Snow Day!

We got four inches of snow here on Friday, which is enough to close the whole place down through Sunday. We might not even be able to get out for work on Monday! The governor declared a state of emergency. We've got like 2 snow plows for the whole state, the south doesn't have too many boy scouts I guess. Anyway, we got out for a walk during the day with Noli. We were supposed to have a nice dinner out to celebrate my birthday. To our surprise, the place decided to open so we walked down to Revolution and had a great dinner!

The Purse

Noli loves to play dress up at daycare. She especially likes the purses. So we thought we'd buy her a purse for fun. She picked out the um, least favorite of her parents, but oh well.

Favorite Music of the Decade

In the year 2000 ... somehow that was 10 years ago now. Time to wrap up my favorite music of the decade. Well, past time, I didn't make it before New Years or even before the college football season ended.

Top 10 Albums (in no particular order--it was hard enough to get them down to these 10)

The Postal Service -- Give Up: never get tired of hearing it, even in commercials and in covers

Coldplay -- A Rush of Blood to the Head: still think Yellow is kind of stupid, but this one is great

Radiohead -- Kid A: maybe I should have gone with In Rainbows just to give me an album that came out after 2005

Thad Cockrell -- Warmth and Beauty: sentimental favorite

The Shins - -Chutes Too Narrow: saw them in the US and Australia and wore this album out (wait, I guess that doesn't happen with mp3s)

Okkervil River -- Black Sheep Boy: Mon was close enough at the show in Adelaide to get spit on

Ryan Adams -- Heartbreaker: really hard to choose one album, but this one started it for me

Spoon -- Gimme Fiction: pure fun

Roman Candle -- The Wee Hours Review: most shows seen by one band for the same set of songs :)

The Mountain Goats -- The Sunset Tree: beautiful and tragic

Top 5 Albums I'm Buying After Reading Other Lists

Outkast -- Stankonia
Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Fever to Tell
The Strokes -- Is This It?
Bon Iver -- For Emma, Forever Ago (I have it, but Laura assures me it's better than we thought)
The White Stripes -- White Blood Cells (love this band, but missed this one)

Mixtape: 2000-2009

I wasn't going to do songs, but Mon challenged me and I've heard some good decade mixes, so I'll try one on the fly:

Arcade Fire -- Wake Up
The Gossip -- Standing in the Way of Control
Ben Folds -- Adelaide
Ben Lee -- Gamble Everything for Love
Loudon Wainwright III -- Daughter
Decoder Ring -- Heidi's Theme
Kanye West -- Golddigger
The Gaslight Anthem -- Miles Davis and the Cool
The Killers -- Somebody Told Me
Maximo Park -- The Coast is Always Changing
The Streets -- Fit But You Know It
Styrofoam -- Front to Back
Z-Trip -- Breakfast Club
Scissor Sisters -- Take Your Momma Out
Jens Lekman -- A Postcard to Nina
Metric -- Gimme Sympathy
El-P -- Up All Night

Half a Dozen Artists I Can't Believe Didn't Get Mentioned Yet

or

A Shameless Attempt to Expand My List

Josh Ritter
Wilco
My Morning Jacket
The New Pornographers
Iron and Wine
The Hold Steady

Criteria

There is it, Mr High Horse himself and his prepost criteria. Preambles are for constitutions and boring books. C'mon Justin, just tell us your 10 ten; we are waiting with bated breath.

Best of the Decade...Intro

Since I'm too late to get my best of the decade list in (according to Mon) I might as well stretch it out a bit.

She already covered most of the big life changes, so I'll focus on music. I started decade with 200 CD spinner and finished the decade with no CDs and a 1 TB hard drive to get all my music back into one place. It became so easy to find and purchase new music, which combined with the fact that I had a real income, led to an explosion in my music collection. I have no complaints about the move to digital music, it just made music a bigger part of my life. My favorite development was my emusic subscription--90 new songs a month for a flat fee and I own them. That's 2 new albums a week!

Unlike Mon, I'm going to be selecting my top albums of the decade rather than just songs. Even with the digital revolution, I still shop, buy, and listen to music as albums. Here are the criteria I used to compile my list:

1. Personal connection -- Does the album remind me of an event, place, or person?

2. Relistenability -- Did the album stay in the rotation?

These first two criteria rule out some arty albums that I can appreciate intellectually but not connect to emotionally. If you're interested in those kind of compilations, see All Songs Considered or AV Music Club.

3. Strong from start to finish -- All songs on the album should be strong; singles with a lot of filler don't count.

Coming next, my top albums of the decade...

Under the Wire

Gotta get my top 10 for 2010 in before the ball drops. I don't suspect anything new is going to happen in the next 90 minutes. By the way you can't get your "best of" the decade in after the new year. It is just lame and it makes the whole thing drag on too long.


Music, and there is no particular order and probably no surprise to anybody. :

1. You are my sunshine, it is at least the song I've sung the most in the last 10 years. Granted most of it has been in the last 18 months, but still it over shadows the rest of the songs.
2. Gonna Make You Love Me More--Or anything off the Gold Album by Ryan Adams
3. "Love Love Love" no, no, no "Dance Music" or maybe "This Year" by the Mountain Goats. Probably my favorite album of whatever year it came out. No need to call 911, I'm not that depressed.
4. Mariner's Revenge by The Decemberists (except that I love every song, well every song that doesn't, um, drag a bit)
5. Adelaide by Ben Folds, sentimental value mainly--bogans
6. At Bottom of Everything Bright Eyes; I listened to that album like 10 times through the first day I had it.
7. Scar by Missy Higgins
8. Why Modern Radio is A-Ok by Roman Candle. I'm not even that high brow about music, but it is a fun song.
9. The Owls Go by Architecture in Helsinki
10. The latest Toughs by Okkervil River. Love the whole album...again, I'm not that depressed.
11. Kick Drum Heart--The Avett Brother, that is right a number 11 it is cheating, but it is my list.
12. Spaceman--The killer, really cheating now but it was my fav song of 2009

Also, Justin is about to get banned from posting to the blog. He isn't telling the truth because he doesn't totally appreciate my fun projects. He is sure our house will be overrun with fungus due to the mushroom project, he barely wants me to grow the spouts on the kitchen counter (which occurs totally inside a jar). Also, I don't appreciate being outted about the whole Project Runway deal. Keep it up, Justin, and see what comes out about you!

In the last decade we've kinda done a lot. Both of us had our first real job, went to grad school, had our first international trip and move, bought a house, got our first tatoos, had a baby and well I guess that topped it off. Guess everybody should be able to point to a few things that happened to them in the last 10 years; still putting it all down seems kinda crazy to me.

Well here is to the next decade. I hope it is just as wonderful. Monika

PS I'm going to start a worm farm in 2010....looking forward to that, Justin? Mushrooms AND worms--don't forget, we have a guest bedroom folks so come on out for a visit.

Back in Old MO

We made it back to Missouri just in time for a little sprinkling of snow. We decorated some gingerbread cookies with the boys that Nana thought to bring (messy, messy messy, but fun!). We traveled to southwest Missouri to see more of the family and have had a good old time. Noli has enjoyed her extended family so much! More are coming today from Texas, but we are expecting 3-5 INCHES of snow! Goodness. We'll have to bundle up and make a snow angel. Hope everyone is keeping warm and enjoying their merry making.



Oh and the picture of Mel and I are showing off our prayer shawls that mom made us. We sang a little "Match Maker" from fiddler :)