SXSW & Friends in Town

For those of you who haven't heard of South by Southwest (SXSW) it is a big film, music and interactive festival that takes place in Austin every year. A lot of what goes on is for people in the industries- premieres, panel discussions, record deals, artist showcases, etc.- but there are some things open to the general public so we took advantage of many of the free events. Along with SXSW came some out of town visitors, so we've had some company at the house over the past week and a half.

First, Dan came to town for the film portion of the festival. Dan writes for an awesome website called Pajiba so he was at SXSW with press credentials and got to see and do some pretty awesome things. Most notibly, he got to meet and interview Seth Rogen who, strangely enough, is his doppleganger (or Dan is his).


They first came face to face on the red carpet at the premiere of "Observe and Report," Rogen's new film that is about to come out. You can read about it here.

Later he got a one on one interview and took a real picture together. I'm still trying to get over my jealousy. And here is a shot of Dan with someone slightly less famous, who apparently likes to make weird faces.







And since we were out on St. Patty's day, I felt compelled to take a picture of the green lights strung across the streets of downtown.


This past Thurdsay evening, we headed downtown to Auditorium Shores, a big park in Austin where there was a free concert series going on for 3 nights as a part of SXSW. We saw Cold War Kids play and a little bit of M. Ward's show. Here are a few shots from that.


Friday night we went to see The Rockeyboys play a free show at a Wine Bar on S. Congress. One of our friends, Mitch Holt, is in the band and we try to see them play as often as we can. We had a great time hanging out with Mitch and his girlfriend Lindy before the show, and then the four of us went to dinner at Guero's after the show, since it was right next door. I've been trying to eat at Guero's since we moved to Austin a year and a half ago, but have always been thwarted somehow. It was a great meal and I definitely would like to go back. The highlight of the night for Andrew by far, was that this trendy, upscale wine bar also served Schlitz in a fancy glass. What more could you ask for?



Saturday night's activity was- wait, you guessed it- another free concert. Explosions in the Sky played at Auditorium Shores, the very last act of the SXSW festival. Aubrey, who is also a bridesmaid in Lindsey's upcoming wedding, arrived in Austin just in time to enjoy the show. Aubrey, Lindsey, Marika and I hung out downtown and had a fun little girls evening. At the end of the show there was an awesome fireworks display (get it, explosions in the sky...) that lasterd forever. It was longer and more elaborate than any Fourth of July display that I had ever seen. Also, I had some old, old family friends come to town so their kids could go to the Explosions in the Sky concert so we had a house full of Cukrowskis and friends. Ken and Karen Cukrowski have known me since I was three, and I have known their girls since they were born, so it is crazy to see them as sophomores and juniors in high school with boyfriends. Ken didn't come for the whirlwind trip from Abilene, but Karen came with Katie and Krista and both their boyfriends. It was fun to hang out with all of them even though the trip was short. I was dumb and didn't snap and pictures while they were here :( I guess there are plenty of other pictures for you to look at :)

Catching Up

I haven't had a good long post in a while, but honestly, we have been busy and I haven't had much time. This week will be even busier coming up, but it's going to lots of fun. Lindsey's wedding is THIS FRIDAY, and if you haven't been keeping up with my blog over the last several months, I am the "MOH" along with her sister. I'm about to go into full on wedding mode this week so don't expect any posts after this for the rest of the week. I'm sure I will have lots of pictures and news from the wedding to blog about afterwards.

I'm going to do a couple of posts here in the next few minutes just to divide everything up. Read away!

I Think I'll Keep Him

I had kind of a crappy day today and when Andrew came home from work he brought me a surprise! Isn't he sweet???

65 is the new 21....

Last weekend was "Aunt Pat's" birthday and boy did we celebrate! Sam and Pat drove in from Arkansas to spend the weekend with "Cousin Chip" and the rest of us, and to celebrate the birthday right. I was not going to reveal her true age in this post but then I realized all the pictures with the cake would have given it away anyway. Besides, she's got nothing to be ashamed of, she makes 65 look good!

