so very thankful.

is it super cheesy to do a thankful post? yes.
am i going to do one anyway? absolutely.

everyone has heard the argument that you should be thankful all year and not just on one day and blah blah blah but does it really hurt anyone to take a day and really appreciate everything you have in life? i don't know why people get so crabby when we pick a day to really celebrate our blessings (thanksgiving) or love (valentine's day) or our keenness for winter (groundhog's day...i swear we ALWAYS get six more weeks). if you're one of those grumpy gus's, shut it and let the rest of us enjoy expressing our excitement for every holiday.

on that note, here are a few things i am thankful for:

family and friends: i've got some of the best and i'd be lost without them.

diet coke: it's a bright spot in the middle of my day and i'm going to feel so betrayed if it gives me aspartame cancer someday.

health: with the exception of a broken tooth and debilitating cramps every month i am relatively healthy and as someone with no health insurance i really appreciate that.

art: from music to dance to photography to most forms of creative expression; art says those things i can't. except when it's like a toilet nailed to a wooden platform, i don't get that type of art.

traveling: my trip to africa was the best part of 2014. you learn so much when you engage with another culture; about them and about yourself.

mouse-free apartments: this one should be pretty self-explanatory.

frontmen: yeah, like i wasn't going to mention them.

hope: i have hope in a God who is bigger than injustice, bigger than failure or success, bigger than my dreams and fears, and loves me in all my shortcomings. it's crazy that some days i forget to be thankful for that.

xo

ps. don't forget to watch the macy's thanksgiving day parade tomorrow...needtobreathe is playing! what?! i know!!!

"is there a Barbie?"

this little girl is my new role model.
look at how calm, cool, and collected she is during this interview.
her questions are on-point.
she knows the spice girls even though she wasn't alive during the height of their fame.
the next time i interview a band, i'm just going to pretend i'm her.

this also further solidifies my love for the dudes of colony house.

happy monday!

xo

frontman friday: kevin cronin

another friday is here. we're less than a week away from thanksgiving!
WHERE HAS THIS YEAR GONE?
because we all know how it goes; it's thanksgiving, you blink and then it's christmas, you blink and it's the new year. it's downright crazy to think that it's basically 2015. remember when 2015 seemed like a really far away time?

i bet that's how today's frontman feels too.

he blinked and had a career of work: kevin cronin

even with the terrible curly mullet (which i'm sure was in 

fashion then) he still looks cool. 

photo credit: ???

cronin is the crooner in REO Speedwagon

there's a part of me that's a tiny bit sad that i wasn't alive

during this era because the clothes and the hair and 

everything are just something else. 

kevin is responsible for penning two of REO's most famous songs, keep on loving you and i can't fight this feeling anymore. i could listen to i can't fight this feeling anymore on repeat for an entire day. 

my parent's have seen them perform several times and have never taken me with. rude, right? 'cause current day kevin cronin has still got it. 

still owning that mic.

photo credit: dave rowland

some fantastic things came out of the 80's including myself and love songs that have stood the test of time so that college girl wearing that "born in the 90's" sweatshirt that i saw earlier today can just shut it. 

xo

london's charm.

england was the first country i visited overseas and london is one of my favorite cities in the world.

on the way back from south africa i got to stop in london for a few days and show my mom (she'd never been there before) all the sights! it's so mind-boggling to think that they have statues and buildings that are older than my country. it's such a historically rich yet amazingly modern and progressive city, it's just fantastic. below are a few of my favsie pics from the trip.

we'd just gotten off the plane, dropped off our bags and headed

to covent gardens to watch street performers and shop.

up bright and early for a ride on the london eye!

killer views of a beautiful (and massive) city.

the clock tower right at the exit of the tube.

bears at harrods. 

i can't afford anything in that store.

selfie at tower bridge!

changing of the guards!

my friend is CERTAIN the queen drove by while we

were waiting for this. i believe her 50%.

union jack, double decker bus, london eye, clock tower.

doesn't get more london than that.

i love this because of my friend's hair. 

it looks like a toupee about to blow off.

we ate at a pub our last night there and my mom was 

really excited because our number was 53 and she's 53. 

on the tube to the airport to leave london.

so sad that all of our travels were nearing the end.

