La Petite Chic

A Family Affair

*I was recently interviewed by the wonderful Daddy Dan over at his blog.  My interview is posted today, so go check it out!  While you're there, check out some of the other great interviews he's done...it's a great way to find a new blog to read!  Also, be sure to check out pictures of his son, 'Babito'.  He's so adorable and makes me realize that maybe having a baby boy won't be so bad after all!*

I consider Jonathan and I very lucky because not only are we very close to our parents, but we also love our respective in-laws as well.  I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I'm very much like Jon's mother and in turn, he is very much like my father.  I guess what they say is true; girls marry men who are similar to their dads and men marry women who are similar to their moms. 

We're only an hour away from my parents in Maryland and about three hours from Jon's parents in Pennsylvania so we get to see our parents quite frequently.  Because we're so close to our parents, Jon and I have decided to move to Maryland rather than moving South in a year because we want to be near our parents once we start having babies.  Though we were seriously considering the Carolinas, we feel that family is definitely more important than a warmer climate and a bigger home.

This weekend, Jon's parents were in town to visit us, so we decided to take them to one of the local wineries for a wine tasting.  Virginia has a reputation for making great wines and there are plenty to choose from just within a half hour's drive from us.  We figured we would combine our wine tasting with a shopping trip at the outlets (of course!), so we settled on Tarara Winery for our tasting. 

You wouldn't believe how beautiful it is out there, especially because you're just about 35 miles away from DC.  There are farms and forests and fruit and vegetable stands all along the road.  We ended up doing two flights of tastings, one with their Reserve wines (fancy) and the other with their everyday wines (cheaper).  I  have to admit, the Reserve wines definitely tasted better, but the everyday wines were also quite delicious.  Oh, and get this...their winemaker has a blog!  No wonder I like their wine!  In addition to grapes, Tarara also grows other fruits and they're currently in blackberry season.  Their best-selling wine is actually made with blackberries but it was a bit sweet for my liking.

They also have apple orchards and I was surprised to see that apple picking season is almost upon us.  As I've mentioned before, I'm definitely ready for autumn and all of the lovely things that come with it, but where did the summer go?  I mean, goodness, we're already into apple picking season?  We're definitely coming back for it though because believe it or not, Jon makes an awesome homemade apple pie (the only dessert he makes) using his mom's recipe.  Pies are the one dessert I have trouble with and I think it's because I get flustered by making the crusts.  Apple picking starts in September and his parents have already planned on coming back down to pick some apples with us.  Maybe we can even have a pie baking showdown, with Jon versus his mom!  I'll be the judge, of course!

On our way home, we stopped at one of the roadside stands to buy some fresh picked fruits and vegetables and we planned our weekly dinner menu around the great stuff we bought.  You really can't beat fresh produce, especially tomatoes, so you can bet we're going to have some delicious BLTs this week.  Have I ever mentioned my love for bacon?  Or tomatoes?  I think I could be a vegetarian if not for bacon and when you put it together with a fresh tomato, it's just perfection. 

On Sunday, my parents drove down to have brunch with us and Jon's parents before they hit the road back to Pennsylvania.  They don't get to see each other very often, so it was nice to get our parents together and enjoy some great food with them.  Both sets of parents will be going on the cruise with us in January, so that's probably the next time all of us will be together.

Oh, and I can't finish up without mentioning my bargain of the weekend a la the Outlets.  I got a Gap sweatshirt for only $2.95!  I was expecting it to ring up for $12 or so, but when it rang up as $2.95 and I actually kind of screamed, "Are you serious?!"  I live in sweatshirts since I'm always cold, so this totally made my day.  Jon was also quite pleased. 

(photo stolen from E-bay)

More on the Monkey

I haven't been inspired to write lately and I hate to write something just for the sake of posting so that's why you haven't heard from me in a few days.  I've had one of those weeks where nothing particularly interesting has happened, but there have been some odds and ends that merit mentioning. 

Like how Jonathan and I have already exchanged our two year anniversary gifts, 16 days early.  We don't go overboard with anniversary gifts for two reasons: 1) We go on vacation to celebrate our anniversary and 2) My birthday is 20 days later and Jon's is 31 days later.  We have a lot of celebrating to do in the fall!

The traditional gift for the second anniversary is cotton and the modern gift is china.  I've been wanting to get more pieces to complete our dinnerware set so I told him to buy me the coordinating platter and call it a day.  China gift done and done.  He outdid himself and not only bought me the platter, but two more placesettings as well!  Obviously, the only china Jon would want as a gift would come in a paper carton or plane ticket so I opted to go the cotton route for him. 

