Now and then

While we're talking about now, I have to talk about then.

Then being Austin City Limits Music Festival 2004. I had just returned from Spain and was approaching what I consider one of the most fulfilled, terrifying and exciting times of my life. It was Troy's idea to take a road trip from Missouri to Austin to go to the ACL Fest, the year highlighted by Spoon, Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, Ryan Adams, Antibalis Afrobeat, the Pixies and Los Lonely Boys.

We left Columbia, Mo., after class Thursday afternoon four years ago and drove through the night, arriving at Uncle Tom's house just as he was leaving for work on Friday morning. We slept until he got home, drove with him downtown, renegade parked near Shoal Creek Saloon and walked to Zilker. We did this for three days, and on the third day, after watching Ben Harper close the festival, Troy and I drove through the night in time to make it to Monday morning classes, which neither of us felt like we could afford to miss.

I could regal you with stories -- little ones and big ones -- but mainly ones I know hold deep meaning only to me.

These photos capture that.

It was my first and last full ACL weekend, and tomorrow will be the first time I re-enter those gates. (In the years in between, I've only taken in the artists from the hike-and-bike trail or from friends' nearby houses.)

I will be working for the newspaper. I will have a child at day care (an addition in our lives that I haven't be able to adequately blog about).

I will have a restless heart and an overactive head. You see, some things never really do change.

It's the same, but different.

It is, but it isn't, Troy used to aggravate me by saying.




Not a day goes by that I don't wonder what he would say about my life now.

Pink is my favorite color

0818081549-04.jpg, originally uploaded by broylesa.

Dinner at Uncle Tom's house was an excuse to listen to the rain, no matter how shortlived, on the roof of his garage, get out in the country for a little while and wear pink bandannas.

Snapshots of love (and a wedding)

If we hadn't done about nine loads of laundry out at Uncle Tom's National Park today, I'd probably feel a little more like sharing what's going on in this crazy life of ours. Let's just say that at the end of the day, we're all pretty pooped. The great news is that it's a good kind of busy.

Guilt tapping me on the shoulder to edit these wedding pictures finally won, so I was able to at least get this small gallery of the wedding ceremony itself. Our incredible photographer Brian Diggs took thousands of beautiful photos, now it's just a matter of sharing them in an easily digestible manner. (Speaking of, does anyone have any ideas to make a stop motion movie with these photos? I've been trying iMovie, without success, and I just don't think Jump Cut could handle it.)

Anyway, looking at these photos takes me back to this beautiful moment in time, standing under my sister's yucca and lavender altar, Alberto's voice and soothing words of wisdom, Julian tugging on my dress to be with us while we shared our thoughts on loving each other. My promise. Ian's promise. To do our best.

Because that's the only thing we can really promise.

Sabotage after the wedding

One post wedding highlight was the discovery of a large insect similar to the one above, but with bigger mandibles and a longer, more swollen abdomen, that Scott bravely caught in Uncle Tom's garage. This bug was massive. Tom said he'd never seen one like it in 20 years living and working outside in Central Texas. No one knew what it was, but termite or ant queen were thrown out there.


It looks like it may have been a female dobsonfly, but we'll never know for sure.


Amid all the excitement about the bug arose the question, "What do we do with it?" About half the crew (not to generalize, but they tended to be vegetarian, with the exception of the overly emotional one who was moreso after a half dozen drinks) wanted to let go back to its business.

Ian and I were in the camp that wanted to keep it not just for posterity, but also for research and art. Ian grew up with a fascination of bugs and bug collections, and Troy introduced me to the study of entomology back in college. We wanted to pin it to a cork board and frame it for Julian's room.

Ian felt particularly strong about keeping it, so he put the argument to rest by pulling the groom card. We all went back to the party. No less than 20 minutes later, we discovered the sabotage that had been had on the bug container. The glasses that had been holding the creature were in the sink; the insect long gone. It quickly turned into a Clue style game of whodunit, with one clear pro-bug-life perpetrator who we'd thought had passed out in her grief-stricken state.


Now all we have are some crappy pictures we took and a memory of the biggest, gnarliest flying bug any of us had seen.

Top photo by kaleidoscope, via flickr.

Uncle Tom's National Park

From recent ventures out into the Hill County to what we like to call Uncle Tom's National Park, where our little Luckenbach can get some fresh air and see some deer and mommy and daddy can relax on the farm. Even if we have 5 loads of laundry going and I have to report to work later. Ahhh, Uncle Tommy's ranchito...