Life in Denim and Flip Flops

It's been a super crazy week at work. Book sale, teaching classes, and desperately attempting to get enough sleep to function (or substituting caffeine). Sadly there was much caffeine substitution. But it's Friday night and I'm still kickin' so that's a good sign. Tonight I'm babysitting 2 little boys and an iPad. So clearly it is my civic duty to test out the iPad while I listen to the boys giggle while supposedly asleep in the next room. So without further adieu, the things I loved this week. Ok, so using a bulleted list on the iPad is going to be way too much work as I would have to hand code it (using a keyboard split up into 3 sections: letters, numbers and frequent symbols, and lesser used symbols) and I'll be honest I'm just not that dedicated to them to go through that. ;) I mean the apostrophes are a pain enough. Though with time I'm sure I could get used to it. Or find a browser or app that supports the compose mode on blogger. By now I...

Let me start by saying if you're going to visit Memphis, I'd recommend the Springhill Suites as a great place to stay. I adored the room (freaking huge), the bed was super comfy (I rarely sleep well away from home), and the staff (especially at the front desk) were the best around. But that's not what I wanted to blog about. What I really loved were the renovations they were doing. Walking into the front lobby was like walking into my dream color scheme. If I were on David Bromstad 's Color Splash and needed a place to go for color inspiration (Amy...you may be the only one reading who knows what I mean), this would be the place!! Here are some photos of the furniture. I took the pics with the camera on my phone on a sunny day, so the colors look washed out. That's a lime green and pale blue striped couch, with pillows of the same colors. And the chair is similar colors with a bit of brown for a punch. I was in love at first sight. And then I realized that the...

What a whirlwind so far! After a long drive Thursday, we finally made it to our stop in Missouri after 11pm. That night pretty much just involved crashing. And an early wake up call (we left before 8). Today started with an early drive and a first stop at the Civil Rights Museum. What an experience. The 30 min video you start with is really moving. Then after following your way through history you find yourself at the balcony where MLK died. Just intense. After that we did lunch on Beale Street. Ok about half of us did. Half the group ate at Rendezvous Barbeque. I had chicken and waffles at Miss Polly's. So yummy! Then it was off to Sun Records. What a cool little museum/tour. I got to stand in the same room where Johnny Cash, Elvis Pressley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and B.B. King recorded albums. And it's still a functioning recording studio. Who knew? After checking in at our gorgeous hotel, we did dinner as a large group at Superior Barbeque. Oh man were those dry rubbe...

I figured if I was planning on blogging from the road duringmy trip I ought to test this out before I leave. :) It's going to be a long day of driving tomorrow. I'm realizing now that I haven't spent that nuch time in a car with other people in a while. I've done a 3 hour trip with Gretchen recently, but some how I think 8 plua hours with a bunch of college students is a totally different ballgame. Wish me luck! Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

If you've seen me or been following me online this week, you'll know that I had designated this weekend as "Indian food weekend." Ever since I watched Aarti Sequeria win The Next Food Network Star, I have been stoked to try some of her recipes. I've been DVRing all the episodes. I've learned from Melissa D'Arabian's show that DVR helps because I can use both the print recipe and the video to help me pull off the recipe. Especially when it involves skills or techniques I haven't done before. So early in the week I looked through her collection of recipes for a few that seemed up my alley. I ended up with the Sloppy Bombay Joes , Apple-Lime-Peanut Slaw , and the Ugly Duckling Salad . All were listed as easy, and I'd seen them made. Now I should preface this with the fact that I'm not well versed in Indian cuisine. I've had some before, but sadly it was most recently in Belfast over a year ago. I was excited to try some Indian flavors ...

