um...i had a family filled weekend.
it's rainy and gloomy today and i'm working in my cold office in my cold house.
my house is dirty and i have a mountain of laundry.
ok well have a nice day.
so i'm driving. it's raining. it's 4:30pm. i have 2 options. continue on pace and hit city at peak awful traffic time. OR waste an hour or so by diverting route to awesome mall and hit up urban outfitters b/c it has been gnawing at me to see their crap in person. of course we all know i took option 2. i diverted. um. i can't say i was totally blown away b/c a lot of stuff didn't seem to be made very well and was $48-68. i can buy the same type thing at Forever 21 for a fraction of the price. BUT. some things were totally awesome. and worth ever penny of $48-68 since that seemed to be the price of everything from shoes to dresses to shirts to skirts.
while i went into the dressing room with far more items...the only things that i brought home with me were this skirt:
i actually bought this in a dark hunter green. black would probably have been more practical but i wanted something almost as neutral but not. however, i wear almost every color as a neutral...hmmm. it fits great and is mucho flattering.
and these bad boys:
T-Totally fantastic. i'm wearing them now with leggings and a tshirt. the color is great. i can't wait to wear these Everywhere I Go. except work...{le sigh}
i want to also buy them in gray. and nude. and maybe blue. black. and green. AND they were only $48 :)
Also. i have found The Holiday Party Dress. too bad i have to order it without really knowing what size to get. plus paying $15 for shipping on top of the $160 purchase price. then if it doesn't fit i have to pay to send it back. to london. within 14 days. it's just too much stress. but it's soooo IT.
there is a similar option at ModCloth. it's not TopShop but it's still pretty good. and I already have a $68 credit at ModCloth.
Yes. It is out of stock. Yes. I have put myself on the "notify me" list.
Holiday Party in question is december 12. will it be back in stock by then? doubtful. where will i find the perfect dress???
so i'm wondering why i haven't been obsessed with the label 'silence & noise' via urban outfitters long before now? their styles are simple. hip. affordable. i'm delighted with this new discovery. one of the many, many items i am coveting is this skirt.
AND. my dad should be going home from the hospital this week!
oyster roast backyard hoe down party at casa de Reediculous went off without a hitch. other than Reed decided to explore the woods for an HOUR saturday morning while i was supposed to be finishing up the cooking/cleaning preparations. after about 30 minutes i started to panic b/c i couldn't find him. anyway. he was sitting in the woods waiting for his daddy to come home before he appeared back in the yard where he belonged. little bastard.
it was super fun and i will post some pics when i find my camera battery charger. oops.
i can no longer wear jeans to work. i know you are thinking...'um..who ever gets to wear jeans to work? stop your wining.'
but i work on farms.
for example. today i will probably be walking through a barn just like this:
many days i'm standing around talking to these guys:
which often leads me to walking through THESE guys:
so basically it is a job for jeans. and luckily i have like 2 pairs of old corduroy pants i've had for ages that have become my new work uniform. i shouldn't complain because it is friday and i'm wearing corduroy pants with my danskos and my new puffy vest i got for free at old navy. yes free. when clearing out my guest room/storage facility i found a check from old navy to me for $22. it was from 2007. i decided i'd try to use it. and it worked!
old navy, by the way, was having a sale earlier in the week -- 50% off all outerwear. they have a lot of cute coats this season.
ok. well i'm already running half an hour late b/c of sleeping, eating, and posting. there is cow shit out there to be walked on...
i have to hand it to Pam at For the Love of Cooking...every day (yep, a new recipe everyday unless she is on vacation, sick, something like that) she posts a DELICIOUS and doable (a real word? not sure) recipe. practically anytime i am looking for something new to cook, i turn to her blog and find something in a snap. AND she posts pictures of the whole process, beginning to end.
so if you like to cook and are always searching for a new recipe, be sure to bookmark For the Love of Cooking. i promise she is not paying me or anything. i just don't have anything good to blog about so why not blog about what others have good. [totally grammatically correct]
just a few of the recipes i have made and some of which i'm sure i have blogged about are the easy baked egg rolls, banana chocolate chip cookies, chorizo and black bean soup, roasted vegetable orzo, asian noodle salad, lemon basil fish, lemon basil chicken, sweet & spicy flank steak, flank steak/caramelized onion/mushroom panini, and probably more that i can't think of at the moment.
For the Love of Cooking
i wish i had something exciting to post about but i don't. my dad is still in the hospital. today is day 16. doesn't seem as though you can call "time out" on cancer. i am going to buy one of these tshirts. then i think about someone making money off others tragedy and outrage. then i think again about the self expression that the shirt conveys. i think too much.
anyway. i did finally get my office/guest room put back in order. for about a year it has been a room that we have cut off from the rest of the house and used basically as storage. but now it has a nice bed, desk, printer stand with both my work printer & my photo printer set up, etc. i'll take of picture of it at some point. it still needs work but i've got some good ideas.
i made these cookies for my mom & dad. my dad doesn't want any food really but i thought my mom would at least enjoy them. they both love ginger cookies.
also, my refrigerator is currently what i would call lukewarm. so the Man & i went to lowes yesterday to take advantage of the 10% off + tax free energy star appliance deal and bought us a new fridge. we bought this one.
cool isn't it? it's a bottom mount with the freezer on the bottom and we bought it in the titanium finish. i hope it's awesome.
so the Man & i have been wanting to do an oyster roast at our house for quite some time. we've lived here about a year and a half and have done a lot of work to this little house. we are finally at the point where we don't mind people seeing it. the party is this saturday. i'm so not feeling it b/c none of my real friends are coming and it's just hard to think about partying right now. it's hard to think about presenting myself and the house well b/c i really don't care. but i'm trying to make myself be a part of it mainly b/c the Man can't do it all by himself. it is not going to be formal by any means...just an afternoon of oysters, beer, college football, horseshoes, being outside on hopefully a nice fall day. but whatev. i will pull something together.
any ideas on what type of foods to prepare? obviously we are having oysters. that's the only thing i have on the menu so far....h e l p.
so your life can totally change in an instant. without warning. without regard to your feelings or plans or likes or dislikes. for me, this happened sunday morning, oct 18. my dad was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. or ALL for all you doctors out there familiar with the abbreevs. at first i thought it ridiculous (no pun intended) to post about this on my blog, but then again it's all i can think about. posting about clothes or parties or tv shows or whatever just seems so stupid and insignificant right now. i'm sure i will come back to normality in the days to come but right now i just want to hit everyone in the face.
ALL is a particularly aggressive and shitty form of leukemia that ravages your body in a matter of weeks. WEEKS. these little cells are like pirates that care about nothing but themselves taking over all they encounter in the sea that is my dad's blood. i hate the mother fuckers. luckily we have medicines and navy seals to fight them off. my dad finished his first round of chemo yesterday. now it is a waiting game. more waiting. so much waiting and i hate waiting. so in a matter of one week i find out my daddy has cancer and has to go through chemotherapy and finishes his first round all in 7 days. talk about overwhelming. i cannot even imagine what my dad is thinking or feeling.
i can't wait for this battle to be over and hope and pray with every second that goes by that cancer will lose. so assuming prayer really works, why not put it out there to the masses. my dad needs all the help he can get.
sorry to be such a bummer on a typically light hearted & shallow blog, but i can't help it. i'm supposed to be working today but i could care less what cows are eating. they're cows, they can eat just about anything. go with that.
image credit here
