Austin Roadside

I'll keep my eyes open, but I'm not sure what I'm going to see...

Happy BIRTH-day!

Happy birthday, Evelyn! Here's to a child that managed to show up even Alana in dramatics (for the time being at least) by drawing out the labor process as long as possible then choosing to be born on the side of the road. And here's to Jules for sustaining such peculiarities! Congratulations to the whole family!

Last First

As I saw on someone's facebook, "Today is the last first day of school."  I overestimated my alarm (okay, I set my alarm for what it's going to be later in the semeseter when I need the snooze more) so I'm killing time before my first class, music appreciation.  I have only two project based classes this semester and only one show, which is roughly a third of the schedule I'm used to keeping so I'm hopeful that I'll have a lot more time to go adventuring.

It's been the perfect lead-in to the year and it's been wonderful to see people.  It feels so good to be back among the people that I have learned to love over the past three years, with voices that I can automatically recognize around the corner and jokes that we share so easily.  I want to milk it this year more than any other and find a way to be with them more and more, to make the get togethers happen as opposed to just saying, "someday, we'll have a tea party..." "someday..."  I also have a scheme in motion to get together with my few outside theatre friends.  These plans are so much more difficult to achieve since we don't inherently know each other's schedules.  With luck, our schedules will line up enough for once a week.

Anyway, the time went quickly and I have to move on.  I hope you all have a wonderful day like any other while I go make the most of my last first day.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Naomi! Hope it has been beautiful!

Tea for Two and Ten for Tea

The concept entered my mind two or three years ago -- let's have a tea party so that we can get dolled up with sundress and ridiculous hats -- but the execution was always down the road for me.  About a month ago, two of my friends excitedly told me about their recent purchase of antique hats and their desire to use them for a tea party.  Finally, the right stimulus was provided for me to decide to put this thing into action!  I also had a roll of 35mm black and white film that I wanted to use and had thought to take out a group of girls to Cameron Park, a lovely little pocket of Waco, to use up the film.  Since tea party attire seemed appropriate for a black and white photo shoot, I decided to combine the two events into one grand adventure for this past Thursday.

The day was a tremendous success.  My friend, Victoria, co-hosted and came over early.  She miraculously put curls into my hair and helped me make sandwiches.  The tea setting was a hodge-podge of dainty-ish cups and random serving pieces that somehow ended up in a relatively uniform blue and white theme, with a variety of interesting shapes and levels.  We squeezed around my table and had ourselves a good time.  The photo shoot also went very well.  There were only five of us by that time, but we went to a random little piece of Cameron Park called "Miss Nellie's Pretty Place" which has a fountain and some steps and presumably in the spring a lot of flowers.  We had a blast playing in the fountain, snapping pictures all the while.  Afterward, we decided we were hungry for real(ish) food and went to Chick Fil A, still dolled up in our tea party best (but without the hats).  All in all, I couldn't ask for a better way to start the school year, particularly my senior year.  Here is a slideshow of some of my favorite pictures from the day.  Enjoy! 

There's a First Time for Everything

This summer I had access to a wonderfully large kitchen, so I spent lots of time practicing my skills and making dishes that I have never made before.  Among these firsts were hash browns, cabanara, grilled cheese, and meatballs.  I am pleased to report that 3/4 of these experiments could be considered a success.

While my sister-in-law mentored me in the creation of the meatballs, my brother called in from vacation.  She kept mentioning that the meatballs were very big so I made a special meatball just for her:

 Now I'm back home with a claustrophobic kitchen, but am armed with an arsenal of yummy new dishes...especially full-sized meatballs.

Transitioning

I'm officially back in Waco!  I had a wonderful summer with the bro and sis-in-law with a very interesting show and a ridiculous job.  My room is half and half -- half prettiful and clean since the first thing I did was dust and half overflowing with suitcases and random items of varying usefulness.  Tomorrow is the big shopping/unpacking/reorganizing/cleaning/recycling day then I dive right into gatherings and the next project, The Drowsy Chaperone. 

So, 'Hello.'  It is my hope to post a few things tomorrow, but if that plan should go awry, here's checking in.  Happy New School Year.  

Photo Hunter: Artificial

What a nice theme, this should be simple, right?  Nope.  As I look through, I find plenty of pictures that are genuine or legit, but not so much artificial.  Still, pushing on I am pleased to present a pair of pictures from a little fruit stand in Hong Kong.  

These were taken looking over the rail of the Mid-Levels escalator -- the World's Longest Series of Outdoor Escalators.  The title itself is certainly not artificial, but I do have to wonder how much competition there is for it.  Anyway, I loved the colors in the market and how the yellow isolation brought out the woman's magnficant yellow jacket and how the green brought out the very interesting roofline that does not catch the eye in any other picture.  Without further ado, the Mid-Levels fruit stand with incomplete (therefore artificial) coloring.

And for fun, I also came across the picture of this dog from Thailand, whose ears were given artificial coloring.

Photo Hunter

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Rachel!  I hope it's a blast!  (figuratively, as well as literally...break a leg!)

Photo Hunter: Low

My niece at Christmas three years ago.  (Note: puffins = pumpkin muffins)

'Putting the puffins out of my reach?  That's just low!'

Photo Hunter