Iron + Wine and Other LA Adventures.

So last Tuesday night was the night of the Iron + Wine show at The Wiltern. It was one of Philips Christmas presents and we were so excited to go. Our good friend Danielle lives in LA and we had planned to stay at her house after the show.

That was the extent of our plan. Tickets were bought, our place to stay was "booked", we had the next day off to enjoy, and we left Patrick with my parents. It sounds so simple, but of course, that's not how it went.

On Tuesday, I worked pretty early (remember, I work at Starbucks) and worked a full shift.

NOTE: That's normal to me, but I went to bed SUPER late the night before. On Monday night, I did the same thing on practically no sleep. So those hours were adding up quickly.

After work, I tried to be really productive by cleaning and getting errands done (what I should have done was take a nap). On top of this, I hadn't eaten anything all day.

NOTE: My friends and family know that this is the worst thing for me. When I snap at my husband out of nowhere, he says, "Do you need to eat something?". I've learned that I shouldn't let myself get to that point. If I do, I have to communicate when I'm super hungry or just eat something asap for the sake of people around me- especially for my sweet and patient husband.

After getting the car packed, not taking a nap, and not eating all day, I drove to Philip's work where I had a crying breakdown. I was so exhausted and worn out. I was also upset because we thought the show started at 6. It was 5 and we were in San Diego, had to drop Patrick off at my parents (30 mins north), and make it to LA in an hour. NOT going to happen! When traffics bad, it takes up to 3 hours to get to LA from where we live. When Philip got in the car, we went straight to Subway, and headed up to my parents. I downed my dinner and slept in the front seat.

When we got up to where the show was, we drove around looking for parking. Apparently, in LA, all parking garages are cash only. We weren't prepared for this and drove around for a long time looking for somewhere to leave our car. It was after 7 at this point and I had accepted the fact that we weren't seeing the opening artist.

When we stopped at the ATM to get cash out, I opened my wallet for my debit card and found just enough cash for the parking garage! I forgot that I got my tips that day- otherwise, we never have cash on us. We rushed back to the parking garage were we were quickly met by the valet service. This was a surprise to us, so we quickly grabbed the tickets and my purse. On the way in to the show, Philip realized that he didin't have his phone. We were bummed because we wanted to take videos.

When we got inside, everyone was standing around or getting drinks- no one was on stage. We just assumed that we had missed Laura Marling (who we were really excited to see) and that Iron + Wine would be playing soon. Philip got us drinks from the bar and I saved our spot on the floor.

When Philip got back with the drinks ($25 for two beers- yikes!) he said that the opening artist wasn't supposed to go on until 8! We hadn't missed any of the show- we made it just on time! We also realized that Philip had his phone the whole time. We got to take videos and entertain ourselves in between sets with blogs and facebook.

Laura Marling was so fantastic live! We hadn't heard many of her songs, just the few that pop up on our Pandora stations from time to time. She was great! I would love to see her again. She was so sweet and soft spoken between songs, then she started singing and we were blown away.

Of course, Iron and Wine was fantastic as well. While we were driving in the car, Resurrection Fern was playing and I said, I hope we make it, I want to hear this song live. Of course, that was the first song that they played and it was soooo good!

Everything turned out perfectly and there was no need for such a stressful journey. Is there ever? Stressing wouldn't get us there faster, or make the show start later. I've been better about not letting things like this effect me, but that day was a huge exception.

We're still working on getting the Iron and Wine videos off of the phone. Here's a little snippet of Laura Marling. The second video is Danielle's dog- so happy to be outside.

These are pictures of the next day with Danielle. The company that she works for is in Venice on Abbot Kinney. It's such a cute street with so many shops and restaurants. It was such a great day!

TALLWORKS

I'm so excited to have a guest here on Walk With Me, Darling. I am so proud of my friend, Danielle. She is creative, ambitious, and an incredible designer. Her new business, TALLWORKS, is proof of that.


Danielle wanted to have a studio that designs "for a purpose. By working with clients based on their needs and budget, TALLWORKS has the ability to give clients the quality and attention they deserve without the hassle of expanding their company or worrying about large corporate invoices."


So, she came up with the project "12". TALLWORKScollective will be focusing on one project every month that fits into their current theme. Their theme for this year is "justice". Right now they are teamed up with SAG (no, not the screen actors guild.. Students Against Genocide). SAG has been selling tshirts to raise support and awareness for whats going on in Duran.

Danielle's studio is designing their new tshirt that will be sold to raise money for Burma related organizations. How sweet is that?! :)


She was kind enough to share her vision behind TALLWORKSwith us.

You can like what you do, or you can LOVE what you do. There should always be a passion that drives you and helps you thrive. For me it was about using my ability to design to help impact the world to see something new. I never wanted to be the designer that was a sell-out, took the easy route or was satisfied with just throwing something together. It was all about breaking down the concept and making it flourish. I hit a point in my career where I wanted something more. I didn't want to get stuck branding AMP Energy logos on bikini tops for the rest of my life; I wanted to start creating designs that made a difference. I wanted to start creating work that influenced people to look at the world in a positive way. While keeping things afloat financially is important, I wanted to see if there was a way to do that while doing something I loved and I knew people could benefit from.

I decided to start TALLWORKS for two reasons: to pick and choose the projects I work on and to contribute to organizations and causes that needed creative services. Like I said, it's important to stay financially afloat, but I felt like TALLWORKS was the opportunity to work specifically with clients that had as much passion for their brand/product/idea as I did for design. These were the kinds of clients that I wanted to work with. I wanted to be able to create work that was original and tailored specifically for each client/cause. Then a thought kicked in... "If I'm already designing work that I love and am getting paid for, why not offer my design services to groups that need professional creative to help promote their cause but don't have the funds to create it?" So project "12" was born.

Since then it's been kind of a whirl wind of connecting with old clients, pitching to new ones and alerting organizations of my design services. My life is now design 24/7. But, as tiring as this sounds, I can honestly say that I love what I'm doing and I can't wait to see where TALLWORKS takes me. It's just the beginning.

If you're interested in Danielle's services or know of an organization that could use some good design, check her out, TALLWORKS has a lot to offer.


Grow to the next level: www.TALLWORKS.com & www.TALLWORKSCollective.com