Tuesday, January 24, 2012

This Time Tomorrow

I will be here with a pink drink in my hand:



I have been eagerly counting down and the day has finally come!

We have to leave to drive to the airport in 8 hours which gives us enough time to nap, do one last load of laundry, and throw in last minute items into my already overweight suitcase. (Overpack is my middle name.)

I don't have any scheduled posts or guest bloggers, so there will be a short hiatus here. I promise to be back with pictures (from a real camera!).

For now I say, au revoir.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Travel Essentials

Being that I travel a lot, I have certain must-travel items that make traveling a lot easier and better.

1) Snuggie
mine is pink, obviously
Don't laugh y'all. This thing is incredible for international flights. It is a lot bigger, softer, warmer, and more comfortable than those tiny blankets you get on the airlines. If you get one at all. When I put mine on in JFK, people on my flight looked at me like I was deranged. Then once we boarded our flight and they tried to maneuver their tiny blankets, they were all looking at me with jealousy in their eyes.

To any of my military readers- if you ever fly Space A, bring a Snuggie with you. Unless you're flying on a rotator, the plane is guaranteed to be incredibly hot at one seat, and freezing cold two rows down. And you don't get your own blanket. Layers and planning ahead are crucial here.

2) Bath & Body Works PocketBac

My MIL sends me these periodically and I love them. I have one in every single purse. Perfect for travel because they are tiny and don't take up much in your plastic bag.

3) CamelBak Groove Water Bottle

I saw this on base and decided to get one to try it out. This is pretty ingenious because it comes with a built-in filter so instead of just having to constantly buy bottles on the road, you can carry the one and fill it up whereever. It is great for going through airport security because you can empty it out before you go through and then fill it up in the bathroom. We each have one (mine is pink again, the husband's- not so much) and they have saved us so much money when we fly. Because  it has a bite valve, you can drink from it laying down, and this was a huge help for me when I was post-op and could not move for 25 hours. Drinking from that was a lot easier than drinking through a cup!

4) Colgate Wisps

Amazing. I first received some in a goodie bag from a Shecky's Girls' Night Out, and I instantly fell in love. These little things are single use mini brushes on one end and a toothpick on the other. The toothbrush end has a little bead of toothpaste on it. Again, these don't have to go in your ziploc bag, and are great for red-eye flights so you don't have to get off the plane with morning breath.

5) solid perfume

A product I am a huge fan of for several reasons. 1) It's compact, 2) it doesn't need to be put in your ziploc bag in your carryon (notice a theme here?) which makes it great for those trips when you want to avoid paying checked bag fees by just bringing your carryon. The other reason why I'm such a fan of solid perfume is because it's usually a lot cheaper than its liquid counterpart, thereby making it not a big investment in your beauty arsenal.

Mine is Green Tea from L'Occitane. A lovely, light, clean scent. I can't get enough of it.

6) iPad

Love mine. It can do almost anything except display any sites that require Flash. (Darn licensing agreements.) Before we travel anywhere, we like to fill ours up (geeky family- we each have one) with games, and tv shows/movies for the road. The facetime and iMessage features are a huge plus when you live in a different country than the rest of your family. I have the 16GB white iPad2 with this cover from Missoni for Target fiasco:
After getting the iPad, I now usually don't bring my netbook with me any more when I travel.

7) Kindle

The one thing I don't like doing on my iPad is reading. It's too heavy to hold up with one hand and the screen was just not designed for heavy readers.

To be perfectly honest, I used to be incredibly anti e-reader. To me, there is a certain thrill of opening a new book, sniffing it, and yes, ::gasp:: sometimes dog-earing the pages. But if you are a fast reader, like I am, and can read more than a book on a single flight, carrying several paperbacks in your carry-on is not exactly practical. Or easy to do. Right before I went into the hospital for surgery, I made a list on Amazon of the books I wanted to bring with me to read. My husband saw the list, realized he'd have to carry all of them there, and then back home, and promptly went out and bought me a Kindle. I have not regretted it for a day since.

