oh crap.

November 30, 2009 at 5:26 pm | In miscellaneous | 6 Comments

I thought I should let the facilities people know about the mouse who visited my Snack Drawer at work, and they just set some sticky traps in the area. Now I’m feeling really guilty because I’ve spent all day picturing my mouse like this:

(pic courtesy of my brother)

BAGEL DANGER

November 30, 2009 at 5:14 pm | In miscellaneous | 2 Comments

Please be careful you guys.

In 2008, according to an analysis of fingers cut by knives as reported in the government’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, 1,979 people appeared in ERs with a BRI (Bagel-related Injury). Chicken-related injuries (3,463) led the category, but recorded bagel injuries were otherwise exceeded only by potato, apple and onion injuries.

holiday weekend

November 30, 2009 at 12:57 pm | In daily ramblings | 1 Comment

The long weekend came at the end of a few of the craziest work weeks I’ve ever had. It was so nice to take a deep breath and totally disconnect from work. It’s funny how when you’re in the midst of the madness at work, it feels like everything is a critically crucial crisis. But on the second of four days off, it’s faded into the background of your mind and you get this little taste of what a totally stress-free life would be like.

Thanksgiving is a big event with my in-laws. There were about 30 people there on Thursday for the festivities, and we had a second get together on Friday. Fortunately for me I married into an exceptionally great family so these were two fun and enjoyable days.

My placecard at Thanksgiving dinner:

This is my nickname among certain members of M.’s family. I’ll leave it at that.

On Saturday I went up to NH for an eye doctor appointment, where it was once again confirmed that my eyesight is remarkably bad. It always feels a tad humiliating when I read a line of letters that looks like “M T Q P” and then discover it was actually “R F C S.” Because I don’t like failing things and at the eye doctor’s, I have a 100% fail rate.

Then it was off to my brother’s house to admire more of his renovations. My brother bought a house that was, no offense, a dump and now it’s so awesome that you’re jealous you don’t live there. Talented little buddy brother.

Since it’s our first holiday as a wedded couple, we decided to put up a tree which we didn’t bother doing last year. We went to the closest tree farm which turned out to be not a very good tree farm at all. But we did eventually find this lady and I really like her:

Here she is post-decorating, in a very fuzzy picture:

An ornament I got for M. to commemorate our first Christmas:

When we were kids, my sister and brother and I used to sometimes ask if we could make a “smorgasbord” for lunch and would then have a super fun time finding random stuff in the cupboards to make a weird lunch buffet melange. Yesterday after all the tree mania I decided to make a slightly more grown up smorgasbord inspired by the hunk of brie in our refrigerator.

Yeah we do eat on the couch and no I did not bother to take the hummus out of the plastic container.

Last night I began intensive work on Project: Wedding Pictures in hopes of having some albums to give our parents for Christmas. I stayed up until 1 a.m. like an idiot and when I woke up this morning I hated my life and everyone in it. I have no idea why I can’t go to bed at a reasonable hour. I irrationally don’t like going to bed. I’m like a nine year old but without anyone to tell me it’s past my bedtime.

Then when I got into work this morning I found that a mouse had spent some time in my second desk drawer, also known as The Snack Drawer. I guess I was asking for it since the drawer was full of nuts, cereal and other mouse delights, but it’s still a little nauseating to think about mice hanging out in your desk drawer. I’m trying to picture it as one of those cute little Christmas mice, wearing a little Santa hat and holding like a big peppermint candy or something. But really I just keep washing my hands.

material girl

November 24, 2009 at 3:53 pm | In favorite things | 2 Comments

This post is dedicated to my top ten material posessions that I use every day that make my life unfathomably better every day and for which I am truly grateful this Thanksgiving:

1. King-sized bed, without which I wouldn’t be able to share a room with my husband and he would pretty much just be the guy I watch Jeopardy with.

2. Scarves, because anytime I’m not wearing one I feel cold, sad and naked. (Also gloves.)

3. Extra strength Excedrin. Life would not be worth living.

4. Moisturizer, without which my face would have fallen off years ago, or I would at least look like:

5. My wedding rings.

6. My car (which will be paid off next month, oh happy happy day). I’m actually going to pause here for a moment to really think about how much I appreciate having my own car. (I’m pausing right now.)

