Blog

The daily life blog that might not be so daily.

Window Garden


There are some beeeeautiful flowers here in NYC but I am missing the fields of Bluebonnets and the warm weather that comes along with them in Texas. We took this photo off the highway while we were visiting Houston for the Watson wedding.

We are hoping to get a little garden growing outside our window that faces to the alley. We bought a wax leaf tree last weekend and poor Alex had to lug our new baby onto the subway. Annoyed commuters were definitely smacked in the face a few times. Lo siento. Still not sure how people move large items around the city. I guess just pay for delivery. Too cheap. Not happening. My sweet husband can handle that. Right Alex… right?

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Kitchen chair revamp

First completed “crafty” project while in NYC. Man I wish we had a before picture of this table and chairs set… might have to go on a craigslist hunt to find it. Alex and I bought 4 chairs and a table w/ a leaf for $30 right before we left Austin because we knew we couldn’t afford anything up here. They were in rough shape to say the least. Who uses a light cream fabric to cover kitchen chairs? Gross. We spray painted the metal a slate-blue and covered the chairs with a satin orange, dot fabric. Turned out a little too “hook em” for my taste but overall they look really cute. Lot of work though. First time upholstering anything so I got a little staple-gun happy.

Can’t wait to have our first dinner party!

Also a big thanks to Brian for helping strip the gnarly old fabric. We found some goodies in thur..

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Spring is a comin

I’m trying to get back in the habit of “blogging”… aka public journaling. It’s been hard to find the free time since moving to NYC, but it seems like things are starting to settle down finally. Or maybe the time change makes it feel like the days are longer. I think that’s it. We occasionally leave work when it’s still LIGHT outside. A miracle.

Happy April! I’ve never been so excited for April because I’ve never had such a long winter in my life. It’s still chilly up here in the Big Apple while it’s already sweatin’ weather in Austin. On our regular Odom walk through Fort Tryon Park precious little flower babies are starting to bloom. I’d guess 2 more weeks till the park actually has some color to it. Going to be amazing.

Otilie is also hoping for Spring soon with her new do she is sporting. Even with her ridiculous knitted sweater she is always shaking from cold. Must be hard shedding a coat you’ve been wearing day and night for the last year. No, we did not mean to cut her that short either. We took her for her first trip to the groomer and of course they didn’t want to work on her matted hair so they just cut it off. O well, she looks like our little lamb now.

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Playing Dress-Up

My aunt Elaine pulled out her wedding dress circa 1980 and I did her such a huge favor by posing for some photos so she could post the dress for sale on craigslist. The backyard and Otilie create a pretty good backdrop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fishin in Eupora

On my grandmother’s property, there’s a pretty  nice little pond with some fish weighing approximately… .03 pounds. Luckily, these little guys seem to like to be caught, shown by their multiple hook holes in their lips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Smokies

Here are some pretties we saw while hiking in the Smokie Mountains near Gattlinberg, TN. My favorite part was the super friendly butterfly who just wanted to give me kisses. Injuries wise, we did pretty good too. Mom hurt her knee on a rock. Alex stubbed a toe when he fell in the waterfall. Dad’s feelings were hurt when no cuddly black bears came out to play. I left unscathed.

 

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Victoria Train Station Re-Design

Today was my final review for the Summer London Studio I just took. Of course I don’t know what to do with myself post review so I had to make up something to keep myself occupied… like this blog post.

I ended up focusing on the redesign of the coach station and a nearby block of affordable housing. Here a few perspectives I did. The other stuff was too big to add.

 

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What’s in a date?

What's in a date?

In the past 6 months many dates have been thrown around as being “the BIG day”. I’ll explain the saga:

March 27, 2013- first official date. I was told by the owner of Three Points Ranch this day was available, but was told a couple weeks later that someone else had reserved it and she had forgotten.

March 9, 2013- this was official official saved on the calendar and everything. It was at Three Points Ranch but it also landed on Liz’s 30th birthday. We decided to change it mainly because of fears that the venue was completely outdoors. This March 9th was rainy and cold.

February- was about to book for February but Alex’s birthday is one weekend,  Valentine’s another, and Alex’s mom is going out of town as well.

January 26, 2013- FINAL date. We’ve paid the deposit (too big of one to turn back now). So that’s that! We aren’t sure how long we will be in Austin after I graduate in December so it makes more sense to just get it over with. haha. We also didn’t want to wait!

