This Weekend

I made CHILI!

At the Golden Gloves Thursday night

This weekend. What a time.
On Friday night we were supposed to go out with a big group of people to the bar  but then we got those wishy-washers going “well it’s raining outside…”  “Well I don’t know if so and-so is going…”  “Well I don’t wanna drive downtown…”  and we got fed up. We went out on Thursday night anyway and had plans for Saturday, so we let Friday go and ended up cracking an old Christmas bottle of sparkling cider, cuddling with our gerbils, and packing up some stuff in our apartment.

We got 90% of our pictures and paintings and randomosity off the wall and now there are a gazillion holes and the space feels so much smaller!
We cleaned a bunch of junk out of the kitchen and I actually threw away tea.
Yes, THEW IT AWAY.  Neither Eli nor myself ever saw that day coming.

It feels soooo good to toss stuff.
And even better donating stuff, which we did plenty of as well.
Eli was finally able to let go of this awful (albeit comfy) shit-brown armchair that has been host to more dirty laundry and winter coats than it has tired bums  and we sorted through some more clothes that we gave away.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early in a rainstorm to go to Spanish Fork to check out some Bernese Mountain Dog puppies.
They were glorious.
There were 5 of these guys, about 6 weeks old, all fluffy and chubby and hyper!!!!
We really like the breeders and although we had our eye on a little girl pup,with our timeline on the house, and the age of the dogs, it looks like now just isn’t the time.
It wouldn’t be fair to a new puppy to bring her home and then dedicate our time to our new house and ignore her, so we’re going to discuss it some more, talk to the breeders, and probably go after the next batch of puppies.  We don’t want to overwhelm ourselves with too much change, and our first house is change enough!!

But it was enlightening and fun to interact with the puppies, especially because Eli has never had a dog before. There was one Berner pup that was obscenely fat and had stubby little legs, nicknamed Sausage. WE. ADORED. HIM.

Then we cruised on back to the Salt Lake Valley and I saw my dear old chiropractor. My neck is out of whack as usual, due to my jaw. When you have jaw problems they translate to your neck and vice-versa, so my neck goes out very easily and then will lock up and I start getting headaches.

I’ve also had sinusitis, probably due to these damn adult onset allergies(which I’ve been told aren’t uncommon if you have a craptastic immune system like yours truly), so I wanted to get acupuncture for it.  Everyone freaks out over acupuncture but it is honestly NO BIG DEAL.
The needles are teeny weeny and they pop them in—just feels like a little pressure.  Getting them put into your face is probably the most intimidating (I’ve had them in my stomach as well—that’s weird) but it gives such immediate relief that you soon move past the creepy Hellraiser aspect.  They pop them into the right spots, turn on the infrared (which makes the acupuncture more effective) and turn off the lights. It is very relaxing.
3 of the needles drew blood on me, which is rare, but the Chinese say is a way of bad blood being released, and it must be right because my face is now detoxing where some of the needles were and I have a few lumps and bumps, but they'll go away.
I walked out of there with the pressure and near-migraine I’ve had for 10 days 95% gone. Wonderful.

Eli "chair testing". AKA napping.

This was in the furniture store bathroom.  Do pill bottles, booze, diapers, racecars, bandaids, and origami count as feminine products??

Which led us on to… some furniture shopping!
We aren’t buying anything yet (nowhere to put it! Haven’t measured the house!Have plenty of time!) but we want to get an idea of the prices and styles available  and we found some great boutiques to give us ideas, and took a little notebook to write down basics on the pieces we liked.  It is incredibly helpful in planning our house! We don’t want to get into it and have a freak out and randomly splurge on the wrong furniture we don’t need.  We’ve been patient for so long, we can keep it up.

And we are stoked in general because we have never had truly new furniture.
Our couches were second and third hand from our families, and we’ve been using them for years.
Our crappy coffee table (that keeps falling apart) is Ikea of course (the same one that everyone has!!).
We get to toss most of the stuff we’ve been getting by on in our dingy apartment (the tatty bath mats! The shower curtain! The nasty couch pillows!That old nightstand!) and start fresh.

Sandlot THEN, in the movie

While we were out and about we cruised by the field where they filmed The Sandlot, one of our favorite childhood flicks.
It sure looks different--they've let is get overgrown and the baseball diamond is gone.  Kind of sad, but at least it is still there and hasn't been developed.