I will leave y'all with a funny story. When I checked in to the hospital, I brought a lot of stuff with me to entertain myself while I would be in there. My iPad for games and videos, my kindle for reading, my iPhone for you know, phone stuff, my portable DVD player to watch Royal Pains on, and my netbook for blogging and just in case any of the other should fail me. And then my husband had his own iPad and his own iPhone. (Have I mentioned we're a geeky family?) All of these things cost significantly more money in Germany than they do in the United States and the nurses could not get over how many electronics we managed to bring with us for a 5 day stay. They thought we were loaded or something.

Anyhoo- those are my travel essentials. What are some of yours?

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Not a Fan

I love Lilly Pulitzer. I mean I really really love Lilly Pulitzer. Most things they do, I love. I say most, not all. There were a few things that left me scratching my head. (Not to mention the fact that Alpha Sigma Alpha doesn't have a print. Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

I saw this makeup bag on their site the other day, and it was one of those things that just made me go "huh?"

I realize many will disagree with me here, but I have to come right out and say I am not a fan.

To me it looks like something I drew myself in elementary school.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Call for Book Suggestions (and giveaway winner announced)

In exactly 6 days (but who's counting) TLS and I will be driving to the airport to go on our honeymoon! Even though I usually pack at the last possible second (procrastination is my middle name), I started packing for this trip weeks ago. What? It's not like I'm going to need a swimsuit. In January. In Germany.
I should probably go charge that iPhone.


With the exception of things that go in at the last minute- this is actually quite a lengthy list- hair straightener, makeup, meds, ipad, ipad charger, kindle, kindle charger, camera, camera charger, iphone, iphone charger (anyone notice a theme here?), I am pretty much done packing.

This brings me to my next point. I need books. Lots of them. For the 4-5 hour flight each way and to read by the pool while I have a pink drink in one hand and a sangria in the other (no judgements please). I am looking for something light and fun. Chick lit at it's finest. I'm not exactly looking to read War and Peace by the pool, ya know? So my question is the age old read any good books lately? No seriously. Does anyone have any good book recommendations for me? I've already read all of the Shopaholic books and all of the "Something Borrowed" ones, so those are out.

On an unrelated note, I realized I am a few days late in posting the winner of my UPrinting giveaway. So sorry about that. Congratulations to Kimmie Schiffel. Contact me and I will put you in touch with UPrinting to design your stickers.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Tag I'm It! (And so are you!)

Wendy tagged me in this fun thing.

The Rules:
1) You must post the rules. done
2) Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post. not sure I'm fun enough to warrant eleven facts, but I'll try
3) Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged.
4) Tag eleven people and link them on your post.
5) Let them know you've tagged them.

Here are 11 fun facts about me.
1) I can not stand profanity. If you are in our car, and you curse, I will yell at you.
2) Despite the fact that I have a fear of just about everything under the sun, I have never been scared of flying. It exhilarates me. I love takeoff and landing. To me, that is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Sometimes, when I fly, I will try to book connecting flights just to get to takeoff an extra time.
3) I can't stand mushrooms. They are my biggest fear. I always tell people that I'm allergic to them, but I'm really not.
4) I did not start walking or talking until I was three. I hated baby talk as a baby even more than I do now (I thought it was really insulting to my intelligence) so I just refused to talk until I had built up a big enough vocabulary where I could start straight with complete sentences.
5) I can never remember to take my blood pressure medication, but remember to put on moisturizer two times a day without fail.
6) Growing up, I was blessed with flawless skin. I never got pimples, and if I did, they would go away on their own in less than 30 minutes. I was blessed. My freshman year of college, I got a pimple of the side of my chin during finals week. No big deal, I thought. It didn't go away. By dinner time, it was still there. The next morning, it was still there and had only gotten bigger. All of my friends didn't understand why I was making such a huge deal about one pimple, but I just did not know how to deal with them. I called my mother hysterically crying. Any normal mother would have told me to suck it up and get back to studying. My mother however, works in a hospital and has administrators of just about every single department owing her favors. (More about that in the questions section below.) She told me to take the train down to NYC, and called in a favor from a friend in dermatology. I ended up getting an emergency same-day appointment with the Chief of dermatology. The poor woman was so confused when she looked at her charts and saw that her next appointment was an emergency VIP and then walked in to find me. She asked why I was there and I said (more like hysterically cried, actually) "I have a pimple!" Cue more confusion
7) Living overseas, I really miss commercials.
8) I don't know how to drive.
9) I am the least crafty/creative person I know. The words "oh you can just DIY it" instill fear into me. Coming from me, the words "I made it myself" are never a good thing. My mother's philosophy on life seems to be why do something when you can pay someone to do it for you? and that has definitely rubbed off on me to an extent.
10) I can't iron. I've tried, and somehow, clothes always end up looking worse than they did before I started ironing them. When I lived in New York, I used to send my wrinkled clothes out to the dry cleaners so that they would come back looking all nice (I'm not totally proud of this fact). Once, before a date, I frantically ran to a clothing store near my house and begged the employees to steam out my dress for me. Thankfully, the hot guys working there thought this was funny and did it for me. I always said I was going to learn eventually, then I married a man in the military and thankfully, Uncle Sam considers ironing an important life skill to have. All ironing duties have since been delegated out to him.
11) I hate beer and I keep kosher (style). I totally live in the right country for that one.

