TGIF - Whatcha Up To?

TGIF!!!  The sun is out and I am ready to chill out!

This Sunday is Mother's Day.  My mom and I kinda celebrated already by going shopping last weekend.  We took advantage of the crazy sale going on at  Ann Taylor Loft.  It was such a blast.  We were like two little girls on a shopping spree, going in and out of the dressing room multiple times. We made out like a bandit, let me tell you.  Love a great sale, right?!  I'll still visit her this weekend and we'll have dinner together. Maybe I'll attempt to bake make this bake-less dessert. 

Lemon Cream Icebox Cake

Doesn't it look so delicious?  And no sweating over the heated oven!  

As with every weekend, I have a project in mind. I hope to finally get my shoes storage dilemma straightened out and I think I finally found the solution.  

Yup, it's from IKEA and the measurements fit where I currently have my shoe rack.  I hate seeing a whole bunch of shoes at the entry of our loft.  Ugh.  Hopefully, this will be THE solution. 

I don't know about you, but the spring pollen in the air is definitely causing major irritations to my eyes.  I am waiting for this set of new eyes to arrive any day now, and relieve me from relying on my contact lenses during the day every day. 

It's from Warby Parker (Ainsworth).  I've tried it at home (tx to their free at-home-try system) and really like them. Cannot wait!!

I've also had my eyes on this hobo bag from JCrew.  My friend Nancy has it and it's really cute and very wearable all year around.  It's on sale, 30% off... now may be the time... I'll try to sleep on it and see :) 

Finally, I am looking forward to watching this movie tonight. Both Randy and I had a pretty tough week and we can use a little date night. 

YUP, so excited!  Btw, Leo is now 40?? Time flies, right?

Have a great great weekend~

Yucky Days

The last two days have been truly yucky thanks to work and rainy weather.  It was POURING yesterday in the morning on my way to work.  This was the view from my loft.  To my surprise, this Insta came out like a cute postcard so I'm sharing with ya'll.    

By 11:00 p.m., the rain had subsided but things were still yucky with work.  This is how I looked: 

Yup - utter frustration.  Luckily, all's resolved,I THINK.  Let's see what happens when I walk into the courtroom this morning!

The good thing about being busy at work is that it makes the week goes faster. And before you know it, it's almost TGIF~~

Fancy Schmancy Dress Up

Once or twice a year, I attend a somewhat fancy schmancy cocktail or black tie event that requires me to dress up.  No, these events involve no celebrities or anything like last night's Met Gala.  My events are work related and attended by a bunch of lawyers, judges, DA's, and prosecutors.  So, yes, definitely toned down and conservative.  BUT, if I could, I would love to show up looking like Nicole Richie from last night. 

image via here

Can you imagine?  Everyone would have like the "WTF" look on their faces.  Hilarious.  So, ok, she may have looked "prettier" if she didn't white powder her head, but this is COOL!!  I love it.    

Now, toning this look down to something more presentable at a local bar event, I'd love to be brave enough to wear this white mini. 

dress from here...

Together with these pretties...

shoe from here...

earrings from here...

Ah... if I just lived in some kind of a la-la land where dressing up like it's the Met Gala night every night...

Happy Tuesday~~ (and happy day dreaming...)

Monday E-Design: Never Enough Pillows

I love, I mean LOVE decorative pillows.  Like a really good haircut, good pillows can make or break a room.  Arranging throw pillows around your home can be frustrating as you want to make sure the pillows' colors and patterns are cohesive with the overall theme or vibe of your house.  I recently came across this shop, Zincdoor and they have a really great collection of throw pillows.  I have the following pillows pinned on my Pinterest board.  And no, they don't all go together but I want them all!

i. ii. iii.  iv.

Now, I will just have to wait for them to go on a massive sale!!

Have a great Monday~~

TGIF - Whatcha Up To?

TGIF!!! My favoritest day of the week~~  
I am hoping the weather turns out great like last weekend!

Here's something I would LOVE to bake during this warm season. 

Gluten Free Rhubarb Coconut Tart.  Whaaat?!  Sounds too good to be true.  I do need a scoop of vanilla ice cream with this one though! 

Weekend means cleaning and straightening up the house.  Check out this Loft tour that just makes me want to copy everything for my place.  

During the weekend, I also enjoy finding new blogs and reading up on all the old entries (kinda like the way I discovered Homeland and watched all the back episodes in like 2 days!).  That blog this weekend will be the Matchbook Magazine. Wherever have I been??!!

I hope I have a good mail day as I am patiently waiting for this. 

I had a $50 reward coupon from Piperlime plus 10% off sales on wedges. Yup, that means under $20!!  This will be my work shoes for the summer :) 

Hope you guys have a great, fun-filled, and relaxing weekend~~

Spring Wardrobe Deals Continue...

Have you noticed lately how pretty Ann Taylor Loft has gotten? 
They are having an extra 60% off sale items, so of course, yours truly had to stop by after work. No offense to AT Loft, but it's gotten SO MUCH better in design, quality, and size!  Here are my favorites from yesterday's trip. 

I ended up getting the skirt, peplum top, and the dress.  Only the skirt is on sale, BUT if you purchase a St.Jude's card, you get an additional 25% everything (over a purchase of $125).  So, I actually did end up saving on the rest of the purchase and felt really good about making my little small contribution to a good cause.  The shorts are super super cute and on sale online for $30.  The scarf, earrings, bracelet are really pretty and hopefully, they will go on sale soon (like all things seem to go on sale all the time these days).  These all look so much prettier and more colorful in person. 

So, there's my foray into spring and summer wardrobe shopping.  Have you purchased anything to spruce up your wardrobe for the warmer days to come?   

Weekend...beer pong, pickle back, Whitney, etc...

Yesterday, I hinted at how fun my weekend was.  Here are some pictures with brief descriptions.

I decided to run outside for a change.  I mean, after all, I live by the Valley Forge National Park and a trail that goes through several different parks.  I'm glad I did because look at these photos! 

Lately, I've been buying flowers on the weekend.  I must be getting old b/c I now love looking at flowers and plants. 

This was me post my hour run outside.  I grabbed my younger one, Littlez (aka Speedz/ aka Winston - yes, that's a new name we randomly decided to impose on Speedz).  I took this picture before I completely conked out. 

I also mentioned about playing beer pong and flip-the-cup with a group of 20 something college grads.  No, I have no pictures for those moments and I never will.  The story is that we have new neighbors, a young couple, who are fresh out of college.  They invited us to their housewarming party and being good neighbors that we are, we showed up with some fancy schmancy wheat beer from Wholefoods.  And there we were, with a group of doe eyed post-college guys and wrinkle-free gals, looking at us like we came from the Mars.  Through a couple of rounds of beer pong and flip-the-cup, both of which I never actually played in college, we got over the awkward phase pretty fast. Oh, at some point, the kids all screamed and when I turned around, Randy had won a game of beer pong. That's my guy!!

Right before we left, my neighbor played Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" in honor of us, the 80s kids.  Man, I felt old and young at the same time as I sang those words, "I wanna dance with somebody~~~~~ yeah I wanna dance with somebody" over and over again.       

p.s. I came THIS close to downing a shot of pickle back, which is something I've never heard of.  I'm proud to say that I did not cave into peer pressure and politely declined the repeated offers.