I found this in my unpublished draft folder, written on February 12:
So, I never did answer all your questions, much like I never posted my wedding photos, much like I never finished the tour of my new apartment. It's how I keep you coming back.Getting things what? Done? Amazingly enough, my self-proclaimed "renewed commitment" didn't even last long enough to finish the sentence.But, I have a renewed commitment to getting things...
1. Red Branches and Bird Print by Sugarloop; $25
2. Pretty Red Dinnerware at Sprout Home; starting at $25 per piece
3. Kangaroo Leather Desk Amigo at MoMA; $38
4. Mediterraneo Fruit Basket from Retro Modern; $65
5. Library Wallet at Anthropologie; $138
More fabulous finds, everything under $15.
1. Pop Ink Fashion Plate
2. Sweet Deer Keyring from Indie Fixx
3. Recipe Cards from One Good Bumblebee
4. French Bull Floral Salad Server from Loft Party
5. Office Space Box of Flair from Urban Outfitters
6. Moleskine Journal from Amazon
If you missed Part One, you can find it here. And please leave any great finds of your own in the comments!
It's the official start of the holiday shopping season. There's so much to love about holiday shopping--the fancy store decorations, the holiday music, stopping at Starbucks for a peppermint mocha. Unfortunately, all the good things about holiday shopping are largely overshadowed by long shopping lists, large crowds, and a complete lack of parking spaces. I don't know about you, but about 18 minutes into any holiday shopping experience I'm ready to buy everybody on my list matching Old Navy fleece jackets and call it a day.
This year, I'm shopping online. Some of my favorite finds so far, all of them under $15:
1. Kyoto Four-Part Server from CB2
2. Missus Monogrammed Mugs from Anthropologie
3. Pinocchio Tape Measure from CB2
4. Muji New York City in a Bag from MoMA
5. Holly Golightly Sleep Mask from Fred Flare
6. Rand McNally FabMap
Any great shopping websites to share? Any great finds for under $15? Do share!
A few people emailed me about the adorable wine dress that I received in the mail from my mother-in-law earlier this week. Either y'all just like to play dress up or you are already thinking of fantastic holiday gifts.
(Please tell me you are not already thinking about fantastic holiday gifts. That is too much pressure. Can y'all do some of my shopping while you're out?)
Anyway, I think we can all agree that wine is a fantastic gift, so long as the people you are shopping for actually like wine and are of legal drinking age. You shouldn't buy wine for your 18 year old cousin who just entered college. First, that would be illegal. More obviously, however, college freshman do not like wine. They like beer and things mixed with Malibu Rum.
Anyway, you want to dress up the wine you bought and I'm here to help you do it.
A stylish steel Reindeer outfit, with copper details, will set you back about $98 so you may want to go with some Two-Buck Chuck under that getup. Perhaps a Kimono is more your style. At $8, I'd say it's about $90 closer to my style. Or, for $68 you can dress up two bottles of wine as a Monk & Nun, although I can't say specifically why you'd want to do that.
If you are looking for an outfit with a little more holiday cheer, consider dressing your wine gifts in cozy hats and scarves.
At Napa Style, the toasty wraps are $15 a set; at Uncommon Goods, they are $12 a set. At both places the bitty scarves and hats are handknit and practically Gap quality. You could knit your own, of course, if you can handle the teeny knitting needles I suspect you would need.
If you are thinking that this is all just too much, perhaps a traditional wrap would be more suitable.
The lovely, albeit somewhat boring in comparison, wraps seen above were created using a square tablecloth, dishtowels, and various papers.
If you are thinking that this is not, in fact, too much and are interested in larger quantites of the cheesiness, here ya go: Hawaiian shirts, colorful tuxedos, hula skirts, bow ties, and a little black velvet dress complete with feather boa.
Now, don't ever let me find out that you wrapped a bottle of wine in a lame organza bag. You hear?
Cathedral Glass Coat: $348 at Anthropologie
Joseph Joseph Orange Glass Cutting Board: $27 at Loft Party
Cathy Nichols print: $20 at Pretty Darn Swell
Froggy Mezzaluna: $39.69 at Amazon
Martha Stewart Cake Mixes: $11.99 at Macy's
Polka Dot Canvas Tote: $12.50 at Old Navy
Giant Alliums: $24 at New York Botanical Garden Shop
I chose this bridesmaid dress today in a color officially called berry. My sister-in-law and I parked in a one hour parking space in the Los Angeles Fashion District so I knew I didn't have much time to deliberate on a bridesmaid dress for Amanda's wedding.
