thefourthstar's Xanga

Some Zach Tracks:

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:36:01 GMT

Poster made by 108Printshop, available at the show for $3 - $5.

I got permission to post a couple of the tracks from the album. So, here they be! (Again, really honored that I got to sing on this record.)

Singin' and Craftin' and Hopin' and Dreamin'...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:40:24 GMT

Soooo.... there's a lot going on. Also, there are way too many apostrophes in that title. Sorry.

Tomorrow, Judson College Coffee House. The laid back vibes will begin at 9pm.

Friday night:

Zach and the Broken Bones' CD Release at Trinity University in Deerfield, IL. It's only $3. $10 and you get in, PLUS you get their new album which Marky did the art for and I contributed some back up vocals on. It is going to be awesome.

Then!

Hoooooray! We don't have a booth at this craft fair but I'm still totally going.

We are, however, going to be at this craft fair in Chicago, at a booth with Steff Bomb. And that is super exciting.

And, of course, Kevin's new album is coming out:

And we're playing that CD release show as well, November 13th at the Union in Naperville, IL.

Then, we take a break until January 2nd when we'll be back at the Metro in Chicago with Kid, You'll Move Mountains, Picture Books and Crayolala. You can buy tickets here if you want to come out.

Phew.

Sorry I'm Not Home Right Now:

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:32:03 GMT

Halloween = Total Success.

Don't they all look great?! That's the Culpa plus Mr. Nick as No Doubt. And their set was fabulous. There was lots of dancin'.

Me & Marky had a swell time being out. We kinda look like we're going off to get married. <3

Dre took some Björkish pictures of me. (Actually, she took all these pictures. <3) The dress was surprisingly comfortable to wear. The swan head had to sit in my lap while I was doing Dustin's makeup and eating, but other than that... totally wearable.

Sistas 4-evah! Speaking of putting makeup on Dustin... Total Gwenifying time: 45 minutes. Result:

Sassy. He dealt with the eyeliner, false eyelashes, nail polish and body glitter like a champ. Only a real man's man would endure such things all for the sake of a good Halloween. And dang, he was pretty. Haha.

So yeah. It was good. I'm pretty thrilled I got to go this year. I see now exactly what all the fuss is about.

Björk.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:01:54 GMT

Twelve hours of sewing and twenty-five yards of tulle later...

I attribute this dress' success to Marky, who acted as a dress form so I could pin the yards and yards of tulle to the skirt base.

We're in the annual pre-trick-or-treating hours of insanity. The kids are running around in circles, I've run out of things for them to do, so I'm hiding behind the laptop screen and trying to ignore the mess my house is rapidly becoming. Ah well. Today's about having fun. =)

Discouraged.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:48:07 GMT

Ok. I'm officially discouraged. I do have pleurisy, which could easily also be named "stabbing-chest-pain-disease." There's a place right by my heart that's giving me the most trouble - it literally hurts to breathe. Needless to say, Venna shows this weekend are canceled and if I don't show some rapid improvement, next week is going to be a whole lot of laying around again. Have I mentioned how much I hate laying around? I hate it. I have been sick now off and on for an entire month. And that is discouraging.

So I'm looking at happy things. Wanna see?

Typewriters make me so incredibly happy. Mine miss me right now, I know it.

I don't think I've ever seen a picture this cute. I mean, come on.

I'm making these pies in a jar the second I'm feeling better.

I don't know what the current photo shoot with people in bear suits trend thing is all about, but I massively dig it.

This looks like the absolute most perfect date ever.

This is going to be what my studio looks like someday. Although that rocker will be turquoise. Or orange.

Also, this bedroom is perfect.

I am going to go hide in bed and watch this.

And tomorrow, I'll be all better.

A Vespertine Halloween!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:07:56 GMT

I'm sick and not getting better and I have to go to the doctor AGAIN tomorrow morning since it seems I'm developing pneumonia but that matters not because I get to GO OUT ON HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR! Yes friends, it's true. Marky's band is playing at the House Cafe in DeKalb. Last year they were Guns N Roses and the year before that they were U2. I have missed both of these performances so I am extremely excited to witness them this year as No Doubt. Dustin is going to make an awesome Gwen. I promise I will take scads of pictures.

