shopbop.com shoe vs. shoe

Currently lusting over these remarkably similar and yet totally different shoes at shopbop.com. Above is the 3.1 Phillip Lim Wallace Monk Strap Bootie (on sale!) and below is the Alexander Wang Ruby Monk Strap Oxford. I love the height of the booties, but prefer the strap and shade of red on the oxfords. Both are on sale right now at shopbop.com (which has such amazing customer service and lightning fast shipping that I cannot even stand it---they are ridiculously amazing!) and someone should buy one, or both. When you wear them please think of me. The girl in leopard print pointy toe ballet flats with holes (no joke) in the bottom. I have plenty of shoes, I just forgot about the holes when I was running out the door this morning. Seriously though, please someone buy these shoes and lemme know how they are! They are so gorgeous and red is the BEST neutral---it goes with nothing and therefore everything and is the perfect pop of color!

 

all images from shopbop.com----my favorite interwebs store!

Muffins

I don't know about you but when I make muffins its usually because I have over zealously purchased bananas on a fit of health-minded thinking "I don't loooove banana but they are SO good for you! If I buy them I will eat them this time! I know it." ironically the time I most want a banana is when I'm on vacation and they are $2.50 a piece at the local (trade free, organic, free range, etc) coffee shop. Anyhow, whenever I have a bunch of overripe bananas instead of being all super healthy and smoothie-ing it up, I prefer to wrap my bananas in a sweet delicious layer of carbohydrates. And often chocolate. And sometimes nuts. (Ok, most of the time nuts.) I use them like others use soups or crock pots---my muffins are an excuse to throw in any excess fruit or nut or spare bit of what-have-you. This evening I made banana-cranberry-pecan-chocolate muffins and I'll be damned if they aren't delicious. (Take note Muffin Bakers of America, your new slogan? Muffins! They are like healthy cupcakes!) My theory is that if the flavors individually work together in any combination, the end results will be delicious.

I don't know what it is but Bakers chocolate satisfies something within me. I love the chunky individually wrapped squares and the way it turns into chocolate shavings when I slice it, and how bittersweet it it. Also it is inexpensive. That's not a huge factor in chocolate for me, let's be frank, taste is the biggest factor, but it's nice. The taste isn't incredible, but the satisfaction from unwrapping the blocks and always having chocolate on hand for emergencies (cookies and muffins are emergencies, yes?) is well worth it.

Ta-daaaaaaaah! Behold! The muffin!

Food Gift

My Love brought me back the most perfect pomegranate from his work trip to California. It was amazingly flavorful. Way tastier than even the ones at the grocery store (because he plucked it himself of course). I cannot eat enough! The few times I've had an actual pomegranate I am always jolted back to reality in terms of price. When I buy the juice I can't help but think "damn! That's a lot for some juice!" and then once I eat the fruit I realize it's actually cheap as hell because those things are a bear to eat and juice.

Cutest Lil Doorstop

My favorite for dinner to tonight (beans and greens soup! White beans and collars greens in a homemade chicken stock! Obviously I did not make myself as anything beyond grilled cheese or hummus for dinner exhausts me). I splurged on a "fancy" bottle of wine today. "Fancy" meaning "more than $7". A lovely evening indeed.

Doorstep found and squealed over this weekend outside of a very expensive jewelry store.

Last Weekend in November

Super fun long weekend. We ate many delicious and huge breakfasts (doughnuts! Scrambled eggs! Bacon! Sausage! Rolls! Fruit! Clementines! Sticky buns! Brie with walnuts!) and had dear friends come visit and lots of family time and walks with the dog. I crossed a large portion off of my Christmas list (wooo!) and had a burger, fries, and banana milkshake at steak n shake with my mom. It was SO FUN!

Today I got mah herrr did. It looks stripey but I really like it. My exact words were "please make me look even more awesome than I already do." Self esteem? Not an issue here. I'm really really excited because it's such a treat to have my hair done! It's been.....7?....9?....months. Let's just say, it's been months.

Off to eat clementines and butter biscuits and watch some Hulu!

The pictures are of gorgeous sunflowers from my dear friend Suz and her boyfriend. So gorgeous and sweet of them!

Desperate

The following texts were sent to my sweet Bunny:

"We should really keep some mini cakes or pies in the fridge/freezer/cupboard for nights like tonight when I need something sweet and haven't the strength. Or we should really have the number to a bakery that delivers.....


And please don't mention the fact that we WOULD have mini cakes/pies in the freezer if I didn't keep eating them and yet not making replacements. I'm sick *coughcoughcough, and therefore immune to any comments that make sense.

