The Queen of All-Natural Remedies I Am Not

"I totally should have Googled it or asked you, but... does one put the coconut oil ALL throughout one's hair, or just the ends?" (Belated text to a friend is belated.)

Coconut oil in hair: the quickest way to smell amazing whilst looking like you just camped in the wilderness for a month.

Clothes Quarters

As someone who has been known to lament how many items of clothing I own, I found the Weed Out Your Closet in a Year technique of hanging all of one's clothes backwards, flipping them back to the correct mode of hangage after one has worn a piece of clothing, and then donating all unflipped-for-a-year items to be... well, a brilliant concept.

"Let's start at the very beginning: a very good place to start..."

Then I had that moment when I realized that that method would only cause me to declare, "A challenge!" and then proceed to turn it into a game in which I made it my goal to wear every piece of clothing in my closet before the year was up (bonus points for reaching the goal within six months!), thus nullifying the point.

Which is the problem, really. I do eventually end up wearing all of my clothes (even if I've worn a particular dress only twice within as many years), and it has the added bonus of not having to do laundry all that often (I seem to harbor a small fear of my washer breaking or suddenly finding myself having only enough money to pay for room and board, which helps me justify keeping all the clothes—I kid you not).

Am I crazytown? Does anyone have any suggestions? Any ideas for tricking myself into getting rid of clothing?

Credit where credit is due:

• Clothes-on-hangers photo found on rayandjen.com.

The Lost Blog Snippet

Whenever inspiration rockets past my ear and slams into the nearest wall in a firestorm of 4th-of-July sparklers and cartoon squirrels, I try to capture it by quickly opening a new e-mail message page and typing furiously before the visions seared into my corneas fade away. (Note to self: Purchase fire extinguisher.)

This happened a few weeks prior to my wedding. The writing below is the result.

My outlook on getting everything done for the wedding:

June 30, 1700-ish: "We have gobs of time."

July 1, 0400-ish: "WE HAVE NO TIME."

Seriously. Nico and I spent a good 45 minutes or so sitting in James Avery discussing the pros and cons of getting a way-fancy ring versus a "work" ring or both (and by "discussing" I mean that Nico listens really intently to his neurotic fiancée).

The end!

But not really. Wedding brain still lives within me. Not the psychotic NOW-ALL-MY-SINGLE-FRIENDS-SHOULD-GET-HITCHED-TOO kind; the I'm-pretty-sure-I-had-plans-to-hang-out-with-Friend-X-on-Friday-but-it's-not-written-in-my-Outlook-calendar-so-I'm-beginning-to-question-my-sanity kind.

Outlook and iCal are my second (and third?) brain(s?).

And this handsome fellow married me anyway (and is still married to me, four-ish months later).

Leave it to me to manage to make it look like he's sticking his finger up his nose.

P.S.: For those of you who are wondering about the outcome of the 45-plus-minute conversation about rings, we went with the "work" rings. Holla atcha, James Avery (who didn't pay me to write about the company's wares)!

Food (Photography) for Thought

Or, Hipster Elle Will Cry Herself to Sleep at Night for the Foreseeable Future

So I'm wandering around the interwebs, reading and nodding and oohing and ahhing (like I do).

And I noticed that a lot of the blogs I visit bear photos of food.

Nay, not just photos of food—stupendous photos of food. Glorious photos of food.

If you know me and my photography habits, you know that I dig snapping shots of whatever food is placed in front of me (or that I find myself bookin' it toward—ain't no shame!). Sushi, sandwich, cereal... all the foods. And drinks. Those are fun too.

And in recent times, I'd been toying with the idea of foodblogging my little heart out 'cause I apparently missed my original calling as food blogger/photographer/consumer (fact: I love food and pictures and the Oxford comma). Yeah, I'm not to THAT level—"THAT level" being professional, obviously—but I. like. food. In fact, I'd been toying with a particular food blogging idea, but that's for the future (ooh, lookit me bein' all sneaky and secretive!). I was going to be a married Julianne Potter ("My Best Friend's Wedding," anyone?).

But then it hits me that almost every blog I enjoy perusing boasts lovely, pristine, gritty, UH-mazing images of the respective blogger's food experiences. (And most post their own recipes for said marvelous dishes. Man, I can follow a recipe, but chaos enters the flavor of any meal from whose precise recipe I diverge. Betty Crocker I am not (though I am the spit-image of Julia and Paula with regard to how much butter I tend to employ—come to me, lardy goodness!).)

It was like my glorious idea semicolon neck tattoo: it had already been done.

And not just done—done, like, a billion times.

And done well.

Food pictures are like cockroaches (stay with me here): for every one you see, there are probably two thousand more being taken in that instant.

This realization makes Hipster Elle a sad panda.

And Hipster Elle mopes a little bit and grumbles to herself (mentally, of course).

But then I looked up (literally, actually).

And I realized...

I love looking at the myriad of meal magic acts frozen in film form. I just do.

Q: How many times have I seen a deep-dish fancy-schmancy pizza from This Amazing Pizza Parlor resting on a chunky bamboo board?
A: Probably about one hundred and eleventy times.

