Cutest baby shower favors EVER!!

Gilt groupe is my guilty pleasure. I rarely buy anything from there, but I do love to put things in my shopping cart. Usually, if I buy anything - it's a gift for a friend, my Mom's birthday, whatever I happen to need at the moment. Today, they had the cutest baby shower favors on by Kate Aspen. Usually party favors are cute, but kind of a waste of money. These are so incredibly cute though that they're worth the little splurge.

Twishing

Twishing…

Remember that song from Disney’s Cinderella – I’m wishing… I’m wishing… for the one I love. To find me… to find me…

Well, that’s kind of how I feel right now.

Lemme back up. I’m a f/t employee, a p/t entrepreneur and a new Mom (sortof DD is almost one year, yikes!). And you know how you see these women who have a baby and then quit taking care of themselves? That’s me. Oh, I do a good job of trying to hide it, mind you, but I haven’t been to get my hair cut since I went back to work. In June.

It’s now February. 

I’ve got 6 inches of roots on the top and two inches of split ends down below, limp is the look that I’m going for these days.

I know, I should ‘make’ time (please tell me where I can sign up for THAT class) but I’d rather be spending it with my little one. So, that brings me to today. I have a huge client presentation tomorrow. And my head is looking like that lonely mop in the Swiffer ads.

I’m on an early flight to LA. I get in at 1p. I’ve got work to do, but no client meetings. What if <> I book an appointment for a cut and color. This is my morning’s revelation. So, I signon to GogoInflight from the comfort of seat 18E back in Delta’s steerage section. I log on to Yelp, I do a little searching for what looks to be a good hair salon in Orange County. I read some reviews – check out one girl’s blog on how this salon rescued her from Purple Crayon hair and decide that if they can do that – surely they can take me from drab to fab. I go to their website and <> to my delight they have an online booking form.

It’s a sign! The Gods have spoken.

Except that it doesn’t work.

It keeps bouncing back.

With error messages

Saying to check my internet connection (which is fine thank you very much)

Ack! What to do? Check the Contact Us page. Which has directions, A phone number. But no email.

No Facebook

No Twitter

Okay, quick goat thinking – go to Facebook and do a search. Find salon owner. Whew! He’s there. He’s got more friends than I do – surely he looks at this thing. Send the following message:

Ha!
Hi Jack. Name's Melissa. I'm sitting here on a flight from NY to LA and was desperately trying to book an appointment for a cut and color at your salon this afternoon (3p). I obviously can't call to see if there are any appointments available and I tried the online booking form but it keeps giving me an error message. If you happen to check F/book and could relay my request to your receptionist - that'd be grand(!) Email is xxxxx
Thanks and hopefully I'll be by the salon this afternoon 

Very proud of self. For 30 seconds.

Facebook’s not necessarily the most immediate thing. Oh Twit, Tweet!

Hop onto Twitter. Do search.

No salon

No owner/ creative director

No nothing

Wait – there’s one girl who said that she gets her hair cut there. Well, that’s good, but unless she’s going to call them to try and get an appointment for me, I think that I’m sol. Still, the Gods did speak earlier. Let’s send a note out to the T’Universe.

In flight to LAX trying to figure out how to get an appointment at the Jack Winn Salon. Whaa.. online booking form doesn't work. :( no email

Kind of hoping that someone might say – hey. I see you. I have an answer. Here’s an email, or even better, here’s an appointment.

So alas, I resign myself to seat 18-E and prepare to wait the two and a half hours until landing. Until then, I’m Twishing, I’m Twishing… for Jack Winn Salon.  To Tweet me... To Tweet me…

My new favorite iPhone app is the remote

I've been a little slow getting on the iPhone kick. I've had my iPhone for a bit and I love it, but haven't really explored the apps yet. But, Friday night on the train on the way home, I started messing around in the apps store and found the REMOTE! Holy cow, how cool?!? I've got my Mac now almost constantly plugged into our surround sound system and control all of my itunes using the REMOTE on my iPhone. How did I live without this before? Seriously, I don't think that I listened to music as much as I have in the last two days. We had friends over last night and it was so nice to be able to run our little party mix from anywhere in the house. The best things in life are free!