Remember my post about Pleepleus?  Jon is still obsessed and after closer inspection, realized that we bought the wrong monkey.  The original Pleepleus has a furry face rather than a smooth face and has a longer tail and limbs, and oh, woe is Jon, we bought the wrong monkey!  Now do you understand why he puts up with my shopping habit?  Because I have to put up with that! Ahem. It turns out that the original Pleepleus (Swinger the Monkey, if you really want to know) is a retired Beanie Baby.  Meaning that crazy Beanie Baby-obsessed people on E-bay can charge whatever the hell they want for it. 

$19.99 later, Swinger the Monkey, err, Pleepleus, was mine.  He arrived yesterday, and knowing that I would never be able to keep it a secret until September 1st, I propped the new Pleepleus up on Jon's man chair (yes, he has a man chair) to hang out.  When Jon called me on his way home from class, I told him that a visitor stopped by and was waiting to see him.  He was so thrilled to see the 'real' Pleepleus sitting on his chair when he got home.  Of course he had to have a beer with the new Pleeps to welcome him to the family.  We're going to the outlets tomorrow; I intend to be rewarded for putting up with my man and his monkey.

I wanted to get Jon something else so again, I turned to Three Sheets for inspiration.  My husband is definitely a tee-shirt and jeans kind of guy, so I decided to stick with the cotton theme and bought him two Three Sheets tee-shirts.  I'm know he'll love them.  Aren't they cute?

  

Also, I intended to mention several odds and ends in this post, not anticipating that talking about our anniversary gifts would be lengthy enough!

Weekend Wrap-up

Apparently, even when you spend your weekend in the vicinity of just one state, it still goes by ridiculously fast and you find yourself asking, "Where did the weekend go?" on Monday morning.  Jon had class from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM on both Saturday and Sunday so I spent much of the weekend by myself, but I really quite liked that. 

I think it's fairly safe to say that Jon brings excitement to my life because when left to my own devices, I spend my spare time doing things like organizing under the kitchen sink and cleaning out the freezer.  What? They needed it!  Ahem.  There was also the major waste of time that was my two trips to the grocery store on Saturday because halfway through my shopping trip, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet at home.  Thankfully I had not yet reached the frozen food or produce sections so I was able to leave my half-filled cart at the Customer Service desk and drive home to get my wallet.  What a pain in the ass that was though!  I'm just glad I realized it before I checked out.  I'll thank the wine I purchased for that since I wanted to make sure I had my ID to buy it before I put them in my cart and that's when I noticed the missing wallet.

I also made a trip to Hallmark on Saturday to buy cards for all of the birthdays, anniversaries and other upcoming celebratory occasions and remembered that it was tax-free shopping weekend in Virginia.  As you can imagine, the mall was an absolute zoo so I vowed to return on Sunday morning to take a look around and see if there was anything worth buying.  Of course you know there was (don't I always find something worthy?) so I'll share some of the amazings deals I got.

My favorite purchase of the day was the Cherry Wood Bread Board with Dip Bowl that I got on sale for $19.99 from Williams-Sonoma.  I really think it was a fluke that is was on sale because it's still going for the full-price of $39 on the website.  One of our favorite snacks/pre-dinner appetizers is Italian bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but we usually just put the oil and vinegar in a ramekin and the bread on a napkin.  This bread board is the perfect way to serve one of our favorite meals and we already put it to good use last night.

 

I also bought this large bowl on sale for $7.99, reduced from the original $20 pricetag.  It's almost a perfect match to our dishes from Crate & Barrel.  As an added bonus, it's melamine so I don't have to worry about being too careful with it.  I managed to convince the saleswoman to buy one for herself because it's just too beautiful not to buy at that price. 

I rounded out my Williams-Sonoma shopping trip with a Rachael Ray cookbook on sale 50% off at $9.99 and Pear Martini mixer for only $3.19 (regular $12.00!).  I'm super excited about the cookbook because it provides recipes for anywhere from 2 people all the way up to 8, which will be really useful for entertaining. 

On a whim, I decided to stop in Urban Outfitters to see if they had anything great on their clearance racks.  I think the last time I was in this store was on our trip to San Diego 3 years ago when the airline lost my luggage, thus I had to go out and buy a few things to tide me over...like underwear with ice cream cones printed all over!  They tend to be a little on the expensive side for me, but I'm so glad I decided to go in because I found a pair of Rainbow flip-flops for Jon on sale for $19.99, reduced from $48!  He was very pleased with my purchase.

