evan b. harris

A while ago, Kevin and I went to an art show and saw a painter whose work we really liked and if we'd had more money, we'd probably have gotten a couple of his works. I'd kind of forgotten about it until yesterday when I was talking to a high school friend's sister about the gallery because she lives near it.

Then I was like, "Hey! Who the heck was that guy and what was his name?!" (the painter, not Kevin)

So I googled and I googled and then I googled some more and I finally found him. His name is Evan B. Harris, and these are a few of his paintings:









Here are some from a series called "Fowls of a Feather:"






And my favorite:


I wish I could draw.

flash!

I was looking online at a local art gallery's website trying to find a link to a certain artist's website, and lo and behold, I stumbled across this picture:



IMMEDIATELY, I noticed a jacket that was familiar to me, belonging to a friend known to a select few as Daniel Hopkins. I then quickly noticed his brother/friend, Jesse Hopkins, as well as my lovely boyfiancé, Sir Kevin Howardshanks. You can see the object of my discovery here:



They's famous, y'all!

delightful sea cow

Turn your volume up!



This is an overload of cuteness!

doug burr

This is a poster for a FREE concert that's going on this Wednesday.



I won't be able to make it because I have youth group on Wednesdays, but I think anyone who can should definitely go. His music is AWESOME. Seriously. Check it out. You can also click on his name in the title to hear some of his music. What what!

I've got ashes on my forehead but don't call me an ash forehead...

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, which per my Lutheran upbringing, began the 40 days of sacrifice before Easter, or what is commonly called "Lent." I wrote an entry here, so I'm trying not to repeat myself, but tis the season, right? I'm sure I'll say some of the same things.

I enjoy reading other people's thoughts on Lent. Especially grown up Jesus lovers that don't go to a liturgy abiding church. I always find it interesting I guess because I fall into that category, too, and since Lent isn't a biblical command, I like to hear why different people participate.

My friend Kerri (a.k.a. Beyon-K) wrote an entertaining and insightful blog about it, and here's an excerpt:



Here's an excerpt I used last year, but I still really love it and it's a great reminder, not just for this 40 days, but you get the point:



This is Kerri's husband Luke:



Then I just googled "lent blogs" and found some interesting ones. Here are a couple:

Hopeful Imagination is entirely a Lenten blog I found that will have a different author for every day of Lent:



This year I'm giving up coke (see: last years Lent blog and every year to come) and myspace. Possibly some others, but those are my two as of today. I was going to post this on myspace, but......maybe I will after Easter. Who the heck knows?!

I really do like Lent though. I like the mindset it puts me in, though that mindset shouldn't be reserved for just 40 days a year. So many thing are important and there are so many things I'd like to change about myself, so sometimes Lent can seem overwhelming.

This year it's coke and myspace. I guess sacrificial living and caring for others will have to wait until 2008.

humorous via the typewritten word...

There's a website that I sometimes like to read that is updated every Friday. Since I'm a "subscriber," the guy in charge of the website sends out an email every Friday to everyone that subscribes and he usually writes something personally as an intro to the link he includes. Sometimes it's brief, and sometimes it's a few paragraphs. I found last week's pretty amusing, particularly the very last part.


Cute.

18º

This morning....

flash.


neighbors.


driver's seat.


passenger's seat.


On a morning like this, do you:

a. get right along in step with the brisk morning and want to change the world! (or at least be excited about going to work)

or

b. rent every episode of LOST or 24 that you can and stay in bed.

*she asks from her desk at work.

andy rae-hol

Here are a few of my sister, Rachel's "moods"...

rachel noir:


rachel pensive and also a little chilly:


rachel with the fury of a thousand suns:


rachel desiring recyclables:


rachel thinking seriously about lilacs and daffodils, but mostly lilacs:


rachel toying with the idea of getting highlights.....it's a big decision you know:


rachel hate(ing) crime:


rachel.

new last names are pretty cool...

I have held off posting about this for a while because I wanted to make sure that my mom & dad didn't find out via the world wide web. (They were the first people I called, incidentally)

Basically, the best thing that has ever happened to me happened a week ago on the 4th day of February in the 2007th year of our Lord.

I'm engaged ya'll!!

That's right, Kevin to tha Michael Howard asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. Isn't it awesome and crazy and wonderful? *le sigh*

We had taken a trip to New York recently to visit my friend Julie and my other friend Marti (who are now also friends with one another) and apparently Special K was planning on asking me then, but we didn't have a whole lot of alone time together and Kevin didn't feel like the timing was right, so he waited. Apparently a lot of our friends knew about this and were planning on meeting us at the airport when we got back, so Kevin was sending out covert text messages reading, "Abort! Abort!"

So what does Kevin do? This sweet man just carries the ring he got me around in his jacket pocket for about 2.5 weeks! Waiting for the perfect moment. Reflecting back, I did noticed that he had been wearing the same jacket every day. Hmm....

So Sunday, Feb. 4th comes along, and it also happens to be our official 1 year anniversary. At this point, he's still not planning on proposing that night, and we didn't really have any plans for the evening other than wanting to hang out together. So after church I have a rehearsal and when I'm coming back from that rehearsal, he suggests that we go to the Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas...

