La Petite Chic

Damn You, Typepad!

I'm going to beat TypePad.  Seriously.  I had just finished my super sweet and touching ode to Jonathan that I'm planning to have autoposted on our anniversary on Saturday, but when I hit the save button, an error message popped up and I lost everything.  EVERYTHING. 

My stomach dropped.  My heart sank.  I had a hard enough time writing it in the first place and to lose it all?  Absolutely devastating.  I know I should have copied and saved the text as I went along, but I was too caught up in it all.  ARGH.  I ended up re-writing it but it doesn't sound as good as the first one.  Sigh.  Woe is me.

In brighter news, Jon gave me my anniversary gift early since he was afraid he would forget to pack it.  Sticking with the whole traditional paper theme, he bought me this book and the companion journal.  I love to travel and have been wanting this book ever since I bought a copy for my world traveling Dad.  I can't wait to thumb through this on the plane and on the beach and mark off the places I've been and the places I want to visit.  Oh, the excitement!  He's a good hubby...I think I'll keep him. :)

A second post, because hey, I had a lot to share today!

Okay, so I am getting really excited and oddly enough, anxious, for the anniversarymoon!  I think the anxiety partially stems from the fact that I still don't know where we're going, but it's mostly due to me not having anything packed yet.  And we leave Thursday morning.  Eek!

I abhor packing.  I'm the type of person who frets about being ill-prepared for anything, so naturally I just end up packing my entire wardrobe so that I will be just as ready for a black-tie affair as I would be for a hoedown.  I pack at least twice as much as Jon does, but as he likes to say, his clothes take up twice the room as mine do so it all evens out in the end.  Oh, but there are the shoes that match the outfits and the purses that match the shoes and the jewelry that matches the outfits and so on and so forth.  It's a stressful event, packing for such a special trip.

Plus, we need to make room for our SCUBA gear too.  We didn't bring it along on our honeymoon last year, but the thought of sucking on a snorkel that someone else sucked on grosses me out.  I'll still be sucking on a regulator that someone else had in their mouth, but at least I can limit the contact with strangers somewhat by bringing along my own fins, boots, snorkel and mask.  That all takes up precious room in the luggage though so I know I'm going to have to downsize somewhere!

My mom was nice enough to volunteer to drive down to pick up Lola as my parents will be dogsitting her while we're away.  She's also bringing our wedding pictures that finally came in last week (I know, that seems like a long time to wait for pictures, but I took forever to pick them out) and our wedding cake topper!  I'll let you all know tomorrow how a one year old wedding cake tastes after living in my parent's freezer for a year.  I can't wait though...it was a delicious cake (almond and chocolate cake layers with raspberry comfiture and amaretto buttercream frosting, anyone?).  We'll be eating it a few days early, but really, who's counting?

I have my bikini wax appointment all booked for tomorrow and I'm just hoping that I don't have the same bruising experience I had at my last one.  Seriously, I have never, ever been bruised by a bikini wax before, and I've had plenty in my lifetime, but the woman I had the last time left me black and blue.  Not exactly the look I was going for!  I decided to forgo the pedicure and figured I will just paint my toenails myself to save some money.  I'm sure you'll be able to distinguish the newlyweds from the not-so-newlyweds at the resort by whether or not they're sporting the French manicures and pedicures. 

But you know what?  I'll be proud to be amongst the not-so-newlyweds this time around because that means that we've made it one whole year and can honestly say that we are as much in love as we were on our wedding day.  I feel like I'm joining the ranks of all the wives out there who have been through the ups and downs and all of the trials and errors that the first year of marriage brings.  We're moving into a new stage in our marriage and I couldn't be happier.  Rock on, pink toenails, rock on.

And for your viewing pleasure, my almost complete last puzzle:

Retainers, anyone?

Please tell me I'm not the only 25 year old who still wears retainers.  I wore braces for two and a half years in high school, and let me tell you, it was not pretty.  Not only were the ages of 14 through 16 pretty awkward for me to begin with, but adding braces to the mix certainly did not help matters.  My parents paid a pretty penny for me to have straight teeth and they looked gorgeous once the braces came off, so I took my retainer wearing pretty seriously. 

