Austin City Limits & TX/OU Weekend

This weekend will be the weekend to end all weekends. Two of my biggest yearly celebrations have collided into one super holiday this year - ACL/OU!

First is the Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL). I've had my tickets for this year's festival since October 9, 2011. I am more than ready to go! This will be my 4th festival - I missed my freshman year of college and last year. But never again! ACL goes from 11AM Friday until 10:30PM Sunday. Dozens of the greatest bands both known and unknown, along with hundreds of thousands of hipsters and music lovers, make a yearly pilgrimage to Austin, TX - the Live Music Capitol of the World! I am super stoked about the lineup this year! I'd have to steal Hermione's time-turner and a teleporter to make it to everyone on my list, but I'm gonna try my damndest. My bestie Jordan and sister Eileen (along with a bunch of people from work and my lovely former roommate Maggie) will be joining me this year! Eileen and Jordan are both ACL newbies, so I'm hoping the weather stays nice so they can see Zilker Park at its finest.

If three days of nonstop music weren't enough for one weekend, The Red River Shootout (the Texas v. Oklahoma rivalry game) is set to kick off at 11AM Saturday morning at the Cotton Bowl in the middle of the Texas State Fairgrounds in Dallas. This will be my first time not being at the game in a while, and I am actually so depressed about missing it that I've been trying not to think about it. LUCKILY, the people in Austin understand that this game MUST be watched, so they've set up a tent in the middle of Zilker filled with television screens dedicated to displaying this glorious game. I think that they could sense my dismay and also only scheduled crappy bands during the game. *cue a rousing gospel choir belting out the Hallelujah Chorus*

I'm really hoping that the Football Gods ("Dear Our Lady of the Boobies...") and the Music Gods will get their shit together next year and schedule these things for different weekends. But this year I'm embracing the madness.

Update:
I had planned out a super mani for this weekend. But instead of actually getting it done.. I went to the hospital. I spent 7 hours there today, and I am just so exhausted that I can't do anything. Long story short, I have a kidney stone. I really only thought old people got those...? And I'm not out of the woods yet. It's supposed to get super painful really soon. So that'll be great for a 3 day outdoor music festival... Fingers crossed.

Fall Into Autumn Challenge: School Spirit - Texas Longhorn Skittles

Football season is finally here!! UT's first game is Saturday night, and I am stoked. And sometime last night, in an answer to my prayers, AT&T U-Verse FINALLY decided to support the Longhorn Network!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm driving up to Austin to watch the game anyway, but now I can watch everything all the time!

To get ready for a new season, I went out and bought all-new game gear. I'm a little superstitious, and I don't want to bring last year's bad juju back by wearing tainted jerseys. And of course I decked out my nails in the ole brunt orange and white.

Artificial light

Artificial light

Artificial light

Sunlight

Sunlight

Artificial light

Artificial light

Schwat is a Quinnie?

If you don't understand how the title should sound, go listen to some Group X.

Alrighty, so this first post is mostly going to be spewing random info about who I am and what I like, just in case someone I don't know ever reads this (or anyone at all?). Hopefully this might help to explain the strange combination of things I like. Spoiler Alert: this is long. 

I grew up in the Chicagoland area, in a tiny town in Indiana that no one except citizens can spell without great difficulty. My mom is an avid fan of all Chicago teams - Cubs, Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini - and I adopted her love for all things sports at a young age. If you're ever at our house during baseball season, you'll hear two women cussing out the umps and clapping deafeningly for double-plays. Once people hear I'm from Chicago, the tend to picture me living someplace hip and trendy. Alas, I lived on a farm. And I loved it! We had sheep that followed you around like puppies, half a dozen cats who lived in the barn, and 35 acres to play in. Our tiny 3 bedroom house was built around 1850, had no A/C, and only one tiny bathroom (an addition added in the '80s) for 5 people. Looking back, it's probably a good thing that we moved away, since most of the people I knew back then are in gangs or prison.

My sister and I modeling next to some giant squash that my mom grew.

Sledding next to the sheep. In October. Ah, snow...

We moved to Alabama after my dad got transferred. Now, when I tell people this tidbit, they usually assume that everyone I met there was a racist, toothless, uneducated hick. Which couldn't be further from the truth! Yes, parts of the state do include some unsavory characters, but I lived in a town where everyone I met had parents who either worked for NASA, Boeing, the Army, or were an engineer of some sort. Unbeknownst to most of the rest of the world, there is a major college rivalry in Alabama. I constantly swapped allegiances, depending on which friend I was talking to at the time. I met some of my favorite people in the entire world there, and was heartbroken when I had to move yet again.

Stephanie's ice skating extravaganza.

Camping out for the midnight release of the final Harry Potter book.

My last day at BJHS.

Final move (so far) was to the "great" state of Texas. As soon as I moved here, I dubbed it the "Armpit of America" because of the unbelievable heat and humidity. But after 7 years this place is growing on me. I met the remainder of my favorite people in the world here!

Sexy saxes.

Tiny houses.

From what I've seen of this massive state, Austin is the best place to live by far. Four glorious years there were not enough.

Roomies! 

Hokie dokie, I believe you are now caught up on the basic Quinnie facts. I hope you like pictures... I do! Obviously. Future posts may not have quite so many! So far, there's really no plan for what I'm going to write about. As of now, I'm thinking I'm just going to talk about whatever I'm obsessing about at the moment.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? I haven't blogged since Xanga (anyone remember that?).