It's OK Thursday!

Linking up with Amber and Neely for for Hey It's OK Thursday!





Soooo...

It's OK...

...to have been looking forward to seeing Breaking Dawn on opening night (Friday, not the midnight show) ALL WEEK!

(Even my alarm says "Wake up! Breaking Dawn and the weekend await!" I'm lame).

...to never be able to wear tan, white or winter white without getting something on it. (Staring at a pen mark on my pant leg).

...to have an actual Christmas list this year. You've been more nice than naughty, so why not?! :)

...to HATE checking voicemail. All voicemail. (But then probably be offended if you never had ANY).

...to have at least three pairs of shoes at work and/or in your car at all times. Whatever.

...to be SUPER excited about BOGO at Starbucks today-this weekend! (2-5pm, holiday beverages only...but really.. why would you order anything else?)

...to finally have an iPhone and be a little late to the angry birds party, but totally addicted regardless.

...to put your dog on your Christmas cards...possibly in a Santa hat.

...to let bygones by bygones.

...to have weather in Maui, St. Lucia, or any other tropical destination saved on your cell phone's weather application when you need to daydream for a minute.

...to apply bronzer your face til you realize you just made it a slightly different color than your neck...and then apply it to your neck. #notfoolinganyone. (In denial that I'm about to turn into a nice winter shade commonly called 'Casper').

...to always put your winter hats/gloves in a 'safe storage place' in the spring...and then be unable to find them when it gets cold. (I live in a small, cottage-style house where I have to find 'creative' places for storage).

...to carry approximately 12 lip glosses in your handbag at all times.

...to think of ideas for great holiday hostess gifts all year... until you actually need a holiday hostess gift. Then, you go brain dead.

...to already be listening to Christmas music! :)

Holy Hunger Games Excitement!

Three words:

 I.

CAN'T.

WAIT. :)

 

 AGH! If you haven't read the books, put them on your Christmas list.. like rightfreakingnow. I was SO sad when I finished this series in like one week but who's counting b/c I wanted MORE of them. Excellent story.

Holiday Gift Sets Galore!

So, I love the holidays for a lot of reasons.

...Family and friends. :)

...Twinkly lights. 

...Hot cocoa on cold nights (or eggnog latte from Starbucks...whatever).

...Christmas music (namely the Glee Christmas soundtrack and Straight, No Chaser).

...Holiday beauty palettes/gift sets.... Yeah, thats what I said. holiday.beauty.palettes. :) Gawd I love them! They're like the best little guilty pleasure EVER for this chick. I know I've said it before but when I have a bad day, I want to buy beauty things. Even a new little nailpolish can bring a smile to my face after a crappy day. (A glass of wine works too. But that's not what we're talking about here). 

And this year, beauty companies are not disappointing! Check out just a few of the gems available this season: 

Just $18 dollars for all of these eye shadows via. I saw the larger one at Sephora for $39 and the smaller one (pictured) at Ulta for $18. Even the smaller one is the size of a man's palm or a little larger. It's pretty substantial for the price. 

$30 for two full sizes and four travel sizes!  And the travel sizes aren't tiny.
I mean, they're travel sizes, but they're not like one-use-wonders at all. 

AWESOME deal - $29 for all three- eyeliner, plumping lash primer and mascara. They're full sized, people! And the mascara itself sells for $25. I don't use the Hypnose, but I use the Definicils and can say Lancome makes an excellent mascara. 

To view other awesome gift sets at Sephora, click here.

AND Sephora is having a sale for their beauty insiders for 20% off your purchase through Monday the 14th aka TOMORROW! If you want to get 20% off, enter VIBDREAM at checkout online. :)

I was going to schedule this post for tomorrow, but I didn't want anyone to miss out on the 20% off!

What about you? Go crazy for coco-puffs on any holiday special offers like beauty palettes? (Say yes so I feel more normal). :) 

Weekend Recap+

Hi friends! How was the weekend? Mine was good. Remember how I said I was taking Thursday and Friday off? Well, I already had Friday off (holiday), but ended up working all day Thursday after all. Blerg. But, even though the weekend wasn't as long as I'd hoped, it was still pretty good. :) 

I have 70 hours of vacation time to use before the end of the year and am going to be sad when I lose some of it b/c there is no way I can take that much before year-end. Busy busy! Eh, it's my fault for not taking more time off earlier in the year.. *le sigh* 

Okay, moving on to the weekend! 

