ttfn!

I'm seeing this girl today! (The one on the left. Although most likely I'll be looking in a mirror at some point today as well.)

Also, I'm dying to see this man. (Again, the one on the left. Steve Carell is cool and all, but RYAN GOSLING IS SO HOT.) In Crazy, Stupid, Love or in person. Either way.

linky linkies.

An article from Psychology Today about taxing the rich (WARNING: pretty unabashedly one-sided) ((And what is this doing on Psychology Today?))

Lovely summer song from Givers, brought to you by my love for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series.


A very thoughtful blog (well, Tumblr) written by an articulate fellow Gordonite.

**Side note: I was looking at some past blog posts, mostly yesterday's, and realized how many grammar errors/ stylistic "winces" I make! (And YES MOM, I KNOW YOU'VE TOLD ME THIS LIKE FIVE TIMES.) Bad, bad English major. Time to start proofing, I guess. Lo siento!

my weekend + jessica and ash bettany's home

I got a bit tired of scanning the internet for pretty pictures the other day--so, sorry for the delay. Probs because I actually had a semblance of a life this weekend.

Friday night, Brian, Jaime, Lena, and Matt and I went out to the Wherehouse in Newburgh. Definitely recommended if you're a vegetarian, because there are lots of options for you and it's a very hipster place. (And if you're a vegetarian, you're likely to be a hipster.)

Mostly everyone slept over at my house, and we got up bright and early to help out at Habitat for Humanity. Maybe "help" is a relative term. Lena and I strung up temperamental work lights for TWO HOURS before graduating to screwing in some screws. (I always feel like such a girl whenever I volunteer here. The site managers take one look at me and are like, "You go hold a ladder somewhere.")

Later that day we hiked up Bear Mountain with my sister.

I did this hike a couple of years ago with Brian (who happens to be a cross-country runner) some other friends and almost died of out-of-shapeness. Brian had called back from several dozen yards ahead, "Just think of how proud you'll feel and how worth it it'll be at the top."

I huffed to myself and thought hotly, "Yeah, I don't subscribe to that whole go-for-the-gold thing? I'd rather be a quitter and not sweat to death." Did you catch my pun? hehe

This time, though, it wasn't so bad. I could actually appreciate the view at the top because my head wasn't between my knees!

The hike was a great time to laugh and talk and watch Brian get chased by a bee for half a mile. We drove home that night, stopping only at Lena's cousin's house to jump fully clothed into their pool.

And now, to make up for all those words you just had to read, enjoy these pictures, via Design*Sponge.

erin loechner.

Man, I've just been stumbling over sweet blogs lately.

These images are all via design for mankind.



I'd like to steal, seize, or otherwise adopt by force Erin's entire closet. K?




Plus two good reads sent to me by my awesomely awesome friend Brett.

The Future of College (education)
The Crazier the Better (writing)

married bliss.

So, after a short whirlwind weekend of wedding stress and beauty (note that lovely alliteration!), I am back home again, once more.

Corrine was stunning. Jesse was adorable. The weather was sweltering.

Seriously, I'm talking groomsmen, bridesmaids, the entire audience just streaming. Pouring. Practically RAINING sweat from their very pores.

Please enjoy my new favorite song from Fleet Foxes' album, Helplessness Blues.

Unfortunately the wedding pictures are not up yet (ARRGGGGGG!!!) but isn't this a pretty store?



Pino Branding, via Black*Eiffel.

(I don't actually know what branding means, or why there's a whole store dedicated to it. But this is not a democracy, and I say I'm allowed to post things I don't understand! Aha!)

getting hitched!

No, not me. Silly.

Them!


The lovely-beyond-belief Corrine and Jesse.

As many of my friends know (due to my constant discussion on the subject), their wedding is on Sunday and I fly out tomorrow to the great Midwest to be a part of it :)

Corrine is a dear friend I've known since freshman year:


We were so cute (and I was so skinny)!

I couldn't be happier for them, or more excited to see Corrine's dress and her wedding decor--she's got mad stylez.

More being returned!

Not me this time (obvs)!

It's Dani, my bes fran and blogger of Fading Margins.

She is officially back in the US, officially back in PA, and officially too big for that rope swing.


:)

Welcome home, girl.

Returned!

Man, what a vaca. My family and I laid out on beaches (which resulted for me in a very oddly shaped sunburn on my legs), ate out A LOT, kayaked, had delicious ice cream almost every day, went for walks and runs, laid out on the hammock with some Billy Collins poetry (that one was just me), played board games, napped, and best of all, WENT TO BED BEFORE TEN PM EVERY NIGHT!

The only problem was that our tire-mounted bike rack kept falling off on the way to the Cape and then shattered our rear window later in the week, resulting in a wonderfully expensive and stressful repair and replacement. But apart from that, smooth sailing!

Pics to come, hopefully.