Crisis averted. Peanut butter and nutella on toasted baguette. It'll do....for now. Although now I have nutella all up on my phone. For real"

After I "cleaned my phone" by licking it, my snack was really great. Nom Nom Nom.

Frost

It's supposed to get to 30 degrees tonight (gee whilikers!!!!) so this is our current laundry room. Yeah, I can keep things alive. Please, feel free to be jealous. It only took a good ten years of serious plant killing before I discovered the secret....water and sunlight! I know! Right?!? Go figure!

Hilariously my mother has the greenest fingers EVER and can essentially have plants within a two mile radius flourish simply because they are somewhat near her.

Dear Christmas

I know you thought this year you would get the best of me. What with conferences at work, guests nearly every weekend, a wedding in Florida that we will be driving to (and thus be gone for 10 days in the middle of December) and my coming-to-Jesus realization that it is already November, ahem, last weekend. . . But you were wrong Christmas. You were so wrong. I'm officially calling it. Christmas? I am CRUSHING you! I'm in the spirit, I've got subtle decoration plans (alas no tree since it will only die and become a fire hazard) I've gotten half my presents already, plans for the rest, and John and my mothers stockings all finished, also a gingerbread house decorating party planned wherein I MAKE gingerbread siding. Ha ha! Take that! I'm jolly as FUCK and not stressed in the least. Check and mate Christmas.

Xoxox,

Lulu

Snackies

Australian cheddar on a baguette with cherry tomatoes makes for an excellent snack. When eaten enjoying the classic Sabrina it makes it even better!

The Littlest Kitten

I found this lil nugget in the middle of the street while walking the dog this weekend. I named her Roseanne (because she is a she-devil kitten) and we vowed we could not and would not keep her. We can't have three cats (no room, vet bills too much, also she HATED our other cats and the dog, and they hated her). But oh she was so cute and fluffy and wonderful! Someone please go to the humane society and adopt her ASAP. I cried giving her up but she needs a better home where she can rule the roost and be the sassy-pants cat she wants to be. I miss you little one!

PS

Not to put too fine a point on it but finally (finally!) fortune cookies don't hate me and are not judging!

They might even want to be my friends now!

Black Orchid

So gorgeous and way sinister looking. Headed to sporting event today after a badass breakfast and way fortified with mimosas. Mmmmmmmm.

Veggie-palooza

We had veggies out the yin yang last night. Roasted beets, onions, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes on a bed of arugula topped with a mustard sauce. Accompanied with sautéed Brussels sprouts with walnut oil and chopped walnuts that were topped with cheese, and a side of cheesy bread. (Australian cheddar makes me holla. Buy it at yer local Kroger today!)

For dessert we had hot tea and petit ecolier 76% dark chocolate cookies. They taste way better when pronounced with an extreme French accent (oui).

Clearly obsessed with sky pictures

But the sky has been so stunning lately! It does not look like this today, but it did for a second yesterday!

Take That Skeleton

On our walk yesterday we happened upon some Halloween decorations. The dog had not noticed them before, although we had walked by them many times. He started growling and the hair on his back stood up and he got bigger before my very eyes. Poised to protect me (bless his heart) from the evil plastic skeletons, he investigated cautiously. After much growling and sniffing he defiantly peed on the leader of the skeleton pack and trotted back to me with his tail held high.

I don't think we will have any problems with those skeletons anymore. He taught them a lesson they won't soon forget!

It's Fall

Took this picture on my way into work this afternoon after running errands. So beautiful---the sky and colors, they slay me!

Catbirdnyc.com

Is offering 10% off today only with code IVOTED. Someone please buy something for those of us who can't. Seriously. There is something for everyone there. Do it.



May I suggest the Dark Side of the Moon Gift Set? It has made its way onto my highly elite Christmas List 2012. If someone gets it and shows me, we could be ring twinsies! Which, I'm sure, is exactly what a twenty-something wants to hear. "OhmiGOSH we are totally ring twinsies!!!!" PS That is exactly what I did at the conference this weekend with a sweet old lady. Only, substitute "glasses" for "ring". So, yes, let's be that cool. 

DIY

Last night I had a sick bunny who wanted some spicy udon soup. So I braved the cold wet night like a freaking boss and made that shit happen. For dessert I channeled my inner Fat Kid and crushed up some fortune cookies with awesome local ice cream that will make you cry from its deliciousness.