the rest of our trip consisted of  visiting buckingham palace, doing a harry potter walking tour, eating tesco lunch, wandering around picadilly circus, visiting an old friend out in kew gardens, chilling in hyde park, attempting to climb on the lions in trafalgar's square (spoiler alert: i couldn't get up on them), hanging out at m&m world, and TONS more. but some of those pictures are terrible so...

south africa stole my heart and london was a little like going home. it was the trip of a lifetime and i won't ever forget it. huge thanks to my mom and bestie for going on this trip with me...let's do it again???

xo

an open letter to security guards at concerts.

dear security professional:

i'm thankful for your commitment to keeping concert attendees safe.

i appreciate it when you yank down a crowd surfer so i don't get kicked in the head.

i admire how those of you who are placed at the front of stage can stand there with your arms crossed, glaring at the crowd and don't once look back at the show happening directly behind your head; you have way more self-control than i would have.

i think it's really fun that you get to wear all black, it's my favorite color.

but can you please stop rushing me out of the club the second the show is over? i know you're working and you want to go home and i'm preventing you from doing that but i just want to grab an album or say hello to the band. i paid to be here and this is a fun thing for me and i want it to last as long as possible! besides most bands need to get packed up and loaded out so they aren't going to hang out forever anyway. once the band is gone people will scatter within 5 minutes.

i promise i will move out of the way if you are sweeping or taking out the trash. i will even throw shade at the girl who is talking way too long to the band and holding up the line in a vain attempt to move her along. i'm really not trying to be a nuisance i just want the opportunity to tell the lead singer that his ponytail is on-point.

thanks for your understanding.

xo

frontman friday: soul glow activatur

oh hey there, friday! so good to see you.

i don't know about you all but i am thrilled to sleep in tomorrow (and by "sleep in" i mean like 8 at the absolute latest because those are the types of things that happen to your body when you become an adult). some late nights and early mornings this week have made today a coffee AND diet coke kind of day. but it's totally worth running on caffeine for concerts and friend times and photo-book-making (okay, that last one is kinda lame but i did stay up until almost midnight one night working on a shutterfly book of my trip and i feel like i'm paying for that decision now).

i'm guessing the fellas in today's band POUND caffeine before their shows because live they are cray. U.S.Cray to be exact.

he was the orig: soul glow activatur

how american. 
his real name is solomon but his stage name is pretty rad. 

he is formerly the lead singer of family force 5

they just look fun. spoiler alert: they are. 

last year soul glow decided to hang up his hulk hands and pass the baton onto his brother, crouton. so now crouts is the man in the middle.

pretty great but not quite the same. 

they had a good run with SGA as their crunk captain.

good luck filling those shoes, crouts.

so this weekend may you be a love addict, wobble til you can't dance anymore, and hit that cray button. 

xo

in love with SA.

a piece of my heart now lives in south africa.

i could talk for days (and i have re-hashed my trip for countless hours) about the incredible time i had in africa but i won't do that. whenever i have friends that go somewhere and come back i can listen to stories about their trips for about 10 minutes tops before i start to zone out. so i won't do that to you but i will post a stupid amount of pictures and tell you that it is the most beautiful country i have ever been to and the people are resilient and the couple who run lighthouse mission are truly being light in a very dark community. due to the political climate we weren't supposed to take pictures of where we were working so the couple pictures of us with community kids are sneaky pics that we weren't supposed to take...sometimes you just gotta break the rules.

leaving MSP...so excited! 

my mom and i on the tarmac in jo-burg to finish the trip to cape town.

driving on the left-hand side of the road! 

lilybank cottage, our incredible lodgings

 shanty town in the foreground, table mountain in the back

mid-way up our table mountain hike. 

yeah, we climbed that sucker.

from the top of table mountain

that view is to die for

coffee snobs: if you go to cape town you HAVE

to go to Truth Coffee Roasters

cape of good hope

give me the ocean all day, every day

hanging out on some rocks at the cape

muscles because i'm super strong

african penguins!

seriously, SA is SUCH a beautiful country

this is keenan. he's got an incredibly hard life but look at that smile!

language doesn't matter, kids are kids everywhere

some abandoned buildings in the community we worked in

had to try Mugg & Bean coffee before i left! 

until next time, south africa! 

next week i'll put up pictures from our time in london. 

xo

set list.

jon foreman and co. played in my city on friday night and holy moly was it a great show. i am consistently impressed by those fellas and will continue to go to their shows and talk about them incessantly even though i've seen them approximately 25 times live and planned vacations around their concerts and permanently got some of their words inked on my body.

da boys playing hello hurricane acoustic.
sheer magic.

