Weekend Recap

I have been such a slacker about blogging...i mean, I'm doing my recap from last weekend on THURSDAY NIGHT. ooops. but work has been crazy and we've had multiple weddings on the weekends, so I have been really busy.

We went to my friends S and M's wedding last friday and it was freaking fabulous!!! I had SUCH a good time and I saw some friends I haven't seen in forever (like years!). I got to sit next to my wonderful friend G at the wedding, who lives in Philly and it was great to see him. He's moving to Amsterdam for grad school next month, so it may be a while until I see him again.

I was debating posting pics on my blog because it's always been sort of a privacy thing, but I have some really good pics from the wedding, so you know what...I'm posting them!!!Here's me and Sailor Boy, right at the beginning of the reception. Mainly I am just obsessed with my green shoes, from my previous post, and let me just say, they were a big hit!! Super comfortable and I got tons of compliments on them. They may be my new fave shoes!!!

Me and my BFF K. She's the one getting married next spring. Her dress was amazing!! I may or may not be borrowing it in the near future.

Sailor Boy and I dancing...this was towards the end of the night because Sailor Boy does NOT dance unless several cocktails have been consumed. Yes, we suck at dancing.

Probably my favorite picture of the night. My friend G and I decide to get in on the anniversary dance and we decided we had been "married" for 5 years. I've known him since we were 9 years old, so we practically are married!

In other awesome news...COMCAST WAS INSTALLED IN OUR HOUSE!!!! They finally came and we can now spend our free time vegging in front of the tv and emailing! It's so great to be connected again. So yes, I am blogging from home right now, on the couch, and it's wonderful! It makes me ALMOST take back the mean things I said to Comcast a few weeks ago...almost!!

And while I have been SUPER busy with work and life, I haven't been too busy to do some online shopping. I'm really pissed at J.Crew because everything I WANT to buy is all sold out. I finally managed to snag this beauty a few days ago:
On sale for $109. Plus I got free shipping (the code is SCHOOL for orders over $100). I LOVE the purple and I've been lusting after the dress for a while now.I also ordered this adorable door mat for our house. I've been looking for one for a while and I'm obsessed with this one!! Obviously living in MD, the crab is perfect and it's a little bit nautical which is always cute. I actually ordered it from Bed Bath and Beyond for $19.99!! Love!

That's about it...I'm going to get better about posting regularly!!! Promise!!

So Happy It's Thursday...

As I've mentioned, I actually get to attend a wedding tomorrow night! One of my good friends from high school is getting married and I'm super excited to go! It's always fun to actually be able to relax and enjoy a wedding (and not have to feel like I should be running around checking on things). It's actually right in town, at one of the rival hotels to the hotel I work at. So I'm also excited to "spy" on this other hotel and see how they do weddings (since it's obviously not as good as us!!)

I've been debating and agonizing over what to wear for several weeks (ok, months). This wedding is going to have like 400 guests (no joke) and I went to high school with a good majority of them. It's sort of like a little mini reunion of sorts, which is another reason i'm so stressed about what to wear. I had purchased that Calypso dress on sale (from this post), and while the dress is great and I love it, I'm not sure if it is the right thing to wear to this wedding. The ceremony is in a very formal catholic church in town and that dress is SUPER low cut in the front...not sure if I want God to see all that! So that led me back to a basic, but fabulous black dress I had in my closet for a while. It's really fun, very comfortable and it looks great on...I also got it super cheap from Limited (like $20), so it's hard to beat. Since the dress is sort of plain, I wanted to dress it up with fun shoes or accessories, and I've been on the hunt for fun colored satin shoes to wear (from this post). Well I found some last night!! Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale - love it! I found these, 40% off:

Only I got them in Bright Kelly Green!!! I have a few pairs of pink shoes already, and while I was tempted, I decided the green would be so fun to wear with the black! They sort of remind me of the shoes from J.Crew with the fun little suede pom pom on top...I'm totally obsessed! So now my outfit dilemma is solved and I'm really happy! I'm going to wear a fun black cocktail ring, my diamond studs and my black clutch with it....so excited!