Now to answer Wendy's questions:
1) What was your favorite first date?
Pub trivia with a huge crush of mine. Going into the date, I knew we were different enough that there wouldn't be a second date (there wasn't), but I was 1) shocked that he even knew I existed and I love trivia so it was fun to just relax and drink beers and talk without the awkward first date 20 questions routine.
2) If you could have dinner with any famous/historical figure (past or present) who would it be?
Masaharu Morimoto. I would love for him to cook for me and teach me some skills!
3) What is your favorite book and why?
The 101 Most Influential People who Never Lived. I am a chronic list-maker and I love things that are in list format, so this appealed to me. I love the authors' funny sarcastic writing style, and overall, I think it's a great book.
4) What kind of car do you drive?
A black VW Golf (us and every other person living in Germany) named Valerie Volkswagen. Val, for short.
5) What was your first job?
I worked at the systems support center at a hospital in NY. I only got this job because the administrator of the department owed my mother several favors and she decided to cash in on one of them. Along with the glorious job of filing and photocopying, my duty was to change the system-wide password every month. This was the system that every single department in the hospital used to bill their patients. Being 15 years old, I had fun with is. It was always amusing whenever people would call my boss to confirm and she would say that yes, that month's password is "I<3L@nceB@ss". Not bad for $10/hour.
6) What was your major in college?
International Business and Marketing
7) Do you have a favorite style icon, if so, who is it?
Not really.
8) What cosmetic can you not live without?
Perfekt Skin Perfection Gel- it's so light and makes your skin instantly look smoother and airbrushed without globbing on a whole lot of makeup
 9) Who is your favorite designer?
Lilly Pulitzer and Diane von Furstenberg
10) Coke or Pepsi
Coke all the way. One of my big restaurant pet peeves is when I order Coke and the waiter brings out Pepsi.
11) How have you cultivated followers for your blog?
I honestly have no clue. I remember the day my blog hit 5 followers, and I didn't actually know one of them, it was like the greatest thing ever. I think that being on other bloggers' blogrolls helps.

Now to ask Eleven questions:
1) What one item of clothing do you have that you absolutely refuse to throw out?
2) What was the greatest gift that anyone ever gave you?
3) Who was your first celebrity crush?
4) What was your worst date ever?
5) What is your one food guilty pleasure?
6) Do you drink? What is your alcoholic drink of choice?
7) What was your favorite vacation?
8) What is one thing that people like that you just don't get the appeal of?
9) What is your favorite tv show?
10) Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
11) Are there any foods that you won't eat?