Facebook makes me smile

I will be honest, I'm really bad about checking Facebook (almost as bad as I am about writing on my blog). I even get the little alerts saying that someone's written on my wall, or wants to be my 'friend', but if it were really that important, don't you think that they would have called? And if they were really my 'friend', wouldn't we already be friends thus eliminating the need to be Facebook friends? So I rarely go on.
But I went on today.
And it made me happy.
I got to see the latest pictures of my best friend from college's kids. They're growing up so big and looked absolutely adorable sitting on the front step with her surrounded by their little carved pumpkins. K from the lake had posted her latest ultrasound pic announcing to the world that they're preggers with Baby #2 - and due about the same time as we are. My cousin A had all of her Sr. pictures up - she's so freaking fabulous, I wish I had been that cool when I was her age.
I had little notes on my wall from my friend J who I haven't talked to in ages, M wanted to know if I was coming home for Thanksgiving, H wanted to grab dinner one night in the city. Some people say that social media is harming real relationships. How can that be when after visiting my page I felt so loved?!?

Back to school with cute lunch boxes

There's something about the whole back-to-school thing that makes me want to buy new pens and journals, a new calendar or in this case, a cute new lunch box. These little retro style lunch boxes remind me of the sound that I would make scuffing my shoes through fallen leaves on the way down the street to the bus stop on crisp fall mornings. Ahhh, the good old days, at least there's an easy way to recapture them.

Preppy Girl Personalized Lunchbox - $ 29.99 Preppy Girl Personalized Lunchbox This cool and stylish lunch box is fashionable and fun! Hip and fresh designs featured on an old school metal lunchbox. Each one is printed to be water resistant so they'll stand up to lunchroom wear and tear. They are lead free and food safe. Lunchboxes are also perfect for holding little toys or even hairbows! Measure Approx. 8'x7'x4'

Whimsical fabrics that would make for great pillows

I'm a bit of a pillow fiend. See, we have a white couch... I know, who in their right mind has both a white couch and a dog. Well, let's just say that there's a dog bed on one side of the couch and a dog blanket on the other. Our little Jack Russel Terrier spends more time on that couch than we do. Anyway, with a white couch, you definitely need a few accent pillows I'm always looking at fabrics with an eye towards making my own (so far, I've made one). Trouble is, when I go to the fabric store, I end up agonizing over my decisions to the point that I go from having a basket full of hundreds of dollars of fabric to putting it all back and walking out empty handed. Today I was perusing Architectural Digest and they had a little feature on the Spring 2008 collection by Clarence House. These fabrics are so cute! The perfect combination of vibrant colors and whimsical design. Now, if Joanne Fabrics carried this, I might not be able to help myself. Enjoy!

Making Bath Time Fun Again

Remember when you were a kid and you used to have so much fun in the bath? My sister and I would stay in the tub until our fingers and toes turned pruney and the water got cold. Then of course it was kicking and crying to bed, but that's another story! The point is, bath time was fun time. There were bubbles and toys and you did crazy things with your sudsy hair and then in the end you got wrapped up tight in a big fluffy towel that smelled of clean laundry.
Now, it's up and a quick dash to the shower. There is no crazy sudsy hair play, no crayons that write on the shower walls, you're in, you're out, you're on your way.
Thank goodness The Bubble Roome has decided to bless us with their latest line of suds. Clean invigorating scents like Spearmint and Eucalyptus combined with old-school packaging reminds us to slow down and take a minute for ourselves. So, maybe it's not play time anymore, but who says we can't start our day off with a little aromatherapy!

Save My Shoes!

I can't tell you how many times I've busted one of my heels in the NYC sewer grates. It's to the point now that I only carry my shoes in my bag and wear sneakers or flops when I'm walking around. I'm serious! However, now I don't have to - enter Smart Heel heel protectors. Founder Stacie Urbach came up with a gem of a product - for $11.95, your Jimmy Choos, Manolos or in my case, my super cute peep toe velvet red suede Guess stilettos (which to date have hardly left the closet) are safe - at least from the streets!

Great gift for Father's Day

Father's Day is a week away for those of you who are as bad as I am keeping track of my calendar. I find it difficult to shop for my Father as it is. Yes, he likes to grill, but frankly if he sees another batch of mesquite chips or smoking planks, he's likely to knock me over the head with them. And, he likes to work-out, but it's not like I'm going to get Dad a pair of dumbbells or something for Father's Day. Besides, he likes to go to Spin class and Yoga, so where's the fun in that? I did however, today find the coolest new thing - it's a belt made out of a bike tire. How awesome it that? Since being featured on Etsy, these $20 belts are flying off the shelves, so if you're interested, contact Julien directly!