Seriously, it was so nice to be detached from my computer, phone, and TV (except for movies with the fam) for the week. I forget how time consuming and energy sapping those can be. Of course, as soon as I got home I went online and discovered that a million people had written to me and it took forever to get back to everyone, and then I had to check all the blogs I follow, and the instructions for reupholstering a chair on Little Green Notebook were sort of complicated to envision so I just HAD to study those... and I ended up being on my computer for like five hours the night I got back. My mother mocked me, "You kept saying how much you loved being away from technology and you haven't left your screen for an entire day except to complain for food!"

So apparently my priorities change by day. WHATEVS MOM!!

Also, I found a new favorite blog: Oh Happy Day. The author, Jordan, is living in Paris for a year with her family and has gorgeous photos of all the pretty Parisian stuff (the technical term) that she encounters.








All via Oh Happy Day.

hasta manana!

More like hasta semana, actually (although that's probably-almost-certainly-definitely incorrect Spanish). I guess I'll just stick with hasta luego.

Mi familia and I are going to off to MA for a week long vacation by the ocean. And in the interest of some true relaxation, I'm not bringing my computer. You can bet there'll be lots of swimming, biking, reading, card-playing, napping, laughing, fighting, laying-around-and-eating going on.

etsy's "flirty gems"

via belle maison

the past and future.

What I made for dinner a few nights ago:


Asparagus, artichoke, and shiitake risotto from Smitten Kitchen.

What I'm going to make for breakfast tomorrow:



Blueberry yogurt multigrain pancakes, also from Smitten Kitchen.

(On a side note, I have about a million cookbooks but somehow I keep end up on this particular cooking blog. Absolutely everything I've made from here has been delicious.)

missy higgins.

via treehugger.

The first time I heard of this Australian lovely was from my roommate at band camp (for some reason I always feel like that should be one word, like, bandcamp. And yes, go ahead and make your jokes. I play the flute, too. Har har.). I liked her then but embarrassingly enough, couldn't really understand the accent.

Then she came up on my Pandora station last year and, with my mysteriously vastly improved accent-translating capability, I loved her!

Please enjoy this little sampling :) It's a live recording of her song "Forgive Me." Just start at 2:50.

the summer reading list, final copy.

A People's History, Howard Zinn
Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster
House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safron Foer
Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link

I'm mostly done with A People's History--only around 200 pages left to go, which out of 800 pages feels like being on the last mile of a marathon, and I'm taking a break for a little while because I'm up to the really recent history and it's very taxing and depressing. Hopefully I can crash through House of Leaves while I'm on vacation with the fam. Celebration of Discipline will be a week's read, I think. Then I'm going to try to read Stranger Things and Custer Died together, because the latter will probably also be a tough read, as soon as I get back. Then, Everything is Illuminated and On the Road have got to be finished before August, leaving just enough time for me to power through Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, which is required reading for Oregon.

BEASTINNNNN.

Some that I still want to read, that may substitute for whichever books I can't get out of the library:
State of Wonder
Infinite Jest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Things They Carried
Interpreter of Maladies

jessica helgerson.

images via design*sponge.

a smattering of news.

More food troubles...


More education woes...

Interesting... but how much is advertising responsible for our crappy eating habits, and how much is actually our own fault?

"Made in America"...This makes me want to dance (jobs for people who need them!) and cry (less jobs for even poorer people elsewhere! So much patriotism!) and scream (are jobs the ultimate, even best answer to poverty? How much are we responsible for "assisting" our fellow humans abroad? How does outsourcing affect our relations and image not with the governments, but with the everyday people of other countries? More questions ahhhhhy71%H4tbvb@650ubvnkkkkkkkba%*khop[pjjsbnah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) all at the same time.

emma.

One blog I follow, Design*Sponge, has this feature where the writer suggests home decor and fashion that look like they could be from a particular movie. Today's edition used one of my favorite movies.





Since we're so cool, sometimes my friends and I discuss which Jane Austen man we'd most like to marry. And at least two of them have claimed that Mr. Knightley is, without question, the perfect man. Emma's got some pretty serious 'tude, and he can totally handle it.

Myself, I prefer Mr. Darcy. I know, I know. Cliche. But I am Elizabeth Bennett. (I KNOW. Every girl thinks she's Elizabeth. But I am. Seriously.)

I sense new posting potential...

rock on!

Most likely my wedding will be more traditional than this (although hopefully still unconventional! There's got to be SOME way to be a nonconformist in this world), but it's still awesome.


See that one bridesmaid's hair?!

The other photos keep coming out too small, for some reason, so you'll have to check out the other pictures (especially the bridesmaids' tights!) over at the originating site, stylemepretty.

how i heart you, npr.

Talk of the Nation's "Five Tips for Making Travel More Meaningful."

Of course, there's a lot that could be argued about travel-- the pros and cons of tourism, the motivations, the issues that arise from intercultural dialogue. But in my limited experience, getting out of the US has been incredibly eye-opening, and I pray hope dream want to MUST do it again.

book party!

via little green notebook.