Speaking of solving problems....my hair is back to blonde!!! My hair lady totally saved my life last night and after 2.5 hours, my wonderful blonde was back! She seriously worked miracles. She put in a color remover (like a mask) that had to sit like 15 minutes on my hair, then re-highlighted it with super blonde highlights, then did a conditioning mask and a glaze to make it shiny, then gave me a great cut! It was seriously amazing! Even Sailor Boy was like "wow, that looks GREAT!" So now I'm even MORE excited to go to the wedding tomorrow!! hehe...it's so funny how hair can affect your mood so much!

One Satisfied Customer

Looks like my rant below did pay off!! Not only did someone leave me that comment below, but I had THREE different voicemails from customer service reps at Comcast apologizing and offering to help. I called the first one back (a very nice guy named Andrew) and he was wonderful. He apologized for my lack of service and offered me a FABULOUS deal on cable at a great rate (we're getting all the premium channels for free!), FREE INSTALLATION (since my house has to be hardwired) and they are going to hook up 3 different outlets so we can have 3 tv's in the house at no extra charge. Now that is what I call customer service! They are coming next Monday and he promised that they would be on time. He even gave me his DIRECT LINE to call him if I have any problems. Wow! Love it - I don't have to wait on hold everytime I call.

So now Sailor Boy feels like a chump (his words) because he sees that sometimes, unfortunately, you have to be a little rude/forceful/downright bitchy if you want to get your way. He actually apologized and said he was proud of me and excited that we're getting such a good deal. I'll report back after Monday (from my HOME computer since it will be hooked up!! hehe) on if they did a good job and showed up on time, etc.

In other news - I had a HAIR EMERGENCY!! OH MY! We have well water at the new house, which I was super scared about (because growing up with a well, my blonde hair turned orange on occasion). Well I do my own color (and I do a fabulous job if I do say so myself - plus it's so much cheaper than a salon). I go to touch up my roots yesterday evening. Everything is fine and dandy until I look at my hair after I rinse it out....IT'S GREY/GREEN!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!! Luckily it's really only the parts of my hair that were super blonde (they like rejected the dye), so the underneath and back parts look normal. But the front (where I have all my highlights) are HORRIBLE!! So I called my salon and BEGGED for an emergency appointment to get it fixed. She should just be able to neutralize it and then highlight it, hopefully!! I got tomorrow at 5pm. WISH ME LUCK!! I have a HUGE wedding to attend on Friday night, so I need it fixed ASAP!!! AHHHHH!!

Little Bit of a freak out

So I may or may not have yelled at Comcast (our cable company) this weekend and Sailor Boy thinks I was WAY out of line and now he's mad because we don't have our tv and internet hooked up yet and it will probably be another few weeks before we get it. Oooops. I was off all weekend (a first for me!) and Sailor Boy left me to go sailing in a regatta...booo. I think I was subconsciously alot more upset about it than I thought because when I woke up on Saturday, I was very pissed that I had to wait for Comcast to come install everything. They are always late and Saturday was no exception. They were supposed to be at the house between 8-11am. So 10am rolls around and I'm laying on the couch with Spencer. I give them a call and they tell me that they can't even give me an estimated time that they will be there. Plus, they were very rude about it. Hmm how lovely. So 11am rolls around -- still no Comcast. At this point, my BFF K has already called (twice) to try and convince me to come to the pool with her.

So I make the executive decision to call Comcast, yell at them (I even cussed...how unladylike!) and tell them not to bother coming. Yeah, I freaked out. Mainly because I knew they were going to be SUPER late and why am I going to waste my first Saturday off in FOREVER to wait for them when I could be at the pool. I was also mad because they were supposed to come LAST Saturday and they were 6.5 hours late (Sailor Boy waited for them last Saturday). Then when they finally showed up last weekend, they told him they couldn't even do anything because the house wasn't wired properly. GRRR. So the appointment was cancelled and I headed to the pool. Well this sort of leaves us back at square one because now we do not have cable or internet and I refuse to wait for them again. And Sailor Boy refuses to wait for them. Interesting predicament. Who knows when we will actually get around to getting it installed. In the meantime, we're reading lots of books and actually spending quality time talking to each other...quite a nice change! I may never get cable at this rate!

