jim and pam, grizzly bears, and etsy love

it is tuesday. and tuesdays are usually not the greatest days for inspiration. so here's something to get you fired up to get dressed and do something worthwhile today. although hopefully you're not still undressed or in your pajamas at 2:06 pm mountain time. but i won't judge you (to your face).

i watch this video a lot. like at least weekly and more most weeks. i've mentioned my addiction to online shopping, but it's nothing to my addiction to the office.























that video always makes me smile, and i hope i got you addicted to it as well. nothing like sharing my fetishes and obsessions with others and passing on the crazy. (whoa, picturing an army of me's in this world, running amuck and spreading the crazy, just made me really thankful for the ineffectiveness of cloning devices). here are some more random tidbits of mostly worthless information to inspire you on this maybe "blah" tuesday. but once you read this, it'll turn from blah to bright and mundane to awesome. you're welcome.

1. cinnomon increases your metabolism. 

2. the earth is probably 92 million miles from the sun.

3. an avacado has more potassium than a banana. 

4. animals could be put on trial for crimes in medieval england. 

5. and finally, grizzly bears are the best kind of bear.

now you'll hands down win your next round of trivial pursuit!

also on this tuesday, instead of all the worthless information i just filled your head with and forced you to read before getting to the real blog post, here is some cool stuff i've found on etsy lately and the shops they came from.

(clockwise from top left: 1. the big harumph 2. elitas 3. bananastrudel 4. blue carrot shop 5. spool and sparrow 6. ikabags)

so go waste a good chunk of your day on etsy searching for some cool stuff. like i just did.and check back tomorrow for written word wednesday. it's gonna be a good one. hint: king's cross. september 1st. best ever.

i hope your tuesday is now more inspired. if you need that last little push, here are some music suggestions that are top on my list right now:

1. sigur ros (song: inní mér syngur vitleysingur) -->it's a mouthful, and it's not in english, but that makes it all the better to listen to and to get lost in
2. shout out louds (song: show me something new) --> awesome music video too
3. sondre lerche (song: to be surpirsed)
4. sahara hotnights (song: who do you dance for?)
5. kt tunstall (song: golden age, from acoustic extravaganza)


and...my favorite and soon to be your favorite:
6. harry & the potters (song: the forbidden forest hockey league)

happy tuesday!

OGA! D-town's Best

so i promised a post all about old glory antiques urban home + design. here it is! and if you read anything today, it should be this. make this post your home page if you'd like. i think that's a super idea.

anyway, there's this store in denver called Old Glory Antiques Urban Home + Design (yeah i used capital letters, so it's a big deal).

OGA facebook
OGA twitter
www.oldgloryantiquesinc.com

my mom owns it and operates it, which might make me bias, but really, being unbiased is overrated. she puts more work into this store than i've ever seen anyone put into anything, and it definitely shows.

it's one of the coolest retail stores in colorado, and probably the country, and probably the world. the merchandise is a mix of old and new, combining beautiful and worn antiques with art, jewelry, and other new merchandise. it's definitely a local favorite, and it's gotten more and more attention over the years (see their website for press and stuff if you don't believe me, and even if you do believe me). it's a beautiful space and environment, and at any given time, there are customers in the store saying how the space and arrangements have inspired them to make their own houses look cooler and less...well, less bad. she's an expert stylist and a wizard of creating beautiful arrangements with all kinds of antiques, ephemera, art, jewelry, and anything else she has in the store. her creativity would put picasso to shame and her brilliance for business would put steve jobs to shame.

just some of the great stuff she has regularly stocked and the stuff she hunts all over the country for to bring to eager customers:

 

(all pictures taken by candy rice)

my mom's store has been a constant source of pride and fun and happiness for my whole family ever since i was about 6 and she opened her doors to the world (at a different location). really, retail is in my blood. so watch out for that umbrella store. it's coming so just hold off buying any umbrellas for a while, please. it'll be worth the wait.

anyway, ever since me and my brothers were little, my parents would take us along on all their trips to hunt for great antiques, and whether it was smelly kansas (no offense to kansas), hot oklahoma (some offense to oklahoma), or anywhere else in the country, it was always fun. my mom taught me to live for the hunt. which would definitely explain my addiction to etsy and internet shopping these days.

small business owners have it harder than anyone, and my mom's success has shown me the real value of hard work and sticking it through hard times.

