The Last Hurrah!

Hello faithful friends! Sorry I have been a slacker, but I have not taken any pictures lately, and we all know a blog without pictures is worthless. Also, I've just been trying to be off the computer more in order to enjoy real life a bit more. You know, get out of the house, see the family, and other miscellaneous reasons to take my rear off the couch!!

My husband has finally completed his portion of the move and we are officially, although temporarily, a single income family!! I am petrified for this next "stage" of our marriage.

With that, I have curbed my spending quite a bit to say the least. Over the last month or two, I tapered off considerably. But before I did, I had to have one last fling.

Originally, I had BIG plans for my last purchase. I figured it would have to be big in order to "hold me over." But in the end, I decided to err on the side of frugality and cut back my big dreams.

I decided on two criteria for my last purchase:

1. A leather good, because I truly felt like I would implode if I didn't spend money on a leather good. Sick, but true; and

2. Something that sparkles! A bauble, if you will.

The leather good was a bone colored Coach wallet that is really not exciting enough to share. It is functional, it smelled like leather which quelled my need a bit (sick, sick puppy), and it fits my blackberry inside it for the times I don't want to take my purse.

The sparkle was this David Yurman ring I found in Off Fifth on Supa Sale! You'd be shocked at how easy I got off with this one!

This photo is so poor, but I can't find another shot online. Basically we have this ring:

With this stone, prasiolite:

So my friends, for now it will come to an end. I have decided to TRY very hard to shift my priorities to travel, or just all around fun with my husband instead of "things." When we buy our new home, I'm sure that will keep me busy buying furnishings and things of that nature, but besides that, I want to go to concerts and sit in the front row (Kid Rock is at the top of my list if that interests you at all), and sporting events -- especially when the Red Wings roll through town, and I want to travel. Traveling will still be a challenge with the dogs, but even weekend getaways will make me happy.

So everyone else out there....have fun shopping without me! Next up, if I keep my promise to blog more, some of you will get to see the pups at the beach! I have been asked for updated pictures and I am a bad fur-mama for not uploading some sooner!

I hope all of you are well, in good health, and are enjoying life to the fullest! Now that I am back in the land that I love, home, I plan on it!

Jumping Ship

Well, I have only been on the job for two months, and it is already "that time." Me and Florida boss #1 were not working out.

Let me start from the beginning......a new friend of mine knew that I was not pleased with my current work situation and heard of an opening at another office. So I call, set up an interview for the following day. Get this, his current employee went to grade school with my Michigan boss!! Small world!!

Now I will cut to the chase and tell you I got the job, but we need to back track to make this story good.

If any of you readers know my mother, you will know how much funnier this really is than it will seem in writing.

So I am driving to my interview and I am pretending to be on my cell phone so I can talk out loud without looking strange to other drivers. Really I am practicing my speech where I point out how wonderful I am. The phone rings in my ear and I answer it.

"Hi Mom."

She is giggling to the point that she is incoherent and crying. She tells me how she went by the place I am interviewing with today (she works within walking distance). "Oh really? Did you drive by?"

"No, we walked by." The "we" she is referring to is her and her boss, Betty.

"Oh, did you walk by slow so you could peek inside?"

"Mmm hmmm."

"And...."

"And we walked so slow he invited us in!"

"WHAT?!?!"

She then proceeds to tell me how he invited them in for a tour! Only me!! How embarrassing! He never asked who she was, or why she was lurking, he just showed them around.

Now I am going to switch to my boss, Joe's, side of the story because it is better.

First I will give you a layout of the office. The front is all glass. The conference room is in the front, so if you are having a meeting, there is nothing separating you from the street but glass. Behind the conference room is his office which has a small window with blinds that looks into the conference room which looks onto the street.

So Joe tells me he sees two women walk by once, twice, a third time!!! He says one (Betty) cups her hands onto the glass and peers inside. As they walk away he pops his head onto the street and says, "Well, ladies, do you like the office or what?" He had figured they had stared long enough. My mom and Betty stammered out some sort of response. He then asks if they would like to have a tour of the office so they can see better! OMG!! My mom tries to weasel away in embarrassment and Betty says, "We sure would."

