Deep Thought Thursday: Material Girl

I don't necessarily consider myself a materialistic person. There are some things that I believe are important, and others I do not.

Things I will always no matter what buy on brand:

1. Heinz Ketchup. There is no disputing this. All other ketchups just taste wrong to me and it doesn't make for an enjoyable condiment.
2. Q-tips. Gotta be the paper sticked ones. Gotta be Q-tip brand. I am very picky about water in my ears and Q-tips are the only brand that over the years have continuously kept me from shaking water out of my head after a shower or swim.
3. Underwear. There are two stores that I purchase panties from and two stores that I purchase bras from. Sure, Aerie, Victoria's Secret, and Lane Bryant are more expensive than say, getting my undergarments at Target or Walmart, but it's all about the quality. Winona said it best, A Good Foundation is Essential. And for the girls, I would spend anything to make sure they are happy and I am comfortable.

There are other brands that I prefer, but I can be swayed in certain instances:

1. Subaru cars. What can I say, I love them almost as much as I loved the Tank.
2. Nine West shoes. They make up about 85% of my current shoe repertoire. They're well made, comfortable (well as comfortable as heels can be), and I think good shoes are important. They are, of course, a foundation as well.
3. Nike Running Shoes. It took me about 3 years to find the perfect pair of running shoes. I plan on ordering an extra pair just to keep in my closet in case they decide to discontinue that particular shoe.
4. Coach Leather Goods. I know, I know, 'spensive! But there's something that makes me wonderfully happy about Coach. In high school I would go through $15-30 purses like mad. I'd kill them. I could easily go through 2-3 of them in a month. I decided once I hit college (although Laura was quite the enabler on this one), that I would invest in a few good purses. Since college I've only thrown out one or two purses that bit the big one. I now have a (near complete) collection of purses and only have my eye on one more (which of course is extremely hard to find). What can I say? My grandmother has been lugging around a Coach bucket tote for about twenty years now, I think I could do worse.

I don't think I'm a Material Girl because I honestly don't have money to spend on a trendy closet and I may or may not still have dresses left over from high school that I may or may not still wear from time to time. Nor would I necessarily spend money on labels if I had any to piss away. I'm not huge on labels. I appreciate them. Do I love my D&G sunglasses? Yes, but if there had been a cheap pair that looked that good on my face I would have snatched them up instead in a heartbeat!

So what's the point of this whole Deep Thought Thursday? I need a new dress watch. The only watch I currently own that works is my EOS Binary digital that I love but is no where near "classy". My problem is this: All the watches I really like are name brand watches that are overpriced just because of the label.

Would I love a Rolex? Hellz yeah, check out this beauty right here->
But would I ever actually spend that much on a timepiece? No, I'd much rather go on a nice vacation with Jason for a week.

My biggest problem is also that I just don't like the look of traditional watches. What I really really want is a watch that looks like a bracelet. One that unless you looked carefully at it, you wouldn't necessarily think it was a watch.

I'm not talking a watch with a skinny bangle band, or a charm bracelet that happens to have a watch as one of the charms. I mean a piece of pretty jewelery that also happens to be a watch.

In all my years of searching I've only ever found one. It just so happens that it's a Coach watch.

There's something about the snap-head look to it that screams at me. I've wanted it for years but couldn't justify spending $400 on a watch when I was working three jobs.

I love the silver tone. I love the toggle clasp. I love the snap-heads. And most of all I love the way it looks like a bracelet but is really a watch.

Sadly, this watch is supremely difficult to find now. Every once in awhile one pops up on eBay. Every so often you can find one for sale on a random fashion site.

Short of call Coach Customer Service and seeing if they have one lying around a warehouse somewhere I don't think I'll ever have this pretty little number around my wrist.

So who's gonna do it? Who's going to track down one of these watches for me and surprise me with it? Who loves me enough?

(Second Image borrowed from Rolex)

Dance like it's 1999

Last weekend when I was up in the Albany area Laura and I were caravanning back to her house when she called me just to tell me that there was a new radio station in the Capital Region.