I got a little lax with my retainers a few years ago, but I still almost faithfully wear my bottom retainers every night.  It's my darn bottom teeth that like to shift right back to their crooked ways if I let them have a few days break from the old pink retainer.  However, I haven't worn my top retainer in oh, about 3 years.  Any coincidence that this timing coincides with when I met Jon and when we starting sleeping over at each other's houses?  I think not.  I never noticed any shifting of my top teeth with the absence of my retainers, so I figured my teeth were permanently straight and I didn't need them anymore.

For some reason on Sunday night, I decided to pop in my top retainers.  Who knows what came over me, but I'm paying dearly for it now.  I woke up with very, very sore teeth on Monday morning.  Rather than deciding to forgo my retainers last night, I took the sore teeth as a sign that, my god, my top teeth must have shifted, otherwise, why would they hurt so bad?!?!  So anyway, here I am, about to turn 26, and I think I'll be wearing retainers for the rest of my life.  And my teeth still hurt.  Bonus.

And not only are my teeth causing me pain, but Jon and I thought it would be a great idea to take an hour long kickboxing class last night.  Wrong!  I'm at the post-exercise point where I'm just starting to feel the aches seep in.  By the end of the day, I trust I'll be walking bow-legged.  In spite of that, I do think I'll take the class again...the instructor is amazing and you can't beat that kind of workout.  And I'm so proud of Jon...he was one of two guys in the class and he looked so cute bouncing around and jabbing and kicking.  He's such a good sport. :)

Kitchen Demo! (and shopping, always shopping)

Saturday and Sunday marked another weekend spent renovating our lovely, little home.  Since Jonathan enjoys doing the work himself, his Dad came down to help with the demo and his Mom came to help me supervise.  Ha.  Rather, we left Lola in charge and instead had a fantastic shopping excursion to Crate & Barrel and Tysons Corner.  Lord help anyone who shops with me because I will encourage them to buy everything to their heart's desire.  Luckily, my mother-in-law hearts shopping just as much as I do so we managed to occupy ourselves with handbags and clothing in between runs to the local Home Depot for the boys.  I didn't do too much damage, only buying a gorgeous Autumn runner from Crate & Barrel and a seersucker strapless dress and pair of super chic white jeans from Ann Taylor (both on sale!).  Both the dress and the jeans will be perfect to wear on the anniversarymoon. 

As for the renovations, we wanted to knock a wall down in our kitchen to open it up to the dining area, but alas, there were damned water pipes in the way so they were only able to knock down about half of the wall.  Even that made such a difference though, and I can't wait to see the final result.  The boys also lowered our bar, which was built way too high to be functional which means that I'll soon get to pick out some shiny, new barstools!  Excitement abounds!  Next up is painting the kitchen and picking a contractor to install granite countertops.  We're kind of looking ahead in our renovations, keeping in mind that we are going to be selling in a couple of years, so we're trying to pick upgrades that will have a high resale value. 

We're really having a lot of fun with it though.  While I'm still not thrilled with the paint color in the bathroom, I went ahead and bought some accessories at T.J. Maxx and hung them all by myself yesterday.  Okay, Jon helped me out with some power tool muscle when I attempted to nail into a stud, but other than that, I did all of the measuring and hanging myself.  And if you couldn't tell, I'm quite proud of myself.  I usually suck at hanging things neatly and level, but the two things I hung look very nice.  I've been promising pictures forever and I think I'll finally share some of the bathroom.  And once the kitchen is complete, I'll share those too.  I just hope I have better luck with a paint color than I've had in the bathroom!

Fabulous Find Friday

I am a freak about Halloween.  I love it, just love it.  Don't ask me how my Christmas-obsessed mother managed to raise a Halloween-obsessed daughter, but somehow it happened.  Have I ever told you that my mom decorates more than 5 full-sized trees?  The number flucuates but I think last year she had 6. She ensures that there is a Christmas tree, big or small, in every room of the house. 

Somehow, the whole Christmas obsessesion gene passed me by.  While I do love that time of year, I just don't get as excited for it as I do for Halloween.  It's just something about the candy corn, the costumes, the decorations, the spooky music, everything that thrills me.  When I was still living with roommates, we used to host an annual Halloween party, costumes required.  I had tons of decorations and loved putting them up, but sadly had to downsize them once Jonathan and I moved into our cozy (read: tiny) condo.  I pared down to just my favorites that I couldn't live without and sold the rest at a yard sale. 