Soft vintage-y tees

Whenever I go to Target, I end up dropping at least $100. Today, I ended up spending only $40 which was great, especially because that purchase also included this fabulous looking tee. It's soft, slightly faded, tissue thin and with it's Miss Firecracker Contest Finalist reminds one of a 4th of July fair in the middle of Texas.

Brown Bagging has never been so stylish!

So one of the things that I've been doing to cut back is to brown bag it to work every day. Usually though I'm not carrying my lunch in a paper sack - it's usually in a leftover plastic grocery bag. Really stylish, huh?!? Today I found these super stylish lunch bags from Give Simple. Say the gals online, this bag is made of abrasion-resistant neoprene which while extra durable isn't bulky and in fact folds flat to pack away in your bag or suitcase. Plus, it insulates your lunch for up to 4 hours which for a gal like me who sometimes forgets to put her lunch in the office refrigerator is perfect! The Gourmet Getaway Lunch Tote is $25.00 and available in three cute patterns.

The TSA has a blog!

How funny - so I'm going through the Augusta, GA airport this morning which literally took only 10 minutes to get from check-in through security and to the gate (more on that later). anyway, I saw that there was a sticker on the counter about the TSA blog and I was like what? The TSA has a blog? So of course I had to go and check it out. First posting is on why people in wheelchairs get screened which is kind of funny because I was just reading an excerpt yesterday from Hot, Flat and Crowded which bemoaned the fact that older ladies are getting scruitinized at the airport and low and behold, TSA found some huge container of explosives strapped to a guy in a wheelchair. Kind of reminds me of this TV show that my husband watches about border patrol! It's actually a pretty decent little blog containing a mix of information and weird stuff - from policies on shoes and liquids to Myth Busters and Aviation News of the Weird.
Who knew the TSA had a sense of humor.

Domino Magazine is Done?!!?

How can this be?? Domino has been one of my favorite design magazines since they came out. From decorating advice to DIY projects to Domino's little black book of decorating. Apparently the last issue will be published in March. The magazine is closing its doors due to a loss of advertising revenue. Such an incredible shame. I looked forward to picking up a new issue at Grand Central each month - one of the best train reads out there. It will be sadly missed... The website's going down in March as well (according to a Reuters MediaFile post) so if you want to avail yourself of Domino's fab finds, hurry up before they're gone.

Vixen is my new go to polish!

I've been trying to find just the perfect 'go to' nail polish shade for the fall/ winter. I totally love the dark craze, but I hate the black shades that are oh so popular. I am a big fan of Essie's Wicked, but was looking for something that had little more red in it. Something that was a little less predictable - and a little less goth. Although given that I'm currently reading the 2nd in the Twilight series, maybe I'm just trying to tap into my inner vamp! But that's all besides the point. I was browsing through the polish selection at Target and there, tucked down on the 3rd shelf was a gorgeous, rich, dark black-ish red called Vixen. I practically squealed in delight! $4.49 later and I was out the door. I have gotten so many compliments on this fantastic shade. It works great for a manicure - even better for a pedicure (which on me always lasts longer). The gals on Makeupalley give it a 4.3/5.0. Enjoy!

Oregon Trail tees for sale!

Ohmygod these are hysterical! Do you remember when computers weren't in the classroom, they were in a computer lab and if you were lucky you learned how to program that old Apple 2e (or something) to go up one and over one so that it made a circle? Well if so, then surely you remember Oregon Trail?!? We played it in social studies, you had your team, you had oxen, a wagon, had to decide every day whether you were going to buy medical supplies or food. Were you going to hunt or walk or rest? Invariably regardless of what you did, you died of dysentery. This tee is a subtle reminder that in the end, we all wind up in the same place!

Stylehive & Bluefly pair up for 'The Hunt' Contest

Okay for all of you Stylehive fiends - they've recently partnered up with BlueFly and are running a scavenger hunt of sorts. It's a really cool idea - basically "hivers" are encouraged to dig through all of the great things on BlueFly, find something really cool, unique, etc.. and bookmark it in their hive. Then said hiver, encourages all of their followers to hive the find (in my case Prada peep toes last week). She (or he) with the highest rated find wins a $200 BlueFly Gift Certificate. How BRILLIANT is this?? I was mighty proud of the fact that my Prada peep toes not only made it to the Top 15 last week, but I also picked up like 7 followers. Yippee! Here's a picture of my find - now go out and conquer The Hunt yourself!

Okay, I'm ready to start blogging again...

Ugh - I was soooo disappointed when I found out that I accidentally deleted my blog, but I'm ready to start again so here goes nothing...