hooray for early birthday presents!!

so my darling mother, knowing how i adore the summer sales, was kind enough to give me my birthday loot nearly 2 months before the actual day - hooray!!!

naturally, i've made short work of spending every last cent :) but fortunately for me, this fabulous pre-gift (defined as such because i fully expect another on my actual birthday) coincided just beautifully with (drum roll, please) the kate spade friends and family event! a gift indeed :)

so, here are some of the beauties i have adopted so far (after all, there are 3 more days of the sale to go!).


isn't the purse fabulous?! totally not my traditional style, and yet, once i saw it, i couldn't put it down. it's going to be so gorgeous with an all-black ensemble, or really, any solid color. and i love that it's big enough to actually carry some things, unlike most fun evening bags which hold exactly one credit card and one tube of lipstick.


and i couldn't help loving these fabulous, glittery suede numbers - not exactly the most useful things ever, but they're just so pretty!

peanut butter jelly time

in honor of the super fabulously yummy PB&J i just had for lunch (i think adults don't PB&J nearly enough), i give you this clip from a show i would never have even known about if it weren't for my hubs.

blogging about blogs....

so i was all prepared to link you today to some of my favorite shallow blogs....but now i'll have to save that for another day. all i have to say is this: read the July 18 entry, and picture me shouting a great big "amen" to everything the blogger said. seriously....toe amputation? i mean, i love my shoes like children, but that's going a bit far, even for me.

in honor of such a sad state of affairs, today's item of the day is a gorgeous pair of flats from belle by sigerson morrison. best news - they're on sale! how i love the end-of-season sales....i'm going to be so hooked up for next summer! and after reading shoesense's revelations, it's all about the flats, baby!

sale of the day - kate spade

i just have to share, if only because the hubs has placed me on a handbag embargo until further notice (see purchase leading to said embargo here), and i just don't feel right not participating. anyway, kate has placed some really darling items on her summer sale, including:

this tracy ribbon stripe tote for just $140 (also in lots of other sizes/shapes)




this darling little hobby tote at $120


the quinn rubber tote i was just loving for summer is now a mere $48











and if you're in the market for an evening bag, i just don't think you can do much better than the 'golden gate shea' at $223.










oh, and PS - the nordstrom anniversary sale includes a really fabulous kate bag (the serena-newton) and matching wallet for a pittance....if you can possibly swing it, i highly recommend doing so - the kelly green is just amazing in person!

hey, just because i can't have any fun doesn't mean you all can't.

item of the day

so i've always loved PlumParty for their darling disposable wares, but today, i stumbled on something even more fabulous: their line of melamine plates by French Bull. i think i'm in love! they're just the thing for summer barbecues. if i have my way, i'll be mixing myself a set of these two darling styles, tacking on this fabulous serving platter,
and topping it off with what i think might just be the cutest salad tongs ever! (hmm....not every day you hear someone use the phrase "cutest salad tongs ever")

looking forward to next month's shopping budget!

and in the news....

mom has quadruplets 3 years after having triplets

who says god doesn't have a sense of humor??

i am so freaking happy right now

i have to preface this with the fact that i have a serious love for classic, vintage sesame street. not sure if it's just because i'm secretly 5 years old or because i'm so utterly saddened by the crap kids watch these days (um, japanese anime? seriously?)...but give me some muppets any day, and i'm a happy woman.

and of course, 'the grove' is one of my very most favoritestests of all time - and this is one of his finest cinematic moments :)




okay, okay, and one more....because i just can't resist

i had completely forgotten how entertaining this stuff was!

helllooooooo??

is anyone even reading this, or am i seriously just rambling to myself in cyberspace? how sad.....

item of the day

how fabulous is this?? i have to say, sometimes i have a love/hate with marc jacobs...but lately, he's gotten really into the playful side of things, and i'm loving it! this wallet is so perfect as a surprisingly cheerful thing to pull out of your handbag, or it would work beautifully on its own as a fun clutch.

it's definitely on my birthday list!

today is a very bloggable day

so far today, i've thought of two separate things worth blogging about....how impressive.

first, i felt that it was my duty to disclose that i am a walking fashion "don't" today. remember those knee-length jersey skirts with the elastic waist and the two slits up each side that were really popular like five years ago?? yep, that's right, i'm rockin' the jersey skirt today. and you know what? i don't even care. i had forgotten how freaking comfortable this thing is! and i do feel i've redeemed myself somewhat by pairing it with a very cute rebecca beeson t-shirt and my super comfy silver ballet flats. i know, not good enough. in fact, it's so bad i almost couldn't even find a pic online (the horror!). but i finally managed....at a maternity wear site. so, picture this, but in black and with slits on the side. i am super hot, i know.