7. Our beautiful TV and DVR, because everything in life should be pausable and rewindable.

8. The iphone. I don’t even have commercial breaks in my life anymore (see #7), but yes I do check my email during the 20 seconds that M. is fast forwarding through the commercials. Yes I do play youtube videos in the bathroom while I’m getting ready in the morning. YES I DO LOVE YOU IPHONE.

9. Blowy the sound machine, without which I wouldn’t be able to share a room with my husband and he would pretty much just be the guy I watch Jeopardy with.

10. Slanket.

 

unintentional blog hiatus comes to a close with the longest post ever.

November 20, 2009 at 11:24 pm | In best laugh, conversations, daily ramblings | 8 Comments

I had a busy week at work. You might think, well yeah, busy week at work, sure, but surely you could spare 5 minutes for a blog post. But you guys, I could not. I had not five minutes. Perhaps I’ll make up for it right now by writing a week’s worth of posts in one megapost.

This week was CRAZY at work. I work in a corporate office kind of job, so it’s not the kind of job where if I miss a day people DIE. It just feels like that! But it is the kind of job that is very task and deadline oriented, both for legal reasons and to make clients happy, and sometimes there is a perfect storm of tasks and deadlines. On Wednesday morning, someone who I am supporting on a project actually called me and said, “Um, how are you going to get all of this done by the end of the day?” And I was like, is that a challenge I hear?? And I DID get it done by the end of the day. And only at the expense of my ability to sleep or maintain any kind of work-life balance. I also fear I may have suffered some kind of permanent computer monitor eye strain damage this week.

Ah, sleep. Sleep was not good this week. I have a really hard time shutting it down…logging off if you will…entering standby mode on the PC of life. Last night I had work dreams all night, the kind where you’re working in your sleep and you’re half awake and you keep waking up and wondering when the wretched night will be over.

Have I mentioned that I really like my job? I do! It was just a hell of a week.

I also had a job interview for a promotion I would be very excited to get. I have a decent shot at it, but it is not a sure thing by any means. My mom thinks it is, but that is to be expected as she is my mom. This is how that conversation goes:

Mom: How was your interview?

Me: It was ok, I could have done better.

Mom: I’m sure he loved you!

Me: Ok, well, a lot of people applied for it, so we’ll see.

Mom: Anyone would be crazy not to give it to you! You’re the specialest in the world!

Or something like that. Anyway, I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much so that if it doesn’t happen I won’t be all mopey and buy an Entenmann’s cake because that’s when you know I’m rock bottom. So…this one may not work out, but it’s worth a shot.

For me, working long hours, not eating as well as I should, not exercising, and not sleeping well are all closely related. One pretty much triggers all of the others and a general moodiness results. In short: I am a mess right now.

Then I came home tonight and realized, it’s Friday. Tomorrow afternoon I’m going to see my parents and their fluffy, fluffy dog. Then we’re going to a wedding where I’ll get to see some of my favorite friends and watch my happy friend Lisa get married. Then on Sunday, more family visit time and a christening for baby Caleb. And then to cap it all off, we’re going to MARKET BASKET, home of cheap produce. Have I mentioned oranges are now in season and are getting cheaper and more delicious by the day?

When I imagine heaven, it’s just you guys, my old dog Nikki, new episodes of Gilmore Girls, and these everywhere:

Except that these are sliced wrong; see previous post for the right way.

Lately I’ve been having to work late a lot and M. has been getting home at night before me, so he parks in the street so I can pull into the driveway first, since he leaves first in the morning. Since the SNOW DANGER EMERGENCY street parking ban is now in effect, when I get home I then pull his car into the driveway behind mine. M. drives a very unflashy, unstylish used car and doesn’t really care. This is something I generally like about him. He doesn’t care about material things and would rather just not have a car payment than drive a cooler but less practical car. He doesn’t have a lot of vanity around his possessions. His car also tends to be a depository for his soccer gear, the bottles of the gallons of liquids he drinks each day, and the wrappings of the meals he consumes while driving to work. In general, he tries to clean out the car every so often, but this week he was a little sick and not feeling too great. Anyway, one day I went over to his car so I could pull it into the driveway, and found:

It had just descended into total abandon. The driver’s seat was a trash receptacle. It smelled like cough drops and dirtiness. It was the longest car ride of my life (all 20 seconds of it).