And remember, the best thing about these purchases is that they were all tax free!  I wish Virginia would do this every weekend!  

The Color Purple

In one month, just one itty, bitty month, Jonathan and I will have been married for two years.  TWO YEARS, people!  You know what that means?  We can no longer refer to ourselves as newlyweds.  Not that Jon ever used that term anyway, but I sure as hell have milked it for all it's worth!  Come September 1st, Jon and will just be plain, old married folks and you know what?  I quite like that.  We have earned the distinction of not being newlyweds by surviving our first two years of marriage in 690 square feet of living space!  Yes, we are martyrs.  And yes, I am kidding.  Marriage has been ridiculously easy for us and I don't know what everyone was talking about when they said the first year of marriage was the hardest...it surely wasn't and neither was the second!

This year, our anniversary happens to fall on Labor Day and as I mentioned way back in February, we're going to the Adventura Spa Palace in Riviera Maya, Mexico to celebrate it.  In anticipation of this fabulous vacation, I think I've set a record with bikini buying this summer.  I just couldn't help myself because the lovely Victoriakeeps discounting them more and more each week!   I had been eying the latest bikini for weeks and weeks and finally decided to just suck it up and buy it.  It wasn't getting any cheaper and I didn't want it to be sold out.  It's so different and gorgeous and it's in a color that I wouldn't normally consider: purple.  Well, plum to be exact.  Though I hate to admit this, because I adore Jennie and Jess, I have always quite hated the color purple.  (Though I loved the movie!) 

In fact, I can remember throwing an absolute fit when I was a teenager because my mom went shopping and kindly bought me a lilac-colored sweater.  Lord, how did she manage not to murder me in my sleep?  Such an ungrateful child!  A few years ago, I actually started wearing purple eyeshadow when I read that purple shades highlight green eyes the best.  Something about them being opposites on the color wheel.  So I do wear purple and grayish eyeshadow and it doeshighlight my greenish-hazel eyes quite nicely.  I've slowly been integrating purple into other areas of my life as well.  I bought a gorgeous deep purple dress for our anniversarymoon last year, a satin purple halter at Express and a deep purple tank top at Old Navy this summer. 

See, I think I've finally figured purple out.  Lilac and lavender and amethyst...I'm sorry, I still don't care for you very much.  You don't bring out the best in me and I've just never really enjoyed you. But plum and indigo?  I think I kind of like you!  Not only do you bring out my eyes, but you look pretty nice against my olive skin too!  Clearly, I've overcome my hatred of purple!  Well, a little bit at least.

My new bikini (modeled by my girl crush, Adriana Lima):  (The back is actually a racerback and looks oh, so chic!)

Me in my purple dress on our Anniversarymoon last year (taken by UnnaturallyBlonde):

 

And my profile picture?  That's my satin halter top from Express.  I do like you, purple, I really do!

Just Around the Corner

It is usually at this point in the summer, the hottest, most unforgiving months of July and August, that I become wistful for autumn and the cool, comfortable, jean and sweater-wearing weather that comes with it.  Coincidentally (or not), it is also at this time that two of my favorite stores (Marshalls and TJ Maxx) start bringing out their fall merchandise, and with that, of course, Halloween decorations!

I mentioned this last year, when I had very few readers, so I think it's bears repeating: I LOVE Halloween!!  Love, love, love it.  It is, by far, my favorite holiday, and I tend to go all out for it.  Just to give you an idea of the scope of my love, here are a few decorations that I've put out in past years: Jack o'Lantern emblazened toilet paper, purple porch lights, a Halloween tree (complete with orange lights) and the list could go on and on.  I've scaled back a lot since we moved into our cozy condo two years ago, but I still enjoy decking our place out in all things spooky.

Jon and I were in Marshall's earlier this week and I beelined it for the seasonal decorations aisle.  I oohed and awwed over all of the whimsical pumpkins and witches, but walked away with just one (practical) decoration:

The Witches' Brew scent is very similar to one of my Yankee Candle favorites, MidSummer's Night, and it was a great bargain at $8.00.  And if you love burning candles as much as I do, you'll be excited to know that Yankee Candle just introduced 10 new fragances, including Evening Air, Green Bamboo, Candied Apple and Autumn Gold, just to name a few of the ones I can't wait to smell.  Yum!!!  If you can't find Yankee Candles at your local Marshalls, try Hallmark.  Our local Hallmark has been having amazing summer clearance sales lately, and we've managed to buy several Yankee Candles for 50% off the regular price.  Our current favorite is Mediterranean Cypress...it's so fresh and clean-smelling!

