Rhinestone on Rhinestone Action

Our Nashville adventures continued on the fourth of July. It was great because all the touristy places were open and parking was easy. The downside was some of the things that we really wanted to visit, like a hotdog restaurant and Jack White’s record store, were closed. It was a good thing that there wasn’t much we planned to do because we spent 5 hours at the Country Music Hall of Fame! 

It was tremendous, starting with the genre’s folk roots and moving through history to the present state of country music. Lots of Dolly. 

Tons of rhinestones. 

Wow. The top floor was more historic and we got through nearly all of that before we had to hit the road to Studio B, a famous RCA recording studio in Nashville that is now owned by the museum. That was a great part of the adventure because there was a really cheesy bus driver who drove us from the museum to the studio that requested he be called “crash” and a real country lady/tour guide with long flowing white hair. She could not work the Ipod that was used to provide examples of the hits recorded there. At one point she said “and this was what happened…” pressed play, couldn’t work the Ipod, and had to go get someone for help. She really left us hanging.

Then we returned to the hall of fame to progress through more modern country stuff that got progressively worse and lame as we got closer to the present. Classic country = yay, contemporary country = boo. Another important tidbit is our observation throughout TN that country fans are great because they are unabashedly excited about nearly everything and their enthusiasm can be infectious and is typically entertaining (very rarely annoying).

The next morning we wanted to get in the things that we couldn’t get to on the fourth. We knew Benek was tired of hear about our adventures with fried chicken so we went to a hotdog restaurant which was fab. Then Dave went to Jack White’s record store, Third Man Records. There was a special event at the record store so there was a line stretching around the block. The wild thing about this line was that it was comprised of a bunch of kids in their 20’s and several of them had parasols to protect them from the sun. This was even more interesting when you consider that the record store is in a rather shady neighborhood with a large parole center or some other facility. 

Very strange. While Dave waited in the hot hot sun to get a glimpse of the inside of the record store Renee went to a coffee shop (fiddlecakes). She ordered an iced soy latte. It was the most expensive latte of her life (over $5). It was not iced and it was possibly the worst latte ever. If you are ever in Nashville avoid fiddlecakes! Dave finally got to shop and picked up some really neat stuff. 

At around 1:00 we left Nashville and headed to Columbus to spend the night with Molly’s sister’s family. We were very excited about this because we think Mary and Chris are awesome and have heard tons of great things about their kids Max and Lane. Also, as an added bonus their mom was there. We ran into our first bout of traffic on the way there. We got caught in a few miles of construction that put us a few hours behind schedule. Luckily we had Renee’s favorite podcast, The Hater Podcast, loaded up on the computer. Dave did a quick transfer onto the Ipod (the country lady would be AMAZED) and we were able to bask in hours of hate. The podcast has been canceled for a while so some of the hate topics were outdated, but it is hard to ever grow tired of the shock of the KFC Doubledown, rabid Lost fans, and the endless sadness of Jessica Simpson. We finally arrived and had a wonderful time with them and got to spend the night in a house! And do laundry!!!  It was so great, we can’t say enough about it. The only snafu was when Suzy went out to get some coffee and backed into our car. Don’t worry, everything is fine! There is a dent and we will get it fixed when we get settled somewhere.

Stay tuned!

Some Kinda Druid Dude

Renee learned that those are the lyrics of John Lennon's "Mind Games." Today, we said goodbye to Memphis and drove to Nashville, about 3 hours northeast. We drove first to the Ryman Auditorium to get our tour tickets for later that afternoon and then went to the Nashville Farmer's market.

It was sort of like Fanuel Hall but with lots more fresh produce. Dave got a tasty tamarind snowball for dessert, and Renee got a fresh lemonade.

Next we drove back downtown and found a great parking space. We popped into Ernest Tubb's Record Shop, where they had a great selection of country vinyl, CDs, DVDs and more.

Then we headed to the Ryman. This is where the Grand Ole Opry was performed and broadcast from the '40s to 1974. We took a great backstage tour and heard all about the history of the building, got to hang out in the dressing rooms and meet some super excited older adult country music fans. After the tour, Dave recorded a song! The Ryman has a small recording booth inside the main auditorium where you can record your own song. Dave did "Traveling so Far," and it came out pretty good!

After that, we drove to the Vanderbilt University area and had tasty chicken fingers at MacDougal's Chicken Fingers and Wings. It was quite tasty!

The interior was plastered with ephemera, and at the end of your meal you get a tasty mini ice cream.

Then we drove up to Opryland where our hotel is. Tomorrow we hope to hit the Country Music Hall of Fame, Third Man Records, and explore a little. Maybe catch some live music somewhere?

Traveling...

Hi All! We're making our way cross-country, destination Rochester NY, where we'll be for the next year. We decided to take our time and stop at Memphis and Nashville, two places we've always wanted to go. Right now we're in Memphis, we arrived Friday (July 1), we'll be leaving tomorrow morning. We've had a wonderful time, Memphis is such an interesting city rich with history. Yesterday, we saw the Rock 'N Soul Museum, which is a Smithsonian museum, and it shows. Tons of great information and neat things to look at. Today we went to Sun Studios, where the first Rock 'N Roll song was recorded.

Elvis and Johnny Cash got their start there, and it was incredible being in the same room where all those legendary recording sessions took place.