Thursday, Eric and I got to attend an event sponsored by TU featuring the Pioneer Woman! :) What a fabulous lady! And she was totally cool with posing for a photo...which gets her even more points in my book. :) 

Friday, I took my favorite pooch to Woodward Park for some frolicking in the fall foliage. :)

Okay, so this next photo was inspired by Pinterest. See what that website is doing to me?! Anyone seen this photo with the dog and the wreath? A few of my friends have pinned it recently. Okay, well.. Gracie was looking adorable and I saw my fall wreath and thought "Worth a shot!" She hates me. Or really loves me. Or somewhere in between. ;)

Skipping ahead to Saturday night, a few awesome girl friends and I got together for a long overdue sushi date! :) We used to go all the time and well.. life kinda gets in the way of sushi sometimes. :) It's been a busy fall, right?! Anyway, we had a really good time. :)

Since I kinda forgot to blog pics from last weekend, I didn't get to blog Mary's birthday. Here she is (center) with Dennis and me! Love these people! Our friendship is the best thing that came out of my time at the law firm for sure. :)

Oh and I finally got this! Annnnnnd I did it! (a victory in itself.. haha). And um.. holy moly it's tough! I like it a lot! I've done it twice now. :) I'll have to keep you updated. I intend to do it three times a week for at least a couple months. We'll see if the reviews are true before I go buying the whole set. :) I have to say.. I DONT LIKE workout dvds. At all. But, this one is really easy to follow and is broken up into 5 10-minute segments. I dig that. Much more attainable than one, solid hour long workout if you ask me. It's all mental, right?

Here's to Monday! Let's make it a good week!

Open Letters

Saw this idea on Neely's blog ... :)

Dear Microsoft Outlook's "scheduled delivery" function for email- I tested you FIVE times last week. FIVE. And you worked. So, when I pre-scheduled a very important email to be sent to a large group of employees this morning at 6am, I expected you to work. You disappointed me and left me flying up to the office sans makeup at 6:10 a.m.on a Monday to manually send said email. Thanks for not delivering... both literally and figuratively. :)

Dear grocery store- Why are you out of bananas? I like eating bananas for breakfast every day. Please figure out your shortage before next weekend. Thanks. 

Dear Thursday and Friday- I am so glad I've taken you as vacation days. Now please hurry up and get here. 

Dear Gossip Girl- Thanks for returning tonight. I missed you last week. The GG gang's drama makes me feel more normal.... It also makes me feel like I want to live in a Manhattan penthouse. But whatever... 

Dear big meeting tomorrow- Please please please go as well as last week's meeting went. (I'll be back to blogging normalcy after tomorrow's meeting. Wish me luck!) 

Dear Pres of the US- Thanks to you, my student loans will likely be more manageable next year. High five from the interwebs. I don't care what side of politics you're on... Helping with student loans gets ya points from -->this girl<--

Dear Target Christmas section- Thanks for adding some cheer to my life the other day. :) Just walking through your aisles and listening to Christmas music made me jolly. (I like saying the word "jolly.") When a little boy ran up and turned the Christmas music to cartoon Christmas music, I wasn't as jolly, but whatever.. thanks for giving me my moment. ;)

Dear Core Fusion- I'm very excited for my dvd to arrive so I can try you!

Dear Oklahoma earthquakes- Stopit. For reals. You're freakingmeout.  We've already got tornados...and even had some today WITH more earthquakes. Just give this heartland state a rest! :)

**
And another random Monday thing, check out Chelsea's Make it My Own Monday post today. She and another blogger, Holly, find an outfit on pinterest and let it inspire them each week. They take a pic and post it on Mondays. :) And she's making it a link-up! Totally gonna do it! You should too! Check it out, friends!

This week...

....I started off the week a little sick (from my last blog post)
....Gracie got really sick and we spent an evening at the vet. :( (She's getting better)
....I played a larger part in planning a large meeting for my company. It was well attended and everything went great! (Phew). :)
....Our team had a presentation to another group within the company.
....Our team found out we have a new boss!
....Our toilet stopped working at home. It was special. (It's fine now).

It's been a tinge of a whirlwind week. Despite a little stress this week, I'm so glad everything is winding down on a very positive note! I miss blogland! (I really wish there was a place called Blogland where we could all hang out. That place would also have about 10 wine bars and a few chocolate factories. It is what it is).

Have a great weekend, friends. :)

Do you ever...

....wanna go all Grey's Anatomy and "dance it out?" Sometimes I wanna. (And sometimes I may or may not do it.) Just saying. :)


 

Homecoming Weekend Recap!

