Sweet! I can't wait. Join us, will you?

Cheating Sunday

That's right, you read it. Cheating Sunday. Today I cheated on the 30 for 30 challenge, I cheated on my skincare regimen, I cheated on that diet that I'm not on and if I had thought to do our taxes today, I may have cheated on them, as well. 

We spent most of today out of the house, which is pretty rare for us, on a weekend. Knowing my metabolism, I estimated that I would need 3 small meals + breakfast and lunch in the time we were gone, so I absent-mindedly grabbed a sleeve of Thin Mints as we ran out the door. Thin Mints? Geez. Usually I tote around squeeze packs of almond butter, fruit, granola, even bacon (ok, that was just once), but today I was packing the Girl Scout cookies. And I must say, they did the trick! I probably won't rely on them to sustain my life ever again, but they definitely kept me out of hunger danger. 

It's unfortunate that hunger danger doesn't rhyme quite as well as stranger danger, because I'd say it much more frequently if it did.

This week may have been insane, but I did get to spend some of it in my very very favorite Phoenix places. 

Home of the Best Carne Asada in the Valley. Don't doubt it! I had it twice in two days...

Home of the best homemade, local ingredients in the world...in my opinion.

You can't beat their coffee and I learn new Phoenix stuff every time we visit.

anyone know a cure for insomnia?

Day 14

Man oh man, does insomnia suck. I came home from work earlyish (still late, but only by 45 minutes) today, all psyched about making dinner and baking some whoopie pies, but as soon as I got home I realized I could barely keep my eyes open! So I threw together a pretty great dinner and as soon as my prince got home and we ate, I hit the hay. Literally, at 6:30 pm. Wow. But...um...it's 9:30 now and I am wide wide wiiiiide awake. What on earth? I couldn't even stand up, I was so tired, but as soon as I get in bed there is no remote possibility of sleeping. Maybe I should just resign to sleeping on the kitchen floor.

So I've made a little tent over my laptop so he can carry on snoozing and snoring without interruption.  

In other news: I've always been kind of frustrated that I don't seem to have a waist. One more alien quality to go along with my freakish fingers and two noses, right? Great. But I just found out about Shabby Apple dresses via Blue Collar Catwalk and I think they solved my problem in 3 simple questions! Check out their "fit to flatter" page, which tells you what kind of dresses you'll look best in, based on your body type- which they tell you, by the way.( I never would have guessed I'm an apple.) I'm always wearing belts to try to emphasize my waist but my shoulders are as wide as my ribs are as wide as my hips, pretty much. But hey, Shabby Apple makes dresses just for my shape (and yours), so who cares if I'm an apple or a kumquat!

Wooeeee! So perfect for me!

And I know you were curious about this uber-fab flower I'm wearing, so here she is in all her glory. This thing started off as a single level flower for a hat I was crocheting and then I decided "why stop with one?" and proceeded to add 3 more layers. Uh huh, that's just how I crochet. Overkill, overkill, overkill, baby! And after a few weeks of jokes from my coworkers (who are mostly all male), they have given up and fallen in love with the 5 inch crocheted corsage.

By the way, the best way to deflect jokes about your garish homemade accessories is to say "I made one that matches your truck/tie/uniform/etc. perfectly, should I bring it in for you?" OR "Your wife/gf asked me to make one for her, too. Would she prefer neon colors or glitter?" There's really not much they can say to either of those. So ha, joke's on them!

p.s. I cheated with my shoes today. 12 hour workdays in heels have left my feet numb and I didn't include any office-friendly flats in my 30 for 30 wardrobe. Stupid? You bet.

Day 13

That's me falling asleep as my dear husband snaps a grand total of 3 pictures of my outfit- with my iphone, of course.



This is my loyal alpaca pin, Mike. He helps me make friends. No joke! Nothing makes a stranger talk to you quite like wearing a fuzzy alpaca on your shirt.

I know there should have been a day 12 in there, somewhere, but I missed it. I promise I got dressed that day, and I distinctly recall thinking it was my best getup yet, but I got home from work at 8:30 (that's called a 13 hour day, folks) and probably fell asleep in my car. This challenge and my silly schedule are not getting along so well!

But alas, it's been a fast, challenging, stressful, awesome week. One of my favorite people in our company dropped by for a couple days, and he always brings a whirlwind of wisdom and shenanigans with him. In my opinion, that's the best combination a person can have- deep intelligence, interest in others and a killer sense of humor. He came to do interviews and he left us with the two best questions YOU as an interviewee can ever ask. Are you ready?

1: What on my resume makes you (the interviewer) think I'm a great fit for this job?
If they can't answer that then you're probably not a great fit, but if they can answer, then they can practically talk themselves into hiring you!
2: What will I need to do in my first 6 months here to make you look good (he might have said first year, I can't remember)?