Now to tag eleven people:
1) Gracie Beth
2) Little Miss Can't be Wrong
3) Queen of LA
4) Nautical by Nature
5) Beach Bum and Baby
6) Newly Mrs. Cravinho
7) Cole
8) Mrs. Jones
9) OKLauren
10) Pink and Navy Oxford Stripes
11) Kimmie




Friday, January 13, 2012

On Weekends

I am not a morning person. My mantra in life is "5 more minutes." I can sleep for 14 hours straight (hypothetically, that is), and still be grumpy when my alarm clock wakes up. Growing up was slightly awful in this regard because my parents are chipper morning people. Vacations with my parents were a nightmare. My father would wake me up at o'dark thirty to go get to the beach before anyone else could. This led to arguments. Every. Single. Morning. Non-vacations weren't much better. I wanted to sleep in as late as humanly possible, and my parents wanted me out of bed like 10 minutes ago. Cure more arguing here. For the record, I was never into Saturday morning cartoons. I liked them fine and all, except for that one slight problem of they came on in the morning.

I had a friend whose whole family were late risers. It was rare to make plans with her for a weekend before like 3:30pm. I thought she was the luckiest girl in the world. I swore up and down on my life that when I got older, I would grow up to be just like her. Truth is, she still hasn't changed. She will not get up before noon, 2:00 if she can't help it. I'm still envious. I still believe in 5 more minutes. And my father still likes to get up at 6:30am. When he does not need to be at work until 4:00pm. (My family puts the fun in dysfunction. For this and so many other reasons.)

Remember when weekends were about fun? About going to the park, and shopping, and to the movies with friends, and to the constant stream of birthday parties? (Ok, maybe they weren't that great for our parents. At least when she was at work, my mother didn't have to worry about an 8 year old asking for a pet penguin every 5 minutes.) I miss those days. Lately, it seems like weekends are more stressful than some weekdays. Today, I was talking with some friend about meeting up with her tomorrow to hand some paperwork over to her. I apologized that we'd be on base early and asked if it was ok with her if I met her before 1:30. She thought I was crazy and told me that they have kids. They're always up and dressed by 8:00am on Saturdays. I thought to myself "poor A" and chalked this up to just one more reason for why TLS and I will not have kids- so we can actually enjoy our weekends for fun.

Then I thought about our weekend plans:
*drop off paperwork with A
*do laundry
*mop kitchen floor
*drop off dry cleaning
*run/empty the dishwasher (times 3- German dishwashers are tiny!)
*check mail before the post office closes at 1:00
*buy birthday gift for a friend
*figure out what's for dinner
*buy ingredients for dinner
*cook dinner
*clean the kitchen after cooking dinner
*head to Ikea
*assemble insertnameofflatpackedobjecthere

 About that.

At least we can have wine while doing all that, especially assembling the random flat packed furniture that is bound to follow us home.

On second thought, add "buy wine" to my to-do list.

Non-Buyer's Remorse

Do you ever have a case of non-buyer's remorse? You know, you see something you like, you want it, decide to think about it, and then when you do decide you want it, it is no longer to be found and you're kicking yourself for not getting it when you had the chance to? Yup, me too.

A couple of years ago (I think it was in 2009), I tried on this super adorable dress at the Lilly Pulitzer store. It was not a shift dress, but it still had straps, not a jersey dress, but had a hint of stretch to it, a small pleated ruffle at the bottom, and the print was white with pink flowers. The stems from the flowers spelled out Lilly. Seriously, I loved that dress. Loved I tell you. It looked great on me. Stupidly I put it down in favor of buying some nondescript top. I top I later returned because it sat in my closet unworn for like 4 months and at that point, I no longer needed it. Of course, by this point, the dress was no longer available.

Lately, I find myself thinking about that dress and print a lot (insomnia gives you a lot of time to think). I must have it. Of course, it does not help that I don't know the name of the pattern, or the style of the dress. The best I can come up with is that it's one of the prints in the Patchtastic pattern.
image taken from here

The one in the dead center of this pillow to be exact.

Please somehow help me identify it. Also, if anyone has this dress in anything larger than a size 8 (or anything else in this pattern) and is willing to part with it, please please please let me know!

