This is sponsored content from BlogHer and by the makers of ob tampons, CAREFREE Pantiliners and STAYFREE pads.

Did you see that picture? Yep, the one with Sarah Mclachlan and me. I  I headed out to The Verizonport Ampicenter (how many times have they changed the name of that place?) for an evening of chick-rock, cold adult beverages, and general sweaty outdoors music listening fun at Lilith Fair 2010. I had almost forgotten how much I love a music festival (even without a hilarious run in with Snoop Dogg), but fear not readers my musical soul is still in tact… and to top it all of, I had a blast.

I got to the concert just in time to catch a special press conference with Sarah Dalton (from local band that won a place in the lineup, The Airplanes), Kina, Emmylou Harris, Sarah Mclachlan, Jennifer Knapp, Ellen Reid from Lydia’s House (the awesome St. Louis women’s charity that received a portion of the festival’s ticket proceeds), and Meaghan Smith. Admittedly, this isn’t par for the festival course… but I would refer you to the aforementioned Snoop Dogg experience before saying that some odd celeb brush or another is not expected.

Well, Mrs. Angela “Fluid Pudding” Downing and I met the festival’s organizer, Miss Sarah Mclachlan, and snapped that picture you see at the top of this post. This was after she had her giant check moment with Lydia’s House, of course. Although I would not have complained if I had been the one handed a giant check while mugging with her, and I am sure Angela would agree.

As I mentioned before, it was one of those famous, heat rash generating, mid-summer evenings in St. Louis. And not only did the sponsors for my Lilith Fair experience (STAYFREE pads®, CAREFREE liners®, and o.b. tampons®) make it possible for me to meet Sarah (you know, ’cause that two seconds of picture taking put me on a first name basis with her and all), but they also provided air conditioning and scented cool towels in their “Lillipad Lounge.” (I know, I thought that was kind of cute, too). I popped into their tent too many times once or twice throughout the night to indulge in a little slice of cool-me-off. I also took advantage of the bathroom they had fancied up with a little bit of Astroturf lining the isles and a stock-pile of pads assured to last through the periodpocalyspe, should something like that happen. AC outside, plus a fancy bathroom where otherwise you can expect close to toxic conditions… Epic.

In my opinion every music festival has its own take away lesson. My lesson from Lilith was that the Candian band, Metric, rocks. The little, waifish lead singer really has some lungs on her, and I am pretty much in love with their sound. I am not usually one to buy CD’s at concerts… because I am not usually one to go to concerts where I don’t know the band. However, festivals are a great place to discover new musical loves… and Metric is mine. Now, I heart Metric.

My second lesson from the night was to respect your musical elders. Let me explain… Emmylou Harris is kind of like Hemmingway. You have heard of her (or him). You know you should have heard (or read) something by her (or him), however you just haven’t. In the book or music store you ignore the legends or classics and head straight for what you consider “the good stuff”, but when you finally take the time to check out what you have been missing, you shame yourself for dismissing it so quickly for so long. Emmylou Harris is amazing (sadly, I am still laboring to reach that conclusion with Hemmingway).

On the door of a stall in the fancy bathroom (see above) I saw a little sticker that explained Lilith Fair was organized because concert promoters said an all female ticket wouldn’t sell. This morning on Fox 2 P-D music critic, Kevin Johnson, said that the reasons Lilith was organized originally might not be relevant today. I say, au contraire Mon frére. Lilith continues to be a celebration of women in music, so perhaps he is missing the point entirely. The experience, for me, seems to have been best summarized during the pre-show press conference, when all of the younger musicians agreed that one of the highlights of the festival is working with seasoned women musicians and getting exposure to a wider audience.

Perhaps they didn’t sell out the amphitheater but didn’t he say in the interview that *all* summer concert ticket sales are down (including über star of the moment Lady Gaga)? By my estimation not only did n00bies Metric blip onto my radar because of Lilith, but a classic, Emmylou Harris, earned a spot in my musical dialogue as well. Would some of these ladies have a spot on stage at other music festivals? Maybe a Bonnaroo or two, but I think for female musicians who might otherwise find it harder to get on a ticket and reach new audiences, and for music fans who can’t afford to travel cross country or aren’t interested in not showering for a week, Lilith has helped make some important musical introductions over the years- and still does.

