rural studio fundraiser

Rural Studio party! We had a small but generous turnout and were able to raise over $200! Of course, we also ate lots of good food. Kurt made a delicious red pepper pasta dish for dinner. I added in some garlic bread and meatballs and we chowed down on banana pudding for dessert. Thanks to everyone who came and donated! Thanks to all the people that couldn't make it but donated online! Thanks to Mackenzie and Natalie from the Rural Studio for helping me pull things together! And as always, thanks to Kurt for being a great co-host!

feeling generous? support the rural studio!

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Auburn University's Rural Studio. It's a great program and a cause that is near and dear to my heart. To mark the occasion, the Rural Studio is gathering the funds to build twenty 20K houses! In order to garner a little friendly competition, Rural is pitting city against city in the 20K City Challenge. NYC is lagging a bit, so Kurt and I are hosting a fundraising dinner this weekend to make our contribution to the fund. We hope our efforts can move us up in the standings!

If you would like to learn more or would like to donate to the cause, email me or read more here. If you live in the NYC area and want to come to our little dinner, let me know and I'll send you the details. The more the merrier!

tiger showdown

It's been a couple weeks since my Auburn Tigers lost to LSU, so I think I've mourned long enough to recap the Tiger vs Tiger Showdown football party I threw for the occasion. I had such a fun time making the invitation for the game look like a vintage boxing poster. 

decorating, running, and yummy food

I wish my life could exist of those things alone. 

Like I mentioned last week, while Kurt and his brother were out of town skiing, I was going to redecorate their bathroom. Well, I did it! After a week of running around like crazy gathering supplies and a very late night of painting, it pretty much came together. There are still a few touch ups to be done and a few additional elements, but I am pretty happy with the end result. And the boys approve! I hope to have a full rundown of the makeover this week. Stay tuned.

I ran my third annual Coogan's 5K on Sunday. 

It was very cold and very early. My headband got a "War Eagle!" though!

It's hard to take pictures while running but I wanted to show how the front runners are coming down the home stretch while us slow pokes are barely at a quarter mile. Granted, they started a little earlier but I feel like a 5K is a stroll through the park for them. They are crazy fast!

Eventually, the crowd was just us normal runners and we all commiserated on the hilly course together. I've decided my spring/summer running regimen is going to focus on hills because they always kick my butt.  

The race is so fun because every couple blocks there is a band and lots of fans cheering you on. It's no marathon but I love to see all the support.

Jenn and Majo at the finish line. We all made pretty good time!

Our tradition after running the 5K is to consume three times as many calories as we just burned at some of the amazing restaurants in Harlem. We particularly target chicken and waffles, so this year we hit up Melba's.

The last couple years we've gone to Amy Ruth's which is also delicious but Melba's is a bit swankier. We were lucky to slip in with the early church crowd and only had to wait a little while for a table. I hope we didn't stand out too much in our grubby running clothes. However, my Auburn headband got some more attention although this time by an Alabama grad! Even though she assailed my ears with her "Roll Tide" she was super sweet and just moved to the city. I tell you, the South is taking over NYC :)

Mmmmmm! A huge plate of fried chicken with three cute eggnog waffles. Heaven. Early morning + tough run + food coma = falling asleep on the train home and taking a generous nap in the afternoon. I wish every Sunday could be like this.

In other news, there have been a few new additions to the Gravytrain household:

Besides fixing up Kurt's apartment, I added this beauty to my bathroom. I am so ready for summer!

My iPhone got a little fancier. Society6 was offering free shipping and I couldn't resist.

Kurt brought me back Whiskey from his ski trip! It's from the Roughstock Distillery in Bozeman, Montana. Apparently I need to get an ice cube tray so I can offer this on the rocks to all my guests. I guess I should acquire a taste for whiskey too :) Thanks, Kurt!

debbieneedles @ abc home

Last week, Jenn and I went to a talk at ABC Home put on by Apartment Therapy. I've been to this series before and always enjoy it because they serve ample glasses of wine :) This time I was super excited to hear Deborah Needleman speak. She was the founding editor of Domino magazine and is the current editor of the Wall Street Journal Magazine. I've always had this unnatural obsession with magazines and constantly dream of some future involving architecture/design and publishing. Still working on that. 