Also, side note, you can still vote for Alpha Sigma Alpha in the Lilly Pulitzer sorority print contest. (Shameless plug, I had to.)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

If You Give a Girl a Camera

I don't know if anyone remembers, but 1.5 years ago, right when I first moved to Germany (holy heck, have I really lived here that long?) I needed a new camera for all of my travels, so my parents bought me a cute pink thing for my birthday. It's great, I take it with me everywhere and use it all the time. (Although I do have to confess that lately since getting the iPhone, I find myself using the camera on that more than my actual camera. Anyone else do this?) The problem is that I get incredibly lazy, then I lose my camera cord, then I find it, then I get lazy again, then I find it again, lather, rinse repeat. I am horrible about actually uploading the pictures I take. I still have pictures on my camera that are over a year old. Every time we travel someplace, TLS always says "oh you should blog this" (anyone else's significant other do this?) and I take a picture with the full intention of doing just that, but then it never happens.

While I don't normally believe in New Year's Resolutions (they're way too arbitrary for me- if you see something in your life that you want to change, why wait until January 1st to do it?), this year I had a huge scare! After not being able to find my camera in any of my purses, I got terrified that I left it in the States or somewhere else where I wouldn't get it back. I eventually did find it (thank goodness!) but the thought of losing 1.5 years of memories scared me. Since this happened in mid-December, I did make the resolution to upload all of my pictures to my computer and actually blog the things that I said I would. Expect to see pictures from Stuttgart, Zurich, some wine festivals, and some random photo dump posts.

Once I find my camera cord that is.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Preppy Sorority Girl Favor Needed

First of all- notice anything different? A huge thank you to Kimmie for redoing my blog for me!

Second of all- I'm sure by now you've heard that Lilly Pulitzer every season or so has started making prints for several sororities. So far, the lucky sororities have been Kappa Delta, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Zeta, Delta Gamma, Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Chi Omega.

Today, voting was opened up to determine which three sororities will next get Lilly prints of their own. The 3 sororities with the most votes will get them.

If you are an Alpha Sigma Alpha, please be sure to like Lilly Pulitzer on facebook then go here to vote for ASA.

You do not have to be an ASA to vote, so anyone, parents, husbands, boyfriends, roommates, etc. can vote. (My mother and husband have already voted.)

Also, if you are reading this and are not Greek, or if your sorority already has a print, could you pretty pretty please vote for ASA?

Let's make this happen!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

She Went to Paris

Looking for answers.

If you've been reading this blog or follow me on twitter for a while, then you know that I have insomnia. That's no secret. I do most of my shopping at night. Lately, I have been getting depressed about my husband's upcoming deployment. I have been trying to keep myself together by planning trips while he's gone so I can focus on the good. On a whim, I decided to go to the Air France website and see what it would cost me to fly to Paris for 2 days. Less than I thought. $115. I am now trying to talk myself out of booking the ticket on the spot and wait until I know more. It's not easy. My mother once booked a two week trip to Hungary and the Czech Republic because she saw a good deal on plane tickets. She called it her impulse purchase. It runs in the family.

I am trying to be good and not book the ticket, but this was what I found to be so funny.
That's right. The actual ticket only costs $1. The rest of the ticket cost is taxes and fees.

 ETA: I realized that the screenshot comes out tiny on the post and I can't figure out a way to change that. The picture says that the ticket costs $1 and has $113.60 in taxes and government surcharges on it.

It might be time to replay my favorite YouTube video.



Bonsoir folks.

January sponsors

This year, I have decided to open my blog up to sponsors. I now present you with the first-ever MMS sponsors posts. Some sponsors do have giveaways or coupon codes for my readers.

1) Kimmie Schiffel, Scentsy Consultant
The lovely Kimmie of Full Circle Adventures has joined the ranks to become a Scentsy consultant.

scentsy

That is her furbaby Gabby pictured above. Kimmie loves candles but needed a more pet-friendly alternative to them when Gabby's poor little tail kept catching on fire. Since Scentsy warmer systems are flameless, they are safe for pets (and children!).