Oh! And lest I forget, there was the gratuitous Beetle Bob sighting…

The lovely folks over at BlogHer have decided that if you leave a comment, share a link to this post via Twitter (and leave a link to the Tweet in the comments), or blog about this review (and of course leave a link to the post in the comments) you will be entered in a drawing to win a $100. Pretty snazzy, huh? Here are the official rules and that jazz, and you have from 7/29 until 8/4 to do it.

Disclosure: This is sponsored content from BlogHer and by the makers of ob tampons, CAREFREE Pantiliners and STAYFREE pads. I received free tickets and compensation for attending and writing about this concert.

Melody is the Founder and Managing Editor. She is a freelance writer & an interactive media strategist by day. She writes for Girls Guide, STLFamilyLife.com, and on her personal blog, Mrs SmartyPants.com by night. You can email her at melody [at] girlsguidetothegalaxy [dot] com, and you can follow her on Twitter- @cosmosgirl.

We may have to keep the old folks and pets indoors today, but remember those summers when temperature was never an issue? Do you remember when you thought plastic-sheathed, frozen ice pops were all you needed to keep cool and fueled for the day? All you cared about was the fact you didn’t have to go to school, and it never mattered if your jelly shoes matched your tank top. It was all about fun, and possibly Barbies.

I may not be a credentialed reporter but evidently I asked a pretty good question once, because today we are hosting the BlogHer $100 Question here on Girls Guide. And I am asking you, dear readers, what is the one thing you miss most about summers when you were a kid?

I think the thing I miss the most was that hour of twilight (zomg, I almost capitalized that word as in the book…), just after dinner and before you had to go inside for the night. That sweet spot on the clock when the sounds of cicadas begin humming in the background and the flickers of lightning bugs begin dotting the grass. My best friend, Missy, and I would get a thrill out of catching lightning bugs- filling our mason jars with a bed of grass and as many glowing bugs as we could until we had so many held captive that they would fly out when you opened the lid.

Then we would rip those little suckers’ butts off and use the glowing part as war paint- it was so much fun. Fun until our parents caught us doing it and explained not only how gross bug were, but how gross it was that we were smearing mutilated bug parts on our faces, arms, and legs. Talk about innocence and the desire to eat desert lost.

So what do you miss? Leave your answer in the comments and you will be qualified to win 100 smackaroos from BlogHer! (Here are the official rules for folks that are into that sort of thing)

Melody is the Founder and Managing Editor. She is a freelance writer & an interactive media strategist by day. She writes for Girls Guide, STLFamilyLife.com, and on her personal blog, Mrs SmartyPants.com by night. You can email her at melody [at] girlsguidetothegalaxy [dot] com, and you can follow her on Twitter- @cosmosgirl.

I am all in a tizzy because not only was this my favorite book in the series, but this movie is so much better than the other two installments in the series.  A self admitted Twerd and wannabe Fangbanger, I am pretty happy that somehow they got Kristen Stewart to stop doing that snort and mumble at her sneakers thing. As a poseur vamp tramp I am thrilled they got RPatz’s makeup right, didn’t let him take off his shirt (not hot), and magically the constipated look has gone from his face. So, bravo Chris Weitz from a movie aficionado and Twilight fan (no, the two are not mutually exclusive)…

I’m not giving anything away by mentioning the big fight with the vampire army because 1) you probably read the book and 2) why are you reading this if you haven’t seen a trailer either? After the awkwardness of the way the Bella/Edward love story unfolded in the first and second movies, the vampire army and Cullen clan showdown was the highlight I was looking forward to in this movie. And with Weitz at the helm, I figured those essential hints of fantasy epic and the indie/emo rocker kids’ love story would be there, which I felt were both keys and both missing even in the second movie (which was way better than the first if that tells ya how bad the first one was).  And Weitz did exactly what I had hoped: Eclipse felt like it should have… it felt to me like the book did.

Even as a card carrying member of Team Edward and a die hard romantic, I didn’t expect Bella and Edward (I prefer to think of those crab-arse malcontent actors as Edward and Bella… now get off my lawn!) to actually pull me into the story again, and make me fall in love with the story of falling in love for the first time, all over again- but they did. I was completely absorbed in the film, and I hardly noticed those giggling tweens that got way under my skin the last time I was locked in a dark room for two hours with them.

This movie was Edward’s. Again, thank the lawd he didn’t take off his shirt. Poor Jacob just ended up looking like a desperate little pup in the movie (werewolf pun intended). A little pup all too eager to take his shirt off  (to the point his six-pack abs registered less with me than a six-pack of Bud Light Lime). The “shirtless wonder” had his moment in New Moon (in fact Team Jacob almost had me), but now he is little more than a cuddly, but slightly annoying, younger boy with an unrequited crush on a pretty and unaffected senior. And he is weird. Probably no more weird than Edward’s overall weirdness, who reads minds and all, but the Jacob brand of weird goes into full effect this go ’round.

