My first go with painting

These cherries are SO GOOD!

I'm not sure what got me started in painting. It actually wasn't Pinterest, I know that's for sure, but it has given me some pretty good projects to do. I think it started because I wanted a green bookcase. I have a lot of cheap bookcases and end tables and DVD shelves, and they're all black. I didn't want to spend anymore money and I didn't want to try thrift stores and have to haul something back I didn't totally love. I needed some kind of project to invest some time in, and painting a bookcase the exact color I wanted seemed like a good one.

I bought a cheap "put it together yourself" bookcase. I sanded. I primed. I got sturdy paintbrushes and I painted. I was a painting novice and just used super cheap green acrylic paint. It actually turned out pretty well, but I never put any kind of topcoat or seal on it, which I think I will do when I move before I put it back into use. I just have it in my room with some books of short stories and most of my McSweeney's.

I had pretty much 0 art or decorative things to hang up on my walls when I moved. After I started adventuring and going to lots of shows, I had some pictures I wanted to hang up on my walls, and I didn't just want to tape them up "college style" I wanted to do something a little more grown up. I wanted to display them well and figured hey, why not just frame them? I kept finding black, super plain frames for multiple pictures, or really cheap crazily decorated single picture frames. I liked the multiple picture style, because I could group up similar themed pictures and save some space.

I ended up with a bunch of frames like these, which are super convenient and useful, just... boring and all the same. I printed out a bunch of pictures I wanted to use and matched them up and decided hey, who says I can't do something with these frames? So I got out my trusty cheap acrylic paint and went to work! I did some random colors on a few, and a few I painted to match the pictures going in them. Some of them I just painted the frame and left the matting white, some I painted both (different or the same color). The key was to just get these cheap wood frames, nothing plastic or shiny. If the color I was using was too dark I painted it with my white primer first so the color would really show. It was a fun, quick project and you can easily match pictures or other decor in your room or just do wild random colors. Here are a few of my finished ones:

Kevin Barnes

Ben Kweller, Kevin Barnes, and Pete Yorn

These came out really, really well. They just look like that's the color I bought them in. If I felt like it, I could probably paint over them and do another color but I like the combinations I did. I left a few as the simple black and white, like the pictures I put up of nature adventures. I attempted to add some pizzazz to one and did little swirls and stripes and random things, but I don't have much actual creative talent so it didn't come out that well. I've stuck to just solid colors for the most part and I can't say enough how pleased I am with them and how easy it was. Simple, fun way to add some color to a room!

My friend, Olivia, said to me...

A few days ago I went to see Generationals at Doug Fir in Portland. I had only been to the Doug Fir once before, and I'd gotten there pretty late and it was a sold out Music Fest North West (MFNW) show so I kind of got stuck in the back corner. I wasn't sure what to expect from the venue, but it seemed pretty cool and definitely worth going to again.

Now, I didn't know a ton about Generationals. I knew they were on my favorite label ever, Polyvinyl (http://www.polyvinylrecords.com/). I'd only heard a few of their songs, but I liked them quite a bit. Their style is kind of hard to pin down as one thing or the other to me, but they have a lot of different elements I really like. I got their newest album, Heza, and had been listening to it a lot and liking it more and more the week or so before the show. For the few days leading up to it, I'll be honest, I kind of only listened to them and Sugar Rush. The show was super cheap and I was going to be in Portland that night anyway so I figured it was worth it even if I didn't know them that well.

Doug Fir was a pretty great location. It was a rather small venue which I love, but the back opened up quite a bit and had its own bar. It very much has a log cabin feel, hence the name. The walls and benches are made out of logs and just LOOKS super cool.

Young Empires opened for them and they were very similar to Generationals and I thought they were pretty good. I was up pretty close for Generationals, and yeah they were pretty great. They were fun and dancey and even though I didn't know much of their material, they played everything I knew well and a lot of Heza that I'd gotten familiar with. The only downside was this girl right in front of me who was kind of out of her mind and danced in an approximate 10 foot circle around everybody with her eyes closed and hands in the air. At one point, they said "We're gonna play a cover song now!" and my fingers were crossed to the max for Sugar Rush! It was a song by The Cure, so I was still pretty happy, but it was no Sugar Rush. Then after the show, they posted this on their Instagram, and I can literally see myself in both of the pictures here which is kind of surreal

The music was great, the show was great, and now I totally love them. Just another awesome band I've found through Polyvinyl! I also heard a few weeks ago that Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin (SSLYBY) is coming out with a new record soon! I think they're doing a few shows with Ha Ha Tonka in the Missouri area, and I'm HOPING that they're still together when SSLYBY goes on tour for this album.

I need cherries!

For the vast majority of my life, I was convinced I hated cherries ("allergic," if you will). I think this was because I was only aware of the maraschino variety that come with sundaes and drinks. I liked cherry flavored fruit snacks, but never wanted to give real cherries a try. Even when my family started going to pick cherries and touted how awesome they were, for years I was like "nah."

I'm not sure what changed. I think I went to go pick some cherries just to hang out with some family and help pick cherries for them. Someone finally convinced me to try one, and about 25 cherries later I was like "hey these aren't bad!" I figured out I actually REALLY like cherries! I went to "help" pick cherries the next few years, but picked mostly for myself. I know we had mostly Bing and Rainier cherries there, but I think Rainier was at the top spot for my favorite.

Because I haven't been out picking cherries for myself here, I kind of forgot about them. This year, I saw a big display of cherries at the store and I remembered that I really like cherries, so I got some. And I was SO disappointed! They were kind of tough, and not all that flavorful. I complained a bit, and asked around if there were any places to go pick your own cherries because I felt like those HAD to be better, if not as good as the ones I remembered at home.

I feel like I had made it my mission to try and find some good cherries because I was so disappointed by the ones I'd gotten. I decided to check out the local farmers market to see if there were going to be any cherries there. I guess at the other farmers markets I'd been to, I hadn't really been looking specifically for cherries, so I never saw them and wasn't sure if they'd be there. Are cherries a farmers market item? I was nervous I was on a wild goose chase. I was pleasantly surprised to find multiple booths selling cherries! I found some really good Rainier cherries that I'm very happy with and will most likely be going back for more eventually when my "I need cherries" impulse kicks in again. The farmers market here was actually pretty great, way better than I was expecting. Some great fruits, vegetables, and other goods. I also got a super tiny plant to keep in my apartment and I hopefully won't kill for lack of attention!

I've been kinda sorta thinking about starting a blog for a little while. I go on a lot of adventures I'd love to document better, I sporadically try a bunch of new craft/painting projects, and it's a good way for everybody in my life still 3000 miles away to keep up on what I'm getting into out here. I tweet, I Facebook, but they're not really enough to explain what I'm up to or what's happening or where I'm going. So with a genius idea by a co-worker one day, this blog was born!

I pretty much want to use this to document my experiences and be able to share them with people, near and far. I love music and go to a bunch of shows, so I'll definitely be writing about those (+pictures!). I enjoy traveling, but I don't get to do as much of it as I'd like. I do get to go on a bunch of short road trips exploring Oregon, Washington, and California, and trying to take advantage of all the awesome things out here. Sometimes I get inspired to do some crafting (usually painting projects) and I'd enjoy documenting those; how they came out, what worked well, what to do next time, if someone wants it (I really just have no more room for paintings, but I still like to experiment and do new ones). I also like to read weird books, watch weird movies, be a little weird (Rule 3: It's ok to be weird!), volunteer, explore, adventure, gallivant, and try new things. Hopefully this blog will be an amalgam of those things, plus other random things that I'm involved in, and more than likely some reminiscing of past adventures.