ice!

This is my first winter in Austin, having moved there ~6 or so months ago from Florida (born n' raised). Seeing ice on the trees this morning was legitimately magical, and I took waaaay too many pictures, my favorites of which are:

pottery

And it was also the first day of staring a weekly pottery class, with the goal of eventually getting good enough to make things at home and send them off occasionally to austin kiln club to be fired. Thanks to the ice, the roads were scary. There were fallen branches, power was out at a few lights, and (maybe unsurprisingly for you northerly folk who know more what to expect) the place ended up being closed so I had to turn right back. Next week for sure :)

Already got big plans for trying to make the tiles from Azul into coasters, and some sort of mug with a face for storing pencils.

Wasn't a waste of time though, because the drive took perfectly, exactly, the right amount of time to listen to ed buys houses so that the last song faded out right as I was parking. Always feels so good, like my life is a movie.

music

And speaking of Gish / Ed Buys Houses - finally getting good enough at guitar to play the most song's parts individually. Step 2 is to figure out loopers to put them all together, and then the worrying prospect of trying to sing :p

She's also opening for the Beths in a few months which I'm really looking forwards to!

work

it's fine.

boardgame cafe

Still plugging along, slowly but slowly, at this. Lots of ruminating where I want to be after the lease is up in June. I have no regrets moving to Austin because it's

1. not my parent's place in Florida

2. I'm roomates with a good friend / extrovert which is always a good time :)

With that said, despite making a bit of an effort still have no real ties here other than him. And Austin does have the key problems of being expensive, kinda mid-tier cool, and in Texas, the only place giving Florida politics a run for their money.

My sister, and several of my high school friends are up in Seattle, so might go there next? Or maybe Pittsburgh or St. Louis, two conspicuously boardgame-cafe-free cities. (Though, the thought of moving somewhere all alone is a little terrifying)

Regardless, the thought hasn't died yet, and the lease being up seems a good self set deadline for either coming up with a more complete plan & moving somewhere specifically to make that happen, or not.