Perhaps our own Good Buy Girl, Kim, will be able to find something that redeemed this movie for Team Jacob? But I believe this one was for all of the ladies in the crowd, the ladies who love boys that sparkle.

Melody is the Founder and Managing Editor here at Girls Guide. She is addicted to scary stories and things with fangs, and tends to get irritated when weres show up in her beloved vampire stories-  those interests may be considered a little dark in some suburbs. She writes for Girls Guide, STLFamilyLife.com, and on her personal blog, Mrs SmartyPants.com, by night. You can email her at melody [at] girlsguidetothegalaxy [dot] com, and you can follow her on Twitter- @cosmosgirl.

Let’s take a trip, back to those hot summer days when the backs of your legs would stick to the vinyl seats of your Mom’s wood paneled station wagon. When the power of Grayskull was with you, and touching a star shaped earring could transform you from a straight-laced professional to a pink haired rocker. Back to a time of summer crushes and summer romances. Remember…

• Wet Willy’s Waterslide- Before Raging Rivers was cool when it’s hot there was Wet Willy’s. They didn’t need no stinkin’ jingle, they were located behind a ginormous billboard splashed with a wave and a goofy lookin’ water dude. The old waterslide was located on top of a bluff overlooking the scenic… intersections of highways 44 and 141 (farty-far and one-farty-one for us natives). To be young again and actually find pleasure in passing a day sliding down the same paths again, and again, and again. Then again, as blazing as the summer of 2010 is shaping up thus far, anything that has water or allows you to run around without pants or (in the case of the fella’s) a shirt on is a good thing. Wet Willy’s had both. While most of us were too young for an actual Wet Willy’s hook-up, I would suspect that finding puppy love in line probably motivated more shoves than being a big-fat-line-jumper did.The concrete slides are now abandoned, and nothing attracts skateboarders and guerilla artists like an abandoned maze of concrete tunnels. If you are a fan of that sort of thing, you can check out some current pictures of Wet Willy’s at Negative-G.com.
• The Rollerskating Rink Ok, so could I be any more vague? The thing is, everyone had their rollerskating rink. There was one right behind the Burger King in Ballwin, another on 141 across from that church, and still others all over the city. The thing is, no matter where you laced up your skates and slapped on your glow bracelets, they all had the unique scent of pretzel salt, stale popcorn and soda syrup. They all had couples skates when the boys would show off their fancy backwards skating skills. And they all were crawling with mini-gangs of tweens, skating to top 40 hits, and going home with giddy or aching hearts.The surge in rollergirl popularity in St. Louishas breathed new life into places like the Skatium in South City. What were destined to become relics of yesteryear have found new life fueled by bad ass goth chicks as opposed to angsty tween princesses. It suits the rink much better me thinks, but who doesn’t miss jumping out of the car each Friday evening anticipating a love connection during eastside-westside?
• The Time Tunnel – Vintage Six Flags Baby Where I grew up it was practically a right of passage to have a season’s pass to Six Flags… and if you want to get more specific about my home town, my friends and I had our first summer jobs at Six Flags (omg, Greg Mattola had it dead on with his movie Adventureland… I could have practically written that myself). Back in the days before you could rent little robots would wait in line for you, back when they would run the Screaming Eagle backwards to get more summer visitors as opposed to having freaky, old bald men and freaky, old bald midgets dancing to the Venga Boys (who does that work on, anyway?), there was the Time Tunnel. The Time Tunnel was the theme park equivalent to lover’s lane, and it came replete with all of the urban legends that a lover’s lane- and maybe then some. Not only did going on a “date” to Six Flags just about guarantee an entire day parent fee, but with the Time Tunnel there was a chance you might actually get a kiss before mom and dad picked you up outside the gates at the end of the day. No matter how many family friendly incarnations that ride has gone through (Castaway Kids, The Scoody Doo thing), it will always be the Tunnel of Love.

As we get older, things surely got more complicated than who the constant pestering of puppy love, the sting of sitting out the couples skate, or the awkward moments in line for the Time Tunnel. Summer love always has been, and will remain some of the simple sweetnesses in life that make for some of the best reminisces.

