The Dream Dress

I was 14 years old. My two older sisters and I huddled closely on my mom’s bed while my mother rustled around in her closet. After a few minutes of hearing hangers shifting and containers scooting, she emerged from her closet with a large silver box. We knew what was inside. We had seen the pictures hanging on the walls of our home our entire lives. We had heard her describe every inch of it in detail. We had imagined her wearing it down the aisle of her church. But never had we actually seen it. She slowly slipped her fingers around the edge of the box, broke the seal, and softly shook the lid until it was free. We watched her eyes light up and a smile sweep across her face as she gently held on to the edges and carefully slid it out the of box. For once, we were all completely silent as she turned, held up her wedding dress, and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. 

Mom, 1979

The last time that she saw this dress she was wearing it down the aisle of a charming little country church. Twenty five years later, the dress looked just as radiant as the moment that she had picked it out. It was the dress she had imagined when she was a little girl. The dress that said, “This is the one”. The dress that made my father cry. The dress so beautiful that it should be worn twice. We each took turns trying it on – posing and twirling and dreaming of our own weddings. And that June when my sister held my father’s arm and walked down the aisle to her groom, she wore my mother’s gown – the dream dress.

Ashley, 2004

So why have I been thinking about wedding gowns? Well, because I have BIG news!

No, not that kind of news.

This kind of news. I wrote my first freelance article last week! 

Local bridal designer Olia Zavozina has a bridal gown boutique in Edgehill Village that is now a "must stop shop" for all brides-to-be. She also has her gowns in nearly twenty retail locations including select Nordstrom Wedding Suites. Now Olia is giving one Dream Dress to a deserving bride. Read the article that I wrote on Olia Zavozina's blog for more information about her shop, the Dream Dress Campaign, and how to apply. Olia's Dream Dress Campaign was also highlighted on Budget Savvy Bride.

This is a picture of a favorite local artist, Christian Luthi, singing at Olia's Champagne Soiree at her boutique last week. His song "Dance" is my ringtone AND he even gave me a shout out at a recent show when he played the tune. Check out his stuff. You're welcome.

Happy wedding gown browsing!

Southern Ground

My sister and I went to the Southern Ground Music Festival last weekend on the riverfront in Nashville. It is Zac Brown’s big food and music event that is normally in South Carolina but they added a Nashville stop this year. There was live music all day Friday and Saturday, some local food trucks, and plenty of dancing and singing!

On the Pedestrian Bridge. My first time on it. I'm from here, I promise. I just apparently never cross the river.

The artists were all incredible. It was basically like watching the best of the best having a huge jam session. The big concert both nights was obviously the Zac Brown Band featuring John Mayer (on guitar since he is on vocal rest), Sheryl Crow, Gregg Allman, Dwight Yoakam, and Alan Jackson including daytime performances by Amos Lee, Edward Sharpe, Michael Franti, The Los Lonely Boys, Holly Williams and a ton of others. They all totally rocked it. 

Night 1

 Zac Brown

Jam Session

 More ZBB

 Holly Williams

Random dude that can rock the fiddle

Day 2

Stuck Between a Rock and Mainstream Country Radio

I must admit that my taste in music is typically very mainstream.  I love Zac Brown but wasn’t incredibly familiar with groups like Edward Sharpe and Amos Lee. But my sister’s goal for the weekend was to expose me to all kinds of music. And she did. Although I still have a lot to learn. For example, one group prefaced a song with “If you don’t know this song then you have been living under a rock or something!” Which is of course a guarantee that I have, in fact, never heard the song. I sheepishly admitted to my sis that I had NO idea what they were playing. 

“Emily….. (shakes head)… come on. This is a Metallica song.” 

The rock that I live under does not involve Metallica. I can assure you of that.

Nirvana Who?

So later on Zac Brown alluded to a special surprise guest and then started to sing a song that, once again, I had never heard. Our conversation went something like this…

“What song is this???”

“Emily. Seriously. This is Nirvana.”

“Ohhh!!! Maybe Nirvana will be the special guest!”

(Shakes head again and tries not to laugh). “Seriously? Emily, Kurt Cobain is dead. Like, he died a long time ago. Early 90s.”

