Friday, February 24, 2012

Move Over, Barbie and Ken!

There's a new dream home in town.

It's no secret that I love scoping out potential places to live. My favorite cities to search include Las Vegas, Charleston, SC, and Charlotte, NC, but I've also started getting excited about Atlanta and Durham. Anyway, earlier today I was browsing the Las Vegas Keller Williams page and I think I found the one. I showed Daniel and he agreed that it might be the most amazing house he's ever seen.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Daniel and Jenn's favorite house ever: ta-da!

I am totally and completely in love! Daniel served about a mile north of there and approves of the area, plus it's 6 minutes to the church, 35 minutes to the temple, 30 minutes to Naked Fish, 20 minutes to the Strip, and 30 minutes to the airport.

We can't wait to have you all come visit :)

-Jenn

Monday, February 20, 2012

Top 5

One perk of my job is being able to listen to music at a reasonable volume at my desk everyday. Pandora likes to surprise me with my absolute favorites from time to time, and I can't help bumping up the volume and rocking out (as much as I can in an office chair with a giant window behind me). So, in alphabetical order by artist, here are my five all-time-favorite-know-every-single-word-sing-along-at-the-top-of-my-lungs-would-gladly-listen-to-nothing-else-for-the-rest-of-forever songs...

Anberlin - The Unwinding Cable Car

I LOVE the softer tone of this song! It's not really what you'd expect from the band, but it's a nice surprise. The last time I saw Mae, this was one of the in-between-sets songs the venue played and the entire crowd sang along. It was awesome to hear so many voices come together. The music video is not my favorite (I think it's kind of distracting), you can just listen to the song itself here.

Jimmy Eat World - Work

I love the sound of this song, I think it's so catchy. I also kind of think Jim Adkins is a lyrical genius, so I really enjoy the words and interpretation of this song, and I get different meanings from it depending on my mood. This song/album was kind of my springboard into the alt-rock genre, so it has a lot of meaning to me. Again, not a huge fan of the video (though it was filmed in Wisconsin), the song itself can be found here. JEW is at the top of my must-see-live list.

The Killers - Read My Mind

I've mentioned this song on a few different occasions, so sorry for the repeat (I'm not really sorry). I love the band's quirkiness and I want to be Brandon Flowers's best friend. This song just makes me happy, pure and simple. Also on my must-see-live list.

Mae - Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
Click here
This might be my most favorite song in the entire world ever. The entire album (The Everglow) is a masterpiece. From the mouth of Dave Elkins himself...
This song is a hypothetical story of a couple of who falls in love and suddenly they find everything they're looking for, and they find it in each other. And it's very good and it's very rewarding, but alongside this, or as a result of this, an unborn baby comes into the picture before too long. And a lot of people have wondered and talked to us at shows, and I've seen it discussed on message boards and whatnot, and a lot of people think this is a story about an abortion or this song is a story stating us as pro-choice or pro-life, and that's not necessarily the case here. What we're looking at here is that fact that as a result of this baby and it entering into the world, they find a love, these individuals, that's more fulfilling and more rewarding and more satisfying than anything they had known up until that point. I think it's important that we understand that love is not always black and white like we'd like for it to be and sometimes it's very gray and sometimes you have to make the difficult decisions and sometimes you do have to try and fail and fail and fail a few times before you actually succeed and get the big picture, and I think that's exactly what this song it all about.
I don't condone the behavior in this song, I just think it's told in a beautiful way. For this hypothetical couple, a situation that was once considered a mistake is now looked at in a totally different way, and I think that change in perspective is what makes this story so powerful. This song was on the set list for Mae's farewell tour and it was easily the best five minutes of the night. I didn't even sing along, I just stood there and listened. And it was incredible.

Straylight Run - Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway)

This is the official Straylight Run encore song. The first time I saw these guys live, they played the regular version. The second and third times I saw these guys live, they played the acoustic version, so that has a special place in my heart too. When my sister and I planned the music for stake dances, we always made this song the very last one. My dad's band (yes, my dad has a band) played this song at a dance once and he dedicated it to me, so it's always a sweet reminder of him when I hear it too.

-Jenn