Currently, for the month of January, you can buy several retired fragranced wax bars that are available during this month only. Look out for the Bring Back My Bar tab. Also, the warmer and scent of the month are 10% off. The January warmer had a big red bow on it and will be mine.

In addition, I am hosting a online catalog party with Kimmie. Any order purchased through the Preppy Girl Meets World party will automatically receive a bar of White Tea and Cactus, one of my favorite scents. You can also follow her on facebook for more promotions and giveaways.

2) My Memories
 My Memories is a digital scrapbooking software. I recently did a review of their product here. It is great for making wedding albums, baby books, or gifts for others.

MyMemories is offering PGMW readers $10.00 of their purchase with code STMMMS9327.

3) Cole Creates






Cole Creates is an Etsy Shop run by blogger Cole of All the Small Stuff fame. Currently, her shop carries items that were hand knit by her. How cute is this adorable doggie sweater?
puppy not included with purchase- sadly
Currently, the shop only carries knit items, but she is in the process of expanding her wares to include t shirt gifts (perfect gifts for a college grad or your favorite sorority girl). Starting Monday, until the January, receive free shipping on any item in her shop with code freeship0112.

4) Sweet Tea Paperie
Sweet Tea Paperie is an amazing stationery and gift shop that carries so many fun items.
It really is hard to pick your favorite item from there, but I am partial to this gorgeous Chinoiserie Navy Square Tray from Boatman Geller.
Currently, Sweet Tea Paperie has a promotion on their adorable monogrammed 2012 planners:
Receive free shipping on all planner purchases with code PLANNER2012.

Also, from Monday, January 9th- Sunday, January 15th, all cutting boards will be on sale for 15% off with code CUTTINGBOARD.
I think these would make great bridal shower gifts!

5) Monogrammed Everything
As the name implies, this store is pretty much my idea of heaven! Monogrammed Everything has so many great items that would make great gifts for brides, babies, and everyone in between!
At just $10 each, these monogrammed onesies are a steal and would make a great bridal shower or new baby gift.
The monogrammed clogs are an incredibly popular item and with 18 clog colors, 20 thread colors, and the options to add a high heel or painted heel, the options are pretty much endless and you will be sure that your clogs will be unique!

6) Danielle Stage, Stella & Dot Consultant

Stella & Dot is a fun jewelry company. They have so many gorgeous pieces at great price points. I'm loving these Starfish earrings for $34
this Sofia pearl bib necklace for $118

and these Baby Flower post earrings for only $21.75
For the month of January, Danielle is offering Preppy Girl Meets World readers a special- receive a free pair of Soiree Studs in your choice of gold or hematite (a $24 value) with any purchase.

To receive this special, simply order anything from Danielle's site, and checkout. When you are asked if you are shopping with a trunk show, select Preppy Girl Meets World from the menu. After you check out, Danielle will email you and ask which pair of studs you would prefer.



If you are interested in being a blog sponsor for a future month or would like to know more about it, please email me at whaleflipflops {@} gmail{.}com for more information.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Friday 5- Etsy Love

I have been spending a lot of time on Etsy lately. A lot. I have mainly been looking for home decor things and anything with a monogram on it. And I do mean anything.

Here are some of my recent favorites:
1) Monogrammed Lime Green Wafffle Weave Bag from KatieClaire

I was feeling sad because all I wanted for Hannukah were monograms and I didn't get a single monogrammed thing, so I decided to buy some for myself. I have been needing a new larger size makeup bag for traveling, and when I saw this, I knew I had to have it. I'm really hoping that it comes before I leave for the Canary Islands.
2) Navy Seersucker Clutch with Monogram from SouthernBeaus

No words. This is just perfect. I hope to make it mine for this summer.
3) Custom State & Location Chevron Print from RedRobe Designs

I seriously love chevron so I love this. You can put a little heart near a specific city/town, so I want two get two of those, one for NYC and one for Omaha and hang them up next to each other in pretty frames.
4) Vintage Telephone Booth in Coral Photo from Swede13

I would love to hang this up in my house when I start thinking about/missing England.
5) Turquoise Blue Ceramic Necklace on a Silver Chain from amaniworks

I actually bought this necklace today after seeing a voucher for the shop on Heartsy. I think it will look great with a navy sweater or top. (Lord knows I have enough of those.) My total cost was $15. If you haven't heard of Heartsy, it's similar to Groupon, but only for Etsy. Every day, they have deals for several shops and once in a while, they have auctions as well. I loved it because I have discovered so many new shops through it.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

UPrinting Giveaway

Recently, I was contacted by UPrinting to do a giveaway for them. I was intrigued because I know several bloggers have used UPrinting in the past and have enjoyed them.

