beautiful people all around the world.

tonight i watched a grace kelly movie, "high society" which is a remake of the film "a philadelphia story" with my parents tonight. aside from a difference in cast and a film being in black and white to color, the main difference in both film was that "high society" had a cast filmed with talented voices, that of bing crosby, frank sinatra and of course louis armstrong. throughout the film, many great songs were sang and scenes were filled with the great jazz of mr. louis and his band. he's a character, that's for sure, but so full of talent. 

i love love love jazz music. i love the sounds of louis armstrong and his trumpet. the original jazz music from new orleans is really one of my greatest interests. i wont go into detail but for real, one of my dream vacations is to visit new orleans, stay at a  plantation (ideally the oak alley plantation) live off of my favorite dishes, cajun creole, walk the streets of the french quarter, take trips down the bayou, sneak a peek into the voodoo shops and last but not least dance the night away in the southern heat to live and local jazz bands. for real, that would be a dream. with all of that said, louis armstrong tonight got me back into my dream mode zone and here i find myself youtubing new orleans local bands. i've been finding some great ones. if you love this sort of music, let me know and i'll share with you some gems that i have found. they'll knock you off your rocker. 

one in particular i came across was a new orleans local band called, "TBC Brass Band." how they caught my eye you ask? there were a ton of them, on the streets, and the youtube label was "Billy Jean." of course i clicked it : MJ for life. i wasnt surprised at all. they were killing it, and i was in hog heaven. boy oh boy do these boys have soul. so i start browsing and browsing and googled them and read information about them and found out that one of their saxophone players, brandon "bee" franklin, at age 22, was murdered on may 9, 2010. to express their grief, the whole community spent a full week, performing theirs, as well as brandons passion for music in the streets of new orleans. this video i came across was of them performing, "I'll Be Missing You" for brandons memorial.

For one, I was blown away with how many people in the community knew how to play a brass instrument. Then again, it's new orleans and thats why the people there are so unbelievably  awesome because their culture is so deep in the talent and passion of music. Overall, I was blown away a touched by the mass of these people. To me, this is proof that there really is more good in the world then bad. I just wanted to pass this video along and spread the word out there of this band. I can't get enough of them. Lets give them a little boost, check out their music on youtube and keep up with updates on twitter : @TBCband

I hope you love them as much as I do. And I hope this touches you as well. It's people like them that make the world go round. Let's make 2012 a year to reach out to others and think less of ourselves. And to possibly add a little more jazz in our lives. 

merry christmas to you all. and thank you TBC Brass Band, you guys are out of control and im digging it. 

*if you loose patience in watching this whole thing, let me give you the time of my favorite parts that YOU HAVE TO WATCH, if you're going to watch any of this at all. the bold time is my favorite time, just fyi *

00:31 - 1:07      2:35 - 3:47     4:06 - 5:54

one more charming note:

one more charming note : i found a better picture of one of my favorite homes in charleston, south carolina. the post below, first photo in the second row, is my instagram of what i could fit into the shot but its a photo of the wonderful Palmer Home which is a bed and breakfast. This house is along E. Battery right before you hit the park of oak trees and located across from the river. behind this wall and a beautiful lap pool. i think i wanna sleep in a room here, in fact I HAVE TO. too delightful, this home is.

charm of the south.

ah-yeee! the best thing about living in atlanta is being so close to two of my favorite cities in the united states. that of, savannah georgia and my number one CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA. this city truly is the charm of the south. i get so excited every time i have a chance to visit this city. there really is nothing like it. and my gosh, pictures do not do this place justice. you really have to go and experience it for yourself to really get a taste of the old south. for now, i hope these pictures will do, for you.

hog wild on the tubes.

okay, now it feels like christmas thanks to park citys manmade snow. yes, i said it, manmade. utah hasnt really hit the dead winter yet. it's kind of crazy. kind of nice, but it will kick us in the butt when we realize its still freezing in the month of may. late winter, i say. so my roommates and i + one boyfriend, not mine (zekey zoo had to get a root canal. rut-row) threw on some major snow gear and hit the slopes for some tubbage. it was wild and we had a blast. not to mention, we were getting pretty hot with all that stuff on.

december is always cut off a little short due to finals week in school and then heading home for the holidays. so we had very little time to do the tradition christmas activities in utah but i wouldn't want to be anywhere else then where im at now in georgia with my fam. the weather has been out of this world! mid 60's and tomorrow its scooting on up to mid 70's. a little rain here and there, more so a mist but the sun will be shining tomorrow and im pumped because we are taking a drive to my favorite place in the whole united states : charleston, south carolina. im ready to just dive right in to the charm of the south. wish you could come with so that you could fall in love with a place that i could go on and on and on about.

literally: dance like no one is watching.

this girl rocks. and the way she feels is the way i'll be feeling come 3:00 pm when i am officially done with finals of fall 2011. yippie-ay-yay. do you understand im almost to the point of losing my mind? i went to bed at 4 am, woke up at 7 am. all that time i've been studying my face off and im keeping the fingers crossed that it was worth it. either way, when i come home, imma gonna be walking through that door dancing like a maniac knowing that im jetting home tomorrow at the break of dawn to the dirty south. georgia, my home, is repeatedly screaming my name and imma comin' on that midnight train to georgia. 

