All My Single Ladies, Now Put Your Hands Up

I hate Valentine's Day with a passion. I always tell people that it is a childhood trauma for me. Obviously, there is a bit of a back story here.

When I was little, I went to a really tiny New York City private elementary school. Since no grade had more than 20 kids in it, there was a school policy that if you were having a party, you needed to invite at least half of your grade (either all of the boys or all of the girls), but you were "strongly urged" to invite the whole grade. When I was in 3rd grade, this really horrible awful girl who was always tormenting me in elementary school had a birthday party. Since her birthday is in late February, she decided to put the invitations inside of Valentine's and hand them out in class. She invited the entire grade except for me!!!! So come February 14th, everyone has a Valentine and an invitation, and I have bubkes. That started my hatred of Valentine's Day. In college, it sucked majorly because all of my roommates were getting flowers, candy, the whole Nine Yards from their boyfriends, and I got a call from my mom telling me how much she loved me.

In the spirit of wanting to make this holiday a little nicer, I am hosting a Valentine's Day giveaway. This giveaway is open to my single readers only. The lucky reader will receive a lovely Valentine's Day gift- A bouquet of flowers to be delivered in time for Valentine's Day and a $50 gift certificate to her shop courtesy of Caroline Grace. Caroline makes beautiful pieces that I am always drooling over. I am beyond obsessed with the Jeannie Necklace which in my opinion would be perfect to wear with a fancy dress

and the silver and Keshi Pearl Edelweiss lariat which, at just $48, can be yours if you win this giveaway. (I swear that one of these days, it will be mine.)

And now for the fine print:
1) Comment on this post for one entry.
2) Follow my blog for an additional entry.
3) Write a post about this or put it on your sidebar for a third entry.
4) Follow me (@whaleflipflops) and Caroline (@xoCarolineGrace) and tweet this giveaway at us for a fourth entry. (You must follow both of us to get the entry.)
5) Because I am doing this giveaway as a way of brightening a reader's day, if I get any fake entries (spambots, entries from women who I know are not single, etc.), those comments will be deleted and their entries will not be counted.
6) This giveaway will run until Friday, February 5th, at midnight EST, with the winner announced on the 7th or 8th.

Happy Blogversary to me!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of me starting this blog. Back when I started out, I never imagined that my blog would ever get the readership that it has now. I remember being so excited when I was up to 5 readers! This past year has been full of so many changes for me and it has been wonderful to be able to share them (both the good and bad) with all of you. Thank you to all of you for your continued support and readership. I look forward to being able to share many more things with you.

MRM needs a dress

So after much planning/thinking/evaluating our options, TLS and I realized that a double proxy marriage is not a good option for us because of the amount of rime that it will take. After my trip to England next month, TLS will fly back with me and we will get legally married in New York with a tentative date of 02/26/10. Since we don't view this as the "real" wedding and really care about the religious one, I'm not placing much stock in this. However, as you very well know, I cannot resist an opportunity to buy a new outfit. I have been looking for an excuse to get silver Reva flats for a while now, and I think this may be that reason. Now the question is what do I wear on the rest of my body? I'm looking for dress suggestions/recommendations. I want a day dress, something cute but nothing too fancy. Something I can definitely wear again. Definitely not white, and absolutely not black. If you see anything that you think I absolutely have to have, please leave me a comment or send me an email with the link. Thanks!

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Lilly Pulitzer

Yesterday, I met up for brunch at Atlantic Grill with my friend TLD. After brunch, we decided to stop by the Lilly townhouse and Michael's. It was pouring outside and TLD didn't have an umbrella with her so she stopped by Ricky's to get a cheap $4 one. When we got to Lilly, we placed our umbrellas in the stand by the door and went upstairs to load up on stationery and cookie cutters. As we were leaving the store, we went to the umbrella stand to retrieve our umbrellas and hers was gone! Another customer had taken it (ours were the only two umbrellas in the stand so it's not like some one mistook it for her umbrella). Who does that? The ladies at the store felt bad so they let TLD take one of the store's umbrellas. I now have a huge pink stick umbrella that says "Lilly Pulitzer 1020 Madison Avenue NYC" on it in my apartment. TLD and I could not stop laughing over this.

