Can I just take a moment to say?

How much I love this dress?

Factory Seersucker Ruffle V-Neck Dress from J. Crew Factory

I have been looking for a cute seersucker dress that doesn't break the bank for a while now. I've found a few cute dresses but am not ready to pull the $200+ trigger quite yet. I was looking on the J. Crew Factory site today and when I saw this, I pretty much squealed. I have a cocktail dress from J. Crew in a similar silhouette that I love, and the price tag on this one is great (regularly $98- on sale at the moment for $59.50 for being a new arrival). I think this may be my first weight loss incentive dress.

And while we're talking about J. Crew Factory, can I just say that I am so very glad that they are making the Critter Flip Flops again? I missed these from J. Crew so much and have pretty much worn all of mine to the ground so I am happy to see that Factory is making them again.

Is there anything you are looking forward to getting from J. Crew Factory?

Don't forget to use ebates to get 3.0% cash back!

Sunday Social

Linking up this week with Neely for Sunday Social.

1) What is your shopping weakness?

I'm not sure if it is limited to any one store, but I would have to say any lip balm/gloss/chapstick type product. I am a total lip product junkie and at any given moment will have anywhere between 5-10 (I'm not even kidding here!) lip products in my purse.

My other love is Polish pottery. My pattern is Floral Peacock. I want to get a full set of dinnerware in that pattern and some serving pieces. I have a few plates and bowls in other patterns also to mix and match. I'm hoping to find some good deals when I am in Poland next week.

2) What is your food weakness?
That one's easy.

I could pretty much eat sushi every single day if money was no object and not get sick of it. There are days when T will ask me what I want to do for dinner, and I just give him the look that says "why even bother asking?"

3) What is your go-to movie to watch when nothing is on?

4) What is your go-to breakfast food?

Ummm. Does this count as a breakfast food?

In all seriousness, I am not much of a breakfast food person. For religious reasons, I can't eat most breakfast meats (I don't eat pork and when you go out, it's not like you can find turkey bacon in a lot of places), and I don't eat eggs at all (they trigger my gag reflex). I love pancakes and hash browns (especially with melted cheese on top!) but it's not like that is exactly a healthy breakfast that you can have every day. My breakfasts usually consist of a can of Coke Zero, pancakes or home fries if I'm out, some fruit, a granola bar, or whatever else I can find lying around. (I know, I know. A dietician would have a field day with this.) When we travel, I love hotel breakfasts that have smoked salmon in the buffets.

5) Do you drink coffee? If so, how do you take it?

I take my coffee white- 3 gallons of milk, 2 pounds of sugar. Whatever room is left in the cup- you can go ahead and put coffee in that. The guy who owned the coffee kiosk near my old job in New York used to charge me $0.75 for a $1 cup of coffee. And believe me when I say that it was not because of my winning personality.

Early into our relationship, TLS and I were in Chicago and took the train to the Museum of Science and Industry for the Harry Potter exhibit. We grabbed coffees to go from our hotel and I explained to him that I like my coffee sweet. He said he understood me. And then looked on in horror as I proceeded to put 7 packets of sugar into a small cup of coffee that already had flavored creamer in it. (Have I mentioned that a dietician would pretty much have a field day with me?)

This is part of the reason why I love Starbucks drinks so much- after all of the syrups and creamers and whipped cream and chocolate drizzle and chocolate shavings and whatever else it is that they manage to possibly stick in that cup, there's very little coffee taste left.

Not Soap Radio

Not Soap Radio is a company that I love. I was first introduced to them in the early years of this blog when they asked me to do a review. I fell in love with their products and have been coming back for more ever since. I have given a few of their items as Hannukah gifts and even gave a few Not Soap Radio items as gifts to my bridesmaids at our rehearsal dinner.

Not Soap Radio products smell great, work great, have cute packaging, and are at a pretty good price point. How great is that?  Here are my favorite products from them:

Phoenix Shower Gel- Smells great, lasts forever and the name is perfect for an Alpha Sigma Alpha!

