This Time Tomorrow

I will be here with a pink drink in my hand:



I have been eagerly counting down and the day has finally come!

We have to leave to drive to the airport in 8 hours which gives us enough time to nap, do one last load of laundry, and throw in last minute items into my already overweight suitcase. (Overpack is my middle name.)

I don't have any scheduled posts or guest bloggers, so there will be a short hiatus here. I promise to be back with pictures (from a real camera!).

For now I say, au revoir.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Travel Essentials

Being that I travel a lot, I have certain must-travel items that make traveling a lot easier and better.

1) Snuggie

mine is pink, obviously

Don't laugh y'all. This thing is incredible for international flights. It is a lot bigger, softer, warmer, and more comfortable than those tiny blankets you get on the airlines. If you get one at all. When I put mine on in JFK, people on my flight looked at me like I was deranged. Then once we boarded our flight and they tried to maneuver their tiny blankets, they were all looking at me with jealousy in their eyes.

To any of my military readers- if you ever fly Space A, bring a Snuggie with you. Unless you're flying on a rotator, the plane is guaranteed to be incredibly hot at one seat, and freezing cold two rows down. And you don't get your own blanket. Layers and planning ahead are crucial here.

2) Bath & Body Works PocketBac

My MIL sends me these periodically and I love them. I have one in every single purse. Perfect for travel because they are tiny and don't take up much in your plastic bag.

3) CamelBak Groove Water Bottle

I saw this on base and decided to get one to try it out. This is pretty ingenious because it comes with a built-in filter so instead of just having to constantly buy bottles on the road, you can carry the one and fill it up whereever. It is great for going through airport security because you can empty it out before you go through and then fill it up in the bathroom. We each have one (mine is pink again, the husband's- not so much) and they have saved us so much money when we fly. Because  it has a bite valve, you can drink from it laying down, and this was a huge help for me when I was post-op and could not move for 25 hours. Drinking from that was a lot easier than drinking through a cup!

4) Colgate Wisps

Amazing. I first received some in a goodie bag from a Shecky's Girls' Night Out, and I instantly fell in love. These little things are single use mini brushes on one end and a toothpick on the other. The toothbrush end has a little bead of toothpaste on it. Again, these don't have to go in your ziploc bag, and are great for red-eye flights so you don't have to get off the plane with morning breath.

5) solid perfume

A product I am a huge fan of for several reasons. 1) It's compact, 2) it doesn't need to be put in your ziploc bag in your carryon (notice a theme here?) which makes it great for those trips when you want to avoid paying checked bag fees by just bringing your carryon. The other reason why I'm such a fan of solid perfume is because it's usually a lot cheaper than its liquid counterpart, thereby making it not a big investment in your beauty arsenal.

Mine is Green Tea from L'Occitane. A lovely, light, clean scent. I can't get enough of it.

6) iPad

Love mine. It can do almost anything except display any sites that require Flash. (Darn licensing agreements.) Before we travel anywhere, we like to fill ours up (geeky family- we each have one) with games, and tv shows/movies for the road. The facetime and iMessage features are a huge plus when you live in a different country than the rest of your family. I have the 16GB white iPad2 with this cover from Missoni for Target fiasco:

After getting the iPad, I now usually don't bring my netbook with me any more when I travel.

7) Kindle

The one thing I don't like doing on my iPad is reading. It's too heavy to hold up with one hand and the screen was just not designed for heavy readers.

To be perfectly honest, I used to be incredibly anti e-reader. To me, there is a certain thrill of opening a new book, sniffing it, and yes, ::gasp:: sometimes dog-earing the pages. But if you are a fast reader, like I am, and can read more than a book on a single flight, carrying several paperbacks in your carry-on is not exactly practical. Or easy to do. Right before I went into the hospital for surgery, I made a list on Amazon of the books I wanted to bring with me to read. My husband saw the list, realized he'd have to carry all of them there, and then back home, and promptly went out and bought me a Kindle. I have not regretted it for a day since.

