counting my eggs before they hatch

spent the day spending the tax refund that i haven't filed yet. probably not the best idea, but a girl has got to shop!

first, a stop at shoefly. i have a shoe confession: i have a weakness for pointy flats. being that i'm 5'1 and taller than both of my grandmothers, i normally wear 3 inch heels to overcompensate. but seriously, it's just impractical when i'm running around the city. not-so-pretty on the feet.

check out these zip me up flats from not rated. i plan to get some good mileage out of these shoes. the best part? i got them on sale.

i love that the zipper detailing makes this neutral shoe interesting. and what a sweet little heart-shaped heel! (not that anyone will ever see it, but i don't care!)

i also found some teal patent leather jeffrey campbell love ballet flats to replace some old ones.

finally, we made a stop at free people and grabbed a black tank with some great lace detailing. looks like a plain, black cotton tank in the front, but when you turn around... surprise!


the most exciting discovery: a versatile black dress that i fell in love with. this model is wearing the dress over a tee but it looks just as good without anything layered underneath. the printed drawstring can be used to change the dress to a sweet, baby doll scoop neck line with a semi-scandalous key hole. the material is cotton at the perfect weight, so that it falls nicely. very flattering.

today was a good day.

songs in my head

...Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in...
Sleeping In, The Postal Service

• This morning, I crawled out of my warm and dream-filled bed, admittedly, to get mass out of the way (terrible I know), at what I thought was 7:30am express mass. No singing = back in bed after a half hour. Note to self: local church has cantors at 7:30am mass, so mass at 7:30am and 12noon are the same 1 hour length. The priest was sleepy also so I didn't feel that bad.
• But did I mention that I was out last night until 2:00am?
  

...Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick...
Just Like Heaven, The Cure

• Spent Thursday night at an 80's Dance Party dancing and melting to images of Patrick Dempsey in "Can't Buy Me Love." And of course, I requested the Cure. It's a sad and sick obsession, I know.
  
• Had a quick drink at Gate last night where everyone was too young to know that the DJ was playing good, old school, hip hop. It was very sad. and I felt old.
  
• Afterwards, went to Right Round where there were kids with big, black X's on their hands knew more lyrics to the new wave songs than I did. That was awesome. but I still felt old.
  
• Just Like Heaven not only played at RR but aired on the radio on my drive back across the bridge. I think I've heard it more than 10 times in the last 5 days. I'm more-than-ok with that.
  
• Did I mention that it was played on the adult contemporary station?

living up to my name

Pretty # 1 - barbed wire from a museum in Louisville, KY
Pretty #2 - discarded pots in the same museum in Louisville, KY


...and viola! After five, er, ten minutes of fiddling with my Flickr site and Illustrator, I get a masthead -- not the greatest masthead in the world, mind you. When I have real time, if I can snag Photoshop, and maybe find some pixie dust that will make me really creative, I'll make it something worth looking at but in the meantime, enjoy my point and shoot photography. gah, to be a real artist... sigh.

Seeing that I haven't been traveling in the last month (operation Christmas catch-up and the annual winter hibernation is in affect), I've decided to backpost with pretty things that I've encountered, and/or have made.

So to commemorate my masthead, I'll send you back to June 2006, Louisville, KY where my friends, R and A decided to hold their commitment ceremony. R was a good (read: sane) coworker of mine, and I grew to love her "tell it how it is manner" because really, people just need to know how ignorant they sound sometimes. There were a few of us close friends that opted to go to the wedding although some of us were a little reluctant to go to Louisville. I mean, not all of us are into horse racing. Bourbon distilleries, I could do, but I would much rather drink Maker's than learn how it is made. I dunno, sounds more fun, don't you think?

R put me in charge of Friday night's activity of gathering people at a Gallery Hop while the rest of the folks were at the rehearsal dinner. Cell phone and camera in hand, we went out on the town.

Now, this gallery hop is no joke. All of Louisville seemed to be out and about on dates. The museums provided free booze and apparently, it is legal to walk in outside with them so there tons of people on the sidewalks with beer and chardonnay in tow. Throw in drag queens in wedding gowns raising money for charity and you got an interesting night ahead of you. We all ended up at a bar, drinking the night away and so no pretty pictures were taken, just drunk ones.

Before the sunset ceremony, my friend J, who shared a room with me because her then bf was in colombia, decided to go the galleries again to actually enjoy the galleries. We came upon some great finds on our walk and I reveled in the pretties that I discovered in Louisville.

bella triste | barbed wire fence in a museum

tucked in the corner | pots in the museum

the one-stop shop for all your underwear & drapery needs

not quite a pretty, but pretty funny that kurt is alive and well in his louisville celebrity.

we love technology

I almost hate that I like Napoleon Dynamite. Actually, most people are surprised that I have the patience for it considering I, apparently, am unamerican for not loving Old School (though the old school music makes it totally bearable - I guess).

So, internet, you ask why the clip of Kip's wedding? Besides the obvious being that it's totally hilarious, this post is about my mom (not so obvious). She's the only mom I know from her generation who can keep up with, and in some cases surpass, my generation's technology. Not only did she own various, yes, various iPods before I got my one and only, she is currently planning on getting the iPhone in June in addition to a new laptop (I'm calling dibs on the new MacBook Air, but she'll probably get that before me, too). She's also mastered IM and chats with her boss, and on occasion, me. Can't get anything past her, she's a quick one!

So my mom just started a blog and not because I had one -- she was an avid reader of my previous blog but hadn't realized that I had moved on to blogger -- but because she's just super cool. I would share it you all but, she'd rather just have our family from around the world read it. Welcome to blogger, mom.

Starting a Monthly Trend...

So with all the craziness that's going on at work, I've decided to take a sanity day to catch up on life. You know, exciting things like oil changes, watching my 2 year old niece, and visiting my 2 week old nephew luke. It's been nothing short of a great day so far.

Part of the reason posting has been put on hold, is that Christmas doesn't end on January 6 (yes, the 6th, you know... 12 days of Christmas, the 3 wise men, the epiphany, etc.). At company D, we throw a holiday awards banquet the second week in January. Throw in an annual conference the same day, and you got one exhausted leah. Nonetheless, I had a ton of fun... and I can't really complain, because it's the one event that I can get creative and not be limited to some red, white and blue BS that my gov't clients suffocate me with. That and I get to create more than one wedding-esque scenario. What?! It's research. Enjoy!

Can't take the credit for the escort card design because our fabulous graphic designers did that, but I will take the credit for going to IKEA and piling all 66 of those damn vases in my tiny, two door car.