And today.

We’re having fun discussing color schemes and we’ve been pinning like mad on Pinterest.
We picked up some color samples at lunch today that we’re going to look over.

Tomorrow is the inspection (da da dum!!!!) and we are excited to see the inside of our house again (we’ve driven by far too many times now), bust out the tape measure, and ensure that it is all in good shape for us to buy.  So nerve wracking….

Saturday night we went to supper at Buffalo Wild Wings with our work pals and had a ball.
I don’t plan on going back for a loooooooongtime though—this was my third time eating there and once again it absolutely destroyed my stomach. So I spent half of the next day in agony, running the the bathroom.  What the hell BWW???

Then we hit up one of my favorite bars downtown—Keys on Main.  It is a funky piano bar and we had to cram on in at a table because we got there a bit late, but so worth it.  They played the classics—Great Balls of Fire,Devil Went Down to Georgia, Dick In a Box (modern, but still classic!)—and then suddenly they busted into that ridiculous and catchy new song “Thrift Shop”.
One of the gals and I jumped up to dance on stage with the piano player (by now decked out in a fur coat) and the bouncer had to escort us off the stage!! Too much of a distraction to the dueling pianos apparently.  We had a lot of good drinks and a generally awesome time—nothing quite compares to having a cold one and singing your heart out with your friends.

We were out late and unfortunately the next morning our bodies would not let us sleep in. And sleeping in is one of my faaaaaaavorite things!! We didn’t get any sleep-ins at all this weekend.  Bummer.
We had some flapjacks, sharing with the gerbils of course, who have an unnatural obsession with pancakes.  I’ve never seen the like. The literally fight over scraps of hotcakes and it is a sight to see!

Then some more packing, trashing, donating, cleaning, and we popped down to Sandy to do our laundry at my folks’ house and went to see the new Star Trek with them. I haven’t seen the first one, but I am acquainted with the original series (good old Shatner) so I was surprised by the twist that they put in at the end of this one, but I quite liked it.  We really enjoyed the movie overall—it flew by! And now I am excited to see the first one and rewatch the original Wrath of Khan.

My bestie sent a badass package full of English Cadbury chocolate and we were in HEAVEN.
Everyone that says “what’s the point? You can buy Cadbury in the U.S.” is a dipshit.
Read the packaging—Hershey bought Cadbury and you know what that means.
You are eating crappy, waxy, re-molded Hershey chocolate.  So have fun with that, we’ll enjoy the real deal sent from a generous best friend who lives in the U.K.

And boy did she spoil us !! We have 2 dozen Cadbury cream eggs and she sent my favorite—the Cadbury Oreo bars!! Along with a challenge to eat it all before she arrives in July. Which I can guarantee WILL happen.

And so here we are on a rainy Monday and I am exhausted, but clearly it was worth it.
Hope your weekends were just as packed with unique and fun things!!!

Freckles helping us pack.
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The Great Look of Gatsby

My most popular post that I've ever posted on my blog has been regarding Great Gatsby style.
I've had some requests for another version, so voila! I am posting it on both of my blogs.

I love this montage from boticca.  The Tiffany pieces in this film were absolutely stunning (Daisy's headdress was my favorite).

The art deco motif found in some of the jewelry pieces was also woven throughout the film sets--how cunning!! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for home decor done in that unique, modern art deco style (think geometric shapes and clean lines).

 That is an easy way to incorporate Jazz Age style --via jewelry and decor touches.  As far as the jewelry, especially keep your eyes peeled for emerald and gold touches.

Art deco decor is all about the details, gold accents, and heavy contrast between dark and light colors.
It is meant to be luxurious yet understated (not the swirls and lace of Baroque, for example).
No florals, no frills, vibrant colors, and lots of reflective qualities (glass and chrome).

If you don't want to devote an entire room to the style (it can be difficult finding the right retro furniture), you can incorporate Art Deco in simpler ways, such as wallpapering one accent wall in a room in a funky deco pattern, finding a printed rug in the same style,
or including some Alphonse Mucha prints.

Mucha was a Czech Art Noveau painter and his fantastical prints of women are dreamy and airy, and usually have neat hand-drawn borders incorporated into the piece.

The colors are vibrant and unique and a large piece like this could easily be made the centerpiece of a room.