“Kurt Cobain? Huh? I thought we were talking about Nirvana.”

“Oh. My. Gosh. Please just be quiet and listen.”

Say Hey… Can we get a picture?

So Michael Franti (you will know him for Say Hey or The Sound of Sunshine) is one of my sister’s favorite artists ever. She has seen him like 5 times. This year. So we totally were digging his set. Then, during the stage change, they have lesser known artists perform on a smaller stage. We wandered over to the side of the small stage and I just sort of propped myself up against the fence. Next thing I know, my sis is whispering...

“Emily. Emily. Emily. That is Michael Franti. You are standing beside Michael Franti. Oh my gosh. Sneak a picture.” 

Apparently he had gone to the side stage to watch one of his buddies perform. I admittedly don’t know much about the guy so I wasn’t starstruck. Sister? She’s speechless for like the first time in her life.

“Oh, that’s Michael Franti? Haven’t you seen him like 5 times? Talk to him…. Hello… Oh my gosh, just say something… Okay, whatever. Hey Michael! Can we get our picture with you?”

“Of course.”

With Michael Franti

I say thanks and we walk away.  My speechless sister finally decides to speak. 

“Oh my goodness. Michael touched my shoulder... I had so much to say... Like that I love him... But I was too excited… This was the best moment ever! Okay, let me see the picture again.”

She might hate me for telling that story, but hey, I did much sillier things. Obviously. And my musical ignorance was just the beginning.

Beef’s First Flight

This was a food festival as well, so some of Nashville’s food trucks were lined up by the gates. However, they clearly didn’t plan the food part very well because they had 6 food trucks for about 10,000 people. The lines were hours long, even on off-peak hours. But we all know that I get grumpy if I don’t eat. So we stood in line. And waited. And watched trucks run out of food. And waited. And then realized we could only pay with cash. And waited. And after a few sighs and a few dramatic claims of passing out ‘if I don’t eat this instance’, we finally got our food. I had a hamburger from Riff’s Street Food. It came in one of those cute red-checkered cardboard boxes.  The burger was seasoned perfectly and topped with some kind of specialty cheese, onions, homemade mustard, and seasoned fries. Fries ON a burger? Sure. I can dig this. We carried our food to a spot in the shade (Of course, I ate a few fries on the way over. How could I not?). We found a little patch of grass in the middle of a sea of people and sat down. Well, I tried to sit down. I was trying to take my backpack off and balance my food and pull my shirt down so that I could sit without flashing people and trying to stay out of the way of other hungry concert goers who were on the move. It was just too much. The next thing I know, my backpack slides off my shoulder, my overpriced burger goes flying through the air, the top of the bun lands in the dirt, the mustard is all down my arm, the onions are on my leg, the patty is in my hand (which is now clinched like a fist with beef and mustard oozing through), and the bottom of my bun has landed in my sister’s macaroni. And the fries? Those poor guys are all tossed in the grass and immediately smashed under a parade of cowboy boots and chacos. Again, my sister looked at me like “Who are you?” Well, I’ll tell you. I’m the girl that eats it anyways. You know, the classy kind. Okay, so I didn’t eat the bun that hit the ground or the trampled fries (thank goodness I had sampled some already), but I reassembled the rest and loved every bite of it. And those sanitizer wipes that I was made fun of for hauling around? (Port-a-potties? Ick!) They come in handy when you are covered with a sticky, mustardy substance.

Her 1st Night Food Truck Victory. Salami Calzone.

I’ve been here before…

Okay. Port a potties. Not ideal. I am the biggest germ-a-phobe ever. I use hand sanitizer so much that people tell me that the smell of rubbing alcohol reminds them of me. I would love it if I had a plastic bubble around me at all times. But seriously. So here we are at an all day event. I had to use bathroom. I contemplated holding it. I really did. But 12 hours is just too long. So there was a field full of these big blue germ incubators. There must have been a hundred of them. I picked a random one decently far away from the rest hoping that people would be lazy enough to not walk that far. Fewer people = fewer germs. Right? So I hold my breath (natural reaction), use the bathroom as quickly as possible, bust out of the port a potty, and then basically take a bath in those hand sanitizer wipes that I packed. So there you have it. I survived my first bathroom experience.