Basically we ate the entire weekend. Here is the run down:

Friday night: Dinner at the Salt Lick Barbecue in Driftwood. It's in Texas Monthly as one of the best in the state and they aren't lying. You can eat yourself silly there.

Saturday night: Dinner at Chip's house. Delicious appetizers, grilled steaks with sauteed onions and mushrooms, grilled squash and asparagus, loaded baked potatoes, garlic bread, and red velvet cake for dessert.

Sunday brunch: UNBELIEVABLE brunch at Moonshine, my favorite restaurant in town. We have eaten dinner there on several occasions and had always heard the brunch was fabulous, but now we can attest to that. The variety and quantity of food was so great, no human could eat a portion of each thing and live to tell about it. The mimosas aren't bad either! That champagne will sneak up on you! We left the restaurant and I couldn't even stay awake for the car ride home between the food and mimosas.

In between eating there was time for a few other activities, but not many. We did take a trip out to the TDS game ranch so Uncle Sam and Chip's friends Gum and Molly could see the animals. It's always fun to bring new people out there and see their reactions to the animals and hand feeding a giraffe.

Here is the weekend in pictures!

Runnin Fool

Last week I decided it was time for me to start running. I have been talking off and on about taking up running for a couple months now but last Monday on my way home from work I decided it was the day. My motivation was two fold: exercise for myself and exercise for Beamer. Austin is an extremely dog-friendly city and everywhere you look someone is eating at a restaurant with their dog, jogging with their dogs, hanging out in the park with their dog, etc. Those of you who know Beamer know that he is a bit of a spaz, but a really good natured dog. I'm kind of jealous of the people with normal dogs who can enjoy those activities with their canine friends. I thought if I could run with him it would be good bonding time for us and a good way to wear him out so he doesn't drive us crazy.

The first day didn't go so well. One mile was a bit of a lofty goal. I did discover, however, that one mile was just a tease for Beamer. I think he would glady run ten. The first day I ran the first half, walked the next quarter and made myself run the last quarter. On day three I actually completed a consecutive mile. This is week two and I have gotten into a decent workout routine. I'm walking a half mile warm up, running a full mile, and walking a half mile cool down. I still feel like I might die during the mile run, but it's getting a little better. I'm amazed at how much better I feel after walking a cool down than if I just stop after running. I also think doing 2 full miles wears Beamer out a little more.

I'm thinking about getting in shape to run a 5k in a few months. I wouldn't be running to be competitive, just running to do it. Having something like that in mind would give me some motivation when running on my own. I've been looking up races online to see what one I would actually want to do and can do based on my schedule over the next few months. I also need to give myself some time to actually get in shape to complete 3 miles. I think Beamer could run a 5k tonight.

I'll keep you posted on my progress!

All in a Weekend's Work: The New, Blue Bathroom

The bathroom is done and I LOVE IT! Is it weird to want to spend all your time in the guest bathroom? Here is the run down of what we did:

• Took down all the old wood fixtures (towel bar, towel ring, toilet paper holder), spackled the holes, and in some cases used joint compound.
• Added knobs to the vanity drawers and cabinets, and the cabinet above the toilet.
• Painted with Behr "Blue Fox" and I am SO happy with the color!
• Installed new faucet, worlds better than the ugly old one.
• Installed new light fixture.
• Put up new brushed nickel fixtures and over the door towel rack.
• Put on new brushed nickel face plates for the outlets and light switches.
• Installed curtain rod and hung curtain.
• Added new towels.
• DONE!

This list is pretty concise, but it doesn't include all the roadblocks we encountered along the way. One thing we have learned, if anything, is never under estimate the amount of time it will take you to do a home improvement project. Also, when in a bind quick runs to Home Depot are usually necessary, even if you have already been twice that day. Even though we had a few hiccups, we still got the project done in one weekend and as far as I'm concerned, never have to do another thing to the guest bathroom as long as we live here.

