Simple weekend delights.

This weekend has crept up quickly because of my super busy (supposed-to-be) last week of my internship. As it turns out, I will be staying in the position a little longer than anticipated, but that is for another post. The thing I am most excited for is that there will be an abundance of friends and visitors this weekend!

If (and when...) I have my way, we will be consuming a lot of this: going to one of these games:watching a little bit of this: (haha)
and going to see this movie!
(I've been listening to the soundtrack for the past few days to gear up for the movie...and because I love Regina Spektor's song "Us." If you want to hear it, click here.)

We will also be participating in the Raksha Walk for the Shreya R. Dixit Memorial Foundation on Saturday morning. If you are from the Twin Cities metro area and would like to participate, there is more info here, or you can call/text/facebook/chat with me about it and we can walk together! It is a wonderful foundation that a friend of mine, along with the Dixit family and friends, put together a few years ago. Raksha means "protection," and the walk is a campaign for distraction free driving.

Also, the journalist and philanthropist in me wants you to know that Minneapolis-St. Paul volunteers are leading the country in community service. MSP ranked No. 1 among larger metro areas in volunteerism for the third year in a row, according to a study by the federal Corporation for National and Community Service. One of the most impressive parts about this is that young people, ages 16-24, are the age bracket leading this trend. In other words, young volunteers and leaders in the cities are seriously amazing. I am also very proud to be a part of STLF, an organization that focuses on this age range, began on my college campus, and has successfully gone national. And, Abby - Portland followed MSP. :D

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

stir fry and more.

Food. It's delicious. It's necessary. It can be pretty. And we like to make it. Here are a couple snapshots from this summer's menu.

Vegetable peanut-butter stir fry with another vegetable medley featuring beets. Eaten outside on the picnic table, of course.

Vegetable foil packs including zucchini, beets, potatoes, onions, celery, lots of spices, and maybe a few more things I have forgotten. The zucchini we used was round, though, almost shaped like a small pumpkin. That I have not forgotten.Honey wheat biscuits.Fruit pizza!And, our latest creation, a starburst (yes, starburst) sandwich. Made in one of those pie-things you use while camping. It was beautiful and disgusting all at the same time.

Happy campers.

About 30 of the people I spent Spring Break with and I all got together and went camping in Afton State Park last weekend! We did a lot of chatting, grilling, playing volleyball, football, swimming, Catch Phrase, dancing, and reuniting throughout the weekend. It was incredibly relaxing and so fun to catch up with a ton of really good people. Here are a couple snap shots from the camping trip!

I built this!

We are golden.

My favorite song of the week is "We are Golden" by Mika. It's his newest single and is starting to get play on British radio stations. From what I understand, this single will not be for sale until September 6 (on iTunes) and then the entire album, also named "We are Golden" will be available September 22. It's a super catchy tune, though, so I'm sure it will start infiltrating all of our lives once it's actually released for radio play in the US.

You can listen to it by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the pink "play" button.

And in other indie music news, Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes/himself and The Mystic Valley Band), M. Ward, and Jim James (of My Morning Jacket) have teamed up to create their own "supergroup" named Monsters of Folk. They have a single out titled "Say please." You can listen to it here or sign up for a free download of it on their website.

If you like what you hear, Monsters of Folk start touring the US in October, and will be coming to Minneapolis October 29. (Visitors are always welcome to mi casa.) :D

Please?

please please please please please please please please please please please please do something this cool with me at my wedding?

when you least expect it...

...you get surprised with something really wonderful. My roommate and I had been looking at these rings on Etsy a couple of weeks ago. And by looking, I mean ogling. She ended up purchasing two without me knowing and they came in the mail today. It was one of the best surprises - a handmade ring from a small business owner on a day where I hadn't gotten much sleep and was feeling a little down.
The "ring" is actually multi-functional, with the center of it coming out, making it easy to put on a bag, jacket, etc. but I am pretty sure I will only be wearing it as a ring. Mostly because I absolutely adore rings, and wear at least one everyday.I just happened to have my camera in the next room when she gave it to me so (as excited as I was) I snapped a few photos to share. Thank you so much, Hanna!

let's go.

truth.

status updates

I started yoga classes on Monday.

I'm not very far in Emma by Jane Austen. I think I might end up postponing it and reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath right now instead.

I got to reunite with 2 girls I went to London with this week!

Last night, there were 10 people at our house - it was randomly the night all 3 of us had invited over at least 2 friends. We made it into an impromptu dinner party.

I made fruit pizza!

Camping last weekend was wonderful - I miss Neptunit more than I even knew. (For all of you who don't know, my spring break trip these last two years has been a volunteer bus trip across the US - this last years trip was with 42 other people, and our bus was named "Neptune.")

The Flaming Lips and The Killers pandora both made yesterday amazing. I cleaned our house like it was going out of style.

Trail mix is yummy. (I used craisins, cashews, m&ms and peanuts.)

Still in love with the band Phoenix.

I wish I could live in a bookstore with a coffee shop. And somehow still have enough money to travel.

I am SO excited to go to Boston in August, it is unreal.

AND Portland in November!

Friends visiting make my weeks so much better. Matt comes tonight, Ash comes next weekend.