UPrinting is generously offering one Preppy Girl Meets World 250 stickers (2x3.5" 70lb Label Matte, front only printing).

These are great if you own an Etsy shop or a small business and need more stickers for your packaging or promotional materials. It is also great if you are newly married and need new address labels with your new last name on them (totally not speaking from experience here or anything like that, folks), or if you want to replenish your supply of gift labels after the holidays. You can upload your own design, so the possibilities are pretty much endless.

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents ages 18 and over. You are not eligible to win this prize if you have won another giveaway from UPrinting in the past 6 months.

To enter:
1) Like the UPrinting Sticker Printing Page and then leave a comment saying how you would use these stickers if you won. This entry is mandatory.
2) Follow my blog publicly via GFC for a second entry.
3) Like Preppy Girl Meets World on Facebook for a third entry.

This giveaway will run until Saturday, January 14th, at midnight EST.

Disclaimer: This giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given and I will receive stickers for hosting.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

My Memories Giveaway winner

Thank you to all who entered the my memories giveaway. The winner is comment #3- kmb564.

Please email me and I will put you in touch with My Memories.

If you didn't win but would like a copy of the software, you can use code STMMMS93273 to get $10 off the digital scrapbooking software.

Stay tuned for another fun giveaway tomorrow!

Thank you to My Memories for sponsoring this giveaway.

Lilly Pulitzer Warehouse Sale

I have to say, I was not a huge fan of this one. I was waiting and had my alarm all set, and then like every single other sale, there were website problems and it didn't go up as scheduled. Some people had better luck than I did, and by the time I got in, the things I had really been hoping for had all sold out. One shirt sold out as I was checking out. Boo.

In the end, I ended up getting just two items- the Wanda Top in White
and the Murfee in Show Me Some Skin.
Everything else just didn't interest me or was sold out in my size.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again- Murfees are one of my absolute favorite Lilly items, but they are one that I almost always refuse to pay full price for*. I just don't think they're worth the $118 price tag, IMO. So I only buy them at the sales. Loved this print and had to snap it up for $29.

I had a gift card to Lilly, so my total came out to just $9 out of pocket. That is a new record for me. Husband was impressed with my shopping and told me he'd let me make weekly Lilly purchases if I could keep them all under $10. About that dear...

What about you? Did you have any better luck at the sale?


ETA: I just noticed that Lilly Pulitzer will be on Rue La La on Thursday. If you didn't have luck at the sale, then I would try there as well.

*the notable exception would be if Lilly ever made an Alpha Sigma Alpha print Murfee. Get on that Lilly. Pretty please.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Things Never to Say to Me

Living overseas, my tiny kitchen is the very bane of my existence. And I don't mean it's too small to eat in. I mean that both my husband and I physically can't stand in there at the same time. It really annoys me when American friends mention how small their kitchens are. When I bring up mine, they say "oh it can't really be that small." You wanna bet? I now present to you, the Kitchen at Chez MMS.

This is my whole kitchen if I stand directly in the doorway:
And this is all of the usable counter space in said kitchen:
For the record- when I lived in a studio, my counter space was a lot bigger
It gets to be really interesting on the days when I make four course meals in there. Usually the step stool in the top picture, coffee table, dining room table, and on occassion, couch are all covered in trivets and mixing/prep bowls.

So there you have it folks, my entire kitchen. So please, for the love of all things that are holy, unless your kitchen is actually located inside your linen closet, do not complain to me about how small it is.