Brilliant, right? I am horrible in interviews- I swear I have no clue how I am employed- but these questions could completely change that! Not that I'm looking for a job, I'm definitely not. But hopefully they'll help someone who's reading this! If they do, please let me know!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wife Week

Day 11

Today, Monday, Day 11 of the 30 for 30 challenge (which is turning into 30 for 60...) is the commencement of Wife Week. I think it's also President's Day, but our fireworks got wet so this President's Day party was way less awesome than the party of 2005. 

Since you asked, Wife Week is my own personal challenge to do everything all at once. To meet myself coming and going. To burn both ends of the candle (or however that line goes). Most weeks of most months, I am so unbelievably busy with work that when I come home an hour before bedtime I just crash. No cooking, no cleaning, no motivation to hit the laundromat. And so our home falls into disrepair and echoes with the sounds of tummies growling, and we probably don't smell great. But...

Yes, that's right, I bring home the bacon. Not to say my husband is unemployed. He's not. But his job is the polar opposite of mine. He gets off early on Fridays, I come home late on Fridays. He wears jeans and a tshirt, I wear a dress and heels. He probably forgets that he has a job once he gets home, I have panic attacks in the middle of the night because I forgot to send an email to a client. You get it? 

Unfortunately I have now set myself up to sound like somewhat of an idiot for creating this challenge. Oh well, deal. This is one of my less-busy weeks and I have made plans to come home as early as possible every evening and make dinner, bake, clean things, iron, generally maintain things so I don't go out of my mind with the mess and starvation. 

And so far I'm killin' it! Yesterday I made our favorite soup (recipe to follow) and these awesome lemon bars. Tonight I made some pretty fantastic shrimp fried rice and enough fruit salad for an army- or, as he says "enough fruit salad to kill an army". (That's the Romanian translation. I'm not sure if he doesn't understand the correct phrase or if he just likes that one better. Either way- hilarious.) When I came home today and found 1/3 of the lemon bars missing, guess what my prince said? "This should be a lesson to you. Next time, put some garbage in them so they won't taste so good." BAHahahaha ok I'll put some garbage in my next baked goods. 

How I spent my summer vacation

In case you've been dying to know what I've been so busy with for the last few days/weeks, taDAA! This is it. (For the most part.) This is also what I wore yesterday, a black lace, beaded dress with pleated cummerbund and black patent heels. And a giant feathered mask and a lot of Mardi Gras beads.

Not my everyday attire, clearly. I've been planning this trade show for the last couple months and three weeks ago our entire plan got destroyed and I had to start over. Then two weeks ago I got my first assignment in my regional position so I was doing Las Vegas work from my Phoenix office, via the ever-challenging conference call method. Oh, and you may recall I was also on vacation in the middle of that period. Things have been a little hectic...just a little. My prince has been getting pretty good at being a house-husband, although I hate to leave all the cooking and dishes up to him, but there's just no other option.

On a completely fabulous note, one of my coworkers actually dressed to kill for this trade show and it made my day!! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a grown man to wear a costume (or anything closely resembling a costume) in public? Well, it may be difficult in private too, but I've never tried that... I had a picture of both of us, but it won't load properly, so just imagine a dude in all black with a white bow tie, black & white harlequin mask and beads and then try to imagine someone you know willingly wearing that to a business function. Hahahaha it was so great.

Guess what I forgot to do!

You already know what I forgot to do, don't you. I knew it, how embarrassing! That's right, I never posted my 30 for 30 wardrobe. Sheesh. Well, I told you I refuse to make to-do lists at home and sometimes things slip through the cracks, right? Maybe I forgot to tell you that, too.

Anyway...

And that's 30! I had the hardest time coming up with all of them, thus 4 tshirts... Oh well, maybe they'll be fabulous and indispensable? 

This whole fashion thing is a major dilemma for me. I've always loved fashion, but I have a wide variety of tastes and am a horrible shopper (uh, I always buy statement pieces, which makes my wardrobe really loud and difficult to match), plus the styles that I really really like and most often see on blogs would be a total waste of time for me to invest in because I spend around 40-60 hours a week looking professional and the other hours sleeping or watching Psych. So as much as I would die to wear a loose menswear blouse, red cigarette pants and nude peep toe booties with some wild bib necklace, I would be wearing that to the laundromat with a bunch of holey pajama-clad babydaddies or to church. Either way, no thank you. 

So there's my little whine fest about how much it sucks to have a great job that I love and get paid the big bucks for doing! hehehe Sometimes during business dinners I scope out the stylish waitresses and imaginarily switch places with them for a bit. But just so I can be the one wearing Chuck Taylors and a racerback tank to work, momentarily, not so I can be the one working two jobs and living with my parents. I'm over that. 