But then I started panicking.  I had gone too early! I didn’t space out my time correctly. I still had nine hours left. I just knew that I would have to go again. It bothered me for hours. I kept thinking about it. Worrying about it. Would I survive a second go-around in the death chamber? Hours later as we were watching Edward Sharpe, I noticed that the sun was starting to set.  I was caught up in the ways that the rays were bouncing off of the Batman building when it hit me.

“The sun is setting! I have to go to the bathroom NOW! I can’t go in the dark… are you kidding me? You never know what is in those things! And the ground is hilly. I might fall. Or fall in? I’m leaving my backpack and phone here. What if they fell in??? I’m freaking out. But I’m taking the sani-wipes with me.”

“Oh my goodness. You just said that you want to go hangliding with me but you are scared to go to the bathroom after dark??? You are going to miss a great show, but whatever. Go.”

I go through the same routine. Hold breath. Go quickly. Run out. Disinfect.

I find my sister in the crowd and just quietly sit down. She asks me how it was. I say “Fine.” But she knows I’m not fine. “What did you do this time?”

“Okay, so out of the hundreds of port a potties over there, is it weirder that I coincidentally went into the exact same port a potty twice… or the fact that I know that I went in the same one twice??”

“Um… huh?”

“The port a potty. I was so freaked out the first time that I noticed every little thing. The advil on the floor. The ink pen mark on the door. The gum on the wall. And then I picked a random one again. But it wasn’t so random because as soon as I got in there I recognized it.”

“You memorized the port a potty trash and recognized it five hours later?”

“Why yes. Yes, I did.” (insert a long, long, long pause married with an awkward stare here) “I hate germs.”

The Windmill

So the nightly concerts were decently crowded.  During the day everyone was scattered across the field on blankets, but at night everyone generally packed up and moved in closer. But not that close. 

The two of us were just standing there listening to the music when this huge group of girls got all up in our space. Not intentionally rude, just oblivious. And loud. And chatty. And tall. They didn't notice that they kept bumping into me. They didn't notice that they were talking louder than the music, if that is even possible at a concert. And they didn't notice that they were standing way too close to my comfort zone. So to encourage them to move on along to a different spot, I started singing along. Very loudly. But I got no reaction. So then I thought, "Maybe if I dance like crazy they will be annoyed and move along." I did the windmill. The washing machine. The swimmer. The gator chomp. At this point I was just making up moves to make them crazy. All while singing at the top of my lungs. I looked like a fool.

Except, of course, they didn't notice at all. 

Then I realized that I was totally being that girl in the crowd that is annoying to stand near. Backfired plan. We moved. They stayed. Epic fail. But I kept dancing anyways. Why stop when you are all loosened up?

Tattoo Typo

Okay, so maybe I act like I don’t get out much. And maybe I’m a little bit strange. But in large groups of people, I feel like the normal one. Trust me. These types of festivals draw all kinds of people. And if you like People Watching like I do, you know that this is prime time. The outfits. The hair. The old men with the young blondes. The old women with the young hipsters. It’s all interesting. In fact, my sister and I did the sunglasses test. “Can you see my eyes through my sunglasses? Like, if I’m staring at you, can you tell? Okay. Good.”

Our favorite find? I spotted a particular tattoo from a mile away. A giant quote on some dude’s forearm. We inched closer to read it, but I just couldn’t make sense of it. “I feel more like I do now then I did when I got here.” I don’t get it. And then it hit me.

“Okay. Wow. Read the tattoo over there. Shouldn’t that say THAN and not THEN???”

“Um. Yes.”

“Tattoo Typo. Major.”

“Sneak a pic. We will need to remember this one.”

"I feel more like I do now then I did when I got here."

Okay, so I have said and done some silly things. But at least none of them are permanently attached to me! I mean, the quote doesn't make sense anyways. But seriously. Google it before you ink it, dude.