So I get to take my kids trick-or-treating with my little sister after which they will get to hang out with my family while I disappear into the night with Marky, put eyeliner on Dustin and generally NOT get left behind as usual.

This brought to my attention the fact that I had not planned on dressing up (I haven't in a long time) and now, I need to. I confess I initially wanted to be Snow White. This Snow White, to be exact:

However, finding a dress that isn't either some sort of adult fantasy getup or just downright cheesy proved to be impossible.

So there was this suggestion from Dustin:

I'm totally going to buy a billion yards of tulle and a stuffed swan. I can't wait to make this dress. The kids have had their costumes set since September so I can focus all my costume-making energies on this. Seriously. Can't. Wait. I just dyed my hair black and everything. Perfect.

These last few days of autumn:

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:29:45 GMT

We all have the flu. Fortunately, it's not stopping us from enjoying these last few nice days of autumn.

I potted some herbs to bring in for the winter. There's nothing like having fresh stuff to cook with even if there's two feet of snow on the ground.

My garden this year was a disaster. Late blight killed all my potatoes and the Japanese beetles this year were unbelievable. Everyone around us uses the super toxic sprays which means they all swarm to our organically maintained yard to escape. Dog wasn't complaining however, she ate like a queen all summer. Unfortunately, one hedgehog isn't enough to protect an entire garden. Still, I have my herbs and that's mostly all I care about.

Also, Marky and Steff got accepted to Renegade for the holiday craft fair!

I'll be there too with my hair pins (got LOTS of new stuff!) and some other things, so be sure to come visit our booth! The last fair was so fun... this one's going to be a blast too, I'll bet. And less sweaty.

That's all I have to report at the moment. I had planned on getting caught up on my correspondence today. I think I'll drag out my typewriter and get to it. I have been sewing a lot lately, finished up some wee little things for some of the smallest girlies in my life right now. <3 Pictures soon.

Oh, and if you don't already know about Rollip.com, It's SUPER fun to slap on some pinup girl make up and play with their photo filters.

Instant glam shots, no photoshopping required. Love it.

An experiment, a tour and victory rolls.

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:45:51 GMT

Marky is finally coming home from tour sometime today! Thank goodness. All I want is someone to have a beer and watch Sports Night with me and I'm pretty sure that came right after the "have and hold" part of our vows, so, you know, I want what's mine.

This tour I attempted a grand experiment with the boys, namely to see how they would fare traveling around with me while Dad's gone. We got mixed results. First we went to Milwaukee to visit Jess. We walked to the park and then came back and put on a movie. First observation: there is an excessive amount of whining when my boys have to walk anywhere. Second: They do not know how to entertain themselves at other people's houses who do not have children their age. This makes for a somewhat frustrating combination if you would like to spend time with someone who does not fit the criteria. This whole scenario was repeated in Chicago when I went to see Stephanie. Whining on the way to the park, whining on the way back from the park, and a healthy dose of getting into mischief out of boredom, in spite of my efforts to give them things to do. Also, sleeping over was a disaster. They are, like their mama, prone to homesickness and they didn't fall asleep until nearly midnight and that was only when I was laying directly in the middle of the bed, with all three of them laying on various parts of me. Not very conducive to late-night hanging out. The following day did lend itself to a lot of chatting over apple cider which was absolutely lovely though. I guess we just need more practice at this.

After hanging out with Jess, we met up with Marky at the Rave and they were ecstatic to see Daddy and all the boys.

Jeremiah loves Dustin's keyboard. Also, he watched the entire sound check with this look on his face of shock and rapture... it was great.

The boys got to run around in circles at the giant Eagles Ballroom, run up and down the loading ramp, hang out in the green room and eventually, we all got to take the rock star tour.

Jeremiah became the youngest person ever to take this tour. It was pretty wild. We saw the fabled pool and even went into the tunnels underneath the pool. Even though parts were a little creepy, I think the adventure aspect was pretty thrilling. They talked about it all the way home.