One small side project Andrew worked on while I painted was changing the ceiling fan in one of the guest bedrooms. We bought the fixtures for the whole house before we even moved in but left a few unchanged when we ran out of steam. For the two guest bedrooms we bought pretty much the cheapest ceiling fans Home Depot sold, so we were interested to see how well they would actually perform. After getting it installed we can honestly say it is a great bargain!! They are about as plain as a fan can come, but they create a great breeze, give off good light, and don't wobble or make any noise. What more can you ask for in a $20 fan? I really hated the light on the old ceiling fan in this room because the glass cover had an etched criss cross pattern that cast weird shadows on the walls. It drove me crazy! The old fan was HUGE with shiny brass hardware and was really obtrusive. The new fan is smaller and neutral colored so it doesn't have to be the focal point in the room.

We did go over the $75 budget that I had in mind, mostly because we decided to change the faucet. If we hadn't changed the faucet we still would have come in around $100. The faucet was one of the cheaper models they carried, but one that we still liked. Again, I guess you should never underestimate the cost of a project. Several of the materials we already had so I'm not including those in this weekend's total. But all in all, I think the end result far exceeds the the cost involved. We didn't go over the top, but we made the room look really nice and ultimately added value to the home with just a few small upgrades.

I'm kicking myself because I didn't take any good "before" pictures of the whole room to compare for afterward. You can just trust me that it was pretty blah with very basic hardware. In fact, on one of our Home Depot trips I saw that they sell the whole set of oak fixtures that were previously in our bathroom for $10!! I obviously like a good bargain, but these looked so crappy you could tell they were worth $2 a piece. Sometimes it is worth it to pay a little extra. Enough blabbing, without further adieu, here are the pictures!!

And to think one week ago this bathroom was home to a turtle!!

Back to the House

We've had a nice little vacation from house work for about a month but vacation is about to be over. Big plans for this weekend and I am excited to see the finished results! We are going to tackle the guest bathroom this weekend and it will look like a new room when we are done. The biggest job will be painting, but it won't be bad because it's not a very big room and about half the wall space is covered by the mirror, vanity, cabinet, shower and the window so really there isn't much surface area to cover. This bathroom will be even easier to paint than the powder room downstairs because there is less wall and the ceiling is much lower. A few months ago I was starting to hate painting but I'm actually looking forward to it this weekend. I've picked out the color and it is kind of a slate gray-blue. I currently have a yellow shower curtain and towels which I plan to keep, but I'm also going to get some white towels to alternate with the yellow. I think the color combination will look very cool.

We bought the light fixture for that bathroom way back in August when we bought ALL our fixtures so that's one thing we don't have to pay for now! After we paint we will get the light up and add some hardware to the cabinets. The cabinets and drawers don't have any handles or knobs and it annoys me. We bought a pack of knobs months ago and used two in the powder room and still have 8 left over, so again, we don't have to pay for those! I will want to get new towel bars and a towel ring for the bathroom so that will be a purchase I'll have to make. Fortunately the ones I've used in the other bathrooms were from Target, looked great in my opinion, and were really cheap so I will be buying those again!

I already have a white curtain for the window leftover from my curtain collection when we lived in Virginia. Score! One less purchase to avoid. I will be buying a few new white bath towels but I should be able to find some that are relatively inexpensive. I don't need many since I already have all the yellow ones, I just need some white to mix with them.

We do eventually want to replace the faucets in the all bathrooms, but I'm not sure if we will do this one now or wait. The faucet would definitely raise the cost of doing this room right now but it would look really nice to get rid of the old crappy one. The cheapest ones we can find that we like are around $80. If we don't do the faucet and you don't include the other supplies that we have already purchased months ago, I think this weekend we can get away with doing the room for under $75. The faucet would obviously double the cost. Either way, it's going to look really good when it's done and compared to our other projects, its going to be relatively easy.

We are going to have a rash of company over the next couple months so the guest bathroom will be getting lots of use! Only the best for our guests!!