Austin Summer Staple: Fresh Veggies

I'm from East Texas, and in East Texas, it's pretty easy to find a homegrown tomato. Or some peas if you want them. Or okra. People who grow veggies for a hobby always grow more than they can eat and bring them to work or church to share around.

Luckily, Austin is one city that has really embraced the farmer's market trend, so you can actually find all those things right here, too! Plus, out here, we have things like Fredericksburg peaches and wildflowers that you don't see in my hometown.

Mmmm! Don't you want to make a pie with those?! If you do, bring me some, please! I'll provide the ice cream!

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure those peppers are not more expensive than what you would find in the grocery store. Not significantly so, anyway.

Is it weird if I frame a picture of tomatoes and hang it in my living room? The kitchen makes more sense I guess. They're just so pretty! I've never seen purple ones before. Apparently they're sweet.

Did you know it's already pumpkin season? Apparently so. I would like to reiterate my peach pie request for anyone thinking of making a pumpkin pie. I will provide the whipped cream.

Now these would definitely go in my living room. Maybe even better than the tomato picture.

All these photos came from the farmer's market at the Triangle on Wednesday evening. But they're held all around town at different times during the week. It's not hard to track one down, and I would bet that a lot of the same vendors make the rounds at the different markets.

Enjoy your peach and pumpkin pies, and your fried purple tomatoes, and your wildflower bouquets! Ain't it great?!

Jenni

Barefoot in a Sundress

Who doesn't want to be "that girl?!" The one who's everything he ever hoped he'd find? I can't necessarily lead you to the guy who's world turns on a dime when you step out of a Jeep, but I think I can help you with the sundress part...

Nobody rocks a sundress like an Austin girl, and therefore, nobody stocks sundresses like our locally-owned Austin boutiques. Luckily, there are several in town who think KOKE and The Local are cool and were willing to loan out a few dresses specifically for this post!

But who wants to look at a bunch of pictures of dresses on hangers? Much more fun to talk a local artist into playing dress up for an afternoon!

In our case, "that girl" is Miss Haley Cole. While fairly new to our area, she has jumped right into performing as much as she possibly can and was a surprise guest with Drew Womack at one of our Wednesday night Free Music Series shows. That's where she and I met, and I knew she was everything I'd ever hoped I'd find for this shoot!

So let's shop!

So if you hang out on tree branches or drink from water hoses a lot during the summer, I think eyelet lace is pretty much the only way to go. This color is everywhere this summer and flatters just about any skin tone!

 This is just one of the dresses we found at Luxe Apothetique's downtown location. They have a ton of dresses, and tops and lots of accessories, too. Both necklaces are also from Luxe. You can shop downtown on Second Street or up north at their location in the Domain. Bonus: both locations also have salons in them!

We thank Blue Elephant (North Lamar at 35th Street in the Central Market shopping center) for this gorgeous maxi dress! (I very seriously considered just buying it instead of returning it to them!) Maxi dresses have been big everywhere for a little while now, but I think they're especially Austin-y because their a little bit hippie.

We found the perfect earrings and bangle bracelets at Embellish Nails & Boutique on Bee Cave Road. (They also have a north location at Anderson Lane near Mopac.) And, as the name implies, you can get a manicure or a pedicure so you can really make sure you're showing off your jewelry to its fullest potential. (They also do facials!) 

Those earrings plus the bow necklace from Luxe were some of our favorite accessories. We kept them on for this orange dress from Embellish and added a cuff bracelet from a little boutique down in Bee Cave called Oh Yeah! (It's across from the Hill Country Galleria.) Can you read it?! It says, "If a girl wants to be a legend,  she should just go ahead and be one." Thank you, Calamity Jane, for those words of affirmation!

We also found this chevron maxi and Kendra Scott necklace at Embellish. If you're looking for a dress for when you sit on fences, this is probably the one.

Works with a guitar, too!

 

Blue Elephant also had this maxi with the cool neckline...

...and this one with the cool, neon embroidery. Ahhh...a pool sounds pretty nice right now!

And just a little more neon along the hem of the white, strapless dress above wraps up everything I have to show you from Blue. They've got a ton of clothes, accessories and beauty items, too. I actually go there a lot for gifts.