"it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." [ee cummings]

this is a quote my mom lives by, and she has taught all of her children to live by it too. despite the hard work and challenges along the way, she has been able to grow up and create her dream store and live her life with love and  light every day. and that is something i admire more than anything else. i always used to wear those life is good shirts in middle school (simpler times) and i never really understood why the tags always said LET WHAT YOU LOVE BE WHAT YOU DO. but now i do since i'm finally old enough to see how much my mom loves what she does every day. she is completely dedicated to making people happy with a perfect mix of antiques, framed quotes, good smells, inspirational arrangements, and just genuine, authentic, pure kindness. and that makes the store so much more awesome.

so, long story short, if you're anywhere near denver or colorado, or really, if you're in america or even a human being living on earth (no astronauts or aliens please), you should come check out Old Glory Antiques Urban Home + Design and see what it's all about. you can get a lot more than great furniture and accessories here. it's certainly my favorite store. it's also the single most significant thing that's helped me figure out what i want to do with my life. watching hgtv is probably a close second. and then the color blue after that. but really, who knows what goes on in my head?

even if you don't live in denver, support local businesses and all. it's where you can find the real good stuff, not chain stores. and that's hard for me to admit because of my crippling addiction to ikea and west elm and pottery barn. but for real, local is where it's at. and even more specifically, old glory is where it's at.

sorry for ending a sentence in a preposition. twice in a row. my mom taught me better that that.

couch shopping/surfing. polaroid party!

ok so shopping for a couch has interfered with regularly updating this blog. i'm trying to furnish an apartment in a very short amount of time, and ikea has pretty much become my best friend. not that it wasn't already. i'm also getting pretty friendly with etsy. almost as friendly as spencer and heidi were, if you get my meaning. well, before they turned into psychopaths and appeared on those reality survival shows. and then went to mexico despite the swine flu craze. and got fake bodies and sold their souls to the devil. and got divorced. long story. and really, really old news. moving on.

here's a cool (and weird on so many levels) picture to get you excited for the weekend. once september rolls in and brings busy school and work weeks along with it, i always feel like the weekends are just that much better.

(cred to NatGeo)

no, it doesn't have anything to do with anything. but apparently these people were waiting for the slaughtered sheep to cook so they broke out into song. how cool are mongolians! so go outside and do something weird this weekend. it'll make you feel alive and great. or just eat some slaughtered sheep and enjoy every last bite. happy weekend!

inspiration for the day/night/week:

vail, co

"to live happily is an inward power of the soul" 

[marcus aurelius]

written word wednesday

so some people do music mondays, or other cool things with alliteration, on their blogs. so i'm starting this one: written word wednesday. it's pretty much as cool as it sounds. instead of the music i'm into at the moment, i'll feature the books and other reads i'm into at the moment. i'm a pretty "at the moment" kind of person, so my favorites can be way different week by week. my constantly shifting interests are one of my defining characteristics.

this week: i chose a classic that i recently just re-discovered when typing up some quotes. the little prince, by antoine de saint-exupery.

sifting through all the dog-eared pages in my copy made me remember how awesome this book is, and how great its simple lessons are. i mean, how much more authenticity could you ask for from a little wandering man from another planet who just wants someone to draw him a sheep? this book is 100% authentic, 100% pure, and 100% one of the best books ever.

some of my favorite quotes:


"'One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.'" (the Fox to the Little Prince)

"'Only the children know what they're looking for,' said the little prince. 'They spend their time on a rag doll and it becomes very important, and if it's taken away from them, they cry...'
'They're lucky,' the switchman said."


...and way more. pretty much the whole book.

plus, the illustrations are completely pure and innocent, too:

overall, just one of the best books ever. it's a good lesson about how to live your life, in the form of a children's book. seriously inspiring and moving if you open yourself up to its messages. i could go on for days and months and years about this book, so i'll leave it up to you to see just how great it is for yourselves.

on a related note, you also should also check out the song, "baobabs" by regina spektor. great song and i'm almost positive it's inspired by this book. but who knows. it's another manifestation of the need for purity of heart in this increasingly corrupt world. just some fodder for thought (i'm pushing for that expression to replace "food for thought." it's much more sophisticated and organic-sounding.)

happy written word wednesday!

day 2! and local wisdom.

so it turns out my fear of commitment isn't as bad as i thought; i'm back for another day of blogging. just a short post though, because it's still summer outside and i've been staring at the computer screen for way too long today. reading blogs is seriously addictive. maybe worse than drugs? but at least more wholesome. mostly.

i wanted to share some awesome cards that my mom carries in her store (more on that rad store later this week, and you'll definitely want to check it out. for now: www.oldgloryantiquesinc.com). 