"so you love them, we get it" -everyone after interacting with me for longer than 10 minutes.

but please, just humor me and go along with this:  

i think their songs "dare you to move" and "meant to live" are really, really great but if i never saw them play them live again i would be totally fine with that. they have SO MANY incredible songs but are limited in what they play because most fans want to hear the big singles. i completely understand, every band does it, it's really what you should do if you're in a band, it makes sense. 

but i wanna hear my them play some of their other songs, dangit. 

so if i could tailor a switchfoot set-list to be exactly what i wanted, it would look a little something like this: 

1. living is simple (learning to breathe)
2. dirty second hands (oh! gravity)
3. free (hello hurricane) 
4. the setting sun (nothing is sound) 
5. let that be enough (new way to be human)
6. slipping away (fading west)
7. selling the news (vice verses)
8. ammunition (the beautiful letdown)
9. learning to breathe (learning to breathe)
10. needle & haystack life (hello hurricane) 
11. shadow proves the sunshine (nothing is sound)
12. head over heels (in this life) (oh! gravity)
13. 24 (the beautiful letdown)

encore:

where i belong (vice verses)- yes, they always do this as their encore but it's perfect so it stays.

that was ridiculously hard for me. if i could truly have it my way they'd just play their entire discography from beginning to end. 

cheers to the beginning of the week.

xo

frontman friday: beau bokan

i'm back on the frontman friday wagon y'all and it's real great to be here. i'm always pro-frontman-lovin'.

tonight i'm going to see my favorites play at 1st ave (which is an iconic minneapolis venue and if you haven't been there you should add it to your list of places to see when you visit my killer city). i thought about making jon my frontman because i luff him but decided (spoiler alert) that when i end this frontman friday fun he will be my final frontman.

so instead i chose a handsome fella who's married to a female singer i wish i was half as cool as.

his name: beau bokan

he's a really great specimen of a human, amiright? 

photo credit: larry wentworth photography

his band: blessthefall

look at them being all tough and precious.

photo credit: blessthefall

he's married to canadian-electro-pop-singer, LIGHTS, and they have a baby girl named rocket. they are quite possibly one of the cutest families on earth right now. 

it hurts me how perfect they all are. 

photo credit: LIGHTS

 is it un-Biblical to wish i had their life? because i do. 

babies in headphones undo me. 

photo credit: maybe LIGHTS again? 

i'm off to see switchfoot absolutely crush it (because they do every time). maybe i'll find a beau bokan look-alike at the show tonight. wouldn't that be neat? 

happy weekend!

xo

won't give up.

one time my mom told me that i'm a chronic overreacter. she said it nicely, "you feel things deeply," but let's just call a spade a spade here. i do often overreact but it's part of my charm.

the other day there was a short article in the online version of relevant magazine about one of my new obsessions, colony house.

in the article frontman, caleb chapman, talked about how songwriting is his way of expressing himself and how he gets emotions and feelings out. he said he wrote a song from the perspective of his brother (who is also in the band but is the drummer and gets zero time on the mic) as a sort of healing. that song made it on the album, it's called won't give up. 

obviously after reading that little tidbit of news i had to re-listen to the song. it gave it a whole new perspective. there's a line that says, "i take his hand because she loved me." in that moment i swear all of the air went out of my car and everything got really still. i don't personally know the chapman family and i have never lost a sibling but during that 4 minute song i don't think i breathed even once. see? overreaction. 

what the article didn't mention was that a few years ago will accidentally hit his younger sister with his car and she passed away. i know this because it was big news in the Christian music world and with their dad being uber-famous (in that world) it was all over Christian media. knowing that and knowing the song was about that situation and having a flair for the dramatic...it was all too much. 

i applaud colony house's transparency and wearing their hearts on their sleeves and writing fantastic songs. and i will continue to write posts like this, not because they are super interesting but because if i don't my roommate is going to get really sick of me telling her about songs that make my heart hurt. 

don't mind me, i'll just be over here trying to keep it together as i give won't give up another spin.

xo