It sounds like I just need to pay more attention to professional workplace fashion and less to stay-at-home-Mom/graphic designer/Beverly Hills heiress fashion. Bummer. Cause I haven't come across a lot of bloggers who put in their board room hours and then post their daily outfit on the train ride home. If you know of any blogs like that, please let me know! I will love you forever, promise.

Day 10

This could be my favorite outfit of the 30 for 30, so far! Horizontal stripes, a high-waist skirt and kitten heels makes me feel very French.

I never ever ever wear this skirt for some reason that I cannot fathom now. Oh, oh yeah...because it gets really super wrinkly and my iron started leaking a few months ago and then two days later the ironing board broke. I took these events as a loud call to stop ironing. However, my husband has a knack for randomly giving me fantastic appliances (Seriously- one time in college he gave me an electric mixer. I lived in a dorm room with no kitchen, but it's a darn cool mixer and I was pretty excited about it anyway.) and he bought me a super nice iron so I gave in and bought an ironing board and TADAA! My usable wardrobe doubled.

Hahaha not that anyone cares. But my killer workload is mostly over on Friday and I can return to the human realm with the rest of you. That sweet sweet place where people can think about things other than fertilizer, herbicides, tree care, annual flowers, frost damage, seasonal pruning, green waste recycling and water conservation. Does that list even make sense in English? Yikes, I'm so out of it. If I'd had the foresight to get a degree in this stuff that would have been  handy. But then I wouldn't have the job that I have and I wouldn't have to tell people about landscaping, I'd just have to do it.

I don't even remember day 9

Day 9

I honestly don't remember this day happening. Life is going that fast and crazy. Bleh! I vaguely remember this blouse being crooked most of the day, but I was posting day 10 photos when I came across this folder and went "huh?! when did I wear that?"

I do recall finding an awesome Thai restaurant yesterday. But that's just because my car smells like the leftovers (not so awesome).

Prim & Proper

Day 8

Last week I mentioned to one of my coworkers that when somebody asks me "What's up?" I am completely dumbfounded. What do you say to that? I understand the acceptable answer is "not much",(it took some coaching for me to understand that) but that doesn't even make sense, either! I am constantly in the middle of 35 different things at work but I know nobody wants to hear my to-do list, so when they ask I just mumble something incoherent and hope they don't think I'm a snob. Bleh.

Wouldn't you know it, this quirk of mine has turned into the office topic of the week. (It's a very small office) People sit down and discuss appropriate answers, everyone laughs when someone says "what's up" and the speaker then says something ridiculous instead, like "good afternoon, ma'am, how is the weather?" We've been discussing the origin of the phrase and everyone is taking a stab at psycho-analyzing why I can't respond to "what's up?". The general consensus is because I'm very prim and proper. Alright... What it comes down to is that I'm a girl in a cubicle land of men and my sense of humor is my lifeline.

In other news: a hefty dose of caffeinated painkiller kept me up until about 4:00 this morning (thank God Ethan unwittingly woke me up or I would have been hours late for work) and my brain was whirling with awesome crafting ideas that I cannot wait to begin. I got a head start this evening by chopping up the only tablecloth we own. It has a statement clutch in its future. Intrigued? I am!

PS- how much awesomer than usual are these pictures?! We went a couple blocks from home, around the Comerica (formerly Dodge) Theater, and found a little magic our back yard does not possess. Sweet.
Happy Valentine's Day!

A little Shawshank, anyone?

Day 7

Guess who's hiding behind me, here! 

Of course it's Louie!

She's not very modest.

This outfit totally made me feel like I was in Shawshank Redemption all day.  I had to wear the scarf so I'd at least feel like a cute criminal, not a nasty rotten one. I just needed that little engineer hat that Morgan Freeman wore and I'd have the whole thing down. My fingernails even look like I've been trying to tunnel out of my prison cell with my bare hands (I haven't, promise), but I guess that's just the stress taking its toll.

We spent all afternoon and evening walking around the historic neighborhood next to the one we're trying to buy in. It is kiiiiilling us, waiting to hear back from the bank about our offer. If we get that house, we will already have every project planned out for the next 30 years. We'll also be the happiest homeowners EVER since we've been waiting so long! Maybe if you're lucky I'll start sharing some project ideas. ;)

I make my own rules

 Day six

The first rule Sweetheart and I learned about being married was that we have to make our own rules. You can't expect to start a new life together, following rules imposed by various parents and guardians. They will conflict and it will be messy. So you have to make your own. We learned that first-hand when somebody tried to open a new box of cereal and somebody else jumped all over him because you have to finish the first box, first! Oh yeahhh....that's Mom's rule. So now we open all the cereal boxes at once and most of them go stale, but hey- we're happy.