Q: How many times have I seen a rich, chocolate-chunk-laden scoop of gelato snuggled in a frost-frosted cup which in turn is resting upon a mocha-stained coffee table?
A: Perhaps seventy-five times... and some change. (People from NYC love their gelato—and I apparently end up reading a lot of their blogs...)

Q: How many times have I seen a dazzlingly blue Special Margarita That is Made This Particular Way That's Whoa-Famous at This One Hole-in-the-Wall Mexican Restaurant That's Way Hard to Find But is TO DIE FOR?
A: Likely somewhere between five and ten times for as many Thursdays and Fridays as exist between now and when I first started reading blogs (and I got started early, kids).

Q: And do I enjoy looking at all those pictures?
A: Yes! (Duh!)

The thing is, I enjoy seeing the creativity in the meals, in the angles, in the lighting, in the backgrounds, in the people—in the atmosphere captured at that most precise moment in time. It's like sneaking into a world of delicious [for the eyes]. The viewer of the picture gets an open invitation to feast his or her eyes (haha) on foodstuffs that he or she may never have seen before or may have seen a hundred and two times but never in this particular way before.

Yes, in my blogdom wanderings I may have observed, like, thirty photos of a roasted-peach crostini with brown sugar and ginger this week (it could happen!), but you know what? I enjoyed it every time. The thoughtfulness, the cleverness, the composition, the plating—it's just so... intriguing! From couture restaurant offerings to someone's sister-in-law's famous homemade whatever to the I-followed-the-recipe-exactly-but-the-result-looks-like-a-burn-victim mishaps (true story, BTW)...

I dig it. I really do.

So, even if there are a million people out there snappin' iPhone Instagrams of their street-vendor Chicago hot dog or painstakingly photographing their best friend's designer-bakery wedding cake with a Canon 21-Billion and Super-Crazy-Awesome-Zoom Lens, the fun is not diminished. On the contrary, really, 'cause the prevalence of foodtography (please tell me I made that up just now) brings forth new ideas (sliced nectarines on grilled cheese? what?) and inspires the unthought-of (serving New York strip steak cubes in a martini glass is pretty nifty).

The way I figure, there's a pretty broad horizon. Every plate, every glass, every soggy ice cream cone with the bottom falling out is an '80s song of delectable intrigue. (What? I like '80s music.) And, of course, nothing's been done exactly the same way twice (the parsley flakes will never fall where you think they will). There is still so much to be enjoyed! There's so much adventure to be had!

There's joy in food—the preparing, the plating (or bowling?), the observing, the tasting. And by gosh, do I love observing. (And tasting, but that's way obvious.) I may have seen a kajillion food pictures, but the sheer entertainment value every picture has provided me with reminds me that, just maybe, the pictures I take of whatever sundry food-laden table I happen to find myself in front of just might bring a smile to someone's face (or a groan, depending), or an idea to someone's mind, or whatever...

Y'know?

So! I am out to (continue to) capture whatever delicious escapades I embark on! Regardless of whether it's been done before (Hipster Elle is kicking Food-Photography-Happy Elle in the shins right now), I haven't done it before.

Some of Carofish's delightfully tangy key lime pie with some serious fork action goin' on in the foreground.

A friend of a friend once said, "Dude, sometimes, I swear to you, there's more poetry in sno-cones than there will ever be in words. And that's my final thought on this subject." (Preach it, sistah.)

Brace yourself, li'l point-and-shoot camera of mine, 'cause you're gonna get busy.

And that's my final thought on this subject.

An Ode to the Fiancé

Let me just say, y’all, that I love my man. He is smart, he is hilarious, he is faithful. He is also the sweetest, most attentive darn thing. Before he goes to class, he will drive miles and miles to bring me assorted teas and goodies because I’m sick and decided to go to work anyways because I could physically get out of bed and drive a car without veering into a cow pasture.

Did I mention that these miles and miles are in the complete opposite direction of where his classes are located? And that this has happened on more than one occasion?

Yeah. Be jealous.

He is such a servant. When I was sick and did nothing more productive than languish on a cough and look (and feel and sound) miserable, he sat across from me and peeled tiny oranges for me to eat. He also provided limitless hot tea for my sipping enjoyment. He stayed up with me when I was stricken with sudden sickness (notice a pattern?) and made sure I was feeling all right, could he get me anything, did I want to lay down, would a glass of water be OK, did I want a kitty to pet? (+10 for offering me a kitty to pet.)

He’s pretty awesome even when I’m not in the throes of motion-sickness or food-sickness or whatever-else-sickness (which, thankfully, are much less pronounced than when we met). He reads with me, sings in the car with me, texts back and forth with me, eats ungodly amount of sushi and spicy mayo with me, and walks through parks and neighborhoods and inhabited island houses with me. He will grab a Nerf gun and Army crawl across an expansive hardwood floor because a precocious 10-year-old Down’s kid told him to. He will volunteer to goatsit for a family he just met while they’re on vacation. He will apologize before the sun goes down, regardless of the pride wounds it might inflict. He is always looking for new (or old) things to learn and adventures to be had. He looks for ways in which he can love on the people around him, be they friends, classmates, or strangers. He’s on a perpetual journey to better know his God and thank his Savior.

What a book-readin' stud.

Yeah, he’s pretty much the greatest.

And I get to marry him in July.

Boo yah.