The most popular materials of the Art Deco style are mirrors, stainless steel, dark wood with inlays, and anything "exotic" (they were obsessed with the notion of "The Orient" back then).
Popular patterns and motifs were sunbursts, nudes, leaves and feathers, stylized animals, and sharp objects (think the peaks of skyscrapers). Think utilitarian with an edge.

And of course..appearance.

Tailored suits, beaded dresses with fringe that create a lot of movement for dancing, snazzy stockings, red lips, black nail polish, bobbed hair, and dramatic eyes.

Very strappy and sexy! For the look today, try wearing dresses with fun details at a unique length (about thigh-high, not too long or too short) and glitzing it up with sparkly jewelry (costume jewelry with rhinestones is perfect for this!). Grab your pearls if you've got em!

Makeup was dramatic and flirtatious and anything but natural.

Flappers made it clear they were dolled up!

Smoky eyes, thinned and defined eyebrows, usually a beauty mark or two, bright blush on the apples of the cheeks (very doll-like), and bright lips--typically in red.

Of course, in the new Great Gatsby, Daisy is an exception to this as she is not wholly a flapper.

She goes for the "let your natural beauty shine through" approach, which centers around a flawless, glowing complexion, stunning eyes, and pink lips.

For her look you'll need groomed hair tucked neatly into place (no fly-aways or dramatic volume), neatly groomed brows that extend past the eye, heavy mascara and black eyeliner, and a sheer lip gloss.
For the skin, try a tinted moisturizer or BB cream with highlighter added to it for that extra glow.







Recommended products for this look:
Maybelline Dream Bouncy Blush comes in the ideal color assortment to pull this look off and provides a sheer wash of color that lasts.

Benefit They're Real mascara is thick and dark and awesome for bringing attention to the eyes.

For a gentler Daisy look, try tightlining with a dark brown or grey eyeliner pencil.
In some of the party scenes her eyes are played up more, so you could do a smudged out baby cat eye if you're going for a little more drama while maintaining the innocent look.

I love Sonia Kashuk's Illuminator.
The texture is creamy and almost gel-like and optimal for mixing in with foundation or dabbing on as a highlighter.
It catches the lights on a night out and brings out that glow without ridiculous chunks of glitter--just a subtle shimmer.

This stuff is magical.  Mix it with the illuminator and blend blend blend for believable, clear, glowing skin.

L'Oreal Color Riche Balm in Pink Satin (seen here) or Rose Elixir are great for the innocent baby pink sheen Daisy always has on her lips.
They are moisturizing and kissable and foolproof.

Oh, and don't forget Daisy's nude nails.

Try OPI's Bubblebath or Essie Sugar Daddy.

If those aren't in your price range, Sally Hansen has some awesome shades for $1-$2 at Wal Mart.
Hard Core Party is one of my favorite baby pinks from that line.







What is your favorite way to incorporate Jazz Age Art Deco Gatsby style into your everyday life?

That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

-Daisy, The Great Gatsby

HUGE NEWS

I have so much to write about and I am SO behind on my updates and photo blogs.
I still haven’t written about our weekender to the gorgeous red rocks (2 months ago!!) or our recent adventures in Salt Lake’s sudden fit of sunshine.

But I will let you all know that there is a pretty valid reason for this. . .
We may have gotten a house.

Finally.

I say MAY because I don’t want to jinx anything.

Let me tell you the story…

We found an adorable blue Victorian house online that was a sweet old thing in the perfect area between downtown Salt Lake and Sugarhouse,right by Liberty Park.  We had an appointment to see it the next day because the renters required 24 hour notice(I hate that—do you want to sell your house or don’t you??!), but we decided to drive by the night before because the outside and area tell you a lot about a house.

And this was a doozy. Online it appeared in great condition. Well, those pictures must have been taken years ago, because it was a dump. And not the kind of dump a fresh coat of paint and few weed-pulls will fix. They had trashed this sweet little Victorian.  And that sort of thing—neglected houses—hurts my heart.  The roof would need immediate replacing, the outside was falling apart, the tree in the yard was coming down with it, and the backyard…was more of a lump of potholes and gopher holes and strange mounds (all dirt and rock) than the large grassy area they had indicated in the listing.
It wasn’t even fenced in, so we went down the creepy back alleyway behind the house and there she was in all of her dilapidated glory.