This was the second dress I tried on in the first store we visited and I actually love it. Even without much haggling, it was significantly cheaper than the price I found it for at Nordstrom and the whole transaction was completed with time still left on the meter.
I consider this one of my greatest life accomplishments.
12 fabulous things for $12 or less. Plus some shipping.
1. Cameo Necklaces from Shop Doxie
2. I Love You Wheel from Knock Knock
3. Titanium Spork from Think Geek
4. On The Go Kit from Urban Aid
5. Vintage Pink Petal Hairpins from Pancake Meow
6. Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter from Peanut Butter & Co.
7. Island Orchard Reed Diffuser from Pier One
8. Blossom Suitcase from Paper Source
9. Mushroom Timer from Fred Flare
10. Rainbow Notes from The Small Object
11. Bath Fizzers from Sumbody
12. Honey Bear Soap from L'Occitane
Yesterday a box arrived in the mail from The Farmhouse. Rachael always sends such fabulous gifts and this time was no different. I received an assortment of fun notecards, some of which were from an adorable company called Hoote + Annie. The timing on the package was perfect because I had actually just been thinking about my friends in Atlanta.
This past week--the week in which I did not post a single blog because it had come down to a nightly critical choice between three good hours of sleep or a post for y'all--we spent nearly every night in a hotel. Early in the week, we took a 36 hour trip to our state capitol in Sacramento, spending 14 hours of that time in a school van with our robotics team. We had a day to repack and spent the rest of the week at the Los Angeles Regional FIRST Robotics Competition where our robotics team won the most prestigious award given to a team at a regional event, The Chairman's Award.
Other than a big blue banner, two giant trophies, and medals for the whole team, the award granted our team a place at the Championship event in Atlanta, Georgia this April. I'm feeling a craving for some chicken and waffles, some grits, and some sweet tea.
When I was 16 years old, my high school best friend and I had big plans of moving into an apartment all on our own. We had serious plans for decorating this apartment--all the themes for the various rooms, what the color schemes would be, and what kind of furniture we would get (bean bags!). I was especially excited about the rubber ducky bathroom that I had planned, complete with duck wallpaper and plastic duck paraphernalia from Target. It was going to be rad, people.
When I moved away to college, my roommate, Bonnie, and I met for lunch and made plans for our shared college room. The decision was unanimous: Lilac! Lilac bedding, lilac curtains, lilac fabric frames, lilac lampshades. I bought a lovely lilac floral quilt with lilac sheets. And white furniture. Looking back, it probably looked as if two 8 year olds had taken their dad's credit card to Linens and Things and gone totally crazy, which in retrospect is just about exactly what we did. Except we were 20. It was fabulous.
The reason I bring this up, is that one of Will's former students, who is only a year or so removed from high school, recently got married. We got an announcement and would like to send a gift because she is a lovely girl who got married for decent reasons and not because she got drunk in Vegas and drove through a chapel run by an Elvis look-alike. She's Mormon and that's what some Mormons do. That, and make lots of cute babies. Which, totally cool.
But the thing is, how do you purchase a gift for someone who is both practically a teenager and also a married woman? I can't imagine what their decorating scheme might be. Rubber ducky? Lilac? I seriously do not mean to make fun here, I am simply pointing out that if I had been married at 19 years old I would totally be going for the Lilac! Pink! Froggy bathroom! As it is, I sometimes see that crap at Target and think how awesome a froggy bathroom would be with lilypad soap dishes and towels that have frolicking frogs emboidered on the trim. But then I realize that I am closer to thirty than thirteen. I think this may be one of the reasons people have kids; so you can do up a bathroom entirely in Strawberry Shortcake without seeming like you have lost your damn mind.
I checked all the obvious registeries and could not find the newlyweds registered anywhere. I would give them a gift card to Target, but there is not a Target in the small town in Utah where they now reside.
I am enlisting your help. What's the perfect gift for the current couple's dorm these days? Not only that, but I need something shippable. And no lilac. Definitely no more lilac.
So far this holiday season I have not been to the mall even once, unless you count the time I went to Red Robin with my family for lunch. That really shouldn't count because I walked straight through the mall to the restaurant and after lunch I followed my aunt to JC Penney where after about 13 seconds I made up an excuse about some hair appointment and got the hell out of Dodge. I hate the mall.
Usually by this time I have braved the mall at least twice and looked at many shelves of scarves and bath lotions and holiday serving platters and candles with decorative holders that look suspiciously like everything I looked at last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.
What I have been doing is some online shopping which is wonderful and fabulous except that you can't try anything on before you buy it. Which you shouldn't be doing when you are shopping FOR OTHER PEOPLE anyway, and yet, I always seem to spend a lot of time in the Express dressing room when I should be shopping in See's Candy or Bed Bath and Beyond.