Happy Hanukkah Greeting Card Lip Balm- tastes great and has a nice little bit of color

Sorority Lettered Mini Lip Gloss Trio- great colors and the lip glosses are small enough to fit in the smallest purse or wristlet

In time for Mothers' Day, Not Soap Radio is having a sale on Fab.com for their Mothers' Day Shower Gel.

How cute would this be to give to an expecting friend at a baby shower?

Starting tomorrow, their Originals shower gels will be available on Fab.com (including my beloved Phoenix shower gel. Thank goodness. Since my bottle is almost out, I plan on stocking up on this stuff.

Currently, their shower gel is being "out-liked" by a very gross and disturbing poster of *ahem* feminine body parts through the decades. As a woman, I think that this is unacceptable, so if you could please create an account at Fab.com and like the shower gel, both myself and Laura of Not Soap Radio fame would appreciate it.

If you have never heard of Not Soap Radio, be sure to check them out and also like them on facebook. They have lots of fun contests and such going on there.

**Disclaimer** This is not a sponsored post. I was not compensated in any way. All opinions expressed are my own. Just showing a friend some love

Introducing Pampadour and a Giveaway

I am a total makeup and beauty products junkie. When I lived in the U.S., I loved going into Sephora just to "browse" and coming back out with a bag full of things that I wasn't really sure if I needed or not. Good thing they had a great return policy. Now that I live in Germany, Douglas (Germany's version of Sephora) is one of my must-stop in shops.

Maybe it's because now I'm in my late twenties and am married and have bills and things to worry about as opposed to the disposable income I had when I was 22, I am more cautious about making impulse purchases on products that I may or may not end up using. (It doesn't help that since my German vocabulary is rather limited and I can't understand return policies.) When I look at a product, my instinct is to google reviews for it on my iPhone to see if anyone else has used it and what she had to say about it.

Since I am clearly not alone in this, I was recently contacted by Pampadour, a brand new social networking site devoted to beauty products. Pampadour was created by combining what were the most popular and well-liked features of current social networking sites.

There are four main actions that you can do on Pampadour.

1) Pamp It: Share products, photos, or videos within Pampadour or other social media outlets, and build your own beauty profile.
2) Tag It: Tag a photo of yourself, an editorial or a red carpet look with the products used. Hover over the subject's eyelid and you'll see a thumbnail appear of the eye shadow quad, move on to the lips to discover the lipstick shade or the cheek for the blush color.
3) Clip It: Capture product or photo images from anywhere on the web to add to your profile.
4) Adour It: "Heart" or "like" either a product, photo, video or discussion post.

Below is a photo of what the site looks like:

To celebrate the launch of their site, Pampadour is very pleased to offer a giveaway to Preppy Girl Meets World readers. Two very lucky ladies (or gentlemen, I guess) will each win a gift basket chock full with $100 worth of products from Votre Vu and Talika (two of their sponsors). Enter using the widget below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Etsy finds

I love searching around on Etsy and can spend hours on there (and very often do!) just browsing and looking for cute things for gifts for others of for myself. Since we have had quite a few Etsy packages come to our house lately, it seemed like a good time to do an Etsy post.

1) two color monogram decal from DecalInnovations

I received a blank plain wine glass as a favor at a holiday party. Since I didn't have use for a single wine glass that didn't match any of my others, I decided to jazz it up with a monogram decal. I fell in love with the decals from Decal Innovations because you could get more than one color in it. I chose to go with a pink and navy one with the decal shape from the last one with the font style from the first decal. (You following all this?) The shipping was a bit long but I think it had more to do with the fact that it was shipped via First Class mail. (Side note: never send a package to an APO address via First Class mail. Your recipient could be waiting months for it.) I was so excited to get my decal that I put it on rather hapzardly and caused some wrinkles in it that I could not get out.

Overall, not my best effort, but it doesn't impair my ability to  drink wine, so I'll keep it on there.