Almost finished with my internship!

I'm liking Twitter more than I ever anticipated. (If you have one and want to be my friend, add me at twitter.com/janaetime)

I don't like posting without pictures, but that is how life is going today. More photos to come in future posts!

I'm camping...

in the wilderness. or a state park. either way there is no electricity, no showers, and (as is predicted Friday as I write this) not a whole lot of sun. (hopefully they are wrong!) either way, i am with some really wonderful people. hope you are too.


this song has just enough '70s-ness to it to feel hippy and a tad rebellious and says "I'm on fire" which, hopefully, I am not. but you get the idea. camping = camp fire. no showers = possibly one aspect of being a hippy. it's perfect. (just go with it...)

and here's a little something extra from me to you. get it stuck in your head and sing it loud and proud. i am.

One of the best days ever.

Last Saturday, Hanna and I were walking to the farmer's market and randomly Hanna said "I want to go to the cabin." (Her grandparents own a cabin up north.) So, I said "Okay, let's go." She gave me a look that says "Are you serious? and I really want to..." all at once, called her grandfather, and we found out some other relatives were staying in her cabin for the weekend. That, however, did not deter us. We kept saying how badly we needed to get out of the city, be in the sun, be near water and be away from people. In other words, we needed a beach other than Lake Calhoun or Harriet or of the Isles, some good food (hummus and pita and pretzels), trashy magazines, and a wonderful day. When we got home we ran up to the main room, yelled at Tanya, our other roommate and the only one of us originally from MN, and asked her to find us a beach that wouldn't have very many people and wouldn't cost a lot to get into. She found a public park with a beach on Weaver Lake, and within an hour we were almost there. (She already had plans for the day or else we would have wanted her to be there with us!)
We ate, sun-bathed, laughed, read magazines, swam, found shells, got seriously freaked out from the moss (maybe that was just me...), ogled a lifeguard or two, and got all sorts of sun.

And then, we ran into some of our favorite people ever! There was a group of people walking along one side of the beach towards the park area, and I asked Hanna if she thought one of them looked like Saul. She said "No way Saul is here...but I don't know anyone who walks like that other than Saul..." So I yelled "SAUL!" he turned around, and then Hanna yelled "MATT!" They both looked at us incredulously and asked us if we were in town for Maple Grove Days. We, obviously, had no idea what they were talking about but then Matt said "Becca's up there on that hill!" Turns out, we met up with multiple people with whom we spent spring break with on this random Saturday. We talked, I played sand volleyball with them for literally hours (in a dress!), and then most of us snapped a quick picture before they got ready to partake in more MG Days festivities and we went on our way home, windows down and music blaring.

Probably my favorite picture of the day. I wish everyone could see Saul play volleyball. :)
Definitely one of the happiest, most relaxing and surprising days of this summer. I love spontaneity and how sometimes everything seems to end up just right.

And the winner is:

"I know for sure it's the Breakfast Club! I remember watching it with you all the time and good question about the shoes but I read above that Tanya guessed Toms so I'm guessing Tom's too :)" -Little Sis Kayla So, even though she did get inspiration from Tanya, she was the only one to guess both answers I was looking for. Thanks for the comments/texts, friends. I thoroughly enjoy comments on any and all posts. :)

If you haven't ever heard of TOMS shoes, the mission of this company is to give away a pair of shoes for every pair bought. Watch more on their mission and purpose here:

surprise for you!

I'm doing a giveaway! For real. This is silly, but I was very curious to see if anyone could guess:

a. What video these dance moves are taken from (that I love!)
b. The brand of shoes a person displayed in this video is wearing that I will be purchasing very, very soon.

Yes, you must know both answers and leave a comment with them here. Please guess if you have no idea! This is just for fun. I have a little gift picked out, but depending on who guesses the answer, it may become something a little more customized. And, if no one guesses, I get to keep it for myself. Win win. :D

Song: Lisztomania by Phoenix (I'm in LOVE with Phoenix this summer...<3)

And one last note: Today was a very hard day for me for multiple reasons, so play along if you can, please!?

I promised.

I created t-shirts for my hometowns 125th celebration, and a few of my best friends and I wore them during the day of the 4th of July. On Friday, the 3rd, I stood out in the rain for way too long, watched my sister and friends play in a kickball competition, made traditional Pimm's Lemonade, went to a small gathering of friends to eat, watched donkey baseball - which is one of the funniest things I have ever seen, went to another friends party, and ended up in the bar. (Yes, my town only has one.)

On Saturday, we got up, donned our wonderful t-shirts, watched a great parade, went to mud races, got ready and went to a celebration for my high school class and friends, and then ended up at the street dance which featured the band Eclipse. The rest of these photos are from that night.

I forgot my camera on Sunday, but we ate a wonderful community breakfast of pancakes and homemade sausage, and then I was on a sand volleyball team which WON the tournament! It was so exhilerating to actually play volleyball again, and a few of us ended up in the swimming pool to get sand off of us and to cool down. It was a wonderful weekend full of friends, family, fun and copious amounts of drinking. Just what America called for on it's birthday. Please enjoy these long-awaited photos - more to come on my Facebook for those of you in them. :D