thankful thursday.

we've made it another year and to another thanksgiving! GO TEAM.

i know thankful posts are overdone but we're to the end of the actual day and this post is half-baked anyway so i'm going to do everyone's favorite thing: a list. here's a list of 30 things for which i am thankful; one thing for each year i've been on this earth.

1. Jesus
2. family
3. friends
4. my health
5. my job(s)
6. my city (minneapolis)
7. all the fur-kids in my life (who are basically family)
8. music that makes my heart constrict and my eyes well up with tears
9. music that makes me want to dance and sing at the top of my lungs
10. coffee
11. diet coke
12. the ability to travel and seeing new places
13. other cultures
14. creativity
15. the goodwill outlet
16. books
17. my winter boots
18. dark chocolate
19. the ocean
20. hope
21. hot tub club
22. concerts
23. airplanes
24. friends (the show)
25. my cozy apartment
26. modern technology
27. nail polish
28. hugs
29. this lil blog of thoughts
30. love

hope you're feeling especially blessed this year...i know i am!
xo

how to make awards shows better.

i could wax eloquent about how great i thought justin bieber sounded and danced at the ama's or how alanis morissette crushed you oughta know or all of the swanky attire...

but why do that when i can complain and suggest a better way of doing something?

disclaimer: i thought the show was entertaining and most of the performances were fabulous.

it was the actual awards that really annoyed me. it felt like the same 5 bands/people were nominated for everything. i mean, i don't actually know how these nominations happen...are they fan voted? is there a committee that decides? i could quickly google and figure it out, i am on the internet after all but i prefer to just blaze ahead.

let's say they are committee decided.

here's how to make the ama's (or really any awards show) better: ONLY ALLOW SOMEONE TO BE NOMINATED IN MAX TWO CATEGORIES.
why this is a great idea:

• more nominees (which just means more famous people show up since they all seem to hate awards shows, hello better crowd shots)
• i don't have to listen to the same couple people give acceptance speeches (by the 4th time they are up there they don't even really care anymore and frankly, i have stopped caring too)
• it'll make winning that much sweeter (when you've only got one or two chances to win it means more)
• the converse is true too, when someone loses all five categories they've been nominated in it seems worse than just losing once or twice (it's kinder for the runner-ups)

it's basically genius.

still working on a theory how this could work if it's fan voted. maybe the artists who get enough votes in multiple categories have to choose which 2 categories they want to be in....like i said, a work in progress.

xo

everyone loves a behind-the-scenes.

no idea how i didn't see this until right now. if one of my friends saw this and didn't pass it along i swear to you i have a new enemy. 

if you've ever wanted to see the inside of a tour bus, i present to you jon foreman showing off the switchfoot bus. 

if it didn't make me love him more i would probably be angry that giving a tour of their bus he still somehow manages to be inspirational. i mean, maybe it's just because i already find him insanely inspirational but he's so genuine and makes single serve coffee and is such a normal dude that the tags on his shirt hang out and talks about their crew guys being family and gah i wish i was his friend. 

if you don't already, you know you are beginning to love him too. 

xo 

unrequited love.

my life is one giant unrequited love story.

i tweeted this years ago and it's sadly still true today. i have a tendency to fall for fellas who don't feel the same way about me. or i assume they don't because they don't tell me and i certainly don't have the kahones to say anything so i just love them from afar (and for a ridiculous amount of time) until they fall in love with some other girl and get married and then i finally get over them. it has happened multiple times. it's super healthy.

just pretend with me that the silver lining in all of this is that my soft spot for unrequited love songs has boosted sales or something. these are some of my favorites:

drive you home by parachute

lyric that gets me: "yeah summer heat, staring at the ceiling 'cause i just can't sleep, wondering what you're doing when it comes to me, there's nothing i can do it's always up to you." 

realize by colbie callait

lyric that gets me: "no it's never the same if you don't feel it too...if you could meet me halfway it could be the same for you." 

prove you wrong by he is we

lyric that gets me: "give me your heart, i don't want a piece or part i want it all, i want you to fall." 

i can't make you love me by bonnie raitt

this version by adele

lyric that gets me: "you can't make your heart feel something that it won't." 

they just resonate within the walls of my tiny, loving heart. if you've ever felt one-sided love you know the ache of wishing the other person would just understand how incredible you'd be together because you see it so why can't they, gosh darn it?!