We were depressed.  And decided to cruise through the area while we were down there to see all of the cute houses that had been taken care of.
We went down a nice side street and saw a corner lot that was undeveloped, with the original trees of the area (they must be a hundred years old!).  The house down the adjoining street had bought 2 lots and turned the corner lot to the left of their house into their forest yard. Brilliant.
We exclaimed “what a wonderful idea! Those people are really neat!” and proceeded to drive past the woodsy corner and BOOM.  The house next to the woods, kitty-corner from the awesome people’s house, was for sale. I know that is confusing—here is my
terrible illustration:

And this cute house next door was cute. White with an ivy green trim (and ivy climbing up the frontporch rails!!), a little peaked roof poking out on top (the attic) and….
A WHITE. PICKET. FENCE.   Seriously.

This cottage was the epitome of the American dream.
It even had a gnome in the front garden.
Eli and I died a bit from the adorableness. There were not fliers provided with the FOR SALE sign and we gazed on it for a bit, said “well, it’s obviously out of our price range…” and let it go.  We drove on.

But you know how things that are meant to happen do? And everyone says to have patience with house hunting because the right house will come along at the right time and everything happens for a reason?
A few days later, Saturday morning, Eli and I were soaking up the sun on our porch and he was cruising through the new house listings and he found Cute House and although it was a bit pricey, it was still in our range. He called the realtor while I took a quick shower, and a few hours later we were opening up the white picket gate and walking up the steps to tour the house.

And we loved it.  It is quirky and full of personality.  It has a fireplace and an attic we could refurbish and French doors leading onto a gorgeous deck and luscious backyard full of matured, leafy, tall trees.
We wanted it. After seeing more than 30 houses, our realtor could see we were serious about this one, so for 3 days he went back and forth with their realtor and never stopped working for us until we put in an offer at $12,000 less than their asking price. They accepted and it went under contract.
Holy shit.
We’ve made several offers on houses, none of which we loved this much, and thiswas the first one we got.  What joy!

So we are having the inspection on Tuesday and hopefully everything comes up alright so we can bust out the paperwork and get in there as soon as possible! We are dying with anticipation!
Unfortunately part of the paperwork is a lot of old stuff (like 2011’s W2s) so we’re on the hunt trying to collect the necessary documents as soon as possible.  Which is stressful of course.
Not to mention the burden of moving itself. But…. This will be our last big move for years and years and years.

But it is a house. Our house.  Granted something-unexpected doesn’t come up during the Inspection, like a massive termite infestation, bodies in the crawl space, explosive wiring, you know.

 Are you ready for a photo??! Me too.

I can see us living here.  With our (future) puppy.  Sipping margaritas on the shady porch.

TEAR IT DOWN: The Destruction of Historical Sites

A road? A road? My pyramid for a road?

Have you heard about this? An invaluable 2,300 year old Mayan pyramid in Belize bulldozed.
Not to make room for development, but to use its stones to build roads.  Seriously.
The pyramid in question was part of the Nohmul Complex, set in the center of a privately owner sugar cane field.  It was approximately 100 feet tall and a well-known ruin.

They can dig rock out of the earth anywhere and crush it for building materials, and instead they bulldozed a historical size.  It is the MAYANS we are talking about here, not a recent civilization that still exists or anything.  Plus, this pyramid was on private land, and all of these historical ruins are government protected, though they never do much about it.  This has been a common occurrence recently.

Where the House of Abu Bakr once stood, now part of the Hilton.

What is to be done?

 Not that destruction of the majesty of the past is anything new; religious sites in particular are susceptible to damage or complete demolition, especially during war.
Islamic heritage sites are very much endangered, though ironically, they have removed some of their own ancient treasures.  For example, several mosques and the house of Abu Bakr were demolished in Mecca to make way for a very Las Vegas style hotel strip surrounding the Kaaba.

 MECCA THEN

MECCA NOW

A once beautiful palace and prime example of Islamic-Iranian architecture, the victim of Baha'i persecution.

A Syrian minaret wrecked by current conflict.

 

The famous tallest Buddha statue in the world, 

gone.

  When is it appropriate to destroy a historical site?

 Can they really be considered mere "casualties of war?"

