Street art with a side of street food in Austin, Texas

“Never give up” — seen while kayaking on the Colorado River, Austin, TX

As soon as I spotted this Pac-Man on the side of a bridge in Austin, I had a wave of inspiration.

I’ve been trying to cook a recipe from a favorite blog of mine each month as a kind of homage, but with this vacation and the crazy weeks leading up to it, I didn’t have time to get my culinary act together. But when I took this photo, I knew immediately what blog I wanted to mention this month — Waterfalls and Caribous.

Waterfalls and Caribous is a blog that I happen to come across long ago — I honestly can’t when I discovered it — but I was hooked immediately. While they post frequently about food, the main focus is their adventures while traveling, and seriously, they travel. I have followed them through India, Korea and into China. Their adventures can be as simple (and hilarious) as trying to find a great cup of coffee in Xi’an or as crazy as visiting the Haesindang (penis) Park in South Korea.

But I also really love that they love street art.

I’ve always enjoyed graffiti — when it’s done well — perhaps because I can’t draw at all. It’s really impressive what talented people can do with the side of a building (or bridge!) as their canvas.

So here’s some of the fun art I saw while wandering around in Austin last week:

Who doesn’t love beer?

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You’ve come a long way baby — happy birthday little blog!

Happy 1st Birthday, Attempts in Domesticity!

It’s now been, to the day, a year since I created Attempts in Domesticity. I resisted starting a blog for a long time, but my husband (who knows I love to write) prodded me into creating one and finally I caved. Since then, it’s become a big part of my life. On a basic level, it motivates me to cook more, even on nights when it’d be easy just to whip up a bowl of ramen for dinner instead.

But it’s more than that too…

I’ve learned a lot (not related to cooking) in the past 12 months. When I started writing posts, I was totally unaware that if I didn’t tag things they wouldn’t appear in the “reader” section. For the first month or two, I think my page views were averaging about 30 per week. (Don’t worry, Ree, no competition here!)

I was also so busy (considering it was the holiday season and all) that I hadn’t really started reading other people’s blogs, so I had no connections to anyone on WordPress. My blog was more like a public journal that no one besides my close friends read or even knew about. Finally I understood that I needed to take time to read other people’s posts if I wanted anyone to bother with mine — it’s not a one-way street.

Since then, I have gotten quite a few followers (thanks to all of you!) and made some virtual friendships with people who I really enjoy. I love feeling a little invested in other people’s — yes, basically complete strangers — lives, seeing what food they make, what crafts they create, the lives they’ve lived and where they’ve traveled to. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of different points of view which I think is pretty fantastic.

And so even after 12 months, I still feel like this project is fairly new — it’s constantly growing and developing, which means I am too. There’s no time to sit around and wait to be inspired — you’ve just got to go for it.

Anyways…back to the reason for the cake at the top of this post:

And so it begins…

After months of contemplating a writing a blog, my lovely husband has helped persuade me to start one. I may be years behind the times in terms of trendiness, but yet I’m excited to give it a go. We’ll see what happens!