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Rain Rain Go Away

So I’m going to be honest. The weather while in London was HORRENDOUS. The average day was approximately 50 degrees (which is cold in case you can’t remember while living in Texas). Most of the day was spent wandering through horizontal rain that permeates clothing and shoes. Very uncomfortable, even when coming from hot hot Texas. I don’t know how they do it in London. The locals kept telling us “this is unusual” but somehow I do not believe them based off the number of warm, cozy pubs that seem to be thriving in this weather.

Many days were spent indoors at art galleries. Definitely not complaining. The Sachi Gallery had an interesting photography exhibit as well as a room covered in 6″ of motor oil creating a mirror-smooth surface. Luckily I love museums because London has more than a couple.

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Welcome to London (day 1)

A couple weeks ago, I went on a school trip to London, England to study the Victoria Train station. The rest of the semester home here in Austin, we will be redesigning the station to make it uh…. hopefully at least bearable.

So I arrived at 6:20am and we started right away on our little tour of London. My professor is British so led us around to some of his favorite parks and sites. We started at the British Museum with its glorious atrium space by Foster + Partners. Simon surprised us with a visit to the John Soane Museum. No photos were allowed inside but photos wouldn’t have done it justice anyway… That guy was crazy. The multi story row house was packed with relics, stained glass, mirrors, and antiques.

We checked out the Tate Modern briefly but not really long enough to see any of the exhibits so I had to take a trip back there. We ended the day with some modern asian food and I went home and passed out, half-way delusional at 10pm. I had been awake a whopping 44 hours straight. That’s a new record for me.

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Otilie the Wild Dog

Last week was rough to say the least… Otilie ran away while we were hanging out at Zilker Park on Monday evening. Something spooked her and she took off, head down in one direction. I couldn’t keep up and had no clue where she went. We waited for 5 full days with no word. Nothing from the shelters, nothing on Craigslist, no calls from the posters we hung.

Finally on Saturday when we had just about given up hope, I got a call from a random lady who had seen Otilie at her office complex that backs up to the greenbelt. She had found my info on Craigslist and called right away. We rushed out and went on a 4 hour pursuit of Otie and found nothing  but some old paw prints in the dirt. We went home discouraged but decided to try one more thing… Leaving a bunch of Otie’s possessions where she was last seen.

This was the idea of Ben Stelly and had worked for his sister so we gave it a shot without much hope. We left a pair of Alex’s dirtiest boxer briefs, food, water, treats, toys, and her kennel. I drug Alex out of bed at 8am on Sunday and went out to check the loot. Nothing was in the cage… it seemed it had failed. BUT WAIT. Sitting behind a rock only 5 feet from the cage Otilie was lying as still as a baby fawn. I slowly walked over to her and wrapped her up in my arms and loaded her in the car. And that was the Happy Ending which is just the beginning of our little Odom family.

Here’s an email I got from a stranger while looking for the pup:

Hi there,

I hope you don’t mind me e-mailing you, but I just want to tell you that my heart breaks for you guys every time I see your ads for Otilie.  I check craigslist several times a day, as we found a dog that we’re trying to return to his home (well, he found us, but I know he must have a home out there).

Anyway, I’ve been spreading the word about your pup, and I’ve been praying that she gets returned to you quickly.

Please know that there are many people watching out for Otilie.

– Amanda

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Mother/dogter Day

Otilie enjoying the wind in her hair, errrr fur… She makes me appreciate the little things. Sigh. Then she poops on the floor and I’m snapped out of the bliss her puppy smile brings me.

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Small town, slow change

Across the US one can find small towns similar to Mart, satellites from medium sized cities such as Waco. My mother is from one of such teeny towns that feel untouched by modern technology as well as dilapidated. I imagine Mart to be the same way. Is it the town that is so resistant to change or is it its isolation that prevents change from occurring. Probably both.

I looked around at other blogs online to see an insider’s perspective. One blogger, Joanne Steele, believed her town to be resistant to revitalization because of two main reasons. The first was that using outside experts sets up resistance from the beginning. She states, “the normal process toward change is for some organization to get a grant. They hire experts, usually from afar, to come in and assess the current situation and create the plan. They present the community with a picture of how bad things are, with statistics to prove it, and offer a solution that is often brilliant, expensive and a little hard for locals to wrap their thinking around. Then they leave… and the plan is shelved, never to be seen again.” While I’ve never had first hand experience with this situation, I agree that this is probably the case for most places. Insider input is critical to the adoption of these new revitalization ideas. It seems to me that the Mart revitalization project has done better in this aspect because the locals are quite involved with the changes occurring and understand the slow process of revitalization.

Steele’s second reason that resistance occurs is because the wrong people are involved in the planning process. In small towns, residents are often so involved with their one aspect of the town, for example the Garden Club maintains the park, that these volunteers are already too busy with maintaining their small part of the town that they can’t handle another, even larger change.