I will leave y'all with a funny story. When I checked in to the hospital, I brought a lot of stuff with me to entertain myself while I would be in there. My iPad for games and videos, my kindle for reading, my iPhone for you know, phone stuff, my portable DVD player to watch Royal Pains on, and my netbook for blogging and just in case any of the other should fail me. And then my husband had his own iPad and his own iPhone. (Have I mentioned we're a geeky family?) All of these things cost significantly more money in Germany than they do in the United States and the nurses could not get over how many electronics we managed to bring with us for a 5 day stay. They thought we were loaded or something.

Anyhoo- those are my travel essentials. What are some of yours?

Not a Fan

I love Lilly Pulitzer. I mean I really really love Lilly Pulitzer. Most things they do, I love. I say most, not all. There were a few things that left me scratching my head. (Not to mention the fact that Alpha Sigma Alpha doesn't have a print. Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

I saw this makeup bag on their site the other day, and it was one of those things that just made me go "huh?"

I realize many will disagree with me here, but I have to come right out and say I am not a fan.

To me it looks like something I drew myself in elementary school.

Call for Book Suggestions (and giveaway winner announced)

In exactly 6 days (but who's counting) TLS and I will be driving to the airport to go on our honeymoon! Even though I usually pack at the last possible second (procrastination is my middle name), I started packing for this trip weeks ago. What? It's not like I'm going to need a swimsuit. In January. In Germany.

I should probably go charge that iPhone.

With the exception of things that go in at the last minute- this is actually quite a lengthy list- hair straightener, makeup, meds, ipad, ipad charger, kindle, kindle charger, camera, camera charger, iphone, iphone charger (anyone notice a theme here?), I am pretty much done packing.

This brings me to my next point. I need books. Lots of them. For the 4-5 hour flight each way and to read by the pool while I have a pink drink in one hand and a sangria in the other (no judgements please). I am looking for something light and fun. Chick lit at it's finest. I'm not exactly looking to read War and Peace by the pool, ya know? So my question is the age old read any good books lately? No seriously. Does anyone have any good book recommendations for me? I've already read all of the Shopaholic books and all of the "Something Borrowed" ones, so those are out.

On an unrelated note, I realized I am a few days late in posting the winner of my UPrinting giveaway. So sorry about that. Congratulations to Kimmie Schiffel. Contact me and I will put you in touch with UPrinting to design your stickers.

Tag I'm It! (And so are you!)

Wendy tagged me in this fun thing.

The Rules:
1) You must post the rules. done
2) Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post. not sure I'm fun enough to warrant eleven facts, but I'll try
3) Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged.
4) Tag eleven people and link them on your post.
5) Let them know you've tagged them.

Here are 11 fun facts about me.
1) I can not stand profanity. If you are in our car, and you curse, I will yell at you.
2) Despite the fact that I have a fear of just about everything under the sun, I have never been scared of flying. It exhilarates me. I love takeoff and landing. To me, that is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Sometimes, when I fly, I will try to book connecting flights just to get to takeoff an extra time.
3) I can't stand mushrooms. They are my biggest fear. I always tell people that I'm allergic to them, but I'm really not.
4) I did not start walking or talking until I was three. I hated baby talk as a baby even more than I do now (I thought it was really insulting to my intelligence) so I just refused to talk until I had built up a big enough vocabulary where I could start straight with complete sentences.
5) I can never remember to take my blood pressure medication, but remember to put on moisturizer two times a day without fail.
6) Growing up, I was blessed with flawless skin. I never got pimples, and if I did, they would go away on their own in less than 30 minutes. I was blessed. My freshman year of college, I got a pimple of the side of my chin during finals week. No big deal, I thought. It didn't go away. By dinner time, it was still there. The next morning, it was still there and had only gotten bigger. All of my friends didn't understand why I was making such a huge deal about one pimple, but I just did not know how to deal with them. I called my mother hysterically crying. Any normal mother would have told me to suck it up and get back to studying. My mother however, works in a hospital and has administrators of just about every single department owing her favors. (More about that in the questions section below.) She told me to take the train down to NYC, and called in a favor from a friend in dermatology. I ended up getting an emergency same-day appointment with the Chief of dermatology. The poor woman was so confused when she looked at her charts and saw that her next appointment was an emergency VIP and then walked in to find me. She asked why I was there and I said (more like hysterically cried, actually) "I have a pimple!" Cue more confusion
7) Living overseas, I really miss commercials.
8) I don't know how to drive.
9) I am the least crafty/creative person I know. The words "oh you can just DIY it" instill fear into me. Coming from me, the words "I made it myself" are never a good thing. My mother's philosophy on life seems to be why do something when you can pay someone to do it for you? and that has definitely rubbed off on me to an extent.
10) I can't iron. I've tried, and somehow, clothes always end up looking worse than they did before I started ironing them. When I lived in New York, I used to send my wrinkled clothes out to the dry cleaners so that they would come back looking all nice (I'm not totally proud of this fact). Once, before a date, I frantically ran to a clothing store near my house and begged the employees to steam out my dress for me. Thankfully, the hot guys working there thought this was funny and did it for me. I always said I was going to learn eventually, then I married a man in the military and thankfully, Uncle Sam considers ironing an important life skill to have. All ironing duties have since been delegated out to him.
11) I hate beer and I keep kosher (style). I totally live in the right country for that one.