Does it change your mind to know that some ancient cultures are responsible for more destruction of their own valuable sites than we are today?
The Romans were particularly guilty of these, from royals plundering old temples to build up their own palaces, to pulling the supports out of the Colosseum to melt down and use for steel.

What about historical sites where unpleasant events took place?

Like the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris?

This was a huge indoor bicycle racing track used for multiple sports, and the first indoor permanent Parisian amphitheater. Hemingway wrote about it.  In 1942 it was used during the Jewish roundup and thousands of French Jews were kept there for a week in sweltering heat with no bathroom and limited food and water before being sent to concentration camps.

Shameful of what the Vel d'Hiv had stood for, the French tried to revive it as a track after the war, but it fell into disrepair and many were repulsed by the memory of what had happened there and had no desire to attend events in it.

It was destroyed in 1959.

Hitler's Berghof in the mountains of Bavaria was critical to who he was and what he did.  As he put it, "My great plans were forged here."  He lived here for years and important documents were stored here.

American soldiers bombed it when they arrived in 1945, and my Grandfather, who was stationed in Germany, witnessed the destruction.  We actually have a postcard he sent with a photograph of the destroyed building where he mentioned how the soldiers were making a mockery of it and playing in the rubble with some of the valuables that had been inside.

Can you imagine? "Oh, here is Hitler's tea mug! Look, Eva Braun's tablecloth..."
Of course with what was happening in the world, the instinct of the liberating soldiers would to be complete destruction.  But was it right?

When is this sort of destruction justified?
What if there was something in the rubble that could have helped us better understand this monster and the way his thoughts worked and some unknown aspect of the Nazi party?

The bombing raid didn't accomplish full demolition, so the Bavarian government blew it up completely a few years later, to "discourage tourists" or so they said.
I think humiliation was also a large factor in their decision to get rid of it.
Desire to cover up a dirty  past is a shared cross-cultural sentiment.

 All that remains is the overgrown structure.  Nature has reclaimed the rest.
Would anyone hiking through the area with no knowledge of history suspect the thoughts and events that took place there? Plans that would change the world forever?

I love coming across old ruins and wondering what happened there.
I often think my own daydreamed narratives are better than the actual history of a place.

Many things tied to World War II have since been destroyed, and yet some that people deem upsetting and purposeless in preserving remain, namely concentration camps.

Should these be destroyed?

Should they be left to let nature reclaim?  Should they be mass graves? Should they be cordoned off and left to rot?

A variety of these options have already been enacted on the concentration camps of WWII-- some have been preserved as museums, others marked as cemeteries only, and a few destroyed (by the Nazis to cover up evidence).

Treblinka was one of these.

The Nazis thrashed it in 1943, razing the buildings and planting trees to disguise what was once there.  But 1946 investigations (to gain evidence used in war crime trials) found barbed wire, remains of burnt fences, the old train tracks prisoners were brought in on, an old well, and foundation stones of the administrative building.  Upon digging they of course found human remains and ash. These were left alone (no excavation) as it is against Jewish belief.
So it is a mass grave.  And I like the way that it has been left.

Plaszoq camp is similar. This is the camp Schindler's List was based on (and parts of it filmed there).

 Here is it then...

 And today.

Bergen-Belsen is a graveyard, including the tombstone of Anne Frank. 

But some camps have been wholly preserved, most famously (or infamously), Auschwitz.

It exists to educate people about the Holocaust, and, so they hope, prevent anything as horrific from happening ever again.

Psychohistorian Joel Markowitz put it ""Neurologists tell us that memories aren't fixed representations of experiences...Museums collect evidence of past events... The collective Jewish mind uses such museums to work through its remarkable levels of trauma and loss; and to better understand their history and post-Holocaust evolution as a very different people than they had been."

What do you think?  Can we achieve this?
Is a museum on the site of an unchanged death camp a way to neutralize the horrors of what took place there?
Can the artifacts on display--including human hair and shoes--create empathy?
Can empathy be a cure against hatred and genocide?

Or should these buildings be torn down? Does the history of murder ever truly leave a place?

Just some heavy thoughts on history and humans and destruction for your Wednesday afternoon.  Let me end with a Carl Sandburg poem I love that addresses these notions: 

GRASS

ILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo,

Shovel them under and let me work--

I am the grass; I cover all.

 

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?

Where are we now?

 

I am the grass.

Let me work.