*sigh*
xo

frontman spirit animals.

remember how i told you that i loved identifying spirit animals? i think i've pretty much designated an animal to everyone i have ever worked with or am friends with. i've had to double up on some animals though because i'm actually pretty limited in my animal knowledge which is just another one of my shortcomings.

anyway, you are probably wondering what the spirit animals of some of my favorite frontmen are. you're not? 

well then jump off this train now because we are about to pull away from the station. they are, as always, in no particular order.

bear rinehart = grizzly bear

i know this one seems too easy because he goes by the name bear but bear with me (hahahaha!) it actually fits his persona pretty well. he's intense. he's intimidating but you still kinda want to give him a hug. he has a low growl to his voice. 

will anderson = puppy dog

he's got those huge eyes. he's energetic and all over the stage during shows. he writes songs that melt your heart like a puppy falling asleep in your lap. 

jon foreman = chimpanzee

i know this sounds like a slam but chimps are highly intelligent and the only animal shown to have a sense of altruism. and i'm sure they be fantastic surfers and could sing like a dream if they were any more human-like. 

caleb chapman = an eagle

maybe it's because he writes lyrics like "ride the wind like a feather toward home" but i just picture him as a little removed, looking at life from another place. and he's a bit majestic. 

judah akers = wolf

he's got that wolf spirit. and the wolf gaze.

me = unicorn

because it's obvious.

see? it's a gift. 

if you hated this, sorry, but there will definitely be a solo act version of spirit animal identifying happening in the future. 

xo

lights, camera, no pass.

right before tour this summer i picked up a pretty nice dslr camera in hopes that i would have the opportunity to get some great concert shots on the road. i've always thought it would be rad to be a concert photographer and take those really great pictures of the moments you never forget.

turned out, each stop on tour was cray busy and i never got to pull out my new toy and work on taking photos in a concert setting. so i vowed to bring it to all the remaining concerts i was going to this year. but then i got really insecure because i wasn't overly sure how to work my camera and other people seeing me fail is probably my least favorite thing ever so i would make excuses like "it's a sold out show so the club is gonna be packed and i won't get to move around and get good shots anyway," or "it's raining and we're walking to the show," and not bring along my camera so i wouldn't have other concert photographers see my subpar photos.

that has hurt no one but myself.

the other day LIGHTS announced this via her facebook page:

Calling all budding photographers! 

On the current Lights tour we are offering up one "Lights Live Pass" per show for a photographer to have ALL ACCESS to shoot the performance. Beyond the standard photo pass, this photographer will be permitted to shoot the entire performance from any sight line, including side-stage! 

To enter, please email lightslivepass@gmail.com with the date of the show in the subject line, with a sample of your work. Preference will be given to experienced photographers. One photographer will be contacted per city, the week of the show, to be given a pass. 

yeah, notice how that 11/28 location is minneapolis, mn? did you also notice that the mowgli's are supporting LIGHTS on this tour? and the fact that it's at a venue that i have not spent nearly enough time at is just icing on the cake. but guess how many quality pictures i have to submit? you guessed it. zero. so it looks like i will not even be in the running for the lights live pass...and all because i'm too stubborn about looking bad at something in front of others.

i lose.
xo

1986.

with my birthday rapidly approaching and my affinity for looking up useless facts on the internet i recently completed a google search of "famous people born in 1986." i really have no idea why except for the fact that i was curious who has been on this earth the same amount of time i have and somehow they've managed to become household names and i haven't.

some of them i already knew (the olson twins, amanda bynes, lindsay lohan, robert pattinson) but some were surprising. mostly because i thought they were older than me but it's fine, i'm not annoyed at all that we're the same age and they're more accomplished than me. don't even get me started on people younger than me that somehow figured it out before i did.

anyway, here were the surprises of the bunch:

lady gaga.

 maybe it was the crazy costumes and heavy make up but i definitely would have guessed that gaga was older than me. turns out she's a couple months younger. 

brittany snow.

i think it's just because i feel like she's been around forever. 

lena dunham. 

she's so outspoken i figured she was solidly in her 30's. also she kinda

has a mom haircut so maybe that played into it? 

florence welch.

she doesn't look old but she does look like she's seen some life. 

maybe i'm just jealous of her powerhouse vocals. 

mischa barton.

another classic case of "she's been around forever."

and she was on a show that i probably wouldn't have been allowed to watch if we had had that channel so she just seemed older and wiser in the ways of the world. 

so there you have it. all of those ladies are the same age as me and have accomplished so much more that i thought they were years older than me. i hope that florence and i would have been friends if we had been in the same class. 

xo