Friday, January 30, 2009

Wild Geese that fly with a moon on their wings

I have nothing against Geese, they're cute and all, but they just aren't my favorite things. I'm more of a duck girl. I also really love marine stuff. Especially Coral and Starfish. My sheets are Tiffany blue (my favorite color) with white coral on them. I have a gorgeous starfish garland a silver/Tiffany blue shimmer ribbon that I got when I was in college that's going to go right above my bed once I can find a nice boy (most likely my superintendent) to put nails in the wall for me.

Since I am still in the process of decorating my apartment, I will dedicate this week's Favorite Things post to home items.

Thanks to Kate, I discovered Mermaid Hut. The entire store is chock full of Nautical/Marine stuff. These are my favorite items and lusts. These are my favorites:

Set of Three Coral Trays:


These are so gorgeous and match my room beautifully. I'm going for a red, white, and Tiffany Blue color scheme. At $29 for the set of three, it's a really great price.

Set of Two Coral Branch Bowls:


Again, gorgeous, elegant, classy, and simple.

I have fallen in love with Target's Shabby Chic Line and have spare bedding and all of my bathroom accessories from there. I have been perusing the site looking at the rest of the collection and have fallen in love with some of the things. I really want this Vanity Table.



It's cute, inexpensive, and would fit in the hallway in between my closet and my refrigerator. (Remember that I live in NYC folks, the fridge does not always actually fit in the kitchen.) I love vanity tables in general and have always wanted one. The matching stool is adorable and also pretty cheap. (Altogether it costs less than $150 for the set, plus with Target you get cash back on Ebates.) I'm hoping this will act as great motivation for me to unpack those last boxes that are stacked in the hall faster so I can actually buy it.



Also from the collection, I want this light switch for my bathroom. It's a lot cuter than the one I have now which is the generic one. It's $16 for a set of two, and I have a $10 gift card, so if I see it in the store, I may have to pick it up.



The last item on this week's list comes from Ida Claire. It is this gorgeous mail and catalog holder.


I have been searching for a cute mail/magazine holder, and everything I find is either really tacky, totally not my style, or way out of my price point. At $68 this one is doable and I love the colors and the gorgeous monogram.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

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.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Raindrops on Roses and whiskers on kittens

As promised, I will do a weekly "my favorite things" post to highlight my current obsessions and new finds. I will do these posts every Friday to guarantee that I update the blog on a regular basis. Each week, there will be a different theme to the list. The themese, like myself, will be completely random and arbitrary. Since all of the stores are starting to put out their Spring collections, I will make this week's list dedicated to Spring things.

This week's post is brought to you by the letter A, for Accessories:

First off, let's talk hair accessories. For those of you who don't know, I have major issues when it comes to my hair. No matter how good it may look, I am never satisfied. I am always looking for new headbands and pins to pull my hair back. I discovered these lovely pins from Calista Cove:


I think that the Daisies are absolutely adorable and can be either dressy or casual, depending on what you wear them with. In addition to having tons of adorable stuff, the website is having a sale this weekend, and you get free items with your purchase. How's that for an incentive? I placed an order from there this morning and you can bet that those daisies were in there. Along with three headbands!

Now that we've gotten hair accessories out of the way, let's move on to jewelry. First on the list is bracelets. I have been a fan of A. Tierney ever since the company donated several items to an auction for a fundraising event at my job. I am drooling over these bracelets that they have on their home page.




I really want the Bee and Flamingo bracelets which are currently not on their website. I think that they would be a fun way to dress up a solid outfit. I wear a lot of dark jeans and solid color tops. I called the company to ask about them and the woman that I spoke with said that they are available for sale, but they do not put all of their merchandise on the website at once. They have a Manhattan showroom, and I will try to stop by there this week to pick them up. My one concern about them is that I have small wrists and bangles tend to look really weird on me, in fact I have yet to own a bangle bracelet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!


The next item that I am obsessing over is a pair of stud earrings from Uncommon Goods. Uncommon Goods in general is my newest obsession, and I have picked up a ton of great presents for people from there. Of course, while I was doing that, I had to shop for myself! I love stud earrings, and I could not resist getting these. They are sterling silver which is important for my uber- sensitive ears, plain enough to be worn every day, and have that quirk factor that I love. I could not get a bigger picture, but the studs are cut to look like screws!

Finally, the last item that I am lusting over is the 14K Gold Akasha Cup Diamond Ring from Wendy Culpepper. Sadly, I could not post a picture of it, and it is rather out of my price range, but a girl can dream!



So, I've shown you mine, now show me yours. What are your must have accessories for spring?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Hello Hello

I have decided to create a second blog in addition to The More Boys I Meet. I want that one to remain solely for my dating misadventures, and this one to be about my everyday life and random musings.



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