Back off Minnesota

Minnesota tried to front real hard last week. Day I fly into town = first day of negative temperatures in the entire month of January. The next four consecutive days? Negative. Double digit negative? Yep.

Back the fuck up Minnesota, you don't scare me.

great dudes. great place.

look at that babette & roomie. look at that wine soaked pasta!

SO much food. plate after plate. hearts bar la grassa, hearts.

jurikills.

pbg+hmck. i stare dreamily.

babettes leslie + kyndra

spending quality time with quality people is one of the great joys in life.

Moments.

Looking through my minneapolis photos I realized there were a number of flicks on my camera that haven't made it up on the blog (and a few that have) that are lovely snapshots of a perfect moment. Some of these moments were perfect because of who I shared them with; some because at the time, and still now, they make me feel like the life I live is a very special one. There's not much more to these than that...hope they remind you that the little things can be really great moments.

fancy salt! for leslie and sam

So even if you're not going to get Barbeque from Black's, or buy fancy salt or find a swingset during your lunch break make sure you do something (and take a photo). Keep those moments coming.

words & dreams

Austin Kleon is technically a writer but I think I would consider him an artist as well. He lives in Austin and last summer I went to the Hotel San Jose for a film screening/artist talk and he happened to be part of the event. I had not heard of him, but I definitely know the Hotel San Jose.

This beautiful oasis was literally the first place I ever went in Austin, if only for a second.


After a 20 hour drive from Minneapolis to our first ever SXSW we parked on Congress Avenue to get lunch at Guerro's. As we walked up the street Jenn and I peaked in through this gate. We walked in to a Secret Garden.

I've since learned you are allowed to walk through that gate and make your way back to the lovely courtyard. If you do make it back there do yourself a favor and grab a seat at the big wooden table in the back and ask for a michelada. I prefer the wooden table in the back as it makes for great people watching, and if you don't have a large group it's a lovely way to meet interesting people. I prefer the micheladas because they are delicious.

I stumbled across Austin Kleon's website while looking for images of sxsw for a work proposal. I found his post titled "SXSW Horoscopes" and I've been transported back to a lovely evening from last summer, where I sat in the outodoor courtyard of the Hotel San Jose in the heat and drank Micheladas with sweat pouring off the glass. Crystal and Tomasz along with an assortment of other characters played with newspapers and markers and attempted to create our own stories.

These are my favorite of his SXSW Horoscopes. How charming!

If you've never tried this approach at writing a poem I highly encourage it. Choose an article, grab a sharpie and give it a try - it's harder than you might imagine.

Sometimes you just need to swing it out

Two weeks ago I had the most glorious lunch break of all time with my lovely coworkers Monica & Anastasia. I had mentioned earlier in the day that I wanted to go out for a juice or coffee, so we stopped at Daily Juice and basked in the sunlight and the glory of all things fresh and delicious. It was so beautiful out I decided to take the girls on a little adventure...cue non-stop laughter the first 15 minutes we were swinging. Sheer joy is a swingset on a sunny day.

this kid was both psyched and confused by our presence. so was his dad.