OMG!!

At no point did he ask who they were, why they where there, under what premise was he giving them this tour other than they were peering in the window and so he showed them around.

Now tell me what situation could top that in embarrassment?! It is like first day of school type mother embarrassment type of craziness!!

I didn't know what to do, so after some schmoozing, I just said, "Well you've already met my mettlesome mother!" He got quite the kick out of her not so spy-like abilities. Here's my mom, the embarrassing snoop who can't mind her beeswax.

But, I am super excited about this new opportunity, humiliated or not. I hope I can meet his expectations of me!

Most Useful Purchase Ever!

So, if you've ever sent me a poll with the question, "Best Purchase Ever," you would know that my Numero Uno pick is my laser eye surgery. My contact script was a -7.5, and if you wear contacts, you know that is really really terrible. I couldn't pick my parents out of a lineup without my contacts on! To fall asleep and wake up and see was truly the most precious gift anyone could ever give me.

Number 2, best purchase ever was my TiVo. While one would think it turns you more into a couch potato, it really has freed me up and I cannot ever miss an episode of Days of Our Lives, so enough said there.

My Number 3 best purchase ever has become my new Manolo Blahnik gold sandals. Sorry for the blurry picture, I was in a hurry :)

I used to be of the mindset that if I was going to drop a ton of money on shoes, they'd be the highest most pizzaziest shoes ever! My prior big ticket shoe purchases have fit that bill. But when I stumbled upon these on SALE (love it) and the NM Outlet, I knew I'd get a lot of use out of them. You may remember that I have been on a gold dress flip flop shoe hunt for two years. I had bought a pair of Kate Spade's in December, but after realizing that I truly didn't love them and that I was just trying to make myself love them, I returned them

I was still a little hesitant to spend the money on a flat shoe, but I have worn them twice a week at least for the past month, so I consider them well worth their money. They truly go with almost everything I own!!

I am about to slip them on now to go to a Graduation party for my twin nieces....pictures to come!

I'm Sawee!

Get it?

It's an olive branch!! I am sorry that well over two months have gone by and I haven't said a peep.

In all honesty, I am not even sure where I left off and I am too lazy to open a new window and see. So........for those of you not in know:

The first week of April, I got a job offer......in FLORIDA!!! WOOO to the friggin HOOOO!! Right?!?! After much discussion with the hubs, he decided we should go for it! So I went to work the next day and gave my notice!!! It was so extremely liberating!

I packed all my crap into boxes and mailed them home. Brian and decided to move me down first because it was kind of sudden and we weren't really prepared. So two weeks later, off I went...to live with my parents :(

Brian got me all settled in with my folks, and he went back to Michigan to get the house ready for sale.

Fast forward to now.

Brian is STILL in Michigan, which kills me. I miss him terribly!! And the living with my parents thing is getting old.

But tomorrow, he is giving his notice!! We hope he will be here by July 1st!! And then we will sooooo officially be Floridians!

In the meantime, I have laid out every weekend and done some fantastic shopping that I hope to tell you all about!

I do NOT love my job, and am actively seeking a way to be happier in the work place (I might have something exciting to say about that in a few months). But really, everything is happier in Florida, so that's okay!

I can't WAIT to go shopping for our new house and to do all that comes with that exciting process.

Oh and FYI, Brian and I split custody of the dogs: I got Roo and Daisy and he's got Bay and Gordon.

So, sorry this was a really quick run down, but I want to really try to get back in the swing!! I promise I am going to try!!!!!! Miss you all!

Quote of the Day

This isn't exactly a quote of the day, but more like a fact of the day. It is still coming from my daily calendar and since this is the favorite city of my friend BBW, I thought I would throw this gem of information in there.