All that to say, I totally instituted my own Casual Friday at my office. I mean, it's not in the handbook that we can or can't dress casually on Fridays, so I do it. And I know that our corporate office has C.F's because I've seen their list of no-can-do's. It was about 4 pages long, but the highlights were as follows: overalls, bike shorts, midriff tops, bubble wrap, meat, Kermit, other human beings, and so on. Clearly they're afraid that Lady Gaga will try to get a temp job there and they want to discourage this.

Can you tell I didn't looove taking photos today? The sun was already set and our neighbor was out back (thus no appearance from Louie) and really, in front of the carport? Really? Geesh, we need to get out more.

p.s. I made some killah pork chops tonight. Uh huh! Memorable. Of course I've made pork chops every week for the last 2 months, so I should probably have a black belt in pork-chop-tai-do by now. And ain't nobody complainin!

Inside Jewelscapes Handmade Jewelry!: The Daily Jewelscapes – How To Marry A Lumber Jack

Inside Jewelscapes Handmade Jewelry!: The Daily Jewelscapes – How To Marry A Lumber Jack

Oh check it out! Mademoiselle Jewelscapes had the same problem I did, but waaaaay back in November and she looked completely perfect despite feeling frumpy. Man, I aspire to her level of awesomeness.

Now I don't feel so bad.

It was a beautiful day but I wore gray

Day five

I should have known this outfit was trouble before I finished putting it on. It looked ridiculous without the sweater and belt and now I'm thinking it may be even worse with them. I felt frumpy and disheveled all day. However, this outfit did give me ideas for some better options, so it wasn't a total loss!! I promise next week will be more creative, now that all the laundry and ironing is done and my 30 items are actually all in one place.

So far this challenge has turned out to be a bonding experience with my cat. What a surprise! She's not technically my cat, since  we can't have a cat in our rental, but she was a scared little stray kitten when we moved in and I've fed her and socialized her and now she's the life of the party. She still has to live outside, but she seems to be okay with that. Most of the time she's only comfortable with me and my brother-in-law (he must be a cat whisperer), but since my husband's been taking these outfit photos and she always wants to tag along, she's gotten cozier with him, too. And she always wants to tag along. Like right now, I'm sitting in the back driveway (cold self + warm concrete=yippeee!) and she's trying to climb onto my laptop, but it's a lot smaller than she is. hehehe

Anyway, hello from Louie (that's the cat)! She prefers my day 6 outfit, because it's the one sitting on the ground and petting her. You'll have to wait a while to see this one, though- Sweetheart has his motorcycle in pieces and would probably grease up the camera right now.

Exhaustion

Day four

I love that it looks like my hair matches my skirt, in these photos! And my skirt is plaid!! It would be my absolute greatest dream come true to have plaid hair. I'm trying to talk my honey into painting my car plaid, and I really don't see why it's such a foreign concept. What's the deal with the solid colors, huh? I drive a white company car (very very very gratefully!!!) but I tell people it's white plaid and you just have to look really close to see the plaid. hehehe And they stick their nose right up on it before they realize I'm so full of crap.

My dad was one of those heart-breakingly adorable kids that you always hope your kid turns out like. He could have been a very small bow tie and sweater vest model; Grandma really has some style. One time in elementary school, he told a little girl that he liked her and she told him "You're full of mud." Aww, poor little Dad! What a rude (um, hysterical) thing to say to someone who has a crush on you! Sheesh. How do you say no to a kid in a bow tie?

Of course, don't all little girls revile the little boys who have crushes on them, unless she crushed first? This kid on my bus used to follow me around and proclaim his affection for me very loudly and completely freak me out. So when he showed up at the church carnival hootin' and hollerin' about his love (I grew up in Arkansas, that's how it was done), I spent all of my money on tickets for the jail booth so the carnival sheriff had to babysit him the entire day! He escaped a few times, but I knew some good deputies in the crowd and they put him back where he belonged. Looking back I think that was the first time I figured out how to take control of a miserable situation. Plus, my brothers probably loved hauling this annoying kid back to the holding cell every 20 minutes. ;)

So I guess today you got my mushy side and my boys suck side. Fun, huh? What about you? Any adorable things your honey does for you? Any great childhood crush anecdotes?

Doggone it, my husband has sworn off Mexican food for the known future and I can't stop thinking about Los Dos Molinos. Bummer. Mmm beef green chile enchilada. Oh shoot, I'm going to have to go alone. PB&J for dinner, Sweetheart, see you later!!