We also finished our backyard project, that I mentioned a few weeks ago in this post. We actually put down stepping stones and mini river rock in our little mud pit and it looks great! It took most of Sunday to finish, but I love it! Plus, no more mud!! As soon as we have internet (ha, ha) I will post some pictures of our completed work.

Ladies Night!

First off, Polo and Pearls, can I have an invite to read your blog? My email is kimblog19@gmail.com. Thanks!!

Second, yay for Friday! This is a super exciting Friday because I DO NOT HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW!! That's right - a whole weekend OFF! Sort of a sad reason though...the wedding that was scheduled for tomorrow at the hotel got called off a few months ago because the bride found out that the groom was cheating on her....oops! And this is after they had put like $14,000 down (non-refundable) and had started picking their menu and finalizing everything. So I do feel bad for the poor girl, but her loss is my weekend relaxation! My weekend plans...work on the house, wait for the cable guy to come install our internet and tv and go to the pool!

I'm also trying my hand at gardening (hopefully I have a green thumb) and I'm going to weed, plant and mulch our front garden. I have been looking at different plants and there's actually some cute things that grow in 100% shade. I was worried I wouldn't be able to find any nice flowers to plant since our house gets like zero sun. I really want to get a hydrangea bush to put right underneath of our bedroom window, but I need to do more research on if they need alot of sun.

Sailor Boy (and his great timing) tells me last week that he's actually sailing in a regatta all weekend...great, since I'm actually not working! He leaves tonight and gets back Sunday. So I'm throwing a ladies night tonight with some friends. No one has really been over to the new house yet, so it will be nice to show it to them and sit outside with some wine and snacks! I'm actually a little nervous about sleeping alone at the house because it's SO quiet and SO secluded, but I think I'll be ok.

I LOVE our neighborhood...everyone is so friendly and there's a great little neighborhood beach within walking distance. We walk Spencer there every morning and it's always nice to start your day by looking at the beautiful Chesapeake Bay! I could definitely live in this neighborhood for a long time! (of course, it would be nice to actually buy a house there, but that may take a few more years)

To finish out a lovely Friday, J.Crew has now added an additional 30% sale to their final sale...I already have a shopping cart full of stuff that I should probably delete! But I will most likely be hitting "check out" soon!

Things I love right now

A quick list of things I'm totally loving right now:

1. My town's Freecycle Group. Such a great and environmentally friendly way to get rid of things you don't need anymore and perhaps aquire something you've been looking for. We freecycled all of our moving boxes to a nice girl who is also in the process of moving. Plus, it kept all those boxes out of a landfill!

2. My Kone dustbuster. I got this a while ago when we lived in the apartment and I was constantly using it in our kitchen. Now that the new house has hardwood floors, that thing is in overdrive. I probably dustbust the house 2-3 times a day (i have a serious cleaning problem). Of course, I have the lovely pink color.

3. Frozen Mango Margarita Mix in a Bucket. I bought this a few weeks ago at a Tastefully Simple party that I went to. You add the tequila and then stick it in the freezer all day. It is DELICIOUS!!! Oh my...I find myself wanting a glass (or 3) of it when I get home from work as a cool treat. I'm having a girls night this Friday and I'm sure we will finish off the bucket in no time.

4. Redken Blonde Glam Shampoo and Conditioner. Our new house has a well, which I was really nervous about, since I have very blonde hair (which is also chemically enhanced...hehe). We had a well growing up and it caused havoc for my hair with coloring and conditioning (literally my hair turned carrot orange at one point). I talked to my hair guy about it and he suggested this. I've been using it since we moved in and I have to say...it's awesome. My hair feels soft and doesn't look all dried out from the water...plus it's still the very natural blonde color that I love :-)

5. Spencer's new Doggie Bed. I got it when I was at Target a few days ago....nothing super expensive or fancy, but we just needed something for her to lay on since the couch is now off limits to her (she's getting too big to sit up there). It's green striped and she loves it! We had to convince her to lay on it the first time, but now she won't get up. She's turning into super lazy dog!

Love it!

My weekend recap (in a nice bulleted list):

* We FINALLY moved into the new house!! We've now spent 3 nights there and it's totally fabulous.

* I am spending WAY too much money at Home Depot. Yikes. It's seriously cutting into my J.Crew fund. There's always weird random things you need when you move.

* I have gotten very creative with storage. Especially for my clothes. The new house has a good amount of storage, but it's different storage than at the aparment...meaning, less room for my clothes. Boo. My new best friend = fabric lined baskets for all my accessories, etc. Love it!

* Spencer is obsessed with our backyard, and I'm seriously thinking she would be happy if she never had to come into the house. We literally have to drag her inside. She's one happy doggie.

* We got an adorable patio set for our yard on sale at the grocery store for $60. Yes, that's correct. We may have looked ghetto lugging that out in the grocery cart, but hey, a deal is a deal.

* It's eerily quiet in our new neighborhood. I sleep SO good...and I can actually hear the birds when I wake up in the morning and not our loud annoying neighbors. I feel like I'm at camp, it's so wooded and green out all of our windows. I am one with nature...haha.

* Sailor Boy is quite handy. I may need to get him a tool set for his birthday. He even re-wired a ceiling fan and then installed it. I like this new side of him!

* Hot dogs on our brand new grill after a long day of moving and unpacking taste amazing. Love it!

I think that's everything. I'm sure I'll be posting pictures of the new place soon. We get internet hooked up on Saturday, so I'll be able to download all my pictures and post them!

Lazy Friday Post

So I don't have too much exciting to talk about, so I'm being lazy and doing a meme. No one tagged me, I just feel like it!

A. Attached or Single? Attached
B. Best Friend? I have a couple, my bff C down in Florida and my bff K who lives across the street from me!
C. Cake or pie? To me, a requirement to make something a dessert is that it has chocolate in it. Therefore, I'm not a huge pie eater. So I'm going with chocolate cake!
D. Day of choice? Sunday...because it's like my Saturday since I'm off on Mondays. Plus, it's the only day of the week I get to spend with Sailor Boy and we always try and do something super fun.
E. Essential item? Chap Stick. I always have at least 3 with me and I keep one next to my bed. I only like the Chap Stick brand in the royal blue tube. Yes, I'm a freak.
F. Favorite color? Pink and Green, obviously. I am quite partial to yellow though. The bright lemony yellow.
G. Gummy bears or worms? Bears - but only the red ones
H. Home town? Annapolis, MD
I. Favorite indulgence? Ice Cream...I make sure I eat some every day!
J. January or July? July - I hate winter
K. Kids? One day, I'd like a few. I would potentially like 4 (2 boys and 2 girls), but we'll see how that pans out once I start having them.
L. Life isn’t complete without? Family, Friends and shopping. :-)
M. Marriage date? Not married. Sailor Boy and I started dating on October 30, 2005. Does that count?
N. Number of brothers and sisters? I'm an only child!
O. Oranges or Apples? Apples - Green Granny Smiths
P. Phobias? oooh geez. I'm deathly afraid of midgets and clowns. I will seriously have a panic attack. It's really bad and I do want to overcome it.
Q. Quotes? ehhh don't really have one
R. Reasons to smile? We're FINALLY moving into the new house TOMORROW! YAY!
S. Season of choice? Summer. I am a fan of spring and fall too. Mainly I just really hate winter
T. Tag 5 people: I tag Le Petite Blog, More More More, Barefoot in the Park, I do declare and Pink, Green and Southern.
U. Unknown fact about me? I had braces for 8 years. I got them on at the end of 2nd grade (yes, that's correct) and didn't get them off until the end of sophmore year of high school. So I was quite the braceface. Because of this, I'm obsessed with wearing my retainer to maintain my perfect teeth. I wear it at least 5 nights a week - which Sailor Boy LOVES! haha
V. Vegetable? Carrots, Tomatoes, Corn, Peppers, Green Beans
W. Worst habit? Picking at my cuticles...it's really bad!
X. X-ray or Ultrasound? I've actually had both. I've broken quite a few bones playing sports growing up.
Y. Your favorite food? hmmm...i LOVE food, so this is tough. I really like sushi, anything mexican and a nice big fresh salad in the summer.
Z. Zodiac sign? Scorpio - and I am DEFINITELY a scorpio!
(Another) Z. Which zoo animal is your favorite? Probably the elephants

Happy Weekend Everyone!

It Never Ends

So I was bad and ordered yet another new dress. I have a wedding to go to later this month and I had been planning on just wearing a black dress I already own...but what's the fun in that?? I had been browsing the J.Crew sale rack, but nothing was jumping out at me. I landed on the Calypso website and I found this beauty:

I got that color, which is called Aegean. I think it will look so good with gold shoes and accessories!! Plus, it was on final sale, so I practically stole it for $135!! Normally $195! Plus, Oprah has featured it on her show, so you know it's got to be fabulous! It's a wrap dress so it can be worn a few different ways! I can't wait till it gets here!

Holiday Recap

I'm finally back after a nice, relaxing holiday. I did have to work both Friday the 4th and Saturday, but I was off Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to make a nice little 3 day weekend for myself. I actually did get to leave work early on the 4th, so I was able to come home and watch the fireworks with Sailor Boy and Spencer, which was great. We can see our city's fireworks from the end of our street, so we just walked down there, set up a few lawn chairs, had a bottle of wine and some snacks and it was a great 4th!!

Saturday we went to a bonfire on the beach by our house with some friends, and Spencer had a blast digging in the sand. She's quite the digger.Here's Sailor Boy showing her how it's done, beer in hand and stain on his shirt...god, I love him!
She caught on very quickly...and it's such a good habit for us to teach her!! haha

The rest of the weekend we just got stuff ready for the house and continued packing. We're hopefully going to fully move in this week (fingers crossed!), so I'll be happy to be settled. It's really hard living one place and having most of your stuff somewhere else. Making dinner is quite interesting, let me tell you.

Yesterday when I was off, I went through my closet and finally cleaned stuff out. I got rid of 2 huge garbage bags of stuff, all now in the hands of Goodwill. I still feel like I have a ton of clothes, but what are you going to do? I can't get rid of everything!! In going through everything, I realized that I have a crazy amount of bathing suits....48! No joke...I think I have a problem/obsession with buying them. I do spend a fair amount of time at the pool/beach in the summer, so they don't go unworn, but still. And I would say 95% of them are J.Crew...they just fit me the best. I know I can order one and it will be perfect. But I'm not letting myself buy any new ones this season :-)

Since I have so much more room in my closet now, I decided to check out the J.Crew final sale to see if they had any good deals. Kerry over at More, More, More had blogged a few days ago about the Lisa Dress, and it was even cheaper, so I felt it was my duty to buy it. I got the fresh strawberry color, and I can't wait for it to get here. If Kerry's rave reviews are any indication, I'm sure I will love it!!

We're heading out to look at bbq grills tonight for the new house! Hopefully we can find a good (and cheap) one!