Image credit: I Do Weddings

Melody is the Founder and Managing Editor here at Girls Guide. She is a freelance writer & an interactive media strategist by day. She writes for Girls Guide, STLFamilyLife.com, and on her personal blog, Mrs SmartyPants.com, by night. You can email her at melody [at] girlsguidetothegalaxy [dot] com, and you can follow her on Twitter- @cosmosgirl.

I’M A LIAR! But so are a lot of those “vintage” clothing stores. Turns out there are more old clothes at premium price stores than truly vintage clothing stores around, and I have really been hunting for vintage finds all this time. I wasn’t doing it to be ironic, counterculture, or hip… and I am pretty sure that blissful ignorance disqualifies me for any retroactive cool points.

I am always hunting for one odd thing or another. I get a random picture of something in my head, do my research, and start to hunting. It could take days, it could take months (even with the vast power of the interwebs).  At one point it was bakelight bracelets I craved (I found a coveted, authentic butterscotch one for $10 at a Cape Girardeau antique store), at another it was the hunt for an acid etched mirror (still haven’t found it, but have been looking for a good three years). And lately it has been a depression era glass powder jar like the one my mom had on her dresser, and (randomly) a depression-era, milk glass cake stand with hobnail. I found the cake stand, but I may just break down and search through the dusky, spidery hallows of my Mom’s storage. This, however, has turned into more than just an occasional item. I may go all the way to third base with this collection… or at least make a few more purchases.

My depression glass search landed me on what has to be one of the coolest estate sales St. Louis has seen in a while. The Richmond Heights home of St. Louis native son, renowned pop artist, and father of Lumeier Sculpture Park, Ernest Trova will be opened to the public this weekend.

• What: Ernest and Carla Trova Estate Sale
• When: Saturday June 19, and Sunday June 20 from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm
• Where: 900 Lay Road St. Louis, MO 63124 (you’ll have to catch a shuttle from the Community School to the house)

Trova lived in St. Louis with his wife Carla until he died from heart failure in March of last year, at the age of 82. From the looks of the pictures, buyers and vintage hunters will be able to get their hands on art pieces, paintbrushes and, you guessed it, depression glassware among many other items.

If the estate sale peeks your Trova interest, head over to White Flag Projects at Manchester and Kingshighway to see their Ernest Trova exhibit or out to Laumeier to take in some humidity nature and Trova art.

Enjoy the weekend with a local artist done good, but you all best be staying away from that glass… I called dibs!

Image credit: Kaboodle.com, EstateSales.net

Melody is the Founder and Managing Editor. She is a freelance writer & an interactive media strategist by day. She writes for Girls Guide, STLFamilyLife.com, and on her personal blog, Mrs SmartyPants.com by night. You can email her at melody [at] girlsguidetothegalaxy [dot] com, and you can follow her on Twitter- @cosmosgirl.

Instead of allowing the lunacy to overrun me (even more so than it already has) I got crackin’ on figuring out how to pull something together like the above linked coolness. My search for coolness – cupcake coolness, not inner coolness, mind you – was too good not to share. Here are some links I gathered from around the ole internets that will take you on a journey towards video game sweet goodness.

• Cupcake Recipes – I highly recommend browsing through the pages of St. Louis blogger/baker extraordinaire’s site, Cupcake Project. What started out as an experiment in amassing enough cupcakes to feed an entire wedding (and interesting flavors) has turned into one of the coolest cupcake recipe compendiums on the webs. I had a wee taste of the Apple Cinnamon cupcakes (complete with an apple cinnamon filled ravioli) and I highly recommend trying that recipe on for size.
• Fondant Recipes and Tips – You could head over to Michael’s and pick up some pre-made fondant and make it all colorful and video game like, but if you want to go the extra, bakerly, mile I recommend heading over to this Fondant 101 tutorial by Peggy Weaver on What’s Cooking America. To get the best blues, blacks, yellows, reds, greens, and whites there isn’t anything that can compare to mixing it up on your own. She even covers storage techniques, and this recipe is for a Marshmallow Fondant…. mmmm Stay-Puff.
• The Piece de Resistance (or decorating) – Sure you can mix it and bake it, but what really pulls this gaming masterpiece together is the decorations.  Never fear, Cake Journal is here. This site is a n00bie baker’s dream (aside from getting to gobble up the results and like the bowl like a fiend). Denmark cake maven Louise has pulled together so many tutorials on making the perfect fondant flower, sash, and bows that a read through her site makes you walk away all, “Uhh… Ace of Cake’s who?”  She also has pictures and techniques for decorating adorable cookies and fancy-like cakes. Even if you don’t feel like paying homage to an old arcade game, you are going to leave the site jonesing for either a dump-truck of sugar or a bevy of baking tools.