What's your favorite candle scent?  Do you tend to go for fruity or fresh smells?

Fabulous Find Friday

I'm hoping someone out there has some money left this month, because Lord knows I don't have any left to spend on the beautiful things below!  (BlogHer was totally worth it though!)

I love this Hidden-Heel Mary Jane found at Old Navy for just $19.50.  Perfect for us petite ladies who don't always want to wear a stiletto for some height.

At $69.00, this Pleated Full Skirt is a splurge for me.  But it's 1950's Europe-reminscicent style and pockets (pockets!) totally win me over.  It's a summer weight skirt, but I think it can totally transition into the fall season.

My favorite handbag style is the satchel.  The Doctor Satchel from Dooney & Bourke is the perfect blend of classic and modern styling, especially in blue.  At $425, let's just say I'm taking donations!

My birthday is coming up very soon (September 21st!) so I think this list can suffice as a good start for my birthday wish list. (Ahem, JON!)  Have a great weekend, all!

Jumping on the Wagon

Folks, it's been decided.  Tonight, Jon and I are putting our beat-up, little RAZR's out to pasture and buying the brand-new iPhone!  Jon has been waiting patiently for months and months for the new version to come out and the day has finally arrived.  After lots of research and many visits to both the Verizon store and the Apple store, he's decided that the iPhone is definitely the phone for him. 

Our monthly plan will cost a heck of a lot more than our current Verizon plan, but he deems it worthy of the added costs. Truth be told, I would have been just as happy with the LG Dare, but it doesn't make much sense to keep me on a Verizon plan and Jon on an AT&T plan, so I'm taking the plunge with him.  If he's happy, I'm happy.  His only stipulation to me was that I better actually use this phone and keep it charged, unlike my current one!  Easy peasy, I don't think that will be a problem.  I'm thrilled that I'll have it in time for BlogHer so I can twitter away to my heart's content!

After we get our phones, we'll be driving up to Maryland to spend the night at my parent's house, hitting up the fireman's carnival (FUN!) with them, then getting up early tomorrow to head to the beach.  We'll be staying with Jon's parents and celebrating my father-in-law's birthday, which is today (Happy birthday, Dad D!).  I'll leave you all with a photo of us from last weekend, on the ill-fated fishing boat!  Happy Friday, all!

More Beautiful Than Fireworks...

Jon and I leave for the Jersey shore tonight and won't have internet access again until we're home on Sunday so you won't be seeing me around here or your blogs for a few days.  Comments and page views have been quite light this week so I'm hoping that's due to the rest of you being on vacation too!  To my fellow Americans (god, I sound like the President!), I hope you all have a sunny and fireworks-filled 4th of July!  Just for fun, I'll leave you with a few pictures of some of my recent purchases:

1.  Wide brimmed hat from Forever 21 (though mine is black and white):

2. Bubble hem tube dress from Forever 21 (I bought the green one, but it comes in 6 other beautiful colors.  I was tempted to buy it in blue too!)

3. Clark and Mayfield Laptop Tote (I needed something bigger for all of the crap I'll be carrying with me to BlogHer!  Isn't the orange fabulous?)

4. Croco clutch from Ann Taylor Loft (I had a spend $50, get $25 off coupon so I couldn't resist buying one in green and one in white!)

5. Cable sweater from Ann Taylor Loft (I got it in white.  It's perfect for a chilly night at the beach.)

P.S. Don't worry...the purchases were spread out, not to mention that a) I just sold some things on Ebay and b) I recently got a cash bonus at work for a job well done! :)

Beach Baby

You know what happens when you spend back to back to back weekends away from home?  Your house turns into a shithole, that's what.  It's not messy, per say, but it could use a good cleaning.  I was planning on doing the much needed cleaning spree on our condo this weekend, but then I thought to myself, "You know what?  Why be stuck inside cleaning on a beautiful weekend when you can spend your time basking in the sun by the pool?" 

So instead, I've spent the last few nights this week sweeping and mopping and dusting and now I don't have to worry about dealing with any of that crap this weekend.  It feels so good to come home to a clean house after work and be able to focus on fun things like our outing at Top Golf with our friends tomorrow night.  Jon and I are also having a celebratory date night tonight to drink to some of his recent good news at work.  We plan on popping open one of the many bottles of champagne in our bar and ordering in some chicken wings for the occasion.  We really know how to celebrate, don't we?! 

