weekend update

So I had a long weekend this weekend, which was nice. Friday night I went to the J. Crew sample sale expecting to find prep heaven, and instead I wound up in hell. There was a line outside to get in, which I took to mean that obviously it had to be good, right? Wrong! You were not allowed to try anything on, which made buying clothes really difficult. You were allowed to buy things and then come back and return them, but the sale ended Sunday and I was busy all weekend so that just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. There were a few cute cardigans and tops that I liked for Spring, but they were absolutely ruined! In order to prevent people from buying things for cheap at the sample sale and then returning them at the store to get full-price store credit, they marked the items as sample sale items. This makes a lot of sense except for the fact that they marked them in black permanent marker. On sheer clothes. Who doesn't want to walk around with the word "sample" written on her back in giant, black, bold letters? After that, I was going to go to the Lilly Pulitzer store to pick up the perfume. I have desperately been wanting to try it, but cannot find it anywhere. I called the store to make sure they have some, but by the time I got there, at 7:10 on a Friday night, it was closed. Actually all of the stores on the entire street were closed. I forgot that Madison Avenue was not designed for those of us who have jobs. I ended up going to Bergdorf Goodman and getting some new Bobbi Brown makeup, which was fun. My next rainy day project will be to go through all of my makeup and really downsize. I have things that I cannot remember when I bought them or the last time I used them, and that's never a good thing. (R, I'm pretty sure I still have some of those lipglosses that you gave me in High School!)

One of my sorority sisters is the LC for the chapter that I advise and she's up there now, so she came and stayed with me on Sunday. This meant that naturally, I spent all of Saturday cleaning and baking for her arrival. I finally got new guest bedding. The Simply Shabby Chic line at Target is so cute. I wanted to get a Crock Pot, but by the time I walked out of the store, I had so many bags, that I couldn't possibly carry one more thing. My mother was always obsessive about having company over and making sure that everything was perfect and clean, and that has definitely rubbed off on me. I stayed up until 1:30am cleaning a studio apartment! By the time I was done, it put any Cascade commercial to shame. I also got to bake my famous Cranberry Orange Walnut cookies. I love baking so whenever I have company over, I like to bake some cookies or something for them. Cooking and baking for one is kind of pointless.

Sunday after I picked Nicole up from the airport, we spent the day hanging out in the city. We went to the M&M's store in Times Square, and I can now safely say that I have discovered the most pointless store in all of New York City. Then we walked around a bit and went to Bloomingdale's where I got this lovely Lilly top:


I also got a boatneck that I can't find online anywhere.
I looks just like this without the stripes, in the same orange as the tunic.


The saleslady remarked that I must really love orange. I actually don't at all, but for some reason, I look good in it. I don't understand why, but hey. I think I'm going to wear the tunic to the Rascal Flatts concert next month with J. It's thick enough to be ok in the winter, but light enough that I won't boil in Madison Square Garden. Bloomingdale's was having a sale, and I got a $15 gift card for buying them on my Bloomingdale's card, so I think I'm going to put that towards another polo.

After shopping, we went to dinner at Carmine's. Carmine's is one of those places I avoided for many years because I had labeled it as a tourist trap. However, once an out-of-town guest asked to eat there, and I was very pleasantly surprised. They're known for their huge portions- one meal is meant to serve 2-3 people. Nicole and I wanted different things so we just braved it and each got our own with the assumption that we'd be eating them for the rest of the week. After eating several servings of leftovers, the penne alla vodka in my fridge looks like it hasn't been touched. After dinner, we went to see Chicago. The actress who plays Jan Levenson on The Office played Roxie Hart in that which made me really happy because I'm a huge fan of The Office. The actress who played Mama Morton was in Across the Universe. She sang "Let it Be" during the funeral. Nicole is a huge Across the Universe fan, so that made her really excited.

Monday the girls came to pick Nicole up from my house and I just spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning (I didn't do enough of that on Saturday, clearly) and running errands. Then I went to our first chapter meeting of the semester. I love my girls, but commuting 3 hours one way to a meeting that rarely lasts more than half an hour is not that fun.