But we're not done altogether! Luxe had this Roxy dress as well as the necklaces Haley's wearing.

Luxe also happens to be where we found this green and white ombre dress. Not just anybody can pull off the low, flapper-esque waistline, but the ruffles make it worth a shot. Works for Haley!

The necklace with the ombre dress is from Oh Yeah! So is the one we paired with the green, paisley dress from Oh Yeah!

It's leather, and it's almost like a bolo tie modified and made cute for a girl. I've never seen anything like it! I think that Oh Yeah! probably has the most unique accessories.

And this is another color that flatters most skin tones.

So there you go! See anything you like? You might think that it's not terribly practical to be buying sundresses this late in the summer, but I've got bad/good news for you: summer is nowhere close to over in Austin! We've got a solid two months of sundress weather left! More if you invest in a couple of cardigans!

Here is the official link list:


Haley Cole
www.haleycolemusic.com
(Psst - you can see her tonight in New Braunfels at the Pour House!)

Oh Yeah! Boutique
www.atxmafia.com/
(Oh Yeah! is owned by the creators of the ATX Mafia line, and that's their main website)

Embellish Nails & Boutique
www.embellishnails.com

Luxe Apothetique
luxeapothetique.tumblr.com/

Blue Elephant
blueelephantboutique.blogspot.com/

Jenni

The End... sniff sniff

Sigh... Wednesday was the last concert of the KOKE FM Free Texas Concert Series for 2013.  Sixteen weeks of fabulousness (oooh that's a fun word!)  Whatever will I do with myself on Wednesdays until next year?    No music... no KOKE FM friends... I'm sure withdrawal is on the way.  sniff...

Snap out of it, Diana! 

ok... I'm ok now (sniff).  ANYWAY...we sure had a good time Wednesday - RECKLESS KELLY was incredible!!!!  They are always incredible but sometimes there's just a special something that takes it over the top - THAT was Wednesday.  Here are a few of my fav pics:

Don't forget Randy Rogers will be at Central Texas Speedway this Saturday!  ...and FowlerFest is coming up in September ...and JABFest in October... see you there!

diana
www.dianacoxphotos.wordpress.com

Best Country Music Video Ever?

Lots of talk on the morning show the last couple of days about whether it's still "great to be alive" in Austin, Texas. I know what I think. But then, I never did get to meet Catfish and Swami Steve at the Alamo Hotel on Sixth Street. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had some personal experience with those fellas!

While taking callers on the topic this morning, Willie and Merle's Pancho & Lefty video was brought up. It was apparently shot here in Austin, with the closing scenes (where Lefty's living in a "cheap motel") set at the Alamo Hotel.



Not only had I never seen the video, I'd never heard of the Alamo Hotel. Bess Bistro now occupies the building, and I think it's great. But people who have been here for more than six years seem to really miss the Alamo, the people who performed there (Lyle Lovett, for one) and the regulars (Swami Steve, the Nun and Catfish).

They have got to be making that up. If they're not, then (as great as it is now) maybe Austin was even better in the 80s! I don't call any of my friends Catfish, and the Nun sounds like a spy name. I'm pretty sure I don't know any spies in Austin. Or maybe I just know really good ones. Hard to say.

Bob called it one of the best country music videos ever made. What do you think? Top ten?

Jenni

Vintage Musgraves

Okay - she's like twenty-four or something, so "vintage Musgraves" might not exist. But this is my blog post, so I can title it whatever I want!

Plus when you're twenty-four, a photo from a year ago totally counts as vintage. So there.

"What is Jenni talking about?" Who knows. Pregnant ladies are crazy. Oh well.

Oh yeah! This photo is what I'm talking about:

  

So before I ever started writing The Local, I had a personal blog that I pretty much wrote so that I would have something to do with all the photos I couldn't make myself stop taking!  For one of the posts on that blog, I went to a concert and took photos of how girls were styling their cowgirl boots. 

My sister and I spent an hour or so before the show freaking girls out by asking them if we could take a picture of their outfit for my blog. (For the most part they were actually super flattered! I ended up more worried that I would hurt someone's feelings by not asking them to pose!) 

