Music: Muse and Hanson (getting back to my middle school roots! haha) Just downloaded the new Muse album and will probably be absorbed in it for weeks. They're such a hypnotic band. I'd like to apologize to my sister who discovered them while we were in high school and I shot both her and the band down. I'm ashamed. :\ And Hanson? Yes, I decided to pop them into my cd player while cruising up to Stevens Point for the weekend and am now rehashing old, embarrassing, braces-filled, pre-teen years. The absence has made this heart grow fonder. I think the clean break I gave Hanson in highschool & college was fate, because it allowed me to not only discover and appreciate less squeaky-clean pop music (which they were in the beginning) and appreciate the more artistic musicians under the radar (which is what Hanson has become). Kudos to three brothers who were no "boy band" in the traditional sense ("They play their own instruments! The only measures they count are to their own beats, not some fabricated piece written by someone else that they prance around on stage to!" <--A taste of my stellar lines of defense against the mean kids at school who made fun of me) and who the Jonas Brothers so wish they were but can never be! :P Oh, and let me not forget the band Tenth Avenue North. Their music is the soundtrack of my heart. Literally I think they jumped inside my beating heart, surveyed, and wrote what they saw. Don't ask me how they did it, but the healing is beginning.
Reading: Still engrossed in Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz (second time around) and also some fantastic poetry believe it or not (I know I can't!) Rumi and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are tugging at my heart and mind and I just want to copy down everything they wrote and plaster my walls. I'd probably end up covering all of my walls with a book or two of each. Which could be cool but then be really awful come move out time! Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace is also a big learning experience and a sigh of relief. My blood pressure has significantly decreased upon reading his book!
Blogs and Websites: http://burnsidewriters.com Okay I guess that's really the only one I feel is significant enough to share for now.
Lifeline: Coffee. I took a senseless break. Silly Jen. No more of that nonsense!
Speaking of coffee...
I recently visited this lovely girl to my left (aka old college Roomie/one of the best and funniest friends a gal like me could have/fellow coffee addict) to have fun and see her perform in the show Oklahoma! The cutest Ado Annie was she! :)
And oh yeah.....
Still living with the one to my right. Haven't killed each other yet (a few close calls, but the cats broke it up before things got ugly) despite the fact that we even now work together! This astounds many who are told, even fellow co-workers, but feels pretty natural to me, honestly. We were taught from an early age to get along and somehow listened. See?
And for kicks and melting hearts (mine anyway)....
Mom and Me. There is nothing I don't like about this picture. The way I'm holding her face. How I'm looking at the camera while she's looking at me. The sunny fall day that you can see through the classic black and white color. It's just precious.
