Under the Covers- Part 2

A second post dedicated to cover songs. I don't think the first one really came up to its full potential and since I'm in youtube mode, here ya go :)

First up is Miss Leona Lewis, this performance being pointed out to me by my lovely Flo. Seriously, she and I share youtube music like it's going out of style. This is Leona's version of Snow Patrol's "Run"



Nastasha Bedingfield is one that although I can't stand to hear "Unwritten" any more (thanks to The Hills), she has so many other songs that I love. Here is her version of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know"



There are few people left out there who haven't heard Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl". This is McFly's version of the hit.


I've always had a soft spot for (most) of Eminem's stuff, the movie 8 Mile included. For some reason, I've always been drawn to the song "Lose Yourself" from that. And here's an interesting version of it from The Script


And no post concerning cover songs would ever be complete without an obligatory Me First and the Gimme Gimme's version of something- this one in particular, The Jackson 5's (or Mariah if you prefer) "I'll Be There"

A Little Bit of Life

Not that life is boring, but it's just been a little slow going recently. Which is perfect considering the summer was so fast paced, it flew by before I had a chance to turn my head and watch it go. Being lazy has become one of my more favorite past times, after my initial gumption with my etsy store wore off. Not that I don't love being creative and such, it's just that I have a habit of diving head first back into my hobbies and then getting burned out. It's okay though. I've still got two quilts that are in the works and cornwarmers to help make for Christmas presents.

Justin and I got to have our first Halloween together and our first time handing out candy at this residence. He didn't move into the house until November last year, so this was his first year too (happy anniversary to buying the house!). We had a handful of kids that stopped by, so we definitely have quite a bit of candy leftover which isn't going so well for my previously snack controlled evenings. I'd just started feeling changes in my body since being active in the Krav Maga classes for about two months now and here I am shoving chocolate into my mouth every time I walk into the kitchen. It's all about portion control, lol.

We've got to figure out when a good time is to go grocery shopping on the weekends. We started out by going on Sunday evenings and after that proved trying, started going right after noon. Were both starting to grow weary of the masses yet again, and today I said we were going to have to give midnights on Saturdays a try just to see. Should we attempt this experiment in the near future, I'll be sure to let you all in on the results. Anything to help my fellow man.

Nineteen (almost 18) more days til Twilight comes out in theaters! I can't help but feel like a 15 year old for my internal obsession with the series, and more specifically Edward Cullen, but as I re-read Twilight this past week to gear up for the movie, I found myself yet again wishing that Justin would somehow become a vampire. Sad, yes. But I do have a big imagination. And he does dazzle me, so it'd be fitting. I'm excited for my date opening night with Emmy so we can wear the bracelets she bought us (fashioned after Jacob's gift to Bella) and I'm seriously considering buying a shirt I found that quotes Edward: "You are exactly my brand of herion." I wasn't this bad about Harry Potter people, and I preordered the last four books.

Sigh. Seven o'clock and it's already been dark for an hour. Although, it does play pretty well into my being lazy past time...

How About a Cover?

As much as I love originals of songs, I also enjoy the occassional well performed cover song. I generally enjoy when the cover is a complete 180 from the original, yet still sounds awesome. The following are a few that I would recommend.

Where did these guys ever go?


Slowing things down


Karate Kid anyone?


Some classic Don Henley action


And although all performances on shows like American Idol and The X Factor would be considered covers, I have to give this one special mention because it's the only covered version of the song that I've ever heard to be just as good as the original

My New Toy

I've been an avid sewer all my life. Okay, well avid in the sense that I get on kicks that last for months and then take a few months off while daydreaming up all the hundreds of projects I wished I had time to do. When I was younger, I would thread as many needles as my great-grandmother had on a pincushion so that she could hand piece for awhile without having to worry about her poor eyesight keeping her from something she loved to do. My mamaw and I used to make clothes for my Barbie dolls, and to this day I have a simple, yet unfinshed "quilt" that I had started for them goodness only knows how long ago.

Although I prefer to hand piece all my quilts, a sewing machine would be nice for some of the quicker projects I'd like to accomplish over time and someday it'd be a great resource for new curtains, sheets or whatever else I decided to throw together. Although I'd been contemplating the idea of buying one for a bit, it was mine and Justin's decision to start building and making cornhole boards and bags that solidified my decision in buying a machine for myself.

My new toy:

Isn't she a beauty? Lol. Kenmore's were what my mom and mamaw have sewn on for years, so I knew because of that and after reading lots and lots of customer reviews that they were a pretty reliable brand. I found this one on sale at Sears and after our dinner date, Justin and I headed over to the mall to purchase one. Turns out she was the last one in the store. Lucky me!

