contrastiness is close to Godliness

Yes, I made up a word. But I only did it to support the message of my blog. What I am about to post is a little embarrassing, and I've gone back and forth about whether or not to post it. Will you judge me? Will you not want to come to my house again? Will you think twice about letting me hug you? All these questions I mulled over and over in my mind and decided that the outcome was worth the potential judgment I might receive.

Let me first provide you with a little background info. We are blessed enough to have an apartment with two (count 'em, TWO) bathrooms. We LOVE this. That way when one of us has to get up way earlier than the other, we can use the guest bathroom as a courtesy. We usually end up using the guest bathroom to take showers anyway (who knows why). But, since it is just that - a GUEST bathroom....for GUESTS. So when a quick cleaning of the house happens, you can assume that the guest bathroom has to take priority when we're racing against the clock like we so often do.

The past few months have easily been the busiest of our lives to date - my work's grand opening, the approaching holidays and trying to play catch up with my personal life since grand opening has come and gone. I'm ashamed to say that the deep cleaning segments of our life got more than neglected. Most concentratedly (there I go again) in our bathroom......the NON guest bathroom. I'm getting nervous even as I type this.

Now, in order to desperately cling to my reputability as a person who gives a hoot about cleanliness, I will say that I had not used the non-guest room shower in I don't know how long. AND, because of its position in the apartment, our bathroom has the least amount of air circulation in our entire home.....so it doesn't dry as quickly, leaving opportunity for........gross things to exist.

Last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I got up early when Kevin went to work and decided that I was going to clean that bathroom (more specifically the tub) once and for all. (I have cleaned it more than one time, fyi). I could not stand it anymore. It was to the point where I didn't want to even go into our bathroom, and that's no way to live!!! NO WAY TO LIVE!!

GAH! I can't believe I'm actually about to post this on the internet. Please note, that the before picture is NOT a representation of our usual state of cleanliness!! PLEASE NOTE!

Please ALSO note that we were not using the bathroom in its state as seen in the first picture. We were just ignoring it and hoping it would clean itself.

Before: *hanging head in ultimate shame*


And now........REDEMPTION!!


Look! I even did a little "life style" photo styling by adding the body wash back into the picture. Like in the before and after pictures of those women who used some revitalizing skin cream and in the before picture they are dimly lit in yellow light and have no make up on, etc.

I cannot tell you how many times I just walked back into my bathroom after I was finished cleaning, simply to gaze upon its newly discovered glory. And then I would sigh. Over and over I would repeat these steps. I'm still doing it. I've all but forbidden Kevin to take a shower in there. You see....if you don't ever use things, you never have to clean them! It's genius!!

And on that note, I'll thank any of you reading this in advance for not judging me too harshly in the comments.

THANK YOU. And God bless cleaning supplies.

KXT Launch!

While I will mourn the loss of local gospel station 91.7 (which really just moved to an AM frequency, so it's not gone, fear not!), I have been SUPER pumped to hear about NPR's new music station that's taking over it's FM slot.


Today was the official launch day so with great anticipation last night I wrote myself a note to put in my car to serve as a reminder to listen on the way to work this morning. Let me just say....

I LOVE THIS STATION!!! It's playing everything you can usually only hear on satellite radio plus local musicians from the Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton area!

Just this morning on the drive in I heard a local band from Denton, the Pixies, Bob Dylan, Fleet Foxes and Chomsky!! I've also been streaming the station on my computer since I got here and have heard Paul McCartney, Matisyahu, Foo Fighters and The Stranglers. I can't believe Dallas finally has a radio station like this!

Sarah Jaffe, one of the goils (read: girls) I play violin with, is doing a live solo acoustic set at 3pm today on the station, which is amazing!! I'm so thrilled about the increased attention to the arts in the area, and we've really been lacking consistent radio support of local artists. Sure, there's the Adventure Club on The Edge on Sunday nights, as well as NPR's music night with our very own Paul Slavens, also on Sundays, but those are limited to one night a week, and they are competing with each other at the same time no less! (Side Bar: Paul Slavens' music show is moving over to KXT Sunday nights, so keep tuning in, or if you never have, START!!)

Here is a blurb on the website citing what the website is all about:

"KXT is a new radio station found at 91.7 FM in North Texas, and at kxt.org worldwide. It’s an incredible selection of acoustic, alt-country, indie rock, alternative and world music, hand-picked just for you – the real music fan.

KXT features between 9 and 11 hours of local programming each weekday, bringing you an eclectic variety of artists and genres, including a number of performers from North Texas and elsewhere in the Lone Star State.

Gini Mascorro will host the KXT Morning Show, Monday through Friday from 7 to 11 a.m. Joe Kozera will take listeners home weekdays with the KXT Afternoon Show from 3-6pm and the KXT Evening Show from 6-8pm.

90.1 at Night with host Paul Slavens, which appeared on KERA-FM for a number of years, has moved to KXT and is now known as The Paul Slavens Show.

National shows appearing regularly on KXT include Acoustic Café, American Routes, Mountain Stage, Putumayo Music Hour, Sound Opinions, The Thistle & Shamrock, UnderCurrents and World Café."

For the weekly programming schedule click here. For today's "Acoustic Cafe" (11a-1p Mondays & Saturdays) they've been playing the following so far:

Monsters of Folk (featuring Centro-Matic's Will Johnson on drums!)
John Fogerty
Regina Spektor - in studio guest this week!!
Alison Krauss
Lyle Lovett
Buddy & Julie Miller w/Robert Plant
Joss Stone
Paul Westerberg

Ridiculous!! I went online and pledged this morning when I got to work to be part of the launch team. SO COOL! And though there will be a bit more world music than I'd prefer, and maybe the word "cafe" could be used a little more sparingly in their program titles, I think this is going to be a really really great addition to the air waves!!


KXT, Dallas welcomes you with open arms!