This weekend was homecoming for TU, Eric and my alma mater, and almost all the below pics are from events tied to the weekend. :)

Friday kicked off with an annual event sponsored by the Young Alumni called TU on Tap. We opted to add a spirit costume contest this year. Not a ton of people dressed up, but it was the first year for the contest, so that makes sense. However, we got lots of comments from people saying they wish they would've dressed up once they saw the prizes!

The costume contest winner left the others in the dust...

So impressed with my boyfriend's skills. No idea how Eric managed to wire a jumpsuit with remote controlled LED lights.. but it was pretty awesome!

With a 2:30 game time, our tailgate kicked off around 11:30 with friends and bbq! :) 

Some adorable future TU fans were able to join us for the tailgate :)

 Oh I just realized I didn't tell you what Eric won in the costume contest... I finally get an iPhone and he gets an iPad.. sheez. ;) (So happy for him)!

After TU's victory over SMU (WOOHOO!!!!), we headed to Jenny's new casa to celebrate her new house, get together, and see all their little guys dressed up for Halloween. Adorable! Getting them to stand still was another story... haha!

Annnnnd also exciting this weekend, I got some new glasses! Jennifer (above with her super cute little boy, both dressed in yellow), is an optometrist and was able to do some fantastic specs for me! I can see! I can see! I typically wear contacts, but my glasses were approximately three prescriptions behind (oops), so these were long overdue. I kinda love them and haven't worn contacts most of the weekend!

Headed to Eric's and watched Captain America. :) Good flick, friends. They set it up perfectly for The Avengers in 2012 (which also looks AWESOME if you haven't seen the previews yet)

So yeah.. no Halloween parties this year and I have to admit.. it felt good even if it does make us sound like party poopers... Things have just been so insanely busy lately so it was nice to not even mess with it this year. It was probably a good thing, too, b/c I spent my Sunday afternoon at urgent care with a sore throat. Blerg. I have a really busy week at work and I can't really afford to get super sick, so I went ahead and saw a doctor to avoid a yearly bout of tonsilitis I tend to get. Apparently, I have viral pharyngitis. Glad it's not strep or tonsilitis so I caught it early. Hoping it goes away quickly since drugs won't help anything viral... :(

Overall, a great weekend! Headed into a busy couple of weeks at work so I'm hoping they go quickly! :) At urgent care, I downloaded an app to organize all my Christmas shopping. Can you believe it's less than 2 months away? AGH. Have you shopped for anyone yet? I haven't. Sheez. I need to get on the ball.

San Francisco- Day 3 :)

So, I got bored last night and opted to take my blog layout into my own hands. :) I think I did pretty well! I have a few other things to do and still want to have a friend help me with some things (Lesley, if you're reading, I SO need to email you back)! And I still have to type the 'about me' section I added. Right now it's just about blankness. Whatever. :)

Okay, so I haven't finished blogging about our trip to San Francisco and Sausalito. I know. Ridiculous. I'll go out on a limb and say it matters more to me than you.... But, I really do want to round it out and finish the posting so I can look back on it. :) I'm nostalgic like that. Okay, moving on.. 

So, we left off after Sonoma/Healdsburg. Eric and I checked in to our fabulous hotel in Sausalito, the Casa Madrona. He found this fantastic place and was able to get us a great room overlooking the bay. :) Beautiful! Interweb high fives to that guy I date for always finding the coolest hotels on every trip!

Look to the stairs in the back...now up to the right... Okay, that's where our little cottage was! :)

We got up on Wednesday morning and both went to spa appointments. Yup. You read that right.. spa appointments. *wistful sigh* :) After being in LA for Ashley's wedding, then walking all over San Francisco/Alcatraz/wine country, we thought a little relaxation was in order. :) (And they were special freebies for booking our room when we did through a link on Trip Advisor! Dear Casa Madrona- excellent promotion).

After we were nice and relaxed, we set out for the day to explore.

First stop= Golden Gate photo! I had wanted one of these SO badly the whole trip and whined about it a few times. I was so so so happy that the weather behaved for us to get a great shot without fog. :) Marian gave me the best directions ever for optimal photo taking, so we stopped at multiple places to snap some good ones.

Next stop: Golden Gate Park. Headed to the Japanese Tea Gardens first. :)

Coolest.bridge.ever. 

We are fat kids. I know this isn't a ton of food, but others around us were just kinda snacking, whereas our order was more: "Yeah, we'd like the little sandwiches..and the sushi roll...and um.. also cookies...and oh yeah...that other rice thing...and we each would like a tea. Thanks." haha...

From there, we headed to the Botanical Gardens!