I put her together that night and filled a bobbin. The next morning, I threw together a few pillowtops that are to be a Christmas present for a friend once I get a backing on them and stuffed.

A detail shot:

And this is my new sewing area: the kitchen :)

After talking about sewing cornhole bags, Justin decided we could turn the area into a sweatshop- turn the a/c off, turn the lights down, turn the oven on and just let me have at it. We'll see how it goes.

My Country Cookin'

I love to cook and I love even more to find new recipes to try. So far, so good with everything I've experimented with thanks to http://www.allrecipes.com/ . I decided to go a little off the page and give my absolute favorite dish a try this weekend: chicken and dumplings. My mamaw fixes them at every family dinner because she knows she'll have a twenty something pouty granddaughter if she doesn't :)

I'm so excited (and proud) to say that they turned out wonderfully!

And here's Justin enjoying his warm meal

Later on this week- chicken pot pie. I'll keep you posted.

From the Lost and Found

I go through random spells when I listen to youtube throughout the day. For the past two weeks, Pink has been on a constant rotation as well as Hoobastank, whom I rediscovered after hearing "The Reason" on the radio. One memory of a live Hoobastank performance came from an MTV awards show years back that they sang that song and bombed big time. It was only later after watching it again that I figured out the lead singer seemed slightly intoxicated and maybe that's why he was so off pitch. It was only a few weeks later that i saw them on another television show and he totally killed the song that I realized that had to have been it, cause he was seemingly sober this time around and was great.

This song was off their most recent album. I remember always wanting to dance along to it when I heard it in the car.

"Inside of You"


Pink's got a catchy new song out called "So What" which covers her recent divorce from now ex-husband Carey Hart. The kicker of the video? Carey makes an appearance. When questioned, Pink said something to the effect of "Carey knows I'm crazy but loves me and would do anything for me." I think she's got another hit on her hands :)

"So What"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdb-ydzFNlE

And of course, for the teenager still living inside me, I have to include some Jesse McCartney, both old school and new.

"Just So You Know"


"Buy You a Drank"

I've Just Experienced a Medical Mystery

About a week ago, I discovered halfway through my workday that there was something poking my left foot right underneath my next to last toe. I remember pulling my shoe off while talking to my boss at one point just to run my hand across my foot in order to brush off whatever may have gotten picked up while I was barefoot earlier in my office. After getting home that evening, my foot was still irritated, so I decided to take a gander. In the questionable area, I found a visable dark line, of which both Justin and I thought it was probably a small cut seeings how the shoes I had been wearing that day were a little worse for wear. We laughed about how just a week before he had been telling me of an article concerning hairdressers finding strands of hair embedded in their feet, apparently the longest of which was 5 inches long!

As the week passed on, I noticed that the discomfort was still there, although on Monday after another inspection, the dark line wasn't there anymore. After having a few "ow" moments during the evening, I took a closer look and found that the line had moved down a bit, and now instead of being horizontal, it was vertical. There was definitely something under my skin, it was irritating and there was no way I could get it out on my own.

Finally, last night I caved. I contemplated tweezers and fingernail clippers to get through the skin, but decided that I would probably make an infected mess out of things in the end and should just make an appointment with the foot doctor for today. As much as I hated to on the offchance that it turned out to be not much of anything, the little line had dropped a little further down to where it now rested in the middle of the ball of my foot and was more noticeable when I walked than before.

At the doctor's office, she decided to take an xray of my foot just to check and see if it was a hard material, like glass or something of the sort. Of course, nothing showed up, but she stated several times that there was something definitely underneath there. She asked if I wanted her to see if she could find it, and I responded "I kinda hoped you would cause I'm pretty sure it'd be more sanitary for you to do it than for me to." After a few minutes of light scalpel work, she informed me that although it wasn't incredibly deep in there, it was a little more than she originally thought and I was going to have to be numbed up. I do thank her for using that cold spray in conjunction with giving me the shot, although it still hurt like the dickens. A bit later, the cutting went much more smoothly (pun intended) and turns out that it was just what Justin and I had joked about- a hair. A little, quarter of an inch piece of hair that had somehow worked it's way underneath my skin and become an irritating little bastard that had to be cut out. How crazy is that? For a little piece of hair to feel like something poking at you whenever you were to bunch your foot up in a certain way.

I've already warned Justin that there will be no more discussions in this house of odd medical happenings and/or rare diseases as I don't intend to be an example of any more.