Sidebar - this is where I took Kevin on his birthday last year and where/when we said those magical little words ("I love you," not to be confused with "Abracadabra") to one another for the first time - End of sidebar

...So I say that it's a wonderful idea and we can eat at a restaurant down there and then walk by the water, etc. So we get down there around 7ish on Sunday, and all the restaurants are closed except for a deli. So Kevin suggests that we go somewhere else, and I'm all, "Hey, don't you want to walk by the water and stuff, since we're here and it'd be all romantic?" and he's all, "Yeah, on a full stomach," and I'm all, "Let's just do it anyway for a minute and then we can go eat since we're never over here," and he all concedes and stuff.

So we walk over there and we're standing by the water and hugging and just talking about what a great year it's been and everything mushy, and I start gettin' a little misty and emotional. Then he said some wonderful stuff to me, stuff about loving me, and never getting tired of looking at my face, and that I'm perfect for him, and about how I don't have anything to worry about, (and all this other stuff that is probably way more interesting and meaningful to me than those that Kevin didn't propose to) and then he steps back, pulls the ring out of his pocket and gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him.

And let me tell you, I wasn't sure if I would be a cryer or not...



I was a cryer.



Then we wanted to go eat after we had called the families, but as it was the Lord's day, lots of places were closing, so we decided to go to our old fallback....the International House of Pancakes. We had been sitting down for all of a minute and a half when this truck driver, "Rick," who was sitting in the booth across from us says, "Is that an engagement ring?" And from then on, he talked to us for the next 2 hours, and we didn't leave until about 11:30. He was a truck driver for stage equipment for mega-famous stars such as Cher and Elton John, por ejémple, and he also had a daughter who was 23 and engaged, so he was fun to talk to. He even ended up paying for our meal! Woop woop!!

Oh yeah, and my ring is ridiculously awesome! There was this antique shop in Dallas and at the back of it, there was an estate jewelry shop where they make their own rings, but they also have a collection of rings from the late 1800s to the 1940s. AWESOME! The one Kevin chose for me is from 1910, and we're really excited that in 3 years it will be 100. Really excited.

It was the best night of my life to date. It's truly like Kevin was custom made for me, and I can't express in words how much I love him. Thank you God and thank you Kevin.

the do....

I want my haircut to have a name.

If I did, it would be called, "The Salutatorian."

p.s. I was never the salutatorian.

visitor...

It's after lunch and I'm sitting at my desk, double checking billing and making sure everything I need to have done is either done or getting there. From where my desk is positioned, I can see the conference room in front of me to the right and the copy/shipping "cave" is off to the right and to the side of me, as seen here:



While I am sitting there doing said work, I see something small and brown moving quickly from the conference room over to the copy/shipping room, behind the copier and disappearing back where all our shipping supplies are, which is hidden by a wall. During the time I've been able to process what's happening, it has also come to my attention that the thing I'm seeing is also fuzzy in addition to being small and brown.

This thing...it is a mouse.

I tell everyone quickly and in a volume slightly above normal that there is a mouse in the office, all the while tucking my legs up into indian style position and/or away from the floor. You see, I understand that mice can be cute and cuddly looking, and I would agree.......if their cute cuddliness wasn't accompanied by such sudden darting around. Who knows when he's going to go crazy and dart over to my finger and bite it, or worse yet, scurry up my pant leg. Because he most assuredly will.

Give me a large dog or a horse over a small mouse that might do any of the aforementioned things I just listed. Mice just can't be trusted to move slowly and carefully.

So Jeff, beloved designer and friend, LOVES mice and decides to name it. I suggest Bartholomew and he suggests Ned. We go with Ned. He scurries out of the shipping area and onto the floor behind these planks, and I get a better look at him, and it's true. He's pretty cute. But then he starts darting again. He ends up back in the shipping room, and then he goes over to a shipping tube that you might be able to make out in the picture above. It's on the ground in the bottom left corner of the area near the copier.

Anyway, Jeff goes in again and decides to take a picture of Ned inside the tube, our little TractorBeam TractorPet. Here's Ned:



P.S. I have a much more important post forthcoming. Stay tuned.

get ready to DANCE west virginia!

IM from co-worker at 1:32pm today:
Due to childhood obesity problems in West Virginia, every public school in the state is getting a Dance Dance Revolution machine. Every school.

Proof.

If the BBC says it's true, it's gotta be true.

bosque brown

I've been given an awesome opportunity to play with a band I love for the SXSW (south by southwest) festival this March. Their piano/background vocals gal and sister to the lead singer just had a small baby, so, they've asked me to fill in for her. This festival is one of the biggest music/film/interactive showcases there is, so I'm very excited.

The band is called Bosque Brown, (pronounced Bosky Brown,) and they're a minimalist folk band and Mara's vocals (lead singer/guitarist) are reminiscent of something you'd hear coming out of the radio in your living room in the 1940s.

Listen to a few of their songshere.

I love Fine Lines & Israel......heck, I love all their songs.

And they love Jesus, so that's cool. :)


This is Mara:


This is one of their album covers: