Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving for me this year was pretty lonely. I was on call for work and had to stay in Orlando and didn't even end up working at all! I was pretty bummed when I woke up in the morning but I turned the parade on and had a nice cup of coffee and the day started to look a little better. During the parade I started taking all my fall decorations down and putting up my Christmas stuff. At this point, I was not really feeling any of the holiday cheer that is such a big part of the season. I think it had something to do with the fact that it is still soooo warm outside here, I rarely even put the roof on my jeep! When you can go outside in shorts and a tank top and not be cold, generally, my opinion is there is still a lot of time before the Christmas season but not here! Here are some pictures of my decorations:

Overall the decorations started to get my in the holiday spirit but not as much as they usually do. (Holiday spirit has never been hard for me to find before, normally after Halloween I'm ready to start singing carols...or at least looking forward to the time when that would be appropriate) For the rest of the day I made some snacks and watched holiday movies on TV. I also started working on some Christmas crafts throughout the day and made a plan of attack for my later black friday trip to the outlets of Orlando. I watched both versions of Miracle on 34th Street and decided that the newer one is much more sinister than the earlier one and says alot about the changes in the ideas of entertainment. I also watched some classics like Beauty and the Beast and Aaladin which always cheer me up! Around 930 I decided it was time to go to the outlets to start my Christmas shopping. I had a plan but still was not feeling as excited as I have in past years. I put the windows down and turned the Christmas music on and then it happened....
While listening to "The Christmas Song" and driving by an apartment complex with lights everywhere I found my Christmas spirit!!
All of a sudden I knew that Christmas was coming and I could not wait to buy presents for everyone on my list. It was a perfect moment.
After that, the outlet shopping was hugely successful! I am almost completely done with my shopping already! I still have a few people to buy for and some things to finish up but I have plenty of time for that! I had so many bags by the time I left the outlets at 2 AM on Friday that I'm sure people thought I was crazy. One person ever asked me if anything was left! I can't wait till everyone opens their presents. Here are all the bags I was carrying around:

I spent the majority of the rest of the weekend relaxing and making crafts. I am very glad that I found my Christmas spirit at last and am looking forward to a wonderful birthday weekend with the whole family!

Hippy Turkey

Last week I thought I ran out of tinted moisturizer and was about to open a new bottle when I thought, there must be more that won't come out of the pump. So I opened the container:

 There's a ton! I have gone a week already on the remnants! How crazy that most of the time people just throw this all away!

Today I thought I would wear orange pants in honor of Thanksgiving. They are orange chinos.

 Pants - Gap
Sweater - Macys (I think)

 I found this headband in my drawer this morning, very hippy. It was one of the first gifts I got from my mother in law. It's like a silk scarf over a headband. It ties in the back.

The necklace is also from my mother in law. Hard to pair with earrings but cute.

I just made these cookies:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/dessert/recipe-chewy-molasses-cookies-with-crunchy-lemon-glaze-130827
Chewy Molasses Cookies with Crunchy Lemon Glaze

Instead of making balls, I rolled the dough out and cut them into leaves. They are actually pretty good! I'm bringing them to Thanksgiving tomorrow. Kellen and I have to get up early and drive to St. Louis. I'm hoping to do some hand sewing gifts and Christmas stockings on the way. We'll see if I fall asleep. I think we are going to stop at Subway for breakfast. Has anyone eaten breakfast there yet? It looks pretty good on the tv, but we'll see tomorrow.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and fun Black Friday shopping!

Friday last week!

I'm getting a little behind on the posting. It's getting holiday crazy around here. We are trying to get organized for Thanksgiving and then come home to quickly put our Christmas lights up before we have a bunch of guests for the St. Jude Marathon!

Friday here's what I wore:

Pretty boring.

Grey pants - Express

Black tank - ? a really cheap store I can't remember, I love it though

Black rose sweater - Ann Taylor

 Headband - feathers! from Etsy

I wore black flats. Boring Friday look. I'm really going to try and jazz it up next week after Thanksgiving!

Red, yellow, green, red, blue, blue, blue...

Do you know this song?

The title is about all the words I know. Except "PLAID."

Another dress I made. I bought this fabric at an Estate Sale this summer. I added the purple edging so it wasn't so plaid. I wore it with tall brown boots, a purple three quarter length coat that ties at the waist and a gold and white scarf. Pretty cute look for fall in Memphis.

Already Wednesday?

This week feels like it's flying by! Except when I'm at work. I forgot to take a picture of my outfit Monday. It wasn't very exciting: striped collared shirt, turquoise sweater, black pants. I came home with my first migraine and went to bed at 8, crazy. Woke up Tuesday feeling refreshed. Yesterday I wore a grey cashmere sweater dress Rach got me for Christmas last year from Ralph Lauren. It is the comfiest dress I have. I wore my black Uggs and a big black belt to dress it up a little. Today I had to be prepared for getting my allergy shot, so I had to wear short sleeves.

 White dress from a boutique in Atlanta.

 Headband Rach gave me.

 Velvet jacket to make the dress work appropriate.

And Uggs to keep warm. Do you think the dress is too short for work? I guess the under layer is pretty short, but the top sheer layer isn't bad. Oh well, no one said anything, not like they would anyway.

Visitor

So I had a visitor last week from Pittsburgh. It was very fun to have someone around to explore the town with! Here are some pictures of our adventures!

This is us having butterbeer at the three broomsticks!!

This is after the Jurassic Park water ride!

And here we are shopping in Hogsmeade!!

We didn't take too many pictures sadly but hopefully Andrea has some more on her phone and soon I should have a link to my skydiving video which was the most exciting thing ever!! super scary but totally amazing!

Here are some videos of our adventures too!

Gourd Harvest 2010

Heres the completed Gourd post that I started back in October. The gourds I grew on the hillside, they were quite the ramblers. When I harvested it seemed like I had miles of vines but I'm happy with the bunch of them. Hopefully my drying and painting idea will work and christmas gifts will be quite surprising next year.

Finally Friday!

AND I finally got the zipper to work in my pinwheel skirt! I tried 2 black and 1 tan zippers I bought on Etsy and they both broke AFTER I put them in! ERRR! I gave up and bought a zipper at the fabric store and surprise, it worked! So.... no more zippers from Etsy. Just zippers are expensive and it's insain to buy them ALL the time !

 

Pinwheel skirt - I made it! (tutorial to come)

Shirt - Apt 9 from Kohl's

I wore my black suede booties and black tights. I love high waist skirts! I think they make you look skinnier and feel prettier! I'm definitely going to make some more once Christmas gifts are done! Hopefully during winter there is still time!

Diamonds are a girls best friend

Here's my birthday/christmas gift from my husband!

 
 Diamond earrings! They are princess cut just like my engagement ring! I LOVE them! Here they are with my wedding pearls.

How pretty are they!?

This week is going soooo slow!

Today's outfit is a little boring. I am getting my second allergy shot after work, so I had to wear short sleeves. I'm hoping I can get the shot in the same arm or I'm going to look like I'm playing football again. Here's last week's shot this morning:

And my outfit for today:

Skirt and top - Ann Taylor Loft

I think I'll just wear black pumps and continue the boring trend. I wish this week was going a little faster!!!

Honey I'm home

Tuesday I felt like I was living the song by Shania Twain "Honey I'm home." I woke up to my alarm, 1 hour late!!! My iPhone reset it's time with daylight savings but I guess it had problems with the automatic scheduled alarms. I read about it in the news too, so I'm not alone! Luckily I had an outfit planned, so threw that on and ran to throw a lunch together. I ran back to the bedroom to put lipstick on and grab shoes and the zipper on my skirt had broke! I made this skirt for my friend's rehearsal dinner and this is the second zipper I've put in! I bought a lot of 5 zippers from Etsy (which reminds me I need to send a complaint email). Then I looked down and I had a run in my tights! I had to hurry and find something else to wear or I was going to be super late for work. So here's what I threw on:

Black lace skirt - don't remember
Purple turtle neck - Macy's

Headband - Etsy

Purple shoes again - Jessica Simpson

Hopefully tomorrow is a better day!

Christmas Decorations?

On Friday, ,my neighbor was putting these up:

While I was taking these down:

How crazy! I thought the unstated rule was wait until after Thanksgiving for Christmas decorations!

Ohhh Monday

Winter white. It is cold and the day after daylight savings, so I thought winter white was an appropriate choice for the day.

 Dress - I made!

Black sweater - New York and Company

Belt - Macys

Tights - Macys (did you know they sold TALL tights!?)

 I'm going to wear my black booties for the first time this year! I got them at Zappos last fall.

Have a Happy Monday! Go Steelers!

Geocaching?

At work the other day we had a team lunch and were talking about the Wolf River in Memphis and different activities around it. A friend at work said that she goes fishing there every once in a while and the last time she was there she found something in the woods. She said it was a metal box and it was chained to a tree. When she was there, the water was up high enough that the box was almost covered. Inside there was a bunch of random stuff she said, but she couldn't remember what it was. Well it sounded like a ridiculous thing to make up, so she convinced me to go after work on Monday to find it again.

We parked by the Chick-fil-a in Germantown and went down to the river (in our work clothes). It wasn't too far, but still strange. The box was still in the same spot!

How strange. We opened up the box and inside were two plastic bags with random stuff in them. In one bag was a pen and a notebook. 

 Somehow my friend from work had stumbled into a Cache. What is a Cache, you ask? I had to look it up on my phone while we were there.
http://www.geocaching.com/
I guess there are over a million Caches (?) all over the world and people go to the website to find the GPS location then go and find it. You are supposed to write in the notebook (or go online) and take something from the box and put something back in it. We didn't have anything to put in the box but we signed our names. The most interesting things were two wooden coins.

Kind of fun, I guess people just go and look for these things wherever they are! Interesting hobby I had never ever heard of. Have you heard of caching?

Friday fun

I'm thinking like Rach that I'm not keeping up with the blog like I should. I'm going to start trying to post my outfits every day and put together some fun and fashionable outfits.

Here's the first. It's Friday and I'm so ready for the weekend. It's getting cold here and we probably need to get put the winter coats as it was 44 degrees when I walked into work wearing this this morning oops!

Sorry it's a little blurry. I'll get better at this.  

Polka dot Button down - Tj Maxx

Zebra Cardigan - New York and Company

Black Pants - Express

Purple snake skin Shoes - Jessica Simpson from Macys

I was trying some pattern mixing!

New Plan

So I have a new plan for this blogging thing that I am clearly not that good at keeping up with. Also, the crafts I am making at the moment can't be seen by the people that read this yet so I can't really focus on the crafty part of my life.

Instead, I am going to post one picture for every day and then write a little about how that picture describes the day I've had. This idea is inspired by a friend of a friend who posts one picture on facebook everyday. Since I live alone and don't have many friends in the area, I find myself commenting on things I see throughout the day only to realize that no one is around to listen. Now, I can share my thoughts with you!

To start things out here is a picture of my happy parents who make me smile!

Friday 10.29.10

Today I had the day off. I got some cleaning and laundry done at my apartment and then decided to take a stroll in Winter Park. After peaking in a few shops, getting some ideas for birthday and Christmas presents I decided to sit outside a small cafe. I ordered myself a glass of wine and read a book while intermittently people watching as the sun set. Its crazy to be able to sit outside in the evening in shorts and a tank top and not be freezing!

Saturday 10.30.10

Today was a very cozy-do-nothing-day. I slept in to catch up on some sleep. When I woke up I made coffee with pumpkin spice creamer which is most likely my favorite flavor of creamer or coffee in general (at the moment at least). In the afternoon I went to the pool for an hour or two and read some more of my book. The rest of the day I worked on some crafts that I can't show you. Overall it was a very relaxing restful day.

Sunday 10.31.10

This Sunday I finally got to go to the farmers market at the park near my apartment! I have missed it for the past two weeks and have been starving for some of the food that you can only get at the market (at least I don't know anywhere else to get it). This is a picture from across the lake. Most people bring their dogs to the market but today was special, they were all dressed up for Halloween! Some were a little odd but my favorite was a boxer dressed as a tiger. They painted stripes and covered his tail and ears and he even had fake claws. Sadly, I didn't get to partake in the Halloween festivities this year as I had to drive to Naples in the afternoon to get there in time to watch the Steelers loose to New Orleans. Not worth rushing for but it was a very pretty drive anyway.

Monday 11.1.10

This is my view from my Jeep on the way back to Orlando from Naples. It was a very nice drive on a road like this most of the way. Nothing but wide open space and swamp lands. It rained a few times but nothing too significant. When I finally made it back to my apartment I pretty much just crashed and went to bed.

Tuesday 10.2.10

Today was suppose to be my day off since I traveled on Monday however, I got a call at 8 AM while I was trying to sleep in to find out that there was a 2 hour case at 3 PM that I needed to monitor. I confirmed I would be there and then tried to go back to sleep since the hotel I stayed at the night before was not exactly the best bed I have ever seen. I later got a call saying the case was going to go early so I headed over to the hospital around 1230. The case didn't end up starting till 330 PM and lasted 5 hours!! I got home at 830 and was done for the day and made myself the wonderful sunday pictured above with pumpkin pie ice cream and Hershey's dark chocolate syrup. It made my whole day ok again.

Wednesday 11.3.10

Today was not very eventful. I worked for a large majority of the day and then went grocery shopping to grab just a few things from the store. This is a picture of a tree near my apartment that I love to look at everyday so I thought you would want to see it too.