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2013: The Dillow Year in Music

It's time! It's time for the round up posts! It's one of the hap-happiest times of the year!

As usual, our 2013 acquisitions are all over the musical map, just like we like it.

Pictured from left to right:

Lianne La Havas Is Your Love Big Enough?
Trampled by Turtles Duluth
Old Crow Medicine Show  Carry Me Back
ACDC Back in Black
Eagles Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975
Shovels and Rope O' Be Joyful
Otis Taylor Recapturing the Banjo
Owl City Ocean Eyes
R.E.M. Out of Time
R.E.M. Life's Rich Pageant
Prince and the Revolution Parade
Edward Grieg Peer Gynt Suite: No 1 & 2
Camille Saint-Säens Organ Symphony
Steve Martin & Edie Brickell Love Has Come For You
Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City
The Lone Bellow The Lone Bellow
Pixies Wave of Mutilation: Best of Pixies
Alice in Chains The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis The Heist
Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience
Dan Zanes & Elizabeth Mitchell Turn Turn Turn
Ben Harper with Charlie Musselwhite Get Up!
The Wood Brothers The Muse
The Avett Brothers Magpie and the Dandelion
Pearl Jam Lightning Bolt
Timothy Seth Avett The Mourning, the Silver, the Bell
Thao & the Get Down Stay Down We the Common
Neil Young Live at the Cellar Door
John Mayer Paradise Valley
Canadian Brass A Holiday Tradition
The Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Rocks!
Taylor Swift Red

Not pictured:
The I-49 Brass Christmas album, which Maddie received for Christmas on CD (not easy to acquire, it's a local quintet within the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and we have a two degrees connection; it hasn't been imported into the iTunes library yet)

So. Notes.

+ Can you identify the two specific Bridget requests? Of course you can. : ) And Justin Timberlake isn't one of them. Ahem.

+ There was some more filling-in of staples: Eagles (well, not my staple, I'm good), ACDC, R.E.M. (what? apparently we only had these two on cassette), Prince (back off, this is one of the best Prince albums OF ALL TIME, right behind Sign O the Times)

+ One of the highlights of the live musical year was taking the girls to the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra to hear the husband of Maddie's 3rd/4th grade teacher perform; it's fun to own the music you've seen performed live, and classical music is such a bargain to purchase.

+ I'm not really over my Avett Brothers disappointment of 2013. Magpie and the Dandelion is good, but will forever be ever-so-slightly tainted with disappointment over the cancelled concert.

+ We didn't buy any music in March or November, but for no apparent reason.

+ I like Macklemore very much. This album is not available for all ears in the household, but Can't Hold Us is probably the song of the summer for the Dillow women—not that we had any choice, because there are limited radio options around here and we drove a billion miles this summer, meaning we heard this song on the radio at least three times a day. It's a good thing it's a good song. And it's awfully cute to hear them belting it out, though I'm pretty sure they still have no idea what language he is speaking when he says Wu Tang Clan. Heh. Macklemore's Tiny Desk concert ties for first place for me this year. (OK Go shares the title)

+ It must be noted that the song Is Your Love Big Enough by Lianne La Havas is fantastic. The rest of the album is both hot and cold for me, but I still like it.

+ Vampire Weekend: perennial Dillow family favorite.

+ I think Matt would say his top three albums of the year would be: Carry Me Back by Old Crow Medicine Show, Duluth by Trampled By Turtles, and Live from the Cellar Door by Neil Young. We the Common by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down surprised me by being so good as to climb into the top three for me, sharing space with Ben Harper's Get Up! and maybe a tie between Shovels and Rope and The Wood Brothers (with the Avett Brothers rounding out the top five). We were both a little tiny bit disappointed in the solo offering from Seth Avett, but we'll give that some more chances to redeem itself in 2014. Maybe.

Music continues to be one of the greatest sources of happiness in our house. What did you listen to and love this year?

December All At Once™

OK, so December All At Once isn't actually trademarked, but I feel there might be a market for it out there for those of us who gawk in amazement at all the people who are able to keep up a daily record of their December activities : )

We had precious little true downtime (the first Saturday of December was pretty much it) and we managed to pull off masterful acts of laziness, like taking showers late in the day only to change into clean sweatpants. We also dug deep into the Interesting Toy Archives of My Youth.

We decorated the Louisiana House, which all in all turned out pretty well even though we had to leave a lot of our Christmas decorations in tubs this year for lack of a place to put them (not books, that's just a general photo I took). I made pretty window swag wreath thingies for free, which are sadly deader than a doornail now, which I'm sure causes anyone driving by to eye us with suspicion ("honey, is that lady with Wyoming plates a witch?") Maybe, neighbors, maybe. Just wait until I whisk away Christmas in one fell swoop in the middle of the night.