Desperately Seeking Makeover

This blog is nearing its one year benchmark, and it is high time that it got a facelift. I tried working with the Blog Fairy in the past, but did not like any of the layouts that she created for me. Then, I was contacted by Mud Duck Studio asking if she could make me a free layout in exchange for free press on my blog. I readily agreed, and she created a wonderful layout. Then, she fell off the face of the earth and stopped responding to my emails and never completed the layout.

I am now again searching for some one to create a layout for me. I have been recommended a few sites, but from what I've seen of their previous work, they are all a little too cartoony and cluttered for me. The ones that are not cartoony are simply too much money. Unfortunately, I am still unemployed and have had absolutely no luck whatsoever in finding a job and simply cannot spend $100+ for a layout.

Since my readership has grown recently, I'm asking all of you to be my eyes and for recommendations of sites that you have seen/used in the past. Also, if any of you are designers and can create a layout for me, or are willing to give me a discount in exchange for publicity on this blog, please email me at whaleflipflops {@} gmail {.} com.

Thanks so much in advance!

Giveaway winner

Wow. I did not predict the response that this giveaway would receive. I try to bring my readers something from all of my trips and TLS suggested the two scarves saying my readers would like them, so please give all of the credit for this one to him.

Congratulations to Bethany at Maryland Pink and Green for winning this giveaway! Please email me your info to whaleflipflops {@} gmail {.} com and I will get the scarves out to you.

Stay tuned for more giveaways coming up next month!

The one in which MRM attempts to blog from her iPod

Hello dear readers. I hope that all of you are having a wonderful weekend. I am sitting here on my iPod in the Buck of Star and decided to see if I could blog from it.

Testing. Testing. 1, 2, 3. Is this thing on?

If you have not yet done so, you still have a couple of hours to enter my fabulous giveaway. It is in the post below this one.

Also, as many of you know about me, there are few things that I love more than pretty stationery and cards and sending/receiving mail (except maybe complex carbohydrates). When I was in Turkey I bought three packs of notecards, and for me, this was massively scaling back. I have a huge Vineyard Vines shipping box at home that is filled with nothing but stationery. I am updating my snail mail lists for 2010. If you love writing cards as much as I do, email me at whaleflipflops {@} gmail {.} com to sign up. I would love some more pen pals!

Have a lovely Saturday!

x's and o's,
-MRM

starting 2010 off right- with a GIVEAWAY

Hello bloggers. I'm coming to you live from Istanbul, Turkey. After a long and adventurous day (some good, some bad- will post about it in a separate entry), TLS and I are finally back in our hotel room for the night.

As you can imagine, it is hard for me to go on vacation and not shop. Today, I may have gone a little scarf-crazy and somehow (I really don't know how- I SWEAR!) wound up with one green, three pink, and one beige scarf. Fortunately for you, I also shopped for all of you as well.

Since I was not able to do a giveaway for December as I would have liked, I can think of no better way to start of 2010 than with a giveaway. The winner of this giveaway will receive two pashmina scarves- one pink and one green. (Because in my wardrobe, pink is a neutral.)


To enter this giveaway, please leave a comment on this entry by Saturday, January 9th, at Midnight EST for one entry. You can get an additional entry for being a follower. Post this giveaway on your blog or sidebar for a third entry. Tweet this giveaway (@whaleflipflops) for a fourth giveaway. You will also receive one additional entry for each person who enters and says she was referred by you.

I know that I have loyal readers who are not registered blogger users. Unfortunately, due to the high number of spam comments that I received, I had to disable anonymous comments. If you are not a registered user and would like to enter this giveaway, please email me at whaleflipflops {@} gmail {.} com and I will enter you manually.

In the words of the great Lilly Pulitzer- Wear Pink and make the boys wink.