I tend to start my Halloween decorating early.  On my birthday as a matter of fact (September 21st).  This year though, the candy corn and autumn mix M&Ms are already in my candy dishes.  I just couldn't pass them up.  And last week I bought my first Halloween purchase of the year, which just happens to be my fabulous find this Friday: Gladware Halloween bowls!!  I promise to post a picture later since I can't find any online.  But anyway, I found the Gladware Halloween themed bowls at Target and had to have them.  They come in multiple sizes and also sell baggies with the same Halloween theme.  I bought the larger sized bowls as I plan on baking some Halloween cookies and giving them in the bowls as gifts.  They are fabulous and I'm truly excited! 

UPDATED:

Here is the picture I promised you!  Notice the cute ribbon I picked up at Michaels today :)

Am I Just Cynical or Careful?

Before I get to what I intended to write about today, can I just ask what the hell happened to my Orioles last night?  We actually haven't been doing that bad this year, but a score of 30-3?  Now that is shameful!  And apparently a record!  My poor birds!

Anyway, moving on...I had a really unusual experience yesterday.  I'll start from the beginning.  The first thing I do when I get home from work is kiss my husband and then get Lola's leash on her so we can go on our long walk.  This walk has become so routine for us that Lola will actually pout if we just go for a shorter one for some reason or another.  It's usually just the two of us and sometimes Jon will join us if he feels like it.  But anyway, last night it was just me and Lola.

We were nearing the end of our walk, a part which takes us in front of another group of condos that are situated across the street from our building, when I noticed a guy in his mid to late twenties walking towards us.  This is nothing out of the ordinary because it was about 5:30 or so, a time when many people are getting home from work.  I tend to smile at and greet everyone that I come across on my walks and this time was no different.  As we approached him, I smiled and said hello.  He did the same, but just as he was walking past me, he turned and said, "Can I ask you a weird question?". 

Me: "Umm, sure, go ahead."

Stranger:  "I'm so-and-so (can't remember his name now) and I just moved in here.  Do you live here?" (Fidget-fidget-nervous energy-fidget)

Me: "Yeah, I live over there (pointing to my building).  I'm Katie."

Stranger:  "Well, I need help with my curtains.  I have two sets and I don't know which ones to hang.  Can you come in and show me?  I live right here."  (Shuffle feet-fidget)

Me: (Visions of every Dateline program on rapes and murders of unsuspecting women flashing through my head.  Blame the dog, blame the dog!).  "Umm....well, I have my dog."

Stranger:  "That's okay, it's just right here."

Me:  (OhmygodwhatdoIsaywhatdoIsay?) "Ummmm..."

Stranger:  "I can hold your dog for you!"

Me:  (Flash ring!  Flash ring!  HAVE HUSBAND!  Who rather enjoys me alive!) "Ummmm, I don't think my husband would like that."

Stranger:  "It's just right here."

Me:  (Eyes darting desperately to the street, hoping Jonathan would drive by at just that moment to save me) "No, I'm sorry, I don't think I can." 

Me:  (Feeling really bad, because what if this is just a clueless guy who needs some decorating help?)  "But you should try roman shades!  They look really nice!"

Stranger: "I already have the curtains."

Me:  "Well, just describe them and maybe I can help you that way!"

Anyway, the awkward conversation ended with him telling me about the two pairs of curtains that he already had, one that just happened to be the color of the pants I was wearing.  I quickly told him to pick the ones that matched my pants and beat a hasty retreat to my condo. 

Okay, does anyone else find that the slightest bit odd or is it just me overreacting because I've watched one too many crime shows?  I haven't always listened to everything my parents taught me, but I certainly as hell remember them telling me not to go anywhere with strangers!  Good lord, that was creepy!  The fact that he repeatedly asked me in when it was obvious that I was uncomfortable is the part that really weirds me out.  I feel bad if he really is just a harmless guy, but I guarantee I would feel a lot worse if he did turn out to have sinister intentions.  No thank you, sir, I would rather appear rude or jaded than raped or dead. 

And Lola, I love you like you're my own child, but perhaps it's time we adopted a brother for you.  Like a german shepherd type brother.

I Did It Again...

I somehow managed to ruin yet another surprise!  I rarely get home before Jon does after work, but on Monday he had to run an errand so I beat him home.  When I arrived at our door, there was a very large, flat package sitting on the doormat with the name of a flag company emblazened all over it. 