second, i have to brag about my cute-as-can-be hubs today. i was running way late to work, and in our new post-serious-budget-discussion-era, i decided i wanted to be frugal and take my lunch to work instead of buying my usual spicy tuna roll. so, i asked the hubs if he'd consider whipping me up a tuna sandwich. i want you to know that my hubs packed me up an entire little lunch, including a pre-washed nectarine and a baggie full of cinnamon bears for dessert. yum...cinnamon bears. so, now i'm sitting here in my post-lunch bloat, feeling a little sick from too many cinnamon bears. and thinking my hubs is pretty darling.

told you it was a big day :)

the ones that started it all....

i'm having a little 'memory lane' moment tonight. was poking around online for a pic of some shoes i've been loving, and stumbled upon these:

now, first, i have to say that i find it entertaining that these shoes are still for sale online, since i bought them at nordstrom over two years ago. but, that said, these darling little marc jacobs kitten heels are indeed the shoes that began my love for high-end shoes. they were just so different from anything else i owned - seemingly impractical, yet they went with everything. beautifully constructed, completely unique styling.....yum!

i got them out tonight (i almost never wear them these days, but they're headed for a renaissance, i think) and was telling this story to my husband. his response? "so, i have these to blame, huh?" yes, dear, that's right - these are the shoes to blame. well, that and a little too much sex and the city :)

fall boots

just saw these lovely michael kors boots - best of all, they're on clearance at saks! so, which do you prefer - these new ones:
















or the ones i've been in love with since first spying them (also michael kors):

how ever will i choose?? they're roughly the same price, though the first ones are michael kors, not KORS michael kors (note there's also a MICHAEL michael kors line, whose role in the kors cosmos i still don't fully understand) - a distinction that doesn't terribly concern me, i'll admit, though the full retail price of the first pair would definitely give my darling husband a heart attack). i think i still prefer that the second pair, as they're much more versatile. plus, as a girlfriend of mine keeps pointing out, i spend too much time buying flats for a girl who's married to a 6'8" man. i probably should rock the heels a little more often.

but, for any of you who think those first ones are as lovely as i do, you can buy them here (notice that i didn't give the link until i'd talked myself out of them - yes, i'm a selfish bitch, and i'm okay with that).

i hate budgets

so, the hubs and i had the 'serious budget talk' today.....yuck. i was talking to my best friend J yesterday, and it turned out she had the 'serious budget talk' with her hubs at the same time...random cosmic connection, perhaps? i suspect it's more the "first of the month, mortgage payment just came out of the checking account, where the &*$% did our money go?" connection, myself.

the truth is, i don't think it's ever a huge shock to either party that there's no money....i mean, i'm not suffering from any delusions related to a lottery win or appointment to the board of a fortune 500 or anything. but, crazy as this sounds, i guess i've always survived by the "it all evens out" school of budgeting. maybe that just means i naturally live more or less equal to my means, or maybe it means i'm just damn lucky. but when i was single, it honestly just all seemed to work out. the whole 'married, mortgage, two car payment, two dogs' thing has definitely kiboshed my flawless system, however. damn. but i'm not worried. i'm holding out for the day when my super-talented hubs is finally discovered for the utterly fabulous photographer that he is, and can command $10,000 for 8 hours of his time, like some other wedding photographers i know. (frightening, isn't it?)

thank god i get to shop online.....that's really the beauty of this blog, i think - by the time i rave all about something fabulous on here, i almost don't need to buy it.

almost.

quote of the day...

"faith is knowing that in the end, either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will learn how to fly...."

the fascinating decisions over which i agonize.....

today's topic: which hairdryer should i buy?

yes, i am a loser - i know. but at least i'm posting today, for the first time in quite a few days, so that has to be worth something, right? right?

so i've received a recommendation for a lovely ion model from a friend:


it comes very highly recommended by my friend, and i do so admire her lovely coif.

then, just as i was about to purchase, i read an article in a magazine raving on and on about the virtues of this fabulous (and at the time, pricey) professional model. the writer claimed that it put an end to her 'buy a new dryer once a year' problem (one i also suffer from), and dramatically decreased her daily style time (also a problem with which i can sympathize). but best of all, this $160+ dryer she was raving on and on about is now on sale for $39 (update: it's now $49. how rude.).



so what the question really comes down to is this - do we trust the claims about all of the fabulous benefits the 'ion' hairdryers provide? does anyone have any thoughts on the matter??

decisions, decisions :)