I just wanted to let you know that there's a new radio station. 105.7, you should turn it on right now because I'm rock'n out to Cher.

105.7 CrushFM is a 90s music station and it is amazing.

In celebration of the newest most awesomest station that I now have locked into my radio for trips to Albany, and because Saturday night after our glitter fest some of the girls are going to 90s night and getting all dressed up and partying like it's 1999, please enjoy this N'SYNC Simpson's clip.

I really wish this clip had the "End with a Matrix" part...

WW: Pockets-a-folding

Basically today was really super nasty out. Long Island was one big skating rink. Lulu is still in the shop (we're waiting on her new rim) and my father basically told me, "I don't want you driving my car in that mess" so I called out of work.

I did a nice bit of organizing and cleaning and managed to get all of the pocket folds 90% done. Now they all have the invite backing glued into place. Next step is taping down the pocket and then the pocketfolds are DONE!

I got our custom return address stamp and our monogram stamp made up from rubberstamp.net so I also stamped all of the invitation envelopes with the return address. We're waiting on the RSVP envelopes for now because we're not sure if Jason and I will be living somewhere else before the invites go out, only time will tell. But for now we're using my parent's address as the return address for the invitations themselves, and the stamp will be theirs to keep once this is all over.

The monogram stamp is just slightly too big for the size circles I wanted to use on the bellybands. Instead I think I'll leave the embossing for the invite itself and just print out the monogram on plain paper for the belly bands. Which will make my life dramatically easier. Plus it'll give a little sparkle to the inside of the invitation and keep the outside a little less distracting.

On Saturday when I was up state with Laura we went to David's so she could try on the bridesmaid dress and we could finalize the colors. Originally it was going to be Marine, Horizon, Cornflower, Pool and Capri. When we got to the store we realized a few things. Firstly Marine looked waaaay too dark with the other colors, and secondly, David's just came out with a new color Malibu that worked into the palate nicely.

So now the bridesmaids will be in Horizon, Cornflower, Malibu, Pool and Capri. Here's a slightly hilarious representation of the girls via David's "dress your wedding" website:

I say slightly hilarious because they facial features and hairstyles are no where near at all what my ladies look like. They'll all be in silver shoes and I've bought pretty silver wraps for them and hopefully it'll look as pretty on the day of the wedding as it does in my mind and at the store when we lined up the colors.

Slowly but surely I'm chipping away at my massive to do list for the wedding. There is still a lot to be done, but I'm confident we'll get through it all soon. Tomorrow marks 150 days till our wedding.

Holy crap.

Manjoyment Monday: Lulu's Hero

This morning, Lulu and I had quite an adventure. And whenever there is an adventure where Lulu is concerned it morphs into quite the Saga.

My morning started out a little off to begin with. For some reason the heat in my bedroom is set to come on at like 5:30am at 10000 degrees. So I was warm and irritable.

I hit the MOTHER OF ALL POTHOLES on Peninsula Boulevard right before the Hospital. It was regretably unavoidable even though I knew it was there from previous drives down the road. There was some other car in the left lane riding the line so I couldn't really go around this MASSIVE pothole.

So I'm on the Southern State and right around the Meadowbrook this fun little light pops up on my dash. It kind of looks like this: (!) and it is also a very vague light. It could mean anything from Lulu requires windshield wiper fluid to holy hell the rear axle is going to fly off at any second!

I don't smell anything strange leaking out from under the hood, nor can I hear anything that sounds remotely threatening so I just slow down and continue on.

By the time I am approaching the Wantagh and I realize, yeah, that's the tire. I get off on the Wantagh reasoning to myself that at least I'll be closer to my Dad's office and he can come and help me out if things get ugly.

Things got ugly.

I couldn't make it to the Sunrise Highway exit (although I wound up stopping within sight of it), and when I called AAA they said they couldn't send someone because the Wantagh doesn't have a shoulder and their trucks are not allowed. So I'd have to call a tow, have it tow me off the Wantagh and then call AAA back again.

At this point my Dad was on his way and he told me to call the HELP Truck and see what they could do. Before I even called he pulled up behind me and pretty much all he could do was give me the tow truck's phone number. Awesome.