The last girl that we asked was wearing the lace top, leather skirt and turquoise boots (and shades!) that you see in the pic above. She was running across the venue, but the outfit was so great that we couldn't let her get away and we chased her down! 

Luckily, she was super sweet and stopped long enough to give us a little Vogue action. Even though I was already very familiar with her music, she hadn't quite blown up yet so I didn't even recognize her until she got up on stage! 

Well of course she knew how to wear cowgirl boots! She was freakin' Kacey Musgraves! If anybody knows, it's her. 

Of course, that was a whole year ago! I'm sure she has lots more cute cowgirl boots outfits by now. Thusly and therefore, this outfit totally counts as "vintage Musgraves." 

Jenni

You Know What's Hard?

Getting yourself excited about taking maternity photos. Most people don't like to have their picture taken anyway, and since maternity photos are best taken in about your eighth month when all you want to do is float in the coldest pool you can find, maternity pics are not on most women's list of fun things to do!

You know what's even harder, though? Trying to take your own maternity photos!

Since I work at home, Michael and I are hardly ever all cleaned up at the same time, so maternity photos required some planning on our part. Also, since I am a photographer, I thought I would just set up my camera on a tripod, use the timer and snap a few photos that we can frame along with our baby's newborn pics.

My camera's timer gives you ten seconds to push the button, get posed and smiling and then actually take the picture. Do you know how hard that is when you're huge? We wound up with many, many shots of me straightening my shirt ,and fixing my hair and just in general looking really uncomfortable since I had very little time to actually pose.

We did wind up getting one that we can use:

Did you catch that? ONE. We got one. Twenty minutes of up and down off the porch swing and we got one good..eh, useable...shot.

All that to say, there is no reason for this! If ever you wanted to hire someone to pose you naturally, and worry about the light, and whether your hair and shirt are straight and tell you you're beautiful and you're doing a great job while you take photos - this is that time!! Heck, I think most pregnant women would hire someone to do those things even without the photo-taking if they had the money!

With a good photographer, this shoot can even end up being really fun! And hopefully, the end product will make you think, "Oh! I thought I looked way more awkward than that! I actually look pretty in these pictures!" Or something along those lines...

See, aren't they pretty?

I'm very close to having my baby, so if you're due around the same time as me and have yet to take any maternity photos, I encourage you to hire a different professional around town! However, I am already taking reservations for September portrait sessions, so if you're due in November sometime, you should give me a call and set it up! Do it now while you can still imagine wanting to take photos and I still have openings!

Contact me through my webpage or shoot me an email at jenni@jennirobertsphotography.com. Despite the waddling and the difficulty sleeping and the stretch marks, this really is a special time for you mommas-to-be! It may feel like you'll be pregnant forever, but that baby will make its appearance sooner than you think and you'll wish that you had taken an hour or so to make some memories!

Jenni

P.S. - If you're not pregnant yourself but somebody you love is, a gift certificate for photography makes a sweet shower gift!

When It Rains...

Me and Eli Young Band have very different reasons for liking rain, I think. I mean, seriously, is there anything more relaxing than summer rain?

Nope. There's not. Especially when we need it so bad!

And it looks like we might be in for way more than normal this week, so let's enjoy it!

I'm a total homebody on rainy days, so one of my favorite things to do is order dinner in and watch a movie on the couch. Pizza is a good default, of course, but Mama Fu's actually delivers and they have locations all over town. So odds are, they deliver to you!

Grab whatever Netflix DVD is in your mailbox and settle in for potstickers and chicken teriyaki. Or their egg rolls are really good too. Or the crab rangoons...ooh, or the lettuce wraps! Okay, maybe skip the main dish and just order every appetizer they have. Choosing is just too difficult. Or you can do like me and order too much so that you have leftovers the next day. (Leftover Chinese food is almost better than fresh anyway, right?)

Also, I feel like I need to confess that I included the chopsticks in the photo solely because it made it more interesting. I can't figure out how to use those things. My third grade teacher tried to show us, but I just never have figured out how you're supposed to eat rice with them! There were definitely forks involved with the actual eating of the chicken teriyaki!

Jenni