Smitten.

This has nothing to do with the South whatsoever.

I am totally smitten over this girl's blog. I say "girl," she's probably close to my age at least. You don't know how old I am? Oh, well, anyway...

I was browsing through the finalists for the Sam-e Good Mood Gig Blog finalists, one of whom is somebody I know, Susan from MS.

The finalists were asked to make a video of themselves and there were several entries that were hilarious! They did such a great job and were very clever.

This makes me want video equipment and editing software in a desperate way, which isn't a wild request...it's going on two years now that it's been on my "In Your Dreams, Honey" Christmas wish list.

Hmmm...Christmas is coming up...making a mental note of that.

The ones that really stood out to me were Bridgette from CA's video, Justin from D.C. and Rebecca from Utah! They were hilarious.

Bridgette is a video blogger and does an incredible job on her site. I'm officially smitten with her blog now.

Check out this post where she emulated Audrey Hepburn's style for 3 days.

Also, her Twenty Seconds for Twenty Days is really entertaining. I look forward to more exploring on her site!

I'm interested in reading Justin's blog - he's a budding writer and screenwriter. And I couldn't find Rebecca's blog! Rhatz.

Enjoy!

Locust Grove Berry Farm

For an early heads up on getting fresh fruit for the spring, take a look at the blog post that went up on Locust Grove Berry Farm in Jackson.

I visited in July and unfortunately missed the blueberries but there were lots of muscadines and figs growing!

Visit Mississippi Blog and things

I've posted a couple of things on the Visit Mississippi Blogspot with pictures and historical information from a few recent travels:

Heathman Plantation

Dockery Plantation

More is to come on the Culinary Trail along with photos for foodies. There's been some good eatin' around these parts in Cleveland, Merigold, Jackson and Hernando.

There is plenty more to post from the trips I've taken so far, too.

Onward and Nitta Yumaand Indianola

So, after life winds down after the wedding...I'll be whole again...??

This Thursday night, I am playing with my songwriter friends at F. Jones Corner on Farish Street at 830pm for a Jackson Progressives Benefit for Stewpot Ministries. We've been collaborating on a few songs and working on harmonies - love it!!

I Second That Emotion...20 Days and impatiently counting

This week I'll be working on some blog posts for the Visit Mississippi Travel Blog. A few of my coworkers have been traveling the state and posting pictures. It makes me a little jealous because they went to some gorgeous locations - and well, I didn't! I can't be too jealous since I have been traveling lately, too. Pictures forthcoming.

I am this close to finishing the Delta itineraries. For the past few weeks I've been making changes, adding information and collecting feedback from all the proofreaders. Bless them for doing that for me! I've also been tackling the Pines Region, squeezing in a few scripts to read and doing location breakdowns for each one.

Filmmakers send scripts to film offices all over the country, especially to the ones that have good incentives - which means, they get tax breaks for spending a certain amount of money during production. So when scripts are sent into the office, they are thoroughly read and reviewed to see if the locations needed fit the descriptions of those in our database.

In other news, I am going back to the Delta to visit Cleveland on Tuesday with my coworkers to visit with the CVB and other folks, see the sights, eat some food! Cleveland has been designated a Cultural Corners Community, which is a grant program through Tourism and the state of Mississippi to help preserve and promote its cultural heritage significance.

Here's more from the press release:

The MDA Tourism Bureau of Film and Culture established a Certified Cultural Corners
Program in 2008 that identifies communities in Mississippi that have cultural heritage
assets of national significance in at least two of the following areas: American Indian
heritage, art and architecture, Civil War history, Civil Rights history, culinary culture,
literary heritage, and musical heritage.

And from out of no where,
without any warning at all,
here's a wedding hijack!!

The horror!! Ahhhhhh!!!

QB and I have decided to do some decor-related things ourselves to help the budget, so rather than paying the florist to make us an arrangement for $300, we did it for probably about less than half, at the very most.

If I do say so myself, I think the arrangements turned out well. I wasn't sure how I wanted to make it look but it worked itself out, really, in the form of layers. Judging from the altar inside of the church I wanted a lateral arrangement rather than flowers sticking out of a tall urn. There's already a tall cross on the altar and I don't want to detract from that too much.

So, when you stick them together, this is what it will look like:

As you can see below, I have put the arrangements on the top of our kitchen cabinets so they won't get destroyed by the feline element in the house (QB's cat, Eliza, is notorious, in many ways, but flower arrangements in particular...my cat, Greta, is the epitome of perfection, naturally, like her mother...) Also, please ignore the skeezy kitchen curtain that hasn't been replaced since 1972. That's next on our list!

Only the end result was in sight while I was "in the zone" and that thought of taking pictures of the step-by-step process occurred to me while I sat on the kitchen floor after the project was complete. Whoops.

I can tell you what went into it, though:

2 brown baskets
two squares of florist foam each (that was be cut and arranged to fit in the baskets snugly)
4 feather "sticks" each
1 orange baby's breath flower packages each
1 green colored baby's breath flower package each (this was really just background accent color that shows up in the close-up pic more than anything)
1 package of branches each (comes with 4 stems)
2 bags of moss (still have some left over)
Hot glue for moss

I also finished another project but will share more about that later because I have to pick QB up at the airport! Yay! He's home from D.C!

Ooooh.

With all the research and reading I've been doing, it's easy for me to feel a bit disconnected from life as we know it and also what is going on in the pop culture world.

Getting disconnected, unfortunately is easy for me to do and I don't like it, especially when I let myself get caught up in the "enough" spiral: What I am doing is not enough. (I roll my eyes just thinking about it.) So, from time to time, I hit bottom and have to re-evaluate, re-examine and replenish my well, rest and recuperate.

Here I sit.