leo-mania: the rush of the great gatsby

earth to all readers. do you know what year we are heading into? ANOTHER LEO-MANIA YEAR. what's a leo-mania year you might ask? let me explain. as a child, i was very blessed to live through a time that was larger than life. larger than the fever of a  bieber (who im not too crazy about, sorry.) im talking about a mania that fled the world with raw young talent. bone chilling talent and blond locks that make you buckle in the knees. im talking about the one and only, my "boyfriend" of 14 years, MR. LEONARDO DICAPRIO.

you don't even understand. titanic was my life. leo was my leading man. i was beyond obsessed. i got in fights with my girlfriends over who owned more magazine clippings of leo. they were vicious fights, but ones that i fought very hard for and always won. i had books and books of leo and his childhood. my childhood crush, clay m. even resembled the face of my leo. i studied the titanic, waited while the t.v. guide would scroll on my television screen for the history channel to present "the history of the R.M.S. Titanic." I would cry while watching VH1's Pop-up Video when Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" music video played. I knew the facts of the ship, the crew, the dates, the passengers. I knew the ways of making the movie, the behind the scenes. I knew it all. I breathed it. I even made my parents take me TWICE to the Titanic Exhibition Museum to see all of the artifacts. Please continue to judge me when I say, I took the magazine challenges of being a "true" titanic lover and jumped in a ice cold shower for 20 minutes to see what it was like to be hanging in the ocean as the ship went down... yeah you guys this was a serious illness i had. it was bad, real bad, like michael jackson bad. and i never looked back.

sadly, i wasn't allowed to be a part of the excitement in the theater when titanic was out due to rose' boob alerts... so my mom did everything she could to calm me down. she bought me old school titanic movies that never seemed to do the trick. we tried to find edited versions once the movie was out on VHS and finally she caved and I was able to eat up titanic in all it's glory. I now own the special collectors edition of DVD and i handle it with care.

a couple of years back I was able to go to a celine dion concert in salt lake city with a couple of friends and my two sisters. celine was another obsession to me, such a powerhouse she is. i was so antsy the whole show though, i was just waiting and waiting for that one song to give me the chills and bring me back to my childhood. but after the show was over and she said goodnight... there was no titanic performance to be heard of. i was livid. i wanted to scream. and then all of a sudden... the lights dimmed and i realized, celine hasn't even begun her anchor yet, how could i forget!? all of a sudden, in the midst of nowhere, jack dawsons face appears on the screen and candlelit chandeliers lower as the flutes of "my heart will go on" began to echo... and there they were, my tears, rolling down my face. and there she was, celine... in a white gown, just as in her music video, flowing in the wind and i was bawling. as andie anderson, "how to girl" says, "she reaches up, and she brings it back down. it's like the most powerful thing i've ever seen." and it was, it really was.

now that i have completely freaked you out of my weird childhood teeny-bop obsession that still seriously lives on today, i want to share some good news with you. im sure you have all already heard it but let me tell you something now. TITANIC is coming back, in theaters on April 6th to relive the magic of the ship of dreams, in 3D. the date of released is the date that the R.M.S. Titanic set sail and the year of 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship. now i can experience what i was never able to as a kid, to see this remarkable historical film in theater and relive the moments. i saw the trailer this past weekend in the theater and cried. it's so pathetic you guys. so pathetic. i really hope you're just as excited for this as i am. if not, please, do judge me because i too admit that i am so over the top but what can i say? im a passionate kind of gal.

with that said, i do believe my boyfriend, leo is going to relive his leo-mania in the year 2012 kicking it off with the movie that made up his road of stardom, titanic, and onto what i think is going to be the movie of the year, "THE GREAT GATSBY." holy moly me oh my I cannot wait for this. I have a feeling my second obsession is going to bloom anytime now with this flick. Im already stalking what there is on the internet of this brilliant remake. can i add that i am so excited they made my man leo's locks blonde again like jack dawsons? goo-goo gah gah. i am a sucker for the 1920's. if i had a time machine, i would take it back to the 20's. I love the style of this decade, i love the music and the dancing. life was a party during the roaring twenties and i wish i could have lived then to tell all. im gonna have to get into "the great gatsby" mode and begin the book and just dive into the hype of it all. not to mention leo has another movie coming out that is taken place in the old south (my kind of style, not to mention my very own home sweet home) with plantations galore. i have a feeling it might be a little intense of a movie but i know leo's gonna win all them oscars and im backing him up because he really is a man of talent. like i said, 2012 it's not the end of the world, it's round two for leo-mania. SHIZAM.

zekey zoo blew out twenty-seven candles.

this past weekend we celebrated the one and only, zekes  birthday! zekey zoo is really a dream come true. he's the funniest kid in town, with the best pearly whites i know. he loves his hats galore and has the best voice for les miserables jam sessions which really are a crack up. though he claims he is the strict eater on the street and eats only fresh foods blah blah he surprisingly is a great snacker and junk food eater with me. we both kick ourselves for it but since the company with one another is great, we figure we're just having a feel good time. zekes a treasure to the world and i hope he knows how grand i think he is. happy birthday zekey zoo, may all of your birthday wishes come true.

dedicated to the arts

just letting the blogger world know that i will be non-existent starting today till christmas break when i FINALLY jet back to the old south. my education in art has once again decided to take over my life and with two weeks left to produce more than i can handle. one of the projects is to paint TWENTY oscar de la renta runway watercolors. look above and that will be them in watercolor form. i have already begun and im kind of excited. im in my element with fashion and art combined, so though im stressed, i couldn't be having anymore fun. so if you don't hear from me in a couple of weeks, if you even read this, i apologize for my absence and just know that im working my hands to the bone. wish me luck.