It was addressed to Jon so I immediately thought, oh, he finally bought himself a Penn State flag to hang off our balcony.  I thought nothing more of it and hauled it inside and propped it against our dining table. Jon got home about 20 minutes later and as soon as he saw the package, he asked, "What is this?"  And I very nonchalantly replied, "Oh, you got a package from some flag company."  He exclaimed, "I can't believe it!  You never get home before me, but on the days you do, it's always a day that a surprise comes in the mail for you!"

Apparently he had ordered me a birthday present and this was it.  He told me to go ahead and open it because I probably knew what it was anyway.  I actually had no idea, but guessed that maybe it was a Richmond flag or Baltimore Orioles flag since those are some of my favorite teams.  So when I opened it, I was delighted to see it was a wind spinner that I've coveted ever since I saw it at one of my close friend's house during a cookout.  The spinner is a parrot holding a margarita with a sign below it that says, "It's 5 o'clock somewhere!"  I love my margaritas and Jimmy Buffett so I instantly fell in love with it! 

When Jon and I were at the beach last month, we searched at all of the Kite Loft shops for it, but it was sold out everywhere.  He's secretly been searching for it ever since, and finally managed to find and order one online.  Isn't it great when you completely forget about something you wanted and then have someone surprise you with it?  I love it!  Now we just have to figure out how to mount it to our balcony.  I'm so excited though!  What a fantastic early birthday present!  Even if I did spoil the surprise...poor Jon!

Picture of my spinner (although this sign doesn't say "It's five o'clock somewhere" like mine does):

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Jonathan and I bought tickets months ago for a show tonight at Wolf Trap, a local outdoor concert venue that always has some innovative and/or non-mainstream show going on. The show tonight features the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre dancing to Twyla Thorpe's choreography to nine Frank Sinatra songs.  I love ballet and Jon and I both love Sinatra's music, so we bought tickets as soon as we heard about this performance.

We saw Michael Buble perform at Wolf Trap a couple of years ago and had a wonderful time.  It's the type of venue where you can pack a picnic basket, a bottle of wine and a blanket and find a spot on the grass to enjoy the show.  It was so relaxing and low-key, and hello, it was Buble!  You really can't get more romantic; sprawled out on a blanket with your honey, enjoying cheese and strawberries and wine and being serenaded by Michael Buble.  Sigh...what a great memory.

So needless to say, we are very excited about the show tonight.  We even have a cute, new picnic basket that my sister bought us for Christmas that we can't wait to break in.  Except it's been raining since yesterday.  And the weather forecast shows no sign of a let-up.  And we have lawn seats.  (Really, who buys the covered seats in the auditorium when you pay less money to sit spread out on the lawn with your blanket and basket?) So anyway, now we're in a quandry.  Do we go and brave the mud and rain to see this concert we've really been waiting to see?  Or do we cut our losses and remain dry at home? 

That remains to be seen.  If you remember, the last concert we went to also got rained on but we still had a fabulous time.  But it was a lot warmer then too.  And it was Jimmy Buffett.  If you can't have fun at a Buffett concert, then that's a sad, sad thing.  So anywho, it's still up in the air at this moment.  We'll see how the weather goes and decide from there.  I'm really hoping we go!

Got My Hair Did

I'm not exactly what you would call experimental or daring with my hair.  I usually rotate between two hair-dos: long all one length hair and short hair with some layers.  The rotation usually occurs when I get bored of my long hair and then as soon as I cut it short, I wish for my hair to grow back quickly because ultimately, I'm a ponytail kind of girl and need the option of pulling it back.

Lately though, I've been seriously considering cutting some bangs into my hair.  Yes, I know I'm a little late on this bandwagon, but that's usually the case.  I think I was one of the few girls in my high school that didn't have the 90's "Rachel" do.  My lack of creativity with my hair probably stems from the simple fact that I am awful at doing hair.  I can really only manage hair-dos that require only a simple brush and blow dry in the morning.  Anything that requires curlers or curling irons, or advanced methods of blow drying are beyond my realm of hair knowledge.  So it does kind of limit my hair styles. 

I've long admired Nicole Ritchie's* hair...her long, chunky bangs manage to even make her ponytails look chic.  It's exactly what I'm going for.  Then one of my best friends took the plunge and had some very cute bangs cut into her hair.  I was sold.  I made up my mind that I was going to get some bangs a few weeks ago.  As I've said before on here, I get all of my serious hair cuts and colors done by my girl at Bubbles, but just go to random people at Great Clips or Hair Cuttery for trims.  Until I moved here, I never had a regular person that I went to for my hair needs.  But I've had so many successful highlights and cuts with my Bubbles girl that I had finally found that person and I was hair happy.