Gearing up for the holiday

Today on my lunch break, I walked up to my one of my favorite stores in town, Star Monograms. It's relatively new, and I'm totally in love with everything they have. I needed to buy a baby gift for my friend from college, S, who had a baby boy in April. I'm a little late with sending a gift, but hey, it's the thought that counts. I knew I could find something absolutely adorable there, and I was not disappointed:I got the blue seersucker frame, with the navy band at the top, monogrammed with the baby's initials, MJM. Love it! His mom, my friend S, is a super talented photographer and she's taken some amazing shots of him so far, so I figured that would be a cute frame to display one in his nursery. Now I just need to pick up a cute, preppy little outfit to complete the gift and mail it down to Williamsburg to him.

What is everyone up to for the July 4th holiday? It's actually one of my favorite holidays (behind New Years Eve and Halloween), but this year, I'm not super excited about it because we have a wedding here, so I'll be working all day and all night. The view from our terrace at the hotel is the perfect place to watch the fireworks, and since it's on a Friday this year, it was not hard at all for me to sell the space for a wedding. Who can turn down free fireworks for their wedding? But it sort of sucks for me, since I now have to work and be there all night, because the bride is doing a sparkler exit at 11pm and I have to "oversee" everything to make sure they don't catch the hotel on fire. I am a fan of sparkler exits, but I always get nervous about giving a big group of drunk people fire to play with. Hopefully we don't have any incidents.

I think Sunday Sailor Boy and I are going to hit up the farmers market and get coffee at our favorite place. (our typically Sunday morning routine). We also have my BFF K's engagement party Sunday night at her parents house. I'm super excited about it - they are getting it catered by the same people who may cater the wedding...sort of as a trial run. I need to find a good dessert to bring to the party. Any recipes are welcome!

I'm actually off Monday AND Tuesday next week to make up for working the holiday, so that's pretty fun. I DESPERATELY need to clean out my closet and donate old clothes to Goodwill. I have been such a slacker, since I've been telling myself I need to do this for the past month. But Monday, I am actually going to do it! I hate parting with clothes, but there's definitely stuff in there with the tags still on.

Happy July 4th to everyone. Enjoy the holiday with your friends and family!!

Hmm...

So something fishy is going on with me and J.Crew. Yes, they got a new website (which I am a BIG fan of!) and it's super slow and everything. Sidenote - I really appreciate the free shipping they are offering to offset the slow website. That's not the fishy part. I've been super stressed at work, so I decided to check the final sale today to see what I could buy as a pick me up for working so hard (gotta reward yourself I always say!). Well it won't let me order ANYTHING. Everything I click on comes up as sold out. Is this a conspiracy?? Has Sailor Boy found a way to block J.Crew out of my life?? How can I take advantage of free shipping if I'm not able to buy anything?? Is anyone else having this problem? There's some things on sale right now that I just can't live without. So I need this problem fixed immediately, thanks J.Crew!

I know how to work a hammer

So we spent Sunday doing projects around the new house. We got blinds at IKEA in the morning and then I "helped" Sailor Boy hang them in the afternoon. By helped, I mean I sat in a chair and watched and handed him tools as he asked for them. After alot of sweat (his) and impatience (mine), we now are the proud owners of 3 set of blinds which are all hanging nicely in the living room windows. I had borrowed a drill from my parents since we didn't have one and Sailor Boy said he needed one to hang the blinds. I went over and grabbed the first one I saw, it happened to be red and it caught my eye because it was so cute. Well apparently it sucks, because it's a swivel headed drill (???), and he couldn't get it to stop swivelling while he went to use it. That resulted in him hand screwing the little things that hold the blinds. Let me tell you, he was not a happy camper. I'm not allowed to pick out the power tools anymore.

We got cute wood vertical blinds from IKEA and I love them...since our house is so WHITE, it's a nice contrast. I'll take pictures soon. I bought adorable curtains to hang...that's on our list to do tonight. They are like a sandy moss color, I think they will look so good. We also got bar stools for our island counter top, which we, of course, have to put together. Sailor Boy is going to stain them this weekend to make them dark wood to match all our other furniture. I'm debating whether to get cushions for them or not. They are not the best quality stools, but for $11.99 each, we couldn't really afford to be picky! I think the stain will help to make them look nicer. I love home projects!!