I think it really helped to watch the sound check and see the van parked next to the other bands' vans... It seemed like it helped them make sense of what Dad was doing. It's been a while since he's been on tour for that long so this is going to take some getting used to for them. Not to mention they don't like being left behind any more than I do.

They had a lot of fun though, and I think next time we'll make an effort to meet up with the boys again.

In between all of that, I've been busy getting a massive head cold, trying to prepare for the holidays by making a bunch of hair pins, cleaning up the house and doing school with the boys... I also finished a mix for Nate which I posted about at Mix Tape Makers.

Oh yeah, and watching vintage hair and makeup DIY crap on youtube.

To call for hands of above:

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:30:48 GMT

I'd say I was taking a breather, but that's only partly true.

You know, the more time I spend in Chicago, the better I like it. When I was younger and thinking I'd be working at Dominick's a good deal longer than I did, I looked at apartments in the city and fell in love with this little place with a terrible elevator and robin's egg blue walls, all the corners softened with age. I didn't end up getting the place since immediately after I briefly entertained the idea of transferring out east to be with my art student boyfriend but I think there's a little piece of me that lives there, content in a little space in the city and I wonder if more of me (and my children and husband) could be happy there too.

Two weekends ago Marky and I had Chicago joint-custody weekend. Two shows, two days, zero baby-sitting. My show was night one: a sold out, packed to the max Owen show featuring our own Dustin.

Dustin's the one who puts paper towels in the toaster oven. Anyway, me and Tristan went after some pretty fabulous quesadillas at Earwax, met up with Evan and watched a really beautiful (albeit loose) set and afterward headed out with Dustin, Stacey, Grant, Nabeel, Twan and some new friends from Minneapolis to Underbar where Knob Creek and PBR were very kindly provided to me. The evening talked on until about 4 a.m. when we ended up on the street, Stacey reassuring me that my conscious and subconscious are, in fact, in line. I crashed at Tristan's and the next day we grabbed some salad and I got the tour of Threadless. Tristan works in the IT department and does lots of things I can never hope to understand, but I'm jealous that he and Dustin work at such an amazing place. Seriously, I have never seen an office/warehouse like this. (Also, wow does the smell of cardboard make me nostalgic!) Grabbed a train home and Marky took that same train back to see the Hey Mercedes reunion show.

Headed back into the city on Thursday to see Sunny Day Real Estate reunite on the stage I was just on. (Here's where I geek out like crazy.) Wow. Just... wow. It's been almost ten years since I've seen them live and it was spectacular. I danced, I grinned like an idiot (Nate was too, so I didn't feel too stupid. You know it's good when the guitar player can't stop smiling), I grabbed my friends around me in excitement. If I hadn't been wearing heels (gotta see over the heads of all those indie boys) I would have been jumping up and down. Anyway. I couldn't have been happier. The last time I saw them was with Marky on a double date although our dates were not each other, so this time around kind of felt like a circle had come to a close. Dustin, Kristy, Phil, Tim, Nabeel, Evan, Steff, Joelly, Dre, Stacey and Grant were there too so it was a really nice group celebration of something fantastic. I love shows like that.

Then Marky went on tour and I got the stomach flu. Which brings us about up to speed.

Tristan affixing a debonair mustache to our van.

Yep. If the van's got a mustache, someone's on tour. That's a fact. Twan's been taking lots more beautiful pictures of the boys. You can see 'em right here.

In other news, I'm pretty stoked that the Zach & The Broken Bones' album I did vocals on will be coming out soon. I've been listening to the tracks and... wow. I am excited about this album. I can't believe I got to sing on this record. I am a lucky, lucky gal.

I've got a new project for Mix Tape Makers in the works and I've got a list a mile long of stuff to do for GiGi's, so I suppose I ought to get my tired self in bed so I can get something done tomorrow. Also, if I owe you a letter, I promise I'm going to write you one soon. My typewriter is lonely and so is my mailbox.

Shop Update!

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:32:29 GMT

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