Anyway…by tonight he was feeling better but we were both kind of wiped and he ended up going out to pick up this:

Yeah, we did it. It’s a bruschetta pizza. You might be wondering what the brown stuff on it is. We’re actually not sure. Yummers though.

He also knew that I had run out of oranges so he stopped off for these:

Pretty sure he loves me.

These are all iphone pictures, I apologize, but have I mentioned DO NOT GET A KODAK, or if you do you only have yourself to blame for the photographic agony that will soon follow.

OH also — a package had come which M. told me was one of my Christmas gifts, but he wanted to give it to me early because it would be useful now. So I happily opened the box and to my surprise it was a SLANKET. A SLANKET.The conversation:

Me: It’s a Snuggie!?

M.: No, it’s a Slanket.

Me: What’s the difference between a Slanket and a Snuggie?

M.: QUALITY.

You guys. I kind of knew about Snuggies and that people joked about them because they’re sort of dorky and all, and I hadn’t actually thought about getting one. But then I put it on…and the whole world slowed down and melted into one big fleecy embrace. The Slanket is PERFECT for me. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.

Yes, the Slanket does add 25 pounds, ok??

And finally, best laugh of Modern Family:

“I will throw her in the ocean.”

aw. (again.)

November 12, 2009 at 12:51 am | In things that are cute | Leave a Comment

I just love it when I find out that likable, under the radar celebrities are  together. They’re just so darn easy to root for! In this case, Ron Livingston, also known as “the guy from Office Space” or “Berger,” just married Rosemarie DeWitt, also known as Rachel getting married, or Midge, Don Draper’s season one lady on the side.

November 11, 2009 at 7:59 pm | In miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

This, from yesterday, is a very good representation of how people land on this blog everyday:

search terms

My stats imply that I wrote about bridesmaid dresses a LOT more than I ever actually did.

aw.

November 11, 2009 at 3:11 pm | In things that are cute | 3 Comments

In honor of Veterans’ Day, please enjoy returning soldiers being greeted by their dogs.

favorite drugstore products

November 11, 2009 at 12:33 pm | In favorite things | 2 Comments

This is another girly post, so feel free to skip if this is not your thing.

So, I’ve confessed that I’ve been having fun with cosmetics lately. It’s just plain fun and is kind of hard to explain to those who aren’t interested, like the majority of the male gender, for example. There is this world of girls on youtube who do product reviews and makeup tutorials and things. Some of whom don’t know much more than you or me, and some of whom are seriously good. Anyway, these little video topics go around like “products I can’t live without,” “products I regret buying,” etc. One of my favorites was “favorite drugstore products.”

I LOVE CVS. I am a loyal CVS shopper. As anyone who is a loyal CVS shopper knows, you can get a significant amount of “free” money from their extra care card thing, and they often have truly crazy sales, especially on cosmetics. They do buy one get one half off a lot, but if you look out for it, they also often do buy one get one FREE on various cosmetic brands. And if you don’t think buy one get one free cosmetics is amazing, you are mad and should go see a doctor to be treated for madness.

In my twenties, I was a teacher and a grad student and then a girl who lived on my own, so I never had a lot of extra money to spend on fancy products, nor did I have a lot of interest in them. I was a drug store makeup girl all the way, except for a few select things, like my Lancome eyebrow pencil that I have used for more years than you need to know. It’s really just this year that I’ve been trying some more higher end and Sephora brands, which has been totally fun. But I am still a big fan of drugstore shopping, especially at CVS. Walgreens has these crazy buy one get one free sales too and a really large department, but in my experience it’s not really fun to shop there because their beauty section is designed based on the assumption that everyone is a shoplifter, and I can’t fully enjoy myself while looking at silly products with someone watching me. Also you know I love Target dearly, but they don’t have the same kinds of amazing sales on health and beauty stuff.

Part of the point of this is for you to share your favorite drugstore products because getting recommendations from other people is fun. So, on to my list:

Cetaphil cleanser and moisturizer. Cetaphil is kind of a cult classic so this isn’t particularly original, but I’ve been using this skin routine for the past five years or so and they’ve been my best five skin years, so…coincidence? Hmm. I first heard this stuff recommended by a celebrity who I’m embarrassed to name. I’ll just say she’s on a show about middle aged housewives.