So I admit, this post took forever to type because I was laughing so hard at all of the memories from this weekend. Maybe you just had to be there… We’ll see you there next year.

Music City, I do love you.

August - A Month for Friends, Food, Concerts, and Crafts

The Williamson County Fair

I recently went to the Williamson County Fair with some friends. 

And you know what that means...
Lots of food.

 A Caramel Apple with Sprinkles

 I had a corn dog...

 And washed it down with a Gyro.

Cool rides.

Karaoke. (My friends... not me, of course)

And a cow with a hole in it.

A real, live cow with a whole in one of its stomachs.  The guy fed the cow some grass and then reached into its stomach and pulled it out.  They do it to study the digestion of cows.  I personally think that it is really awesome. I could have watched it all night.

Worship

I had the best week of concerts recently.  I went to see Kari Jobe with a few friends at a local church. 

She was awesome! If you listen to Christian radio, you will know her song “We Are”.

And then I went to a Zoe Group album release.  Most of the members of Zoe either attend, or have attended, my church so they decided to do their album release with us.  It was an awesome night!

Sam’s Sushi

I really, really love sushi and I finally found the best Nashville sushi joint. Sam’s Sushi. It is a tiny little place downtown on the corner of Printer’s Alley and Church. Sam owns the place. Yes, he does literally own the establishment but I mean it more like he owns the place. Dominates it. He is the only person who works in the tiny little corner restaurant that seats about 10. He takes orders (you write it down on the piece of scratch paper that he plops down on your table). He makes the sushi (by taking his sweet time, there are signs everywhere reminding you that this is not a “fast food” joint and that orders take 15-30 minutes). He does the dishes (after you clear your own plate of course). And he makes the best sushi in town (at the best price - $5.95 for two huge rolls). You have to go in small groups of people.  Any more than three and he might just make you leave. If the place gets crowded, he locks the door. If you ask for a To Go box and he thinks you haven’t eaten enough, he will make you eat more. If you take to long to eat, he will make you give up your table. And don’t try small talk. He has a sign beside his sushi bar that says “I’m fine, okay” as if he were saying Don’t ask me how I am doing. I’m fine. Okay. Nice, Sam. 

Under the "Please have a seat" sign on the picture of the sushi: "I'm fine ok"

And one day he made me and a group of fellow young professionals read this article before ordering:

18-35? You are Generation Screwed! 

(An article highlighting social security changes, social responsibility, etc.) 

Oh, Sam.

Sewing Class

On Saturday I finished my sewing course! (This was all a part of my New Year's Resolution.) Yes, I now officially know how to thread a machine and sew a reversible tote bag. Pure awesomeness. 

Class 1 - Threading a machine and sewing various stitches on straight lines.

I can’t always sew straight and my thread gets hung in the machine a lot and I always forget to reverse stitch before sewing and I have a bad habit of pushing the fabric through the machine instead of guiding it. But that is all beside the point. The point is that I made this.

 Class 2 - Tote Bag

It's reversible!

And now I just need to purchase a machine! Look out, Pinterest!

Birthdays

I have celebrated birthdays for two of my favorite people recently.

My dad!

I made him a chocolate covered peanut butter banana cheesecake.

(Why yes, I did get a hair cut. And a glaze, which basically makes your hair shiny. It was a groupon experiment. I can't say that I completely notice a difference. But I did like the girl who did my hair.  We were getting along great until she said "You have Snow White hair." Ugh. Snow White isn't even in my top 5 Disney Princesses. Pocahontas is my favorite, but whatever.)

And we celebrated my friend Ashley's birthday! You might remember her as the girl who took me to the Emergency Room when I sprained my broken arm.

With the birthday girl.

My (at this point still long) hair was out of control that night. The only down side of outdoor seating - my hair got bigger as the night went on.

We ate at The Pharmacy in East Nashville.  I had The Mission City Burger. A grilled burger topped with guacamole, black beans, pico de gallo, and other yummy things. Best burger in Nashville! Awesome outdoor seating. A soda fountain. And room for a bunch of friends. 

I am realizing as I type this that my August has been full of music and food. I’ll take it.