This is coming from the Top 10 Shopping Havens from travel.discovery.com:

In the French Quarter of New Orleans is Royal Street, an old street steeped in history. Mules still draw carriages past carefully preserved French and Spanish style buildings from the 1700s through the eight continuous blocks on antique stores. La Rue Royale is one of he premier destinations for antique hunters from around the world. It got its start in 1816 with the opening of Francois Seignoret's furniture and wine store. By the turn of the twentieth century, New Orleans was the fifth largest city in the United States. Wealthy people from all over the wold traded with local shop owners and left behind artifacts of a bygone era that, in many cases, can't be found anywhere else, such as antique weapons, Civil War items, and rare, foreign and American coins.

Stores that have stayed in the same family for generations can offer everything from a $45,000 Edwardian diamond necklace and Rolex watches from the 1920s to nineteenth-century furniture and an $80,000.00 centerpiece once owned by Charles Dickens.

I would just LOVE to see these pieces of history!! Especially the Edwardian diamond necklace...but on second thought, it might just depress me. :)

Happy Sunday to everyone!

Quote of the Day

Today we are deviating from my precious daily calendar and turning to none other than Posh Spice for our dose daily fashion wisdom.

"Obviously, working out is important. Well, I don't. I have joined a gym, but I can't bring myself to start. What do you wear on the running machine? I can't bring myself to wear flat shoes."

-- Victoria Beckham

What a coincidence! That is the same reason I don't work out ;)

Quote of the Day

Since I am still slacking in the personal news department and the only thing new I have bought is some hanky panky's (which I will spare you pictures of), I bring you the quote of my day, which since I am still behind is actually the quote of January 4th :)

"Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."

-- Bo Derek

Quote of the Day

"I was street smart, but unfortunately the street was Rodeo Drive."

-- Carrie Fisher

Shopping Quote of the Day

Hi everyone! I have been in a funk lately. Well, not really. I am just so busy that something HAS to fall by the wayside, and Choos it is! I have a lot of "life updates," but until these mini updates actually come to a solid conclusion as opposed to me just yapping, I will keep them to myself.

So on to the fashion....

In my Christmas stocking, my mom gave me "The Shopoholic's Daily Calendar." I haven't opened it until now and it is great! I can't believe I am 2 months behind, but we are going to try to post the good ones on here.

So without further ado:

"I should explain. For years now I've kind of operated under an informal shopping cycle. A bit like a farmer's crop rotation system. Except, incstead of wheat-maize-barley-fallow, mine pretty much goes clothes-makeup-shoes-handbags (I don't bother with the fallow). Shopping is actually very similar to farming in a field. You can't keep buying the same thing -- you have to have a bit of variety. Otherwise, you get bored and stop enjoying yourself."

-- Confessions of a Shopoholic

Hey, Hey, Hockeytown!

For Valentine's Day this year I wanted to give my husband something really special. While no moving plans are final or even realistic right now, I thought about IF there was anything about Michigan that we would miss and suddenly....

I realized that quite possible the one and only thing we would ever miss about living here is our beloved Red Wings. So why not experience them as much as we can and the best that we can until we are fortunate enough to move?

For those of you who know me, when I think of something, I need immediate results. So within 20 minutes of hatching the plan I had picked out the most perfect (and painfully expensive) pair of tickets on center ice 7th row! I had my doubts but as soon as we settled in our seats, I knew that it was well worth the money!

Since the game was the Sunday before Valentine's day and since my husband isn't what one would deem "easy going" (read: hates surprises that require travel plans), I gave him his present one week early. I think every night one of us would say, "I'm so excited for Sunday." It was so great to have something to look forward to. The Joe is a 2 hour drive, but I wish we did it so much more often! Here we are decked out in red ready to go (Ash, see how I am looking elderly around the eyes and those smile lines?!)!!

One of the reasons we were so excited was to see our favorite player, Cat Soup. What? Don't recognize that name? Well that is because it is really spelled Datsyuk. For whatever reason I had him pegged as my "fav" even though 13 has never been my favorite number. After making such an informed and important decision, I asked my husband what what his name was to which he replied, "Datsyuk," as I was walking out of the room. "Cat soup? What a ridiculous name!" I replied. Needless to say it was a "you had to be there" sort of thing, but we were rolling on the ground and ever since that time, Pavel has fondly been referred to as Cat Soup in our household. Here he is in action:

Doing some pregame lunges, very important....