I don’t generally care all that much about my hair and I feel fine when I’m not wearing much makeup, but I really do care quite a bit about my skin. I just don’t feel good when my skin looks bad and I’m not one of those people with naturally clear and well-behaved skin, so I’m very diligent with my skin care routine. I mix it up sometimes with face wash and moisturizer, but Cetaphil is my staple that I use every pretty much every night, and my skin generally stays happy. It was recently pointed out to me that Cetaphil contains parabens, but then, most beauty products contain parabens, which is probably why I’ve been putting off finding out what parabens actually are.

cetaphil

Okay. This is Cover Girl (ultimate finish liquid powder) foundation. I tend to think of Cover Girl as one of the lower end drugstore brands, probably because it’s one of the cheaper ones, though they seem to be a little hipper lately because of the Lash Blast stuff. But you have to just trust me on this one — this foundation is awesome. I have repurchased this many many times for years. And I have a fancy Lancome foundation that cost a lot more, yet I use this Cover Girl foundation pretty much every day. It takes about ten seconds to put on, it blends in, evens everything out, covers everything up, doesn’t irritate or cause breakouts at all, and is just awesome. I’ve tried other drugstore brands for this cream foundation kind of thing and this one is the best. I really use this everyday and love it.

cover girl foundation

I like to try different mascaras and there are lots of great drugstore mascaras. But the one that I always have and always buy again is this Maybelline Lash Discovery, and the reason is because see how skinny that brush is?? It’s perfect for your lower lashes. I often use another masacara for the top but always this one for the bottom (although this looks good on the top lashes too). I ran out of this a week ago and was annoyed every morning trying to do lower lashes. This is just the BEST for that purpose. I always get the waterproof, even though I think I read somewhere that you shouldn’t use waterproof every day because it’s more drying, but I like the comfort of knowing that I’m not going to have black streaks on my face if I happen to click on a sad news story, which happens all the time. I think my sister may have introduced me to this.

lash discovery

About a month ago I got this lipstick, Loreal Colour Riche in Nude. It’s a PERFECT creamy matte nude lip color. It’s just a little bit of color so you don’t look undead but really subtle, and then you can use a gloss to make it do pretty much anything. I’ve worn this most days since I got it. I like Loreal for lip stuff. Revlon, not so much. I recently bought a Revlon “creamy” lip gloss that was so gooey and sticky that I just threw it out.

loreal colour riche nude

I’ve tried many many lotions for my grossly dry winter hands, and this is the winner by a long shot. This is the only one that seems to really work. Not a big fan of the Vaseline intensive care lotions that are just really thin. They just can’t handle it. I’m positive my sister introduced me to this one. She also introduced me to Bobbi Brown and Laura Mercier. Who knew she was my biggest beauty product influence?

gold_bond lotion

Also one more thing even though it’s not really drugstore. I’ve always been a fan of Vaseline for serious moisturizing, and I recently discovered this Unpetroleum jelly, which is basically the same thing but a little more natural and vitamin-filled. I’m loving it. I realized that I tend to not really moisturize around my eyes (since the Cetaphil stings like hell if it you accidentally rub it in there), and fancy eye creams cost a fortune, so I’ve been using this around my eyes and it feels soooo good. I ordered mine from Amazon. But Vaseline would do the trick as well.

unpetroleum-jelly

I’ll also mention that Revlon does have very good blushes. I always used their matte blushes and loved them. Recently I’ve tried Nars and Benefit blushes, and although I like them, I still use my Revlon ones and will probably go back to them. I just don’t see enough of a difference to justify the huge difference in cost. The Revlon ones look just as nice and stay on all day. I’m sure there’s some quality difference, but I can’t see it with the naked eye.

I don’t think I’ll go back to using drugstore eyeliners. The nicer ones I’ve tried are just a lot more creamy and not so rough on the eyes. I also haven’t found any great drugstore eyeshadows, but I haven’t tried many, so recommendations are welcome. I haven’t tried a lot of the cheapest drugstore brands like Rimmel, NYC, etc because I tend to be a believer in “you get what you pay for,” so if an eyeliner costs 99 cents, I’m thinking it may not be something I really want to be putting near my eye. Maybe I’m wrong?

Okay so…those are my favorite things from the drugstore! I know this is a silly, girly post. WHO CARES. Please post your favorite drugstore stuff in the comments…

 

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