I am not making this up: I searched high and low for this particular box of Kleenex so I could give it to Gracie as a Christmas gift. Victory was mine, even though I did have to rearrange approximately 49 boxes of Kleenex at the commissary to get to it ("uhm, honey, is that the witch we saw earlier rearranging the Kleenex section? Don't make eye contact...")

Bridget climbed to the bell for the very first time ever, which was a VERY BIG DEAL. She has not yet been able to replicate her feat, but it probably takes a month for her stick arms to recover after such exertion.

We attended Maddie's Christmas band concert. It was approximately 23,000 times better than last year's Christmas band concert.

Someone turned 9, and was excited to share her favorite classroom birthday treat (the cookie lollipop) with a new part of the country. This happens to be the easiest birthday treat ever, except that I was making them at the exact same time as I was making homemade Buckeye ice cream for my parents, and that made the kitchen veer slightly out of control for a little while. The birthday girl received some lovely gifts from family and friends, and one gift from us this year: an engraved iPod Nano. She was most excited.

There was out-of-state gymnastics in Arkansas (new state!!) which ended happily with many first place medals, including a first place all-around in her age group for Maddie (and a second place all-around for Gracie). While there, we experienced a ginormous competitive cheer event that was running simultaneously at the convention center in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Competitive cheer appears to be both very popular and very loud. I had no idea how calm and quiet gymnastics is in comparison, but believe me, it is.

There were grandpa shenanigans....

...and cutthroat chess matches, because Grandma takes no prisoners now that Maddie is old enough to come [thisclose] to winning. But then getting cutthroated by her grandma at the last minute.

We saw Frozen (the five of us on Dec 1) and the second installment of The Hobbit (reprise of last year's movie-going cast: me, Matt, Maddie, and Grandpa). Grandma stayed home with Gracie and Bridget to watch The Sound of Music, because while hobbits and orcs and goblins aren't quite as scary to them on a TV screen anymore, an IMAX 3D screen is a different story entirely. We enjoyed both, though I'm going to confess that I didn't love the snowman in Frozen. I was distracted by the fact that it seemed like he dropped in from some other movie because he just didn't match. But that's a small complaint, really. We loved The Hobbit, and look forward to next year when we can go see the final installment in yet another state.

Traditional Christmas treats were made: sugar cookies with little girls old enough to tackle some far more complicated icing work than in previous years, toffee with Grandpa, and chocolate covered cherries. Matt and I have been making chocolate covered cherries together since Christmas of 2000—hundreds of cherries over the years—and this was the first year we had an absolute FAIL. The chocolate seized and we had to quit the first night (blergh!), and the second night we didn't get the hang of whatever the HECK the climate here was doing to our tried-and-true routine until close to the very end. We shared our mediocre cherries with our local friends here anyway, who were too kind to care. Either that or too busy stuffing their gobs with them to notice. Ha.


There were front yard portraits and bayou selfies taken at the end of a very fun visit.


We spent a lot of time trashing the table over and over with our Christmas mail mess, and a lot of time at various post offices mailing off packages to faraway friends and family.

Sparkle Twinkletoes had a fun day at Elf Elementary School.

The girls scootered on Christmas Eve while we dreamed of a proper white Christmas, though it was in the low 30s when we went for a walk on Christmas Eve night which made us all very happy. Better than nothing.

I made the best pizza I have ever tasted for dinner on Christmas Eve, which was an adaptation from a Pioneer Woman recipe (of course, as that's where all the best ever things come from around here). It was really, really good.

We had a terribly misshapen tree this year but it still served gallantly all month.

There were lots of thoughtful gifts exchanged—even Ellie got into the action, giving her family two Blue Dog books by George Rodrigue. We were saddened to learn a few days ago that he passed away this month.

The kitty-cat had a wonderful, wonderful day today. You hear about how rescue dogs seem particularly happy after living with their new families for a while, and she has definitely reached this point. She did a lot of dog-smiling and contented sighing this week, especially.

We have some very dear, thoughtful friends who know how much we're missing winter and snow this December, so they sent a kit to make our own—Bridget was in charge of the opening and creating today, and we now have a Ziploc bag in the freezer filled with happy, pretend snow.

I'm missing all sorts and kinds of things about the month no doubt, but that's what you get with December All At Once™.

: )

 

Chronicle Books/iTunes Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to #8, Missy Kemp : ) Thanks for playing along everyone! It was fun to see what you've purchased... will give me lots to look up.

Giveaway: Chronicle Books/This Is Happening + iTunes

Earlier this year I had an Instagram photo picked up for a book being published by Chronicle Books called This Is Happening, which is a great little collection of stellar photos from Instagram users. I was very excited by this for three reasons:

1.) Chronicle Books has always been my favorite publishing house, because they published the Griffin & Sabine series. Plus a whole lot of other wonderful things over the years.

2.) The first seven months of 2013 were devoted to designing/marketing/pulling off The Phone Photography Project so it was nice to have a little external confirmation that my phone photos did not stink.

3.) The photo that was selected is, in my opinion, one of the best Cheyenne Frontier Days photos ever taken. Heh.