So imagine my dismay when I called for an appointment last week and was told that she moved to California.  I was heartbroken.  Not to mention a little worried because this meant that I was going to have to find a brand new person to cut my bangs.  So I took a deep breath and just told the appointment scheduler to book me for the first available person on Friday evening.  And you know what?  This new girl turned out to be completely lovely.  She sat down with me before she even touched my hair to find out my hair history and the products I use.  I explained my lack of hair ability to her and she reassured me that it would be a blow and go cut that I was capable of fixing every morning.  She spent a long time with me, cutting some subtle face framing layers into my hair and then she went to work on my bangs. 

And the result?  I was (and am) thrilled!  My hair turned out exactly how I wanted it to and it's very easy to fix.  I even went without blowdrying it yesterday and it still looked okay.  Hooray, I think I found a new hairstylist!

Before:

After:

*Another random factoid for you:  Nicole Ritchie and I share the exact same birthday, down to the year and all.  I may or may not be a little celebrity obsessed with her.

Hurricane? What Hurricane?

About this time last year, Jon and I were wrapping up last minute wedding details and getting more and more excited about our upcoming nuptials.  A little storm just also happened to be brewing in the Caribbean. 

At that point, the only thing that crossed my mind was the possibility that Hurricane Ernesto would ruin our honeymoon in St. Lucia and Jamaica.  I was very concerned.  But it ended up hitting Haiti and the Dominican Republic and weakened back to Tropical Storm strength.  I breathed a sigh of relief that our destinations were spared and continued counting down the days to our wedding.  A week before our big day, I checked the 7 day weather forecast and was pleased to see a sunny, 80 degree forecast.  Part of the reason that we chose September as our wedding month was because of the notoriously beautiful weather and low chance of rain.  Things were going according to plan!

That is, until Tropical Storm Ernesto decided to move up the East Coast, headed for a Maryland landfall of September 1st, our wedding day!  At first, I was crushed.  Every girl dreams of beautiful weather for their wedding day and here I was about to get drenched with a tropical storm on mine.  But then I thought, who cares?  I'm having an indoor wedding and hello, I'm getting married to the perfect guy.  How can anything, even rain, ruin that? 

The weather was beautiful up until the rehearsal the night before, and then, as forecasted, the skies turned gray and it rained steady until almost the end of our reception.  But you know what?  I wouldn't change a thing.  I was shockingly calm and collected on our wedding day.  I had no trouble sleeping the night before and woke up giddy with anticipation.  Even more surprising to me, I did not cry one tear that whole day.  Now mind you, every day leading up to my wedding, and now, every day after, I get all teary eyed and mushy when I hear Pachabel's Canon, but on that day I was too happy for any tears.  (Jeez, I'm even getting choked up writing this down!). 

But anyway, my point is, nothing could have ruined our wedding day.  Not the weather, not the limo that arrived an hour late to pick me up, and not the bouquets that were wrapped all the wrong way.  I didn't even notice that until my pictures came back, anyway!  The only thing that mattered to me that day was seeing Jonathan at the end of the long aisle and becoming his wife.  Because truly, that really is all that matters.  Besides, we were blessed with 10 days of gorgeous weather on our honeymoon so I really can't complain.

I've gone all mushy and totally strayed away from what I intended to write about in this post.  My initial purpose was to say that again, this year, there is a hurricane brewing in the Caribbean.  Sandals has resorts on 4 islands:   Antigua, Bahamas, Jamaica and St. Lucia.  Hurricane Dean just passed through St. Lucia and is now headed towards Jamaica.  And I still have no idea where we are going so I have no way of knowing if things are okay!  I'm sure things will turn out fine for our anniversarymoon, but I kind of can't help but worry just a teeny bit.  But again, as long as I'm with Jonathan, everything will be great regardless.  Have I mentioned how much I love this man? 

The latest complete puzzle plus my new puzzle piece.  Any guesses?

P.S.  A little fact for you all: Tropical Storm Ernesto actually ended the drought in Maryland in 2006.  So not only was it an outpouring (tee hee) of luck on our marriage, it was also a blessing for all of the farmers and their crops!