Some of my favorite things from online browsing this holiday season:
Mona Lisa Tote
Smittens
D.L. & Co. Parfumerie Pendant
Sugared Honey Body Scrub
Want more?
Okay!
One Special Summer
An Espresso Machine
R. Nichols Notecards
Andy Warhol Banana Split Dishes
I'd keep going but I have to go address some holiday cards, eat some cookies and cocoa, and enjoy the lovely light display that my drunk neighbor put up at 3 o'clock in the morning two nights ago.
New Shoes! Do you love?
The best part of October, besides the abundance of free candy around Halloween, is that we can shop for all kinds of pink things and do it almost guilt free since a portion of the proceeds will benefit breast cancer research.
Surely you need some pink kitchen gadgets:
And this cookbook:
And you might as well throw in a pink Kitchenaid mixer:
For good measure.
The kitchen tools I currently use to create a salad: bowl, knife, cutting board.
The kitchen tools my Pampered Chef consultant suggests I use to create a salad: stainless mixing bowl with silicone bottom, prep bowls, crinkle cutter, Chillzanne bowl, food chopper, egg slicer, cutting board, knife with sharpening case, chef's tongs, garlic press, measure-mix-and-pour, and the Ultimate Slice & Grate.
Since I am smart enough to know that all these tools would not simplify my life and would simply take up more room in my tiny kitchen, I vowed not to buy much, if anything at all, at the Pampered Chef Party I attended this week.
And, yet, I somehow ended up purchasing a deluxe mini-muffin pan, a mini-tart shaper, a crinkle cutter, and small bowl caddy set, enough merchandise to qualify me for the free batter bowl. Free! But not really free, as I remember writing a check for these items, which are going to help me cut cucumbers prettier and make cute mini tarts (tarts? what was I thinking? what is a tart anyway?).
It was the champagne shopping.
I don’t know what got into my husband yesterday, but for the first time in the duration of our marriage, he happily joined me as I went shopping all afternoon. I had tons of errands to run, gifts to buy, mail to send, and odds and ends to pick up and he decided to come along for the full trip. Shockingly, he did not complain during the entire excursion, a miracle considering that he orders nearly all things online to avoid having to even step into a retail establishment.
Anytime we are out spending money, be it at a restaurant or grocery shopping, Will puts on this extremely embarrassing show. He sighs with relief when the credit card is approved for our purchases and will make comments that imply that any day now our cards will be shut off due to lack of payment or for our spending being wildly over the limit. Sometimes he insinuates that the card we are using is stolen or that we are on a wild shopping spree to build up our balance before we file bankruptcy next week. He does this with such a straight face that it seems actually believable and, although I usually shake my head and roll my eyes, the cashiers never seem to even flinch at the thought that our credit card might be rejected.
In addition to the jokes at every register regarding our inability to properly pay for the things we were purchasing, Will had a running commentary on every store we went into.
“Why is it Jo Ann and not Jo Ann’s?” he wanted to know, and promptly decided that Jo Ann Fabric “is a huge, huge room with a bunch of shit people don’t need.” Although he did decide that there is one practical section: poster board.
His opinion on other places we visited:
“If Target doesn’t have it, you probably don’t need it.”
“Kohl’s is the Pic and Save of apparel.” (I don’t know when he got so haughty, especially considering that he had just tried on a jacket at Target.)
“TJ Maxx reminds me of a swap meet but with all new shit.”
“You should never experiment with a Venti.” (After ordering the largest possible size Blackberry Green Tea Frappuccino Blended Creme without ever having tried it.)
Before we left for the day of shopping, Will had added four things to my shopping list, none of which we ended up purchasing. One thing he decided he did not actually need, two things he decided would be easier to purchase on the internet, and the thing he wanted from Costco he decided could wait due to the extremely long lines of people buying hams.
The weird thing about this shopping trip, however, was not the silly commentary or the broke jokes; these are common occurrences in my world. The weird thing was the discovery that my husband has a deep-seated interest in vacuum cleaners. In every store, he spent time comparing the prices, features, and capabilities of the various vacuums. He’s even compared them online, I found out. He knows if Target is overcharging for the Dyson and whether the Oreck is a better value than the Hoover.
This brings so much more meaning to the term neat freak. I always knew he was tidy and he’s always been a little unusual, but now it is all starting to fit together. I married Mr. Clean.
(As a side note, Will was doing the dishes as I was writing this blog and I called into the kitchen asking for a synonym for the term neat freak. Will thought for a moment and responded, “I don’t know….me?” Yes, honey, exactly.)
How cool are these?
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