Okay, enough of those. Time to play hockey.....

Rounding the rink telling the Ducks to "get the puck otta here."

We seriously could not have been more thrilled. Here is Zeterburg looking quite wolverine like.

And the bench....

The best moment of the game was when Downey got into a fight with a member of the Ducks, Parros. I have seen many a hockey fights and they are always just a random punch out of nowhere and then they go at it. Fine. But I have never seen two men literally put their dukes up and circle each other for what seemed like the longest time like this! See if you can see this extremely tall man's stache!

Some of the funnier comments I heard amongst the crowd were:

"Come on, Downey. Punch his mustache off."

and, my personal fav:

"Why is Downey fighting a 1970s porn star?"

By this point, we were having such a good time I had to snap one last pic of the happy couple.

Sadly the Wings didn't pull out a W, but that is okay. We had a great time and they still need to lose something like 12 more games to lose hold of first place.

As for the actual Valentine's Day, I ordered this heart-shaped pizza from Papa J's and picked up this cake along with some wine and heineken. Mmmm.

I hope you all had a nice day with your someone special too!

Happy Valeninte's Day to My Honey Bun!

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Happy Valentine's Day! A Litte Early.

Bless my husband's heart, he doesn't have a romantic bone in his lovable body!! Typically, we don't do gifts for Valentine's Day, but this year we did things a bit differently. I got him the best tickets we have ever had to go to Detroit Red Wings game this past weekend and he got me this fabulous laptop.

I really love it! I do, it is a tiny step in the romantic direction from the eliptical machine he got me last Valentine's Day. My husband is a very practical person. At first I wasn't super excited about a laptop, but it is soooo pretty and shiny and yet fashionable! The color is called champagne and you know that I love me the bubbly!

So I am now happily blogging from my couch watching American Idol! Who knew life could be so great. I thought for sure I was an unwaivering PC fan!! Also this bad girl makes shopping online so much more convenient :)

So it is with optimism that I say I shall be blogging more often and hope to change the looks of my blog soon. Stay tuned.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day filled with love and canoodling with your special someone!

Got My New Shoes On!

1. I got my new shoes today!!
2. They are NOT too high.
3. The hardware on the shoe is more than I anticipated, but I think I still like them.
4. The price on them went down because NM is having a 50% off sale!! Hello price adjustment!
5. For your entertainment, please listen to the song in this post, because that is what I am singing as I am dancing around my office in my new shoes despite the fact that it is the dead of winter and we got 16" of snow last night.

Ashley's Wedding (AKA The longest and most over due post EVER)

So as you know, I had the priviledge of attending my friend, Ashley's wedding, which was in November!! Time really does fly by when you neglect your blog! But I can't move on to Christmas until I do this, so hopefully I can stop being 3 months behind.

FRIDAY

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, 51 guests boarded the Carnival Fascination cruise and were immediately greeted by dozens of fruity drinks with umbrellas in it. It was so much fun to see everyone and meet Ashley's family! The energy was so charged with excitement of the impending wedding that it was impossible to not be having a good time!

As mentioned, we were greeted with drinks so we all got a prompt start to our weekend. Our waiter was kind enough to provide me with my fav, strawberry margaritas, and he made sure that by the time I had a 1/4 left of my drink, he brought over a new one! Gotta love excellent service!

Isn't this just classy with a k?? Red tongue and my magic blue drink card that allows me to get said unlimited margaritas and pay for them later is tucked into my bathingsuit....nice! We are only on Friday, folks, so keep up!

Friday night dinner was great, but I was fairly tame since I had an early morning wakeup call. All of the guests were seated in one area, so it was easy to mingle and enjoy everyone's company. This was the night we discoverd the melting chocolate cake desert that all of us ordered, without fail, each evening! Oh how I miss it, I wish I would have taken a picture to capture it in all its gooey glory! Here I am on the way to dinner, apparently thinking I look hot to trot judging by my pose:

Again, klassy right?

