. I love standing still and squinting out as far as you can see and thinking about how vast and beautiful God is.

But the thing is, when I’m going to Hilton Head, I don’t necessarily think that I’m going to the beach, but rather that I’m going to Mama Kaye and Papa Joe’s house, and the beach – just down the path behind the house – as an added bonus. 

And so, today, here are five ordinary Hilton Head things that I can look forward to and are a part of the time I spend on the island:

1. MK and PJ’s house: MK and PJ have lived here my whole life. When I was five, the week before we moved to England, I split my chin open on the stairs in this house and had to get stitches. The house has been remodeled, and that staircase actually isn’t there anymore, but there’s the screened-in porch upstairs with a hammock swing, and the comfy chairs perfect for reading in front of the huge window (which you could see the beach from if it weren’t for the trees), and the ‘library’…and just being here is the best.

1. Bike rides: PJ and MK have these perfectly old, rusting beach riders – the kind that you backpedal to brake – that Linnea and I ride all over the plantation daily when we’re here. The sidewalks wind past golf courses, beneath trees dangling Spanish moss like forgotten scraps of lace and near ponds where you might chance to see an alligator. And today I fell off my bike. No further comment.

1. Dinner: MK always cooks meals like tuna steaks with blueberry mustard sauce. And they are always delicious. We eat late here, around 8, and all meander upstairs to the kitchen about half an hour before that and eat appetizers as we watch Mama Kaye finish up cooking. We sit around the dinner table for a long time, and have coffee and dessert there too. It’s lovely.

1. Kenny B’s and Coligny: The place Linnea and I always have to go when we’re on the island is a hole-in-the-wall N’awlins-style place called Kenny B’s, where we eat huuuge blackened shrimp po’boys and she-crab soup. (Although I believe I’ve told you about this before.) We usually head over to wander through the boardwalk –style touristy beach stores at Coligny. And it makes it even more typical when we drive Matilda, the twenty-year-old, formerly-brown-now-Kentucky-blue beast of a truck I often drive when I’m here…

1. TV: I don’t have cable at home – and I don’t want cable at home – but there’s just something about being here that means I spend a lot of time watching completely pointless television (like Say Yes to the Dress, which is on right now…), which I never would any other time. And you know what? It’s kind of nice to do that for a few days. And then return to my cable-less worlds.

And this is exactly a description of my weekend :]

Friday Five

Here's the thing: I don't usually listen to country music. But there is just something about summertime that changes that. It's just the perfect background to cruising with the windows down or sitting on the porch long past midnight, wouldn't you agree? So, here are:

My Top Five Fave Summertime Country Songs

1. Fast Cars and Freedom, Rascal Flatts 

(You don't look a day over fast cars and freedom, that sunset, river bank, first time feeling...)

2. Why Don't We Just Dance, Josh Turner

(This music video is just so wonderful. Basically that's going to be my future.)

3. Nothing To Lose, Josh Gracin

4. Water, Brad Paisley

(Soo I don't actually know if this is my favorite Brad song, but it is certainly summer appropriate, and I couldn't not have Brad Paisley on this list..)

.

5. Get Out of This Town, Carrie Underwood

...Aaand because narrowing it down to five was actually really difficult, here are some other faves:

• Toes, Zac Brown Band
• Summer Song, Blue County
• Summer Nights, Rascal Flatts
• Would You Go With Me, Josh Turner
• Feel That Fire, Dierks Bentley
• A Little More Country Than That, Easton Corbin
• Best Days of Your Life, Kellie Pickler

Happy Summer.

Friday Five

The I Heart Books Edition

1. "Books are a hard-bound drug with no danger of an overdose. I am the happy victim of books." - Karl Lagerfeld

2. Penguin re-released all the classics with these gorgeous new covers, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith:

[image sources: 1 | 2]

I kind of want to own some of these. They would look so pretty all lined up on my bookshelf... They even sell them at Anthropologie!

3. Why is stop motion SO COOL?

4. Why secondhand books smell so good: 

"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is 

a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into 

paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how 

divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell 

like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for 

knowledge in all of us." [source]

5. The following pictures all come from this tumblr and fill my little book-loving heart with so much joy. Suffice it to say, I could live in ANY of these places.