2) stretchy hair ties from Bowties Bowtique

I love this style of hair tie because they don't cause weird bumps in my pony tail and the elastic looks just a tiny bit nicer than the usual plain black Goody elastic. Bowties Bowtique's prices are quite good ($0.99 for one elastic- shipping is $0.50 for one item and $0.25 for each additional item). I liked that you get to pick the colors and aren't forced to pick one pack of pre-selected colors. I ordered 3 to start out with- one in noir, one in surf blue, and one in baby pink.

The package was shipped on February 12th, and as of today, it still has not arrived. (This is why you never ship anything via First Class mail to an APO address.) The seller was very sweet and gracious about it and resent them. They arrived about a week later and I have been wearing these ever since. I plan on ordering more very soon. Be sure to like them on facebook because they seem to have some kind of special going on every so often.

3) Lilly Pulitzer Inspired Hotty Pink First Impression Address Labels from elleofont

Ordered these on a whim because they were cute and I needed more address labels. This is one of my favorite Lilly Pulitzer patterns. The address labels themselves are really cute and came here fast. The girl who owns the shop, Lindsay, is a total sweetheart and I have gotten a few more things from her since then including a facebook cover photo and a monogrammed Lilly Pulitzer Pop background for my iPhone.

4) Custom onesie from BiasedBaby

Normally, I detest onesies or shirts for children that have writing on them, but there are a few that I will make an exception for. I saw this on Etsy a while back and mentally bookmarked it for future possible shower or new baby gifts. When a dear sorority sister of mine announced that she was pregnant, I knew that this was the perfect baby gift for her. I ordered this to arrive when she got back from vacation to surprise her. I asked to put a gift note in with the onesie so she would know who it's from and the store did. My friend loved the onesie and so did every other Alpha Sigma Alpha on her facebook page who saw the picture of it. In addition to sororities and fraternities, they also do onesies for the police and different branches of the military.

5) This Too Shall Pass Aluminum Cuff from StampinOffThePath

This is one of my favorite sayings and something I have been trying to remind myself of a lot lately. We have been facing some hard times and decisions so I wanted to get a bracelet with that on it to remind me that no bad time lasts forever. It came here pretty quickly and I fell in love with it instantly. I wear it most days either alone or with other bracelets and have gotten so many compliments on it and so many people have asked me where it's from, so here it is.

Hope you enjoyed my recent purchases. Let me know if there are any Etsy items that you've bought recently and loved or if there are any that you are currently lusting over.

Rabbit Rabbit!

Rabbit Rabbit!

Yes, I fully realize that I may have gone just a little bit picture-happy here, but they're all just so cute. As usual, all pictures are from Daily Bunny.

 Did I mention that I absolutely adore the Easter season with its plethora of all things pastel and bunny-related?

Welcome to April. Also, seriously, how is it April already? It seems like just yesterday that we were addressing holiday cards. Did any of you take advantage of today being April Fool's Day and play any pranks on anyone? I did post on facebook asking for a good suckling pig recipe but no one fell for that. (After I asked for kosher casserole suggestions in a group and got about 10 replies all involving chicken and cheese, I was sure I'd see some suggestions involving a pig with an apple in his mouth, but nope.)

Some things I am looking forward to this month:

*End of Passover: It ends tomorrow night! Finally! T and I have an elaborate date night planned out involving sushi, a dozen cupcakes from our favorite cake lady on base, and a tasting tour of every single bakery in our town. Just about. All washed down with some beer. Of course.
*Baseball

Yes the Yankees are back. After a heartbreaking loss to the Red Sox tonight (on opening day no less), there's no place they can go but up. Right?
*Visiting the Dinosaur Park near our house again.
*Frankfurt day trip: A dear sorority sister will be in Frankfurt this month for school and I am taking the train to see her and spend the day giggling and catching up. Did I mention that there's a Starbucks in Frankfurt?
*A Quick Getaway Trip: Don't ask me where we're going yet. We don't know. We have spent some time pricing out fun an inexpensive trip options for later this month. With me having 5 days off work at once, it seems like a good time.
*Spring Cleaning: I can't believe that I would in a million years post this, but I have been bitten by some sort of cleaning/organization bug lately. I am actually looking forward to organizing and cleaning some things up around the house. I don't want T's orders to drop and be unprepared or not have enough time to organize things before a move. I have been working on convincing the husband that we absolutely positively need a label maker.