Now to answer Wendy's questions:
1) What was your favorite first date?
Pub trivia with a huge crush of mine. Going into the date, I knew we were different enough that there wouldn't be a second date (there wasn't), but I was 1) shocked that he even knew I existed and I love trivia so it was fun to just relax and drink beers and talk without the awkward first date 20 questions routine.
2) If you could have dinner with any famous/historical figure (past or present) who would it be?

Masaharu Morimoto. I would love for him to cook for me and teach me some skills!

3) What is your favorite book and why?
The 101 Most Influential People who Never Lived. I am a chronic list-maker and I love things that are in list format, so this appealed to me. I love the authors' funny sarcastic writing style, and overall, I think it's a great book.
4) What kind of car do you drive?
A black VW Golf (us and every other person living in Germany) named Valerie Volkswagen. Val, for short.
5) What was your first job?
I worked at the systems support center at a hospital in NY. I only got this job because the administrator of the department owed my mother several favors and she decided to cash in on one of them. Along with the glorious job of filing and photocopying, my duty was to change the system-wide password every month. This was the system that every single department in the hospital used to bill their patients. Being 15 years old, I had fun with is. It was always amusing whenever people would call my boss to confirm and she would say that yes, that month's password is "I<3L@nceB@ss". Not bad for $10/hour.
6) What was your major in college?
International Business and Marketing
7) Do you have a favorite style icon, if so, who is it?
Not really.
8) What cosmetic can you not live without?
Perfekt Skin Perfection Gel- it's so light and makes your skin instantly look smoother and airbrushed without globbing on a whole lot of makeup
 9) Who is your favorite designer?
Lilly Pulitzer and Diane von Furstenberg
10) Coke or Pepsi
Coke all the way. One of my big restaurant pet peeves is when I order Coke and the waiter brings out Pepsi.
11) How have you cultivated followers for your blog?
I honestly have no clue. I remember the day my blog hit 5 followers, and I didn't actually know one of them, it was like the greatest thing ever. I think that being on other bloggers' blogrolls helps.

Now to ask Eleven questions:
1) What one item of clothing do you have that you absolutely refuse to throw out?
2) What was the greatest gift that anyone ever gave you?
3) Who was your first celebrity crush?
4) What was your worst date ever?
5) What is your one food guilty pleasure?
6) Do you drink? What is your alcoholic drink of choice?
7) What was your favorite vacation?
8) What is one thing that people like that you just don't get the appeal of?
9) What is your favorite tv show?
10) Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
11) Are there any foods that you won't eat?