Cowboy Wedding

At the wedding this weekend the bride married an honest-to-goodness cowboy. He is so lovely and kind and wonderful and a cowboy! How cool is that?!The wedding was super lovely and low-key and so personal. The few nods to ranch and horse life were mostly centered around the dessert. In lieu of a cake they had petit fours and ranch-type cookies including a horse (pictured), horseshoe, and boot. Since I was full from stuffing myself with every possible food item (curried chicken salad, egg and olive, and onion and bacon finger sandwiches, spinach and artichoke dip, cheese and olive balls, mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, vegetables, kebabs, crackers, cheese, you name it if it was snacky and delicious I ate it) my friend insisted I take some treats home.

They were so good. The cookie was really surprisingly delicious---it wasn't hard as I had expected. And the petit fours were fluffy sweet little clouds.

Daylight Savings Weekend

The conference went off without a hitch. Phew. This weekend had the most gorgeous insanely perfect fall weather. It was magical. I hope it's the same next weekend so I can be outside more and truly enjoy the sun and leaves and crisp air. A few photos from the weekend.

We came home on Saturday night after a day spent at the conference (me), working on the cruiser (him), a wedding (both of us), crazy lightning storm (both of us again) and our friends rock opera (both of us, how cultured!) to find all the fixings for shrimp po-boys in our fridge. My Mother Unit was a food fairy! They. Were. Ridiculous. I mean, just look at it. So delicious.

Fall leaves! So pretty! I LOVE THEM!

Poor rejected jack-o-lantern.

The drive back from the conference was so beautiful. Everyone thinks where they are is the most beautiful place on earth, as they should. I don't. I love Mississippi hill country, I really do. It has it's beautiful scenes that I take such pleasure in. But, let's be honest, it's not Maine. The drive back made me very grateful for the beauty that we do have here, also the lack of snow.

When walking with my friend and her daughter we stumbled upon this teeny tiny little pond with lily pads and a gravel path. So charming.

My Loves shrimp po-boy.

These colors are just insane. That sky looks so fake but it is real!

Conference

Was at one today. Mums the size of Labradors! Tomorrow a wedding, Sunday a walk with a dear friend and her daughter, beans and greens soup for dinner, and a movie with my Love and my brother and sister-in-law. They are ten and thirteen respectively and we love them so.

Coffee on coffee on coffee was had today. Yum.

Halloween

For the first time in many years, we had trick or treaters. It sort of made our night. After we no longer worked in restaurants and could enjoy Halloween together, we bought bags and bags of candy and carved tons of pumpkins and had music going and sat on the front porch of the first house we lived in only to wait  . . . . and wait . . .  and wait . . . and find out that no one actually came to our neighborhood. It was pretty sad. Then, we bought the house we live in today! And so close to the town square! We rejoiced! This is the year, we thought, this year we dispense candy to the masses and it will be so fun! That was three years ago. Nary a trick or treater. What gives world?! I don't mind eating the extra candy (I actually quite like that part. It's my favorite next to the pumpkins) but I want the sense of community trick-or-treaters bring! The adorableness! The teenagers that clearly shouldn't be out because they are way too old, but you remember being their age and give them candy anyway because you're only young once and, quite frankly, the siren call of free candy still beckons you to this day. (Yes, I have a problem.) But this year we had EIGHT trick-or-treaters!!!!! And it really did behoove those eight children (one group of four, two groups of two) to come to our door---handfuls of candy were tossed with abandon into their plastic pumpkins and cloth bags. Handfuls I say! It was so awesome.

These are our pumpkins! I made the cat on the far right. The pumpkin on the far left was a surprise pumpkin as it had three separate faces carved into it by my most handsome love! Gaaaah, my bunny is just the best and I want to punch his face with love.

Our trio of pumpkins on our table. The one on the left (again) was what John referred to as "our syphilis pumpkin" and I had to correct him and say "I think they are called 'fairytale' or 'cinderella' pumpkins now" because they are, right? It sounds much . . .  cleaner? Doesn't the one in the middle just have the best grin ever? He is for sure the friendliest and loveliest of the pumpkins.

My calico cat pumpkin! Complete with ears and whiskers!!! (We only found three paperclips, otherwise he would have been whisker-riffic.) I sort of wish he could be up all year round, I love him so much.

The pumpkin was not inspired by this guy, Marcel (named after Marcel the Shell, natch) but don't tell him that. I was trying to read in bed when he came up and started purring and making biscuits on my chest and his face was this far away from mine. He is the lovingiest of cats. Also obnoxious. But I love him so.

Happy Halloween!