So now it's your turn. What are you most looking forward to this month?

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In addition to my house, this month I will be working on spring cleaning my virtual home by way of this blog. I will be removing all of the expired sponsorships and starting from scratch. In addition, I will be updating my Blog Roll to remove inactive blogs or ones that I no longer read and add fun new reads to it. If you have a blog that you would like me to add to it, or want to advertise or business with me, please email me. :)

Grace Adele review

A good friend of mine who is a Scentsy consultant started selling Grace Adele. To be perfectly honest, when she first told me about it, I was lukewarm at best about the idea. When she asked me to do a product review, I was tempted to say no but decided to check out the website first, just in case. I'm so glad I did.

In case you did not already know, Grace Adele is a brand in the Scentsy family that focuses on handbags and accessories. Each Grace Adele handbag comes with a slip pocket on the front that you can put one of their coordinating clutches into to give it a pop of color. For the evenings, you can take the clutch out and use it on its own. There are also coordinating accessories and jewelry in the line. Now I will be perfectly honest and upfront with you here- plenty of pieces in the collection are not my style at all. And then there are pearls. Pretty pearls. Lots and lots of pearls. Yes please.

As soon as I saw these gorgeous earrings it was love at first sight. I love pearls and wear at least one piece of pearl jewelry pretty much every single day. They looked a bit dressier than just my standard pair of studs.

how cute would these be for bridesmaids?

I mean how lovely are they? And the best part? They are just $15! The earrings are available in either cream or black pearl and I chose cream. They came in a pretty black and grey floral patterned gift box that looked like it would be perfect for a quick and easy gift.

The earrings themselves are lightweight and very comfortable. They are a bit brighter/whiter than my every day studs and are a bit larger, but not large enough to be a nuisance. They are not heavy at all so after wearing them for a long time, your earlobes still feel fine. (I've worn large earrings that I have had to take off halfway through the night because they just irritated me so much. Not a problem here.)

For size comparison sake- the Grace Adele earrings are on the left and my every day studs are on the right.

After wearing these earrings for about a week, I loved them so much that I decided to visit Caryn's Grace Adele page again and see what other items they offered. I ended up purchasing this necklace.

Pearl Cluster Necklace $55

A few years ago, I received a pearl cluster necklace for Hannukah from a friend of mine that was my go-to necklace for parties, weddings, etc. Really any time I wanted a funner necklace than just a plain strand. I loved it to death. Literally. After it wound up in that great jewelry box in the sky, I searched for months for a similar replacement that did not cost an arm and a leg. When I saw this one, I knew I had a winner on my hands. I wore it with my black J. Crew ponte pants, boots, and black Lilly Pulitzer Fancy Fest Elsa for a date night out in Brussels. It was perfect.

Grace Adele has several pearl pieces out now in their collection. All of the pearl items are available in either cream or black. I'm thinking of getting the studs in black also. After I get this pearl cluster bracelet to match my necklace of course. 

Pearl Cluster Bracelet- $45

I also love this Shay clutch in pink. Perfect for nights out!

Shay Clutch- $40

Be sure to check out Grace Adele for some great gift options for yourself or someone you love! If you are interested in getting any Grace Adele items, Caryn has set up a party for me under PGMW. I'm doing a giveaway with it and any order that is placed through my party gives you one entry to win the pearl stud earrings in your choice of cream or black.

***Disclaimer: I received the earrings to review and did not receive any financial compensation. I purchased the necklace for myself using my own money.***