I have several wells that got filled today:

My songwriting well
My guitar-playing/practicing well
My singing well
My special walks around the neighborhood with QB well
Loving on my fuzzy kitty well
My sleeping in well
My quiet time well

Namely my "indie rock well" has not been fed at all lately and I was excited to find this Portland, OR band from Ali Edwards' blog, which was mentioned in one of my all-time favorite blogs, Ordinary Courage, authored by Brene Brown. The band is called Blind Pilot and I'm in love!

Several months back, I set two very strong intentions and they were: writing and performing. During my current renewing phase, I am re-intentioning my previous intentions. Yes, that's right - I'm going to coin a new term and have my own re-intention intentioning session. It will ensure that I can play the guitar until the tips of my fingers are sore and calloused, sing my heart out for hours at a time, connect with other artists, and designate quiet time in which to write, darn it. I also want to find a few people who want to be in a band and travel with me. I'm going to work on that for next year - my own little tour through the South and beyond.

Coming soon will be more blogs about Mississippi travels along with the interviews and video footage we've been gathering from the Delta.

Arty, Owlie Wedthings

Now that invitations have officially gone out, I'm ok with posting the real thing below. They turned out so well! There is a man here we know through the Crossroads Film Society who owns about two or three old (seriously, old) letterpress machines and we found the owl face in one of his dingbat books. One of QB's friends at work designed the RSVP card and the map for us - and he did a great job.

I, personally, love owls because I've had a couple of run-ins with one in the neighborhood while I was doing a lot of my inner transition work and intensive life coaching last fall. QB and I saw one flying through the trees in our neighborhood park, so our little Hugo is around and watching over us. We think owls are great woodsy creatures and perfect for a fall wedding.

Also, here is what I've been diligently working on the past couple of weeks, so that people will find pretty invitations in their mailbox...I mixed two ink colors together to get a pretty brown metallic ink, bought a calligraphy pen set, a small paint brush to fill the resevoir of the nib and practiced a good bit first. Naturally, my technique became better the more invitations I wrote, but overall I'm proud of how they turned out and got lots of compliments.



Our "guestbook" at the reception is a great idea that QB came up with, which is for people to sign cards and "mail" them to us. That is a nod to his mom and step-dad (and other family members, as a matter of fact) who both work at the P.O. We bought a standard mailbox at Wal-Mart and my idea was to get vintage postcards off of Ebay, so that they could write special messages to us and stick them in the mailbox.

Below is the message:

My sign initially started out on one side of a Manila folder (above) and I was wondering if maybe I could cut it with pinking shears with a pattern, but then an idea popped in my head! I've been cutting out owl shapes from sheet music that I plan on hanging at the reception...why not cut out an owl shape for this sign as well? I had to draw and adjust for the size, but unconsciously I had written everything in a shape conducive to the owl shape! What fun! So, here he is! Isn't he lovely? :)

The Moment I've Been Waiting For! (Almost)

I'm really excited about our engagement shoot!

Last week, it rained all day solid on Monday, which effectively nixed our engagement picture shoot. There was a very specific window of time during which we could take the pictures because of the rain forecast during the week and QB being out of town during the part where it completely clears up and turns lovely…of course!

Wednesday afternoon we took advantage of slightly overcast skies – compared to dark, rainy skies – and a timid sun peaking through the clouds to visit the fair for our engagement pictures.

Rather than being cooler outside, it was a bit humid (why am I surprised?!) but a nice breeze was blowing so that helped matters tremendously.

We had such a fun time finding interesting, colorful shots on the midway, next to Ferris wheel, carousels and roller coasters. There wasn’t a huge crowd but of course everyone stared a little bit because, well, you have to make out for the camera and be disgustingly cute and lovey-dovey. Over the past year, we have both noticed that more often than not our cheesy lovey-ness disgusts people as it is, so we threw caution to the wind and had a great time! Erin is such an incredible photographer and it seemed like she had a blast. She always photographs colors really well, has a keen sense of lighting - and the state fair is the best place for lots of cheery, bright color.

I wore a pair of red and white striped flats that I claimed from my Mom’s closet during a visit a few weeks ago! They were cute and I had to have them.


The photos are fantastic and she did a wonderful job...we are getting a little Freudian flack and Carnie sex references about the corn dog pic, though!! (not posted here...haha)

(Photos by the lovely and talented Erin Fults below)

For a few more pictures, check out her blog post.

If you would like to post these on your wedding website,

email me: anna (at) gritsandsoul [dot] com or erin, of course.

Happy Birthday QB! From Me, with lots of love.

Today is QB's birthday!

His flight landed in California about an hour ago where he is attending and working a conference in Long Beach. I miss him already and am glad that he gets a terrific birthday present of enjoying the lovely Pacific Coast weather while we folks in Mississippi have a consistently rainy 75° and a sustained humidity level of ungodly proportions.

Did someone upstairs not get the memo? It's October 15!! Autumn, anyone?

Anyway, speaking of October 15^th and my favorite person's birthday, we had a special, early birthday dinner at home a couple of nights ago. I bought a bottle of this incredible Pinot Noir – the name escapes me at the moment. For those in Jackson, it's at Kat's Wine and is the one they are upselling like the dickens, but it's tasty!

I made steamed veggies and Dressed Up Bacon Mac and Cheese. It was delicious and so rich.

I got excited because part of the recipe calls for a roux, mixed in with sautéed onion, bacon, bacon drippings and garlic, which is then mixed into the pasta and cheese mixture. Now, that was divine, dahlin'. The first and last time I made a roux was at Thanksgiving when I made a German potato salad out of the cookbook You Are Where You Eat (by Elsa Hahne, University Press of Mississippi), which has some delicious recipes. All that to say, the roux smelled so good and was the tipping point from regular mac and cheese to almost-make-you-sick-it's-so-good mac and cheese.