My Sunshine

I’ve told you all about my experience with anesthesia when I broke my arm. I was as serious as ever and questioning whether or not I was even alive.  I was crazy and totally not fun. But this wasn’t my first experience with anesthesia, and fortunately my first experience was nothing like the second. When I was 14, I had my wisdom teeth taken out. When I came out of the surgery, I was silly.  Super silly. I (more athletic at the time) kept proclaiming things like, “I am NOT a cheerleader! Did you tell them I’m athletic?!?”. And then on the ride home and throughout my entire recovery process I insisted that my mother sing “You Are My Sunshine” over and over again to me. Why that song? I have no idea. But it started a trend and even after my quick recovery, that remained “our song” and has been sung countless times since. When I moved to East Hampton at 16 to be a summer nanny, I unpacked my suitcase on my first night there to find a stuffed bunny tucked in among my swimsuits and beach towels. I thought, “How did this get in my suitcase? What even is this?” As I picked it up, it began to sing. My homesick nervousness turned into a warm confidence as I listened to the lyrics of “You Are My Sunshine”, knowing that while I was out on my own, I was on my mom’s heart. And whenever we lived apart through my time at school and for various jobs, we would often text each other the standard, “I love and miss you!”. But in those special moments when that just didn’t feel like enough, our messages looked more like, “Look for the sun. You will find me in the sunshine.”

 With Mom at Loveless Cafe for her 4th of July Birthday Lunch

Okay, okay. That sounded really sappy. But isn’t it so true that the people that we love the most bring an incredible light into our lives? 

Super Blue Man 

 Lots of Family on the Fourth

 A Little Independence Day Croquet

 Ally dominating the game

Shooting off Model Rockets in the Field

 The kids watching the rockets

 Rocket Recovery from the very large trees

 A little family

 Dad and Ally with the old Farmall at Loveless

Ally's attempt at a Loveless Cafe ad. "Here, look! I'm posing with the logo on the front of my cup, just perfectly!"

 My girl friends and I at the 4th of July Bash

 Girl's Night - Lots of snacks, laughs, and nailpolish

It’s a light by which we see our love, our heart, our confidence, our security, and our family. A light worth fighting for.  A light as bright as fireworks on the fourth of July,

Downtown Nashville Fireworks Show

But a light treated with as much care as a flickering candle on a birthday cake - careful to not be blown out by the wind, but a light that instead marks the beginning of wishes and prayers.

Mom's traditional Striped Birthday Cake on the 4th, courtesy of my talented big sis

I adore all of these little lights in my life, these little bursts of sunshine.  And to me these beautiful people, these relationships, and these memories are all a reflection of True Light. A reflection of “The Light of all mankind. The light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:4-5. One of my most common prayers is for Light. For God’s Light to shine on this earth. For me to be a reflection of that Light. For His Light in my thoughts and my relationships and my future. For God to pour Light over my friends and my parents and my sisters and my family.

And His Light always shines. It’s the kind of Light that makes us happy when skies are gray. The Light of a Son that sings over us, “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”

"You Are My Sunshine" from my hometown's bluegrass jam. There's nothing quite like a Small Town Saturday Night.

Southern Summer Nights

The first day of summer technically isn’t for a few more days, but in my world, summer has been in full swing for a while.  Nashville had some 80 degrees days in February, so the short sleeves have been in the front of my closet for months. I don’t get “summer break” or anything quite that wonderful like my teacher friends do, but it is a treat to have less traffic on the way to work every morning without all of the school buses and mini vans around. For me, summer means having hours of daylight after work every night. It feels like a whole, new, refreshing life after a winter of being in an office during every sunlight hour. My favorite thing about summer? The southern summer nights.