To have successful revitalization, perhaps it would take a small team of volunteers from the community who come from many social groups of the town. This small team would get input from their clubs/church/friends and act as their liaison. Maybe at the head of this group a planner or consultant can give advice throughout the process, but not directly interact with the town as a whole.

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Pinspirations

Alex and I got a little crafty this weekend. Had some failures but also some moderate success.

-wall mounted knife block made from book bound with string

-string pendant lamp made by wrapping glue soaked string around a wine bottle

-strung buttons hung on wall

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Involvement

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2012-04-13/spare-that-tree/

After reading this article on the fate of an enormous oak tree at the corner of Lamar and MLK, I find myself straddling the line between feeling appalled and pretty tickled. The amount that citizens get involved in local issues is obviously connected to how much the issue affects them personally, and on a daily basis. Whether a tree gets cut down or not is an easy issue to take sides on, whereas (in my mind) more pertinent issues such as public education and sustainability seem to be much more difficult to get involved in. Why is this?

PROXIMITY- I drive by this tree every day. I know this tree. I feel strongly for things I know and understand. Environmental racism on the East Side, however, is outside my daily stream of consciousness and therefore, it is less likely that I will notice daily changes and injustices.

SIMPLICITY- Cutting down a tree is a fairly simple issue. There are concerns that the tree is unstable, but yet it is a long time resident and loved by neighbors. That’s about all the facts one needs to know about it to fully comprehend the issue. Underperforming schools in low-income neighborhoods, is on the other hand an extremely complex issue. There are many factors that affect this problem: lack of funding, violence in schools, lack of parental involvement, etc. My understanding of the issue doesn’t begin to fully encompass the issue; therefore I am less likely to take a clear stand on this issue. Which makes me less likely to act on this.

DURATION- The tree issue will be taken care of in a matter of months. It will either stay or get cut down. It’s a quick fix. I don’t have to devote an unforeseeable amount of time to follow this issue to fruition. Rehabilitating the homeless is on the other end of this spectrum. Helping someone become an independent, successful citizen, may take years and years with huge amounts of money from tax dollars. Just helping one person would require a commitment I am less likely to give, as it has no end in sight.

Reading this article on the Oak tree spurred this train of thought on public involvement, though I doubt it will have much affect on my own involvement in policy… but at least I’m aware of my motives. Awareness is the first step.

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Precious Babes

At Anna Beth’s one year birthday party, the siblings were in matching birthday suits. Adorable.

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Negative One Year Anniversary

Practicing cutting a cake for our big day which is almost exactly a year from now! March 9, 2013 mark in on the calendar. Sadly this March 9th was some of the worst weather of 2012 so far. Rainy, brutal winds, and very chilly even though just the week before it was shorts weather. Makes me reeeeeeal nervous obviously.

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Quick fixes by cities to attract the Creative Class

I read an article “The Curse of the Creative Class” by Steven Malanga that provides a counter argument to Richard Florida’s popular book “Rise of the Creative Class”. In response to Florida’s books, many cities have tried to implement trendy alterations to their city to attract this Creative Class that was said to have so much influence over a city’s economy. Providence, Rhode Island, for example, “local economic-development officials are urging a campaign to make the city the nation’s capital of independent rock music.” Other cities are spending millions to build new bike paths and parks to attract this hip, young group of tech savvy employees.

Malanga brings up some very good points on why this is a bad use of money. Florida made some leaps in logic when writing his book, assuming that these cities with high populations of Creative Class had somehow attracted these particular people with amenities the city already had. In reality, much of the creative class is not entrepreneurs and moved to cities because of job offers in existing businesses.

Attention was especially paid to Austin and its appeal, “Austin, already one of the winners in Florida’s world, is working hard to keep its edge. The city sets aside taxes on hotel rooms and car rentals to support local artists. A city-council economic-development subcommittee has adopted the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” to emphasize its belief that support for offbeat culture is essential to the city’s economic future. One defining assertion of that conviction, as Florida approvingly reports, is that Austin has erected—right smack in the midst of its downtown jogging trail—a bronze statue honoring not Sam Houston or Jim Bowie, but rock guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.”

Unfortunately, it takes the potential of profit to motivate our cities to invest money in their public spaces. Money should be going equally to the citizens in need instead of all towards meager attempts to attract a trendy population. I do appreciate that, because of Florida, cities now realize the potential that parks, bike lanes, live music, and public art have in creating a thriving city.

Article:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_curse.html

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