Friday Five

Five Randoms

1. I sincerely love this umbrella. And by sincerely love, I mean I want it.

[via: Pinterest]

(I already have one of those see-through umbrellas. I asked for one for Christmas the year before last, and I think my mom must have thought I was joking because I didn't get it. So I bought myself one when I saw them half-off at Target last summer. But this? It's like 87 gazillion times better than that!)

2. Still obsessed with Avett Brothers "Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise." I mean, these lyrics:

When nothing is owed, deserved or expected

And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected

If you're loved by someone you're never rejeted

Decide what to be and go be it

Also on my playlist: "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars, "You and Me" by Elizabeth and the Catapults, "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes, "Poison & Wine"by the Civil Wars (yes, still), "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, "Skinny Genes" by Eliza Doolittle...

3. Barcelona:

[Source: EF - Live The Language - Barcelona from Niklas Johansson, FSF on Vimeo.]

4. I just had a s'more made of the biggest marshmallow in the world (after the biggest dinner in the world at my second cousin's house!). This inspired me to look up all the nifty things I know all those creative, bloggy people must do with s'mores. 

Here's some awesome things I found:

• S'mores Latte
• S'more wedding favors (and pretzel sticks, too!) (I should probably show this to my sister...)
• S'more cookie ...or cupcakes ...or brownies ...or cheesecake bars (omg, dying)

So glad I explored all of that. WHO KNEW.

5. I love all things chalkboard, especially when it's a little bit unexpected:

[all images found on Pinterest]

(I'm a little disappointed because I just learned we aren't allowed to paint our house next year, so all my dreams of painting a chalkboard on the wall are now dashed.)

WHEW. I don't think I'll have anything to tell y'all for the next week, because this basically used up all I got. I guess I'll just have to work on having some adventures... :]

Have a fabulous weekend!

Friday Five

Currently Listening To: Lupe

Quote Love: "All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." - Martin Buber

Yes, this was supposed to be posted yesterday. But life is busy and sometimes unexpected things happen like you have to pick up your car from getting the oil changed and then traffic is crazy and you don’t make it back home before you’re supposed to be giving people rides to an overnight retreat. Or something. So, in honor of yesterday, I present to you...

Five Things To Do On The Most Beautiful February 18th In The History Of Virginia

1. Take anything you have to get done OUTSIDE. Even if what you have to do is make fifty (sassy and bedazzled) nametags.
2. Carry a really, really long paper chain (roughly seven me's in length...or about 35 feet) allll the way down your street.
3. Forget to get dressed for real and wear running shorts & sparkly Toms all day long
4. Get a smoothie - especially if you have a buy one, get one free coupon and a friend to use it with.
5. Attend a retreat where you can spend all day and evening (and night, unless you’re unlucky and have a job interview in the morning…) with the most wonderful girls ever, discuss God and love and stuff, eat ice cream and paint your toenails purple.

 [image via we heart it]

Friday Five

Currently Listening to: J.Biebs. Inspired by watching this video...

My former-roomie-but-still-housemate Monique and I decided we want to start being really artsy, especially on Fridays, when neither of us have classes and opportunity abounds. Sometimes I kind of wish I was one of those super artsy/alternative/borderline-hipster kind of people…you know, those people who are all creative and awesome and anticonformist  and stylish and effortlessly chill at the same time?

In light of this, here are
5 Things I Can Do To Become More Artsy/Alternative/Borderline-Hipster:

1. Go to art shows! (…obviously?) I did this accidentally last week, and it was great, so I want to do it more preparedly this week. Which I am about to do.

2. Hang out in coffeeshops. But only small, non-commercially, non-Starbucks ones. Luckily this is a college town and there are a bunch of those around. And luckily I kind of do that already.

3. Get and wear this:

[source]

(I asked for one for Christmas, but didn’t really get it yet, so I’ve been meaning to go out and buy one. Now, for the sake of my artsiness, I have to.) Other artsy clothing options: plaid, leggings, those beret hat thingies, big oversize cable knit scarves, big (nerd) glasses?

4. Listen to obscure bands no one’s heard of. I think I’m going to need to be checking these websites to find out what those are… (when I googled “hipster music,” this is what I got…) (umm, let's just forget that I'm listening to Justin right now...)

5. Stalk other people’s artsy blogs/facebooks/flickr streams to death, and wish I was them. Potentially some day this might actually inspire me to action? Hmm.

I'll keep y'all posted on how this goes for us...


P.S. Here's me and Monique in our room last year. Can't you just tell that we're destined to be super artsy??