Now to tag eleven people:
1) Gracie Beth
2) Little Miss Can't be Wrong
3) Queen of LA
4) Nautical by Nature
5) Beach Bum and Baby
6) Newly Mrs. Cravinho
7) Cole
8) Mrs. Jones
9) OKLauren
10) Pink and Navy Oxford Stripes
11) Kimmie

On Weekends

I am not a morning person. My mantra in life is "5 more minutes." I can sleep for 14 hours straight (hypothetically, that is), and still be grumpy when my alarm clock wakes up. Growing up was slightly awful in this regard because my parents are chipper morning people. Vacations with my parents were a nightmare. My father would wake me up at o'dark thirty to go get to the beach before anyone else could. This led to arguments. Every. Single. Morning. Non-vacations weren't much better. I wanted to sleep in as late as humanly possible, and my parents wanted me out of bed like 10 minutes ago. Cure more arguing here. For the record, I was never into Saturday morning cartoons. I liked them fine and all, except for that one slight problem of they came on in the morning.

I had a friend whose whole family were late risers. It was rare to make plans with her for a weekend before like 3:30pm. I thought she was the luckiest girl in the world. I swore up and down on my life that when I got older, I would grow up to be just like her. Truth is, she still hasn't changed. She will not get up before noon, 2:00 if she can't help it. I'm still envious. I still believe in 5 more minutes. And my father still likes to get up at 6:30am. When he does not need to be at work until 4:00pm. (My family puts the fun in dysfunction. For this and so many other reasons.)

Remember when weekends were about fun? About going to the park, and shopping, and to the movies with friends, and to the constant stream of birthday parties? (Ok, maybe they weren't that great for our parents. At least when she was at work, my mother didn't have to worry about an 8 year old asking for a pet penguin every 5 minutes.) I miss those days. Lately, it seems like weekends are more stressful than some weekdays. Today, I was talking with some friend about meeting up with her tomorrow to hand some paperwork over to her. I apologized that we'd be on base early and asked if it was ok with her if I met her before 1:30. She thought I was crazy and told me that they have kids. They're always up and dressed by 8:00am on Saturdays. I thought to myself "poor A" and chalked this up to just one more reason for why TLS and I will not have kids- so we can actually enjoy our weekends for fun.

Then I thought about our weekend plans:
*drop off paperwork with A
*do laundry
*mop kitchen floor
*drop off dry cleaning
*run/empty the dishwasher (times 3- German dishwashers are tiny!)
*check mail before the post office closes at 1:00
*buy birthday gift for a friend
*figure out what's for dinner
*buy ingredients for dinner
*cook dinner
*clean the kitchen after cooking dinner
*head to Ikea
*assemble insertnameofflatpackedobjecthere

 About that.

At least we can have wine while doing all that, especially assembling the random flat packed furniture that is bound to follow us home.

On second thought, add "buy wine" to my to-do list.

Non-Buyer's Remorse

Do you ever have a case of non-buyer's remorse? You know, you see something you like, you want it, decide to think about it, and then when you do decide you want it, it is no longer to be found and you're kicking yourself for not getting it when you had the chance to? Yup, me too.

A couple of years ago (I think it was in 2009), I tried on this super adorable dress at the Lilly Pulitzer store. It was not a shift dress, but it still had straps, not a jersey dress, but had a hint of stretch to it, a small pleated ruffle at the bottom, and the print was white with pink flowers. The stems from the flowers spelled out Lilly. Seriously, I loved that dress. Loved I tell you. It looked great on me. Stupidly I put it down in favor of buying some nondescript top. I top I later returned because it sat in my closet unworn for like 4 months and at that point, I no longer needed it. Of course, by this point, the dress was no longer available.

Lately, I find myself thinking about that dress and print a lot (insomnia gives you a lot of time to think). I must have it. Of course, it does not help that I don't know the name of the pattern, or the style of the dress. The best I can come up with is that it's one of the prints in the Patchtastic pattern.

image taken from here

The one in the dead center of this pillow to be exact.

Please somehow help me identify it. Also, if anyone has this dress in anything larger than a size 8 (or anything else in this pattern) and is willing to part with it, please please please let me know!

Also, side note, you can still vote for Alpha Sigma Alpha in the Lilly Pulitzer sorority print contest. (Shameless plug, I had to.)