Anyway, Deborah Needleman was lovely and candid and had some great insight into the world of magazines. I recently bought two of her books: Domino: The Book of Decorating and The Perfectly Imperfect Home. After the talk, Jenn and I stood in line to have them signed and say hello to Ms. Needleman. When it was my turn, she was so sweet and kind and signed my book, but for the life of me, I could not think of anything intelligent to say to her. Luckily, instead of saying something dumb, I said very little. Oh well. When I come to her years later for a publishing job, hopefully she won't remember that mute girl clenching her signed book and smiling awkwardly.

On a less embarrassing note, while standing in line, I ran into a girl who went to Auburn! AUBURN! This is a big deal. The world is rarely this small. She graduated from architecture school two years ahead of me and has lived in NYC ever since. She is currently also studying for her exams and invited me to her study group. Lucky me!

rural studio wedding: sunday

Sunday was sadly our last day in West Alabama. We still had many things to see though! After loading up all our bags into the rental car, we drove to Greensboro for a farewell brunch at the Pie Lab.

We had some yummy quiche and salad before a quick goodbye to Charles and Betsy and the rest of my sweet Auburn friends. It was great to see everyone! Kurt and I also got matching t-shirts (not to be worn at the same time) of the state of Alabama screen printed with a catfish print. Then we set out on a very speedy driving tour of some more projects.

 Dog Pound

Road leading to Mason's Bend

Willie Bell's House (my second year project) and the Papercrete House behind it

Butterfly House

Glass Chapel (didn't Kurt do an awesome job taking these pictures in a moving car while driving?!)

Hay Bale House

On our way out of town we came back through Greensboro and caught a glimpse of one of the town's water towers proudly displaying "Greensboro: Catfish Capital of Alabama". Kurt decided this probably makes them the catfish capital of the world. Something to look into :)

The Pig

We took a brief stop in Newbern to check out "the campus".

Red Barn

Studio inside Red Barn

Wood shop

Fire Station and Town Hall

GB's Store

Kurt settling into the Southern way of life.

Sub Rosa

Chantilly and the amphitheater. Kurt was quite distraught that the Rural Studio doesn't involve landscape architects on projects like these. Whoops....

Spencer House. Thanks for being such a good host, Mackenzie! 

Morisette House. Apparently, the Rural Studio is making a big push to grow a lot of the food they consume, so they are working on a big garden in the front yard.

Great Hall

Super Shed and Pods

Eventually, we had to start our journey back to Mobile for our evening departure. Here we are crossing the Alabama River.

I kept telling Kurt about kudzu and we saw a lot on our drive.

Red clay too :)

Another Piggly Wiggly, this time in Monroeville.

I had this grand plan to take Kurt across Mobile Bay. We purposefully took a detour to the east, so we could take the huge bridge across. Unfortunately, I didn't know which road to take and we ended up on the one beside the bridge. It was still pretty crazy to drive practically at the level of the water.

We were running short on time before our flight but decided to stop near downtown Mobile for lunch/dinner anyway. It was an absolutely gorgeous day (aren't they all?!) so we found a restaurant with outdoor seating across the street from a park where there was a festival going on. I wish we had more leisure time to sit back and enjoy it! Through a random turn of events, we even saw someone we knew!

Eventually we made it back to the airport, dropped off the rental car, and made it to our gate. Unfortunately, our flight from Mobile to Atlanta was delayed. In order to prolong our time in Alabama, we had scheduled some of the last flights of the day. We were afraid we weren't going to make our connection and have to spend the night in Atlanta! It took some running through the airport and begging with the Delta woman at the gate but we just barely made the flight. Phew! That was a close one.

Fabulous weekend! If only I could have brought the beautiful weather back North with us :(