Fantastic shot by Eric shooting up a redwood

Once we were done playing Dora the Explorer, we headed back to Sausalito to walk around. (You're likely beginning to understand just how much walking we did on this trip if you've read all my posts). What a fantastically picturesque little town. I am SO glad we spent a couple days there b/c it was just so much more slow paced and chill. :)

My boat. I let some people borrow it for the weekend. I'm nice like that.  (Riiiiight). 

Yes, this is cheesy and yes we took it anyway. My hair kinda makes me look like I have a Darth Vader thing on my head.

That night, we headed to Le Garage for dinner to celebrate Eric's birthday a few days early! Fabulous wine, fantastic food, and the best dinner date ever... (awwww... I know I know).

We're almost to the end. That was our last dinner in California. :( I have a few more things to post, but I'll get to that some other time.. preferably before the new year.

I'm slowly getting back on the blog bandwagon. Isn't it weird how having a crazy-busy week can really throw you off your routines?

Monday Musings

Okay, I am NOT going to drop off the face of the earth this week when it comes to blogging. <-- See there? It's in writing. I'm gonna stick to it. :) Soooo why not start off the week with a fun, albeit random, post!

First things first, I'm wanting to re-do my blog. I'm hoping to make the magic happen soon. :) Do you ever get in a funk with your layout? I mean, I want to change my banner, links, etc. I just want it to be spruced up! This is my way of saying if you come over here and something WACKED OUT is happening to my blog, just know I am cursing at the computer b/c I did something horribly wrong. (I'll likely get help on this project, but sometimes I get in moods where I think I'm a creative designer. And quickly realize I'm not). 

Okay, so... your one way ticket to randomtown starts... now. 

I love this coat. LOVE. Saw it on Anthro yesterday and sigh heavily when I see it. I want to check it out in person, though. That neck could be awesomesauce....or awkwardsauce. Just saying. 

 Did ya'll watch the PLL Halloween ep last week? They're not coming back til January (so if you don't watch, you have time to catch up!), but had some random Halloween ep. *shrugs* Anyway, I was once again reminded how much I dig Aria's eye makeup. Yeah, she's a teenager in the show. And I'm 30. Whatever. Anyway, if you dig it too, here's a fun tutorial from one of my fav beauty bloggers, Tiffany. :)

 I know that we're officially a week from Halloween, buuuuuuut I'm kinda already thinking about what kind of holiday wreath I want to make. I like the ornament wreaths a lot (especially the below one), but TBD. I'm sure pinterest will inspire me.

via pinterest

I've gotten a couple emails asking me if I still like the Hourglass Tinted Moisturizer I blogged about awhile ago when I first got it. The answer is YES! I'm currently scraping the bottle to get the last little bit out b/c I need to buy more. This stuff is awesome and long-wearing. It's lightweight, but covers. It's not super thin like some tinted moisturizers. And I don't need a powder over it. I can just apply blush and everything else then and there! I use a makeup brush to apply it b/c it goes longer that way. :) It's a bit spendy, but I think it's worth it. I DO think they need a few more shades, though.

 I always complain about Tulsa not getting cool fitness stuff when it first hits the scene. (I convince myself I'd totally be in better shape if we got cooler stuff.. haha.. Whatever). I think we're ranked as one of the most overweight cities.. or at least we used to be. Something tells me that makes trendy fitness less of a hit here. And we're super conservative as a general rule. Sooo when cardio pole dancing hit the market, you can imagine that its premiere debut wasn't in Tulsa. Anyway, I was kinda ho hum about pure barre b/c I REALLY wanted to do it, but assumed we didn't offer it. NOT THE CASE! I stumbled on a class at a local pilates studio and I have a call in to find out more. TBD! Tulsa friends, when I find out more, I can let you know if you're interested, too! :) Another one I want to try= Piloxing! I know we don't have that. But I can even see myself saying it: "Me? Oh, yeah.. I pilox." ha!

So that's where my head's at on this Monday eve. :) A couple friends are headed over for some Chuck, Serena, and Blair (and vino). PS.. Do you watch GG? What are YOUR thoughts about this whole Blair baby thing?!

Busy Week

If Chuck doesn't make you grin a little on a Friday afternoon, you need a cocktail more than I do. 

Sorry I've been m.i.a. It's been a super busy work week + dealing with car insurance (from my last post) so my days have been full and then I get home and want to just tune out and watch my favorite intellectual shows... ya know.. like Kendra and Up All Night. I'm going to reconnect with my bloggidy this weekend. :)

TGIF, friends! Have a great fall weekend!