In other fabulous news, my new bikini came in yesterday.  I tried it on and pranced around the house in it until Jon got home so that he could see it.  The first words out of his mouth were, "That's hot!" so I think he likes it.  The L.L. Bean beach bag that I ordered months ago finally came yesterday too, so it was an all around good mail day!  It ended up being backordered after I placed my order and wasn't supposed to arrive until after we get back from the Jersey Shore.  I was a little disappointed that it wouldn't be here for our mini vacation, but now I don't have to worry about that!  I got it embroidered with my monogram, of course, seeing as how I've been monogrammed obsessed ever since getting married. It's the perfect beach bag: large enough for at least 2 towels and the rest of our beach gear, plus it zips at the top so you don't have to worry about losing anything.  Here's a photo of my bag (I ordered the large size):

I'm totally ready for the beach now!

With a Little Help...

So, before I get to the vacation recap (tonight, perhaps?), there are few housekeeping/advice inquiries/foolishness that I would like to discuss.

First things first, my blog name.  As I mentioned yesterday, while in France I learned that "le petit" is masculine, versus it's feminine counterpart "la petite".  I have previously done a little research into getting my own domain name and was dismayed to discover that www.lepetitchic.com was already taken.  It's some sort of catering company from lord knows where.  Seriously.  Half the website is in English and the other half is in a language I don't recognize.  Anywho, I considered going the .org or .net route, but wasn't really pleased with that.  With my newfound knowledge of le petit versus la petite (and my general analness and perfectionist need to always be right!), I'm feeling the urge to transform this blog into La Petite Chic.  What do you all think?  I have been meaning to revamp my design anyway so this will give me a great reason to finally get around to doing that.  Plus, I just bought www.lapetitechic.com this morning. The new web address would link to here so I wouldn't be losing readers or archives, just my old name.  Your thoughts, please!

Second, I fell in love with this Old Navy dress before we left for Europe. 
I didn't buy it because a) it had only been on the website for a couple of weeks so I figured it would be going on sale soon and b) considering that I spent quite a bit of money on new clothes before our trip, I didn't think Jon would appreciate me buying yet another sundress when I was supposed to be saving for Europe.  So even though at one point, I had this gorgeous little dress in my shopping cart, I didn't buy it.  Ahh, self restraint, you kill me.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that I called Old Navy's customer service to inquire as to why it wasn't in any stores, but apparently some of their items only go to select locations and this dress was one of them.  Who knew?!

So anyway, while at work yesterday, I decided to check on it and see if the price had been reduced at all.  Wouldn't you know it, I couldn't find it anywhere on the website!  I frantically called their customer service and tried in vain to explain the dress.  Without an item number, however, they couldn't help me.  I called the Old Navy store closest to me and though they had never had it in stock, they were able to tell me that another store about 20 miles away did have it in stock at one time.  So I called that store and all they had left was an XL.  Not going to help me as I was looking for the XXS or XS.  I was able to get the item number from them though, so I called Old Navy's customer service back to see if they could locate one for me.  I found out that they only sell the XXS online but they were able to find me two stores (in the entire US!) that still were showing XS in stock.  They could ship it to me for the same price it would have cost to ship it from the website. 

So I called the first store in Florida.  They were showing 5 of these in XS, but they could only find the dress in gray in XS.  Crap!!  My last hope was a store in Washington state which had 2 in stock.  I called and hallelujah, they had 1 left in yellow in XS!!  That totally made my day.  And the girl I spoke with was actually from Virginia.  Go figure.  So anyway, I managed to get the last XS dress of this kind in the country.  Sure, it took me about an hour of my day but I'm thrilled.  That'll teach me to wait to buy anything.  I just hope it looks just as cute on after all of that work! 

Third, do any of you Typepad users know how to create different pages on your blog?  I have a Plus account, which is one step up from the basic subscription, but I'm pretty sure that gives me access to build different pages.  Help, please?  I can't figure it out for the life of me. 

Fourth, how do you get rid of doggy dandruff?  Poor Lola's skin is so dry and itchy right now.  I gave her a bath yesterday with oatmeal dog shampoo, but she is still scratching.  Poor baby.  She has her right ear all scratched up. 

UPDATE: So I prematurely linked to my new URL when I bought it this moring, but then I unlinked it when it didn't appear to be working.  Now I think it is working because I'm seeing hits to www.lapetitechic.com on my stat reader.  Cool!!