on an unrelated note, do people still use the word rad? i sure hope not or else it definitely wouldn't be rad to say rad. something about the hipster way of life, i think.

anyway, it's a lady in vermont who makes all these awesome cards with quotes and collages. cool art and good quotes, a great combination. three of my favorites:

check out her etsy shop. or even better, make a trek out to old glory antiques to buy some in person! just an idea. have a great tuesday!

so it begins.

my name's laura and i just started a blog. i'm a student and i spend most of my time memorizing flash cards and burying my nose in books about art. i also read. a lot. and quotes are my favorite thing in the world. so you can't say i didn't warn you a few blog posts from now. just a heads up. if you'd like to know more about me, you can just ask me, or imagine who i am and build your own laura inside your mind. or just read the bio to the side of this post. your choice.

so anyway, i've started a blog and given it a pretty cool name. (just to note: this is also the name i'll use for all my future entrepreneur-ing endeavors...like book stores and umbrella stores and all kinds of other stores, i've got tons of ideas you haven't seen the last of). this title not only captures my sometimes obsessive love for all things scandinavian, it also captures something more powerful and meaningful:

the illimitable power of nature and the constant inspiration it provides. allow me to explain.

the mountain and the fjord are both natural phenomenons formed by the all-powerful forces of nature, beyond human control and outside of human time and space. both provide a small glimpse of nature's beauty, and give us inspiration to seek the Truth (yes, with a capital "t"). these forces of nature that we see all around us and that we seek out are at once an expression of the insignificance of human beings in the shadows of such great phenomena, and, more importantly,  a reflection of the infinite possibilities that nature constantly gives us. we can achieve great things when we grab hold of nature and everything that is organic, authentic, and pure and tap into ever-flowing inspiration. to write, to paint, to blog, to speak, to think, to enjoy, to live.

the mountain and the fjord are also both strong invocations of nature's ineffable infiniteness  (that's totally a word, right?) because they represent opposites--the mountain is height, the result of two massive chunks of earth crashing together; the fjord is valley, formed by the movement of giant ice chunks carving passageways through whatever stood in their ways. height and light, water and valley. two extremes that reflect human capabilities to achieve when harnessing purity of mind and heart. i told you it was a pretty cool blog name.

to give you some visual aids and illustrate the most important reason for the blog name (because fjords and mountains are insanely beautiful):

Hardangerfjord in Norway

i'm a huge art history nerd (because those who can't make art, study it, right? just like those who can't teach, teach gym). so i use art to express what i'm trying to say pretty frequently.

Caspar David Friedrich, The Wander Above the Mists, 1817-18

this Friedrich painting expresses this duality of nature's overwhelming power and human beings' ability to create while inspired by this overwhelming power. this wanderer is in the presence of natural forces, insignificant, humbled, yet also possibly inspired and alive, imagining all the possibilities that infinity has handed to him.
...right now i feel like i'm writing a pretty poorly organized term paper, so i'll end this digression and leave it on this note: nature inspires art and life and everything else. A+.

if you managed to cut through the density and wordiness of all my explanation and read to this point, we should probably be best friends. so just send a list of your favorite things, biggest fears, favorite ice cream flavors, and favorite harry potter quotes to me and i'll get the paperwork going. i promise that not every post will be as dense as a Vietnam jungle. and not every post will be about how awesome nature is. the possibilities blogdom opens up to me are endless.

this is pretty much a place where i can post stuff about art and music and design, photography, sometimes food, and anything else that comes my way. but overall, it will center on this idea of authenticity and pure living. not that i'm that wise and experienced to be conveying any trust-able information about how to live, but it'll still be at least entertaining (no money-back guarantee).

it won't be a constant glorification of nature and how much i like hiking (it's kinda fun). i'm not really into the whole birkenstock and refusal-to-shave aesthetic, at all. i like whole foods and all, but i probably wouldn't last two hours in Boulder. (no offense to people who do live in Boulder). i just like mountains and fjords and all. i just try to live authentically with forces bigger than us on my side.

oh, and the headlining quote underneath the title of the blog is from a hollywood movie, yes (Gladiator), but it captures part of the essence of what i hope to blog: live positively in this life, and use creativity and imagination and make the world a better place so that your legacy lives on forever.

that's just an introduction, because there's lots more i could throw at you right now. but that's to come. i'll throw some crazy your way in little helpings. this is just the big, huge welcome banquet.
to sum up: nature, eternity, umbrellas, inspiration, art, life, and russell crowe.

stand by for more concise and helpful posts. this is just the entrance to the fjord. the first step in the climb up the mountain.