(Marcie, Ashley, Kemely, Chrissy, Me, Rachel and Emily)

SATURDAY

Saturday morning was an early one. I woke up and had breakfast with Chrissy and Jess before meeting the bride and her wedding party so the limo could pick us up at port and bring us to Compass Point, the ceremony location.

I knew that I would like Compass Point just fine, but I was not prepared to fall in love with it! It is so colorful and festive that you are automatically placed into a good mood! The views were beatiful and I could not stop gawking. If I had the magic ability to freeze time, I probably would have done it, but more importantly, there was a wedding to get ready for!

The ceremony site

The fabulous view from the bridal suite

Here is Ashley's gorgeous gown after an hour of ironing ;) Hopefully somewhere I will find a picture of the back so you can see the beutiful, mermaid-like train in the back!

For you wedding buffs, some of the accessories and little something extras for her big day. The lace is actually a part of the sleeve from her mother's wedding gown. The brooch is her grandmother's, if I remember correctly, and was placed onto her bouquet. And most touching, was the pink cancer awareness pin that she had to remember the spirit of her husband's mother who couldn't be with them on their wedding day.

My role throughout the day was to do Ashley's makeup. Unfortunately, her hair lady was a wee bit late so I only had 15 minutes to do a girl's makeup on the most important day of her life!! My hands were shaking up a storm! I was so incredibly nervous. I would have preferred to take my time and perfect as I went along, but I had to move quickly. It was hard to mess her up though since she is beautiful without a stitch of makeup on the first place! Once she had her hair and makeup done, it was time to get in the dress and, of course, the waterworks began all around the room! One of the most emotional things to see is a girl transformed into a bride and then, a wife! I felt so lucky to be a part of the process!

Courtesy of Art of Light Photography

The ceremony was held out on the pier overlooking the ocean. It was one of the most emotional ceremonies I have attended and I loved every second of it. Unfortunately, all my pictures from the ceremony came out really dark, so I refer you to Rachel's blog entry on this because it has better pictures. I doubt she would mind if I stole hers, but either way, she has many a funn entries, so go over there anyway.

Here is "THE KISS" that I have about 10 pictures of because it was the longest kiss ever! The happy couple are finally a Mr. and Mrs.

After the ceremony was the cocktail hour by the water. In my white dress, I steered clear of the incredibly red rum punch. Besides, I knew what was going to happen later.....

We then all convened back at the boat for dinner before going to the after party at Señor Frogs. THIS is why I didn't drink during the cocktail hour nor at dinner......
It all started out with a little Bud Light....

But I switched to Tequila and started dancing....Keep your shirt on Marcie, I am almost done! (PS, while I am getting down, I think Em is getting "jiggy" with it as best as I can tell).

Thankfully, I had the foresight to switch to water.

What, you thought my day was over? No, no, no, my friends! That is simply not how I roll.

This is us at the after party's after party at "Club Diamond" -- yep, you heard me correctly. This was the only "club" open and I think it was for the tweens on the ship. It was great fun and provided us with an Epcot-esque laser light show (who doesn't adore a laser light show when you are feeling tipsy). Rachel is in her PJs and I love it! We were soooo past "caring" at that point, we just didn't want the night to end.

SUNDAY

So finally Saturday has ended, Mr. and Mrs. W are Mr. and Mrs. and it is now Sunday morning.

Needless to say I am hungover. Not only am I hungover, but I am hungover in rocking box!!! The cheapskate that I am opted to save a whopping $50 and take an inside cabin with no window. So there is no window and my box is going back and forth, back and forth, BACK AND FRIGGIN' FORTH.

Clearly, I was dying, so I threw on the suit and ran to the highest level of the ship to get a bloody mary and some air. I think we all pull off "the morning after" quite well.

By dinner, I was feeling fancy free again. Here are some of the girls in the wee hours of the evening after all the men had ditched us for their beds.

It was such a great weekend!! Thanks girls for keeping an eye on me and obeying by the "10 feet" rule at all times (special thanks to Chrissy, Rachel and Jack for that one).

I had so much fun and here's a belated CHEERS to the newlyweds! Congratulations!!