While some amy think geekery (among other activities) has laid claim to Dorito’s those things turn your fingers, thus your keyboard, orange.  Cupcakes come with their own finger saving devices and pay way better sugar laden respect to any geekery you can possibly dream of.

For someone who refuses to ever (like never, ever) drive a brand new vehicle, who is still in the habit of locking their computer (even when I am at home) a full eight months after leaving a job where I had to and who is uber irritated that they added more lemon-lime flavor to Diet 7-Up (it seriously tastes like a pixie stick now) lifestyle changes obviously don’t come easily. It took almost two years for me to finally accept that I needed a Mac and actually go for it. When they told me at a previous job that they were planning to replace my little Dell with a Mac I actually begged them not to… and asked if I could buy my old PC laptop – it was that bad.

I am now in love with my little Mac – I named her Alice and called The Mister to announce the newest edition to our family. I read off her specs and talked about her silver-matte casing like it was a birth announcement, and was beaming with pride. I hadn’t even set the thing up and I knew how awesome this puppy would be.  Alice and I have been hanging out for a week now and though I haven’t quite gotten over the learning curve (I am like this.close), I am a firm believer that once you go Mac you never go back.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Alice and I are going to go frolic in a field or something nice like that.

While having a solid 9-5 is a great security blanket, sometimes it is taking a risk that has the most reward. Cliques are around for nothing; this really was a lesson I learned by leaving my solid IT job back in August to make the leap into writing full-time.  Writing is something I have always loved, but not something I believed I could do. I closed my eyes and took the risk, and though getting downsized wasn’t ultimately what I had hoped for (uh… duh) I am not ready for my writing and video adventures to end just yet. I am going to try my hand at working for myself, freelancing (and yes, doing some event planning should the opportunity arise). 

The good news? I can write on this here blog a lot more often, and get back in touch with my bloggy self. The bad news? Yeah… that Ireland trip is going on the back burner and I am pretty certain my shoe collection will be stagnating for a while. Thanks for being supportive over at TRav readers reader; seeing your friendly faces pop-up in the comments and members list gives me a smile. But, hey, let the games begin, right?

Aren’t you glad I am not a philospohy major?

Melody

I go switching everything up last minute and damn if Mizzou didn’t win It was a good game, and yes I got out of the Purdue loss, but I.took.Memphis.all.the.way. Lesson – don’t listen to sports guys evah! I took three of the four losing teams last night and the Mister had two of the four winning teams. Since we are doing points I am not out, per say, but now the land of Blarney Stones and Guinness is that much further out of reach! Operation convince the Mister that Ireland is waaaay better than Australia (he even suggested California and Alaska -ugh) commence.

Aren’t you glad this isn’t a sports blog readers reader,

Melody

So, one of the perks of writing about nightlife and events is that sometimes you are invited to things that aren’t “work stories.” (…and doesn’t that make you want to write about it more?) One of the cool little parties I got to strap on my sexy heels for was the premiere of Ultimat Vodka at Home nightclub. Seriously? You want to give me free vodka just ’cause? This gal couldn’t ask for more… unless there were video games and a certain heart-pounding vampire dying to kiss me.

So, the vodka was decent. Patron (like the tequila rapper guys sing about) decided to get into the vodka business by launching Ultimat. Question though, Ultimat is made from potatoes, and I thought the vodka makers were starting to move away from potatoes in their ingredients. I am so not going to Google this, because I feel like this is a bit of information that a newbie connoisseur (such as myself) should learn from someone other than a search engine, like shared intricacies of knowledge. Isn’t that how learning about your drink of choice should be?

You could call me a fan though. One of the few vodka and cranberries that didn’t make me shudder, and I honestly had a glass of one of the best espresso martinis I have had the chance to slurp. The bottle was also veddy, veddy pretty (not pretty enough to have your picture taken with, but they had a little area setup for that at the front of the party). I was also impressed with the ice sculptures… call me crazy but unless it is a chunk of ice carved into a swan, ice sculptures are pretty cool… and that’s my story.

So, since I started one of those “I know I haven’t blogged in a while” posts, I am going to end it on that note. I know I haven’t blogged in a while readers reader, but I used to write about the schtuff I write about on the site that pays the bills. Figuring out something else to write about… yeah, that’s kind of tough.

Until we blog again,

Melody