happy weekend!

Happy Saturday!!

I am heading to New Orleans on Wednesday and I am incredibly excited (if a little nervous about going out with my party hardy friends). But I hate packing so I am watching the West Wing on Netflix and snuggling with a heating pad because I ate some nachos too fast…. here are a few things around the internet that I have collected this afternoon which I am excited for!

• I'm going to make this meatballs (but with ground turkey) and baked zucchini tonight, so delish.

• I made "cupboard cookies" last week (throw everything you have into a cookie - we ended up with oatmeal, raisins, chocolate chips, peanuts, and cinnamon - but next time I do some serious baking I want to try earl grey infused chocolate chip cookies.

• I am a sucker for a great mid length skirt and Forever 21 has been saving me lately for spring wear - I have a lovely red one that buttons up the front and recently got a black and white horizontal striped on (for my trip). Here are some super cheap easy skirts in a variety of fun colors!

• I'm downloading all the new Ted Radio Hours for my trip. I have also been running to them lately and they make the time fly, I was able to run for 20 more minutes than usual today because I didn't want my show to end!

• I drew some fun little geometric animals on coffee filters during a slow, rainy day at work this week - they are based off these awesome needlepoint creations - I really need to get better with a needle so I can create some.

xoxo

in which I learn to spray paint

Coming up, from April 13-19, is the  Tom Tom Founders Festival , and arts and innovation festival in Charlottesville. The other day I helped out by working with some local artists to spray paint a soon-to-be retired CAT bus! It's going to run from April- the end of May and local spoken word artists are going to preform on it while people commute around the city.

continue for more pictures… and some great books!

with love

Today is the birthday of a young woman I went to high school with, I did not know her well but my boyfriend and many of my friends were close with her family. She died a year ago last month and this is a thought essay one of her college friends wrote about the past year. I think that it is really beautiful and explores important feelings that we all experience, so I wanted to share:

http://blog.berlin.bard.edu/contradiction-on-death-love-and-family-portraits/

xoxoxo
Gracie

image from tumblr

"spring" break

It's been sunny and warm in Charlottesville all week; the frozen ocean in Woods Hole seems like a dream…. but everyone here is so shocked and excited to see the pictures! They can hardly imagine being someplace so cold. 

As much as I am enjoying walking around without a coat, I kind of miss the snow if only for the cool pictures I can take! Continue for more...

you say it's your birthday!

Happy birthday Lucy! EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD BABY! 

Not only is it her birthday but she got her first car. Man do I feel old. 

Volvo station wagons for everrrr

Xoxo

gee it's great to be back home

helllooooo woods hooooole

xoxo

butternut squash risotto without the risotto recipe

I made a delicious butternut squash and grain dish the other night based of this risotto recipe. I did not have the ingredients to make that but it looks amazing and someone should try it out!!

Here's what I managed: 

and it was pretty delicious!! Even better the next day with pesto chicken sausage :)

Continue for the recipe, but first some book recommendations….

a little color

I just realized that most of my family has not seen me in the past few months so here's an update…I dyed my hair purple! 

Just the ends though. The box didn't come with gloves (DUMB) so Keegan helped me out by putting grocery bags on his hands. Whattaguy.

It's fairly subtle in real life, I couldn't handle doing my whole head mainly because my little sister has already occupied that corner for a while.

let's look at her rainbow of hair colors…

red

…. continue reading!….