We then went to Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. It was a long wait in the hot sun, but it was worth it a hundred times over. Not only was it the best fried chicken we'd ever had, it was one of the best meals we've had, period.

 

Next was the Gibson guitar factory. They make all of Gibson's hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars there, as well as double-neck guitars. We were able to see how the guitars are made, from a few pieces of wood to beautiful hand-crafted instruments. We couldn't take any pictures inside because they have strict no-filming policies.

So tomorrow it's to Nashville. We'll make updates as we can, stay tuned!

Deer Valley

We have had this big pillow for years, since Renee first went to college. It used to be covered in a hideous red velour.  At some point the pillow shed its cover and has been encased in only its lining for years. Of course we intended to re-cover it but when it hides in the closet for 3 years it is difficult to remember it is on your to-do list.  Renee discovered Joel Dewberry’s fabric designs (http://quilthome.com/Joel_Dewberry) last year and has been smitten ever since. She bought Deer Valley with the intent of covering the sad naked pillow. Today while Dave painted Renee sewed this cover. 

It took some finagling since she didn’t measure and can never remember how to put in a zipper. The biggest set-back was that she thought she was finished and put the pillow in the case only to find out it was about 8 inches too big on the sides! It was a quick fix and the project was completed by the end of the episode of the Beatles Anthology we were watching.  

Fabrication

This is Renee here. Molly and I recently went on an adventure to Tucson AZ. There were a lot of wonderful things about this trip including (green) chili-cheeseburgers, tart frozen yogurt, and cacti but the best part by far was a trip to Santa Fe where we stumbled upon a fabric store (http://santafefabrics.com/). I will never ever ever be the same after going to this fabric store. The owner has the best eye for fabric and there were so many that I had eyed online for years but have never had the pleasure of seeing in person. It was completely and totally amazing. Imagine finding your fabric soul mate who brings everything you have ever wanted and more to your fingertips.  There is no way I will be able to communicate the exhilaration so I will move on. 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for our bank accounts), we got there right before they closed. Another part that I loved/hated was that they had the most amazing selection of linen and it was crazy expensive. So it seems the only downsides were the reality of being around all that amazing stuff that I wanted and needing to decide what to get and how much I could spend. We had only been there about 5 minutes when the owner commented on my “expensive taste”.  I was finally able to settle on three different fabrics. I have no idea what I will use them for but I am completely in love with them. I am thinking of framing one and hanging it. Molly got fabric to make a duvet cover (shown in three pictures because it is very very wide) with so there will be a part two to this entry at some point because I will certainly be chronicling that adventure!

 

Caramel Corn

Typically during the holiday season we like to make rather than buy something for our friends and family. We do this for several reasons: it is riduculous to send people crappy gifts that they don't want or need, we are relatively crafty people and we have the ability to cobble something together; we don’t have a lot of money to spend on presents and making is usually cheaper than buying; and we are of the mindset that crafting something is a little more personal and perhaps thoughtful. I guess usually we do something edible because it is Renee's favorite combo of crafty AND useful. One year it was a cookie mix that recipients just needed to add wet ingredients to and then bake. In 2009 we made pickle relish and spicy pineapple salsa. This year we decided to try caramel corn, as it seemed appropriately festive and we had never tried making it before so we were interested to see how it came out. Plus we are popcorn making masters The recipe we used was from a website called smitten kitchen, and if I remember correctly we didn’t make any modifications except for half of the batch was non-spicy. It wasn’t particularly difficult to execute but was extreemly dangerous. The molten carmel could easily burn through flesh to the bone. It required a watchful eye – if the caramel mixture got too brown or not brown enough, it didn’t taste right and got too hard too fast. We made a LOT of popcorn so Renee was in charge of popping the batches of corn and I was in charge of making the caramel mixture.

 

In the original recipe, only one batch of corn and one caramel mixture gets made; we had to do I think 4 of each. This made for more experimentation to find that perfect balance but also more chances to burn the caramel and ourselves. Our first batch came out the best. We liked the results and got pretty good feedback from our gift recipients. If you like caramel corn definitely try this recipe out and see what you think, as I said it’s not difficult, the directions are pretty straightforward, but getting it just right will probably take several tries. That’s the fun of making rather than buying!

Brief Garden Update

Hello! It has been a busy busy summer. We are going to try and catch you all up on craft and music stuff in the next few days. This post is about our garden. All in all, we've had a more bountiful year than last year, with lots of tomatoes. If you will remember, we planted 4 tomato plants, 1 in the topsy turvy and 3 in the ground. All the tomato plants seem to be taking their time in the fruit ripening department, but we have lots and lots of tomatoes to look forward to. We've had one banana and jalepeno pepper each, and both of our bell pepper plants have a pepper on them, but the plants themselves are pretty runty and I don't know if we'll get any edible peppers this year. The biggest disappointment has been the cucumbers. Last year we had more cucumbers than we knew what to do with, made lots of cucumber sandwiches and a huge batch of relish. This year we have had no edible cucumbers and the plants all look really bad. One theory is that they thrive in rocky sandy soil, and since we improved the quality of the soil so much this year, they are not taking kindly to it. Who knows.

Some tasty produce (except the cucumber, which was too hard and not edible)