Dad arrives with a pump and we get some air in the tire and drive it off the highway and into a parking lot nearby and inflate some more.


Yeah, it was a fun morning.

Finally we get to the nearby Subaru dealer's Service Shop and drop off the car. I'll definitely need a new tire and I might be in the market for a full new set (which wont' be so happy for my bank account) but we'll see what the prognosis is later today.

So here he is, Lulu's hero and today's Man. M'Dad.

Don't he look so cute in his little safety yellow vest?

DPF: One Minute!

In celebration of the Big Red Freakout tomorrow, here's a touchdown dance for the record books.

To me it shouts

"Goooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!!"

Leaving for the Capital Region this afternoon. Lots to do, lots of fun to be had, and important people to see!

Dance Party Friday LIVES

It snowed again. I had a few excellent conversations with my father this morning...

Dad: Looks like 3" of snow.
Mom: 3" isn't that significant.
Dad: 3" is significant to me, I have to shovel that shit!
Me: It could be worse, it could actually be shit.
Dad: 3"of shit covering everything? Yeah, that'd be worse. It'd be like the Susquehanna rose up and tried to kill us.

I'll miss these sorts of exchanges when I move.

Leaving work early today to hit the road with Casey and head down to the MD to visit Julibean.

We plan on watching horrible girly movies, go wedding dress shopping for her, put together a bed frame, and look at color swatches for her invitations.

I hope "Prince-Edward" has been as distracting to you as it has been to me...

STDs, the fun colorful kind

When it came to Jason and my Save the Dates (STDs) for our wedding I knew I wanted to do something so over the top quirky and us that people would open them up and be like, well damn, that is SO them!

I can't remember where I first saw it but I came across a couple's wedding invitation that were printed on long skinny posters and basically it was the story of their seven year relationship and how much of a whirlwind it was over the years. Not only was it funny and a little silly, but it was also a brilliant piece of typography. When I saw them I knew THAT was what I wanted to do, so I set out to make a fun little story of us.

This is what I came up with:

Originally I was going to get some shiny mid-weight paper to print them on but after the great paper search of July I wound up with 400 11x17 sheets of the Astrobright Glisten and figured I might as well use what I had on hand instead of buying more.

Here they are, in all their majesty!

They were mailed in 5.5"x5.5" Astrobright envelopes.
I designed and printed mailing labels on adhesive paper.
Our return address is on the back.

An STD cost analysis:

• Paper - As I mentioned before, it was difficult to track this paper down. I really really wanted the Astrobright Glisten paper that matched the blue dotted washi paper I had my heart set on using for details. Because the paper was discontinued I had to buy a whole case of it which was 400 sheets. Each sheet came out to about $0.50 and I made two STDs on each sheet. I believe I made 84 STDs, so I used 42 sheets. Grand Total = $21.
• Envelopes - I purchased these envelopes from envelopemall.com. I have always found envelopemall to be easy to work with and I go to them to purchase samples often. These envelopes specifically came to about $0.11 a piece (when you add in shipping and taxes). I used 82. Grand Total = $9.02.
• Labels - I purchased Astrobrights Print & Stick Adhesive paper. It came in a pack of 30 for $10.85 from amazon.com which comes to about $0.36 per sheet. I used 14 sheets for the labels. Grand Total = $5.06.
• Postage - Since they were square and slightly heavy, postage was $0.64. I guess what I saved on not buying any additional paper I paid for in postage. Grand Total = $52.48.
• Printing & Cutting - Was free. I was able to print the STDs at work and a family friend who works at Kinkos cut them down to size for me because he's awesome. Grand Total = $0.

STD Grand Total
Including postage: $87.56
Individual price: $1.07 ...Not bad!

Not including postage: $35.08 ...man, if only I could have hand delivered all of them! They would have only cost $0.43 a piece!

I've already gotten a few phone calls from family members and txt messages from friends saying how much they loved our STDs. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to hear that when I worked so hard on making them special.

Now we get down and dirty and start making invitations!