I'm making Indian food tomorrow. I've been super excited watching Aarti Party on Food Network. Tomorrow's the day. I'm making 3 different dishes. I'm hoping to take pics of final products so I can post them tomorrow. Originally I was thinking today, but after spending a few hours scoring at the tournament, I was exhausted so I opted to head to my grandma's house to hang out with some of my immediate and extended family for a little while instead. Now I'm gonna head to bed and sleep in to recover from my long week at work :)

Sorry about the lack of a good TILT blog yesterday. Honestly I was planning to blog yesterday. That is until my phone decided to go heywire. After attempts to fix it Wednesday night, I figured it was time to buy a new one since I was due for a 2-year upgrade in less than a month anyway. So I did. Quickly became addicted and...well that's why you didn't get a post yesterday. Sorry. I'm only really thinking about the work week. If I did a TILT for the whole week since last Thursday it would be a mile long. I'm reserving the weekend as a wholly separate thing. If you want to know what I did Saturday, I've blogged about it already. But I don't want to go back and blog about the rest of it. It would be like tainting it with this week. :( I'm mental. I know. Onto the Things I love: my phone--After asking for advice and suggestions about phones, I ended up with the LG Ally. It's a smart phone (my first!) with both a touch screen and slide out QWERTY keyboa...

Spurred in part by Aarti's numerous flowers, my new hair coloring (a month ago), and my desire to accessorize, I found I had this desire to wear a flower in my hair. Amy and I scoured etsy for some cute ones. We found some beautiful ones that were way out of my price range, and the ones that were...I could easily make for less. So...I did. Somehow they've become a bit of a signature of mine. A coworker asked me last week where the flower was. "Wherever Becky is, there's a flower." So I'm embracing it, and this last weekend I added to the collection because Amy wanted to make some of her own. Here's the one I wore today. (With my messy 'sleep on wet hair treatment' curls!) This is the red flower ring I made. The bud was too small for a hair clip, and it totally matched my outfit today. (See sweater in the photo above.) And now for Christina, a sampling of the rest of my collection. The smaller sunflower in this next pic is probably one of my f...

Today has been fabulous food day. First we went to yum! Kitchen and Bakery . Amy had the grilled cheese, which looked totally delish; she confirms this. I got the Apple Walnut salad. The maple vinaigrette dressing was delectable. I wanted to lick the plate, or buy a bottle and put a straw in it. Gross I know, but trust me, exactly what you'd think too! Then the shopping began. We hit two kid's book stores: Wild Rumpus and Red Balloon Bookshop . And apparently I'm still in spendy mode. (Sort of a dangerous place for me to be.) I ended up with 5 new young adult books. Because clearly I need more books to read. (I've got Clockwork Angel sitting at my apartment waiting for me to save it from it's Amazon box too.) In case you're wondering what I bought (because you know you are), I'll list them below. Audrey, Wait! ---by Robin Benway Life after genius ---by M. Ann Jacoby Friend is not a verb ---by Daniel Ehrenhaft Love is the higher law ---by David Levith...

I am now the proud owner of an autographed copy of "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks." Amy is the bestest. I'll post a picture later when I'm not too lazy to get up off the couch to grab my camera. Yep. It's one of those days. Too tired to move. I think it's the 5 hours in a car and the 3 classes I taught today. However, the promise of a weekend with Amy (and Gretchen...on Sunday) makes it all worth it!!!

I love quotes. Movie quotes, book quotes, funny quotes, inspirational quotes. Doesn't matter. My friend and I used to publish a weekly newsletter in college that we spiced up with famous quotes. Most weeks we spent more time digging through her quotations dictionary looking for the perfect quote to complement our writing than we did on the writing itself. Then there were those weeks where we found the perfect quote first, and then wrote stuff to fit it. I can only begin to imagine how much fun we could have had if Quotables had been around back then! My BEDA buddy Nicola introduced me. And boy was it love at first site (pun, as always, intended)! It's a fun, super easy to use quote database. Now I'm sure you're wondering why I couldn't just Google them. Well, I could. But it wouldn't be nearly as fun. And I can submit my own favorite quotes and love ones I find, and collect them and share them. It's like a social network for quotes!! How can it be bad? (A...