CMA Fest

My absolute favorite event in Nashville, the CMA Music Fest, was another big hit this year, of course. I went with one of my favorite friends and we watched The Band Perry, Jake Owen, Blake Shelton, and (my favorite) Carrie Underwood perform, among many others. We also watched the crowd. It’s what we do. We saw the typical CMA concert crowd.  The Act-The-Song-Outers. The Let-It-All-Hang-Outers. The Drink-‘Til-You-Pass-Outers. The Can’t-Help-But-Make-Outers. The Never-Get-Outers. The I-Clearly-Have-No-Friends-Or-They-Wouldn’t-Have-Let-Me-Wear-These-Clothes-Outers. And then there’s us, acting (and looking) totally normal with a few other people in the sold-out stadium.  Sometimes I wonder if the rest of the crowd is pointing back at us as we walk by and saying, “Wow. I wonder why they wore that sun dress and cowboy boots instead of this camo halter top, tie-dyed shorts, and bedazzled fanny pack?”.

My Concert Buddy

Cruising

When I was in high school, one of my best friends and I always played the cruising game. We would turn down a back road, get our speed up to the speed limit, and then let off of the gas completely. No gas. No brake. Just cruising. And we would make guesses as to how far we could coast before stopping. “I bet we can make it to the third barn on the left.” “No way, we can at least make it to the hay bales way up there on the right.” The coasting game actually takes strategy. If there are hills and curves, the length of your coast can change drastically. This is life in Small Town America.

But now I have a new kind of cruising that I LOVE to do. My dad got a motorcycle this past spring.

My first encounter with his new bike. Not exactly ready for a ride just yet.

He had motorcycles when he was younger, but never while I was alive. Now, because of these crazy gas prices, he got a small “commuter” bike just to take back and forth to work.  Well, that was the intent before I got on it. I had never even been on a bike before, but now I can’t get off of it. On almost any free afternoon that I get, we go cruising. We drive through country back roads and through tiny little towns that we have never even heard of and we stop at little farm stands and we cruise up through the KY Mennonite country. We just pick a direction and drive until we make enough turns to find our way back home again just before sunset. Every time we cruise I play the Rodney Atkins’ song “Take a Back Road” over and over again in my head. I love being on the back of a bike. I’m a little obsessed.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!

Home

Someone at work recently pointed out that I use “home” to refer to my parent’s house and “my condo” to refer to the place that I currently live. I always hear that “Home is where your heart is”. So yeah, I love my condo, but my heart is at my “home”. And this past week a huge part of my heart was at my home. My sister and nephews came in for a visit, so I took a spur of the moment trip home on a weeknight to hang out with them. My nephews and I did our favorite thing. We (mainly I) dress up in crazy costumes and then jump out from around corners to try to scare each other. I do it often enough to say that I think it has become a hobby.

Although after a while of jumping around corners, my nephew wanted to play the game outside. So we ran around in our front yard looking like this. 

I didn't realize that I looked like such a creeper until I saw the picture

Did I mention that our home is on a main highway? Did I mention our neighbors were all home? Did I mention we were in the front yard? Clearly I will do anything to make that little guy smile!

We enjoyed dinner on the deck with fresh blackberries and watermelon.

And at dusk my sister and I took a walk to the pond and picked any of the first blackberries of the season that we could find along the way.

The lightning bugs. The frogs. The sunset. There is no place like home.

Sleep Drama

And since this whole blog post is about night time activities, you know that I just have to mention my broken arm and sleeping drama. My sleep medication has been working just fine. Before the medicine, I was, to my knowledge, acting something out about 5 nights a week.  In the three weeks since starting the medicine, I have only done something twice. Big improvement. I have the hardest time ever getting out of bed in the mornings, though.  And this is coming from the girl that normally sets 4 phone alarms, a music alarm, and turns the tv on to help wake me up every morning anyways. I think I’m going to have to do the “put a really annoying beeping alarm all the way across the room” thing. We’ll see. 

I did graduate from occupational therapy recently.  I got a t-shirt and everything. My wrist has what they consider a “normal range of motion”. I say that because my wrists were normally hyper flexible.  For example, your wrist should be able to bend forwards by 70 degrees and backwards by 60 degrees.  When I completed OT, my left, broken arm was registering 90/80, which is well above normal.  However, my right wrist (and my left one pre-break) was flexible enough to bend 140/100. That’s twice the normal amount. So yeah, I’ll never get all of that back in my left arm, but at least I am “normal” again. Normal is a relative term. 

You can never have to many concerts, cruises, or cookouts.  Celebrate your summer.