I also discovered when I got my advance copies that my photo appears next to a photo taken by Bakerella, which makes me both hungry and excited.

You can buy This Is Happening at the Chronicle Books website or at Amazon.

I am a blog of modest means (read: zero means) and little advertising (read: zero advertising) but in the spirit of December, I thought I'd follow the lead of Cathy Zielske and her One Days of Giveaways and give away my extra copy of This Is Happening + a $15 iTunes card (that I received at OfficeMax for buying a kazillion ink cartridges—easy come easy go) to a friendly and loyal reader out there : ) All you have to do is leave a comment telling me the last thing you purchased on iTunes. Or your favorite title from Chronicle Books. Or just say hi, that'll do, too! Comments will stay open until they're closed (ha) but probably until Tuesday night-ish, so don't delay.

Merry Christmas!

December Duos Giveaway Winners

Congratluations to Jennifer, Nita, and Susan for winning a spot in December Duos! I'll be in touch with details this weekend. : )

It's Christmas Spirit Time!

I've updated the banner, dusted off some broken links that are now working again, and will now jump into a mish-mash of Christmas news/giveaways/projects! 

1. I have some really fun projects featured today over at the Cosmo Cricket blog! I had the opportunity to make some things with their new Show Toppers™ Mason jar lids, which turn a regular old wide-mouth Mason jar into something crafty and clever. I wanted to share a little more about the tickets that are in the top of the Nutcracker jar here, because they are one of my most favorite Christmas projects ever. I thought I had shared them here already but it might have been over at Write.Click.Scrapbook. a few years ago. 

Since I already had the tickets made from a 2010 performance we attended, I decided one of these jars needed to be Nutcracker-themed to display them (with the idea that next time we go, I'll update the tickets for display). Bridget and I found the little Nutcracker at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 and I glued him to the bottom of the jar with heavy duty glue. He slipped the tiniest little bit while he was drying even though I held him in place for a good four minutes, but that's OK. Drop in a little fake snow, hang a mobile of bells from the inside of the lid (there is a HOOK in there for this purpose!!) and ta-da! Done.

Back in the olden days when Matt and I were dating tickets were lovely, fun, and full of character:

Nowadays, you're not usually given the option to get pretty tickets and they look like this:

BORING. Yuck.

So, armed with my experience designing tickets for high school theater in Montana, I knew I could make that turn into this:

So much better, right? It's a lot more fun to share pretty tickets (and better for scrapbook pages later) than ugly e-ticket printouts! Go check out the other projects at Cosmo Cricket too... easy, fast ideas that can easily be replicated/adapted for teacher gifts, neighbor gifts, and personal decorations.


2. Have you registered for the newest offering from Big Picture Classes yet?

It's called December Duos, and it's all about a slightly different way to document your December memories. Here's the official rundown:

The "December Duos" concept is easy, stress-free, and inspiring. Every day for the twelve days leading up to Christmas Day, two of our twelve instructors will share a scrapbook layout, video message, and a page prompt in the form of a duo ("warm & cold," "give & receive," "near & far"). That's a total of two-dozen inspiring ideas!

You can follow the instructor's lead or march in your own direction as you snap your photos for the day. Then, after printing our fabulously free journaling cards and title cards, you'll either slip the cards and your photos into a Project Life mini album from American Crafts or use them on a traditional (or digital) scrapbook page.

12 Days of Christmas: December Duos makes it easy to capture all of your most important holiday moments—in a festive new format—while keeping up with all the parties, presents, and pageants that make the holiday season magical.

Learn more and register here.

The class begins December 12, and I have three spots to give away today! Leave a comment on this post between now and Friday night and I'll post the winners (along with another giveaway!) this weekend. Go!

Today I

You know the "Today I..." lists, right? They're always so quaint and fun. Well. My "today I" list is just weird.

•••••••••••••••••••••

Today I... sawed two 6 ft+ banana plants down to the ground. Took 45 minutes from start to end. Contemplated yelling timber. Did not.

Today I... went to a Cajun store to buy 18 pounds of rice. Tried to not gawk at the Confederate flag hanging above the checkout.

Today I... discovered I might be the only person who doesn't know the book/song The Christmas Shoes, and was informed that this actually means I lead a charmed life.

Today I... packaged up an order of photographs for the base museum in Wyoming and dreamed of a white Christmas.

Today I... wore sandals. Cursed the weather.

Today I... tasked Matt with finding me a list of not-sandal shoe possibilities to buy with my birthday gift card.

Today I... obsessively checked the 10 day forecast again and discovered with glee that it's supposed to get cold and nasty this weekend. I might be the only person in Louisiana to react with glee to this news.

Today I... put off grocery shopping at the commissary on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving weekend. Am engaging in a full-on game of grocery shopping chicken. The cupboards are (almost completely) bare but I will make it work for one more day. And if it goes well, maybe even two.

: )