New Loves

I went shopping yesterday for a jersey knit skirt. I don't have a flowy, cotton, casual summer skirt that I can wear instead of shorts. Unfortunately, I didn't find one. But I think they have what I am looking for at American Apparel. I am also going to check out Target.
I did, however, make two other purchases that are making me very happy right now.

First is this dress from BCBG that was on sale. It is perfect for two of the weddings that I am going to be attending this summer. I did not buy it in yellow, I bought it in a dusty rose color. This photo of the dress does not do it justice. It is very pretty and very comfortable.

Next is this dress, also from BCBG, also on sale! But I bought it in black and I think that I will wear it all the time. I already wore it last night. We went to a birthday party at a swanky bar down town and I didn't want to worry about being under dressed, and this was perfect. It will also be perfect for business meetings. Again, I am not so happy about how the dress looks in this photo. It is sleeker and more sophisticated in black.

And I didn't buy these yesterday, but I wore them last night for the first time and I love them. They are soft leather flats from Boden USA. They were a bit of a splurge, but so comfortable! It was as if they were my favorite shoes that I've been wearing forever, sigh.

Things I've Been Up To

I have been very busy recently making a TasteBook for my friend , O, who is getting married in June. She really wants to be a better cook and make an effort to cook more when she is married, so I asked the other bridesmaids to submit recipes and am compiling them into a TasteBook. So far, only one bridesmaid has submitted her recipes, but I have high hopes that I will get at least one recipe from each girl into this book. TasteBook is really easy to use and I love the photo options. I am anxious to see the finished project.
Along those same lines, I think I will use Blurb when I make our wedding album. One would think that I would have already done that, seeing how I was married in 2006, but I still haven't gotten around to it yet. It's on my to do list, along with ordering all the other regular photos that I've taken and actually putting them into photo albums, which I've yet to purchase. Someday!
Lastly, I found another pair of jeans from The Gap (gasp, I know!) that I like even better than the last pair. These are not mom jeans at all. They are not the phenomenal in the butt area, but B said they looked good enough from behind, so I feel okay about them. They look great from the front and are $69! Crap, I can't find them on the website and the jeans don't have any markings that say what style they are.

Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a very nice day. My sister gave me a day at the spa with her at some point. Now we have to figure out what spa to go to. B brought me the most beautiful flowers from Gilly, which is here in Silver Lake. He also told me that I can choose between a Gocco and a sewing machine. I am going to have to think long and hard about that one. I want both! But I am leaning toward a sewing machine. That way I can start quilting. I have to find a class to take.
We went to dinner with friends at Chichen Itza, which is a very good, not so popular restaurant near MacArthur Park. It was raining, and the restaurant was completely dead, but I still enjoyed myself. Tomorrow we are going to Table 8 to have the famous grilled cheese with pulled short rib sandwich (We had our reservations way before the Oprah mention!).
Another nice thing yesterday was the arrival of my first items I ordered from Boden, a catalogue and online shop that I first learned of on DesignMom (I think). I ordered the Double Layer Tshirt in scoop neck and vneck and they are great. I love the fit and quality of both. Then I also ordered the Dotted Button Down, which was too big. I ordered all of the shirts in the same size, so I don't know what that means, but the sizes are UK sizes and you have to figure out your US size. It seems pretty easy to exchange and when I called today to ask a question, the woman on the phone was very nice and took my exchange order and waived my shipping fee, since it was an exchange. Overall, I am very happy.

Wisdom

I'm having two wisdom teeth out on Wednesday. I have to be sedated. The dentist said that I will, "go to sleep," and wake up when it is over. I have had a lot of dental work, including an implant and a gum transplant, and I've never been put under. I'm a little freaked out.
In other news, Thanksgiving went well. I do a lot of the cooking, so I never really enjoy the meal. I am tempted to recreate it on a small scale for me and B, but we are going to Mexico after Christmas with his family, so I'm trying to shape up for that and a mini Thanksgiving would not help.
I have been driving by a new store going up on Melrose and I have a suspicion that it might be Anthropologie. A huge one. If it's not, it's a mean trick because it has the same wooden awning that many other Anthropologie stores have.
Anthropologie has the cutest Christmas things right now. I saw these "Let's go to the North Pole/South Pole" dishes that were so adorable. Christmas will be so much fun when we have kids.

Purchases and Shopping

We got a new rug!!! It is life changing!!! My office/television room is no longer dark and masculine. All it took was a rug change. Who knew? Well, I did, but B was not feeling the expense of it. But I wore him down.
But now the room is a little too green and I am in search of dark brown accessories to balance it all out.
I purchased this rug from CB2:which I believe I saw on one of my favorite blogs, Oh Happy Day when she posted a picture from another lovely blog, Something Old, Something New. We got the small size, but it is just perfect!
Another fantastic purchase I made is this pair of Scanty Santa pyjama bottoms:
I only bought the bottoms and I will look much less alluring in mine than the model, but they are adorable. They were a little pricey, so I brought them home and handed them to B and told him, "You bought me these for Christmas!" He protested until he looked in the bag and decided he liked them very much.
In other news, a dear friend of mine who I have known and loved since high school was in town recently and I had the pleasure of accompanying her on a wedding dress shopping expedition. She is fabulous and is going to make her own dress, but she wanted to get an idea of what different shapes and styles looked like on her body. So off we went to Monique Lhuillier, Saks Fifth Avenue and Renee Strauss for the Bride.
I was prepared to LOVE Monique Lhuillier's dresses. I have seen pictures of her latest styles online and in magazine ads and I was very excited. Turns out, they photograph much nicer than they actually look. Except for the lace Scarlett, which was one of my favorite styles when I was dress shopping, they were all kind of meh. And our saleslady was not the best. She seemed a little too cool for us.
So we moved on to Saks. The saleslady there was fantastic. She was an older woman with long, dyed black hair pulled back into a pony tail, an accent that I picked to be eastern European, and she knew what was best for us. She put my friend F into some wonderful dresses. Her favorite was this Elizabeth Filmore gown, so glamorous!:

We then moved on to Renee Strauss for the Bride. The saleslady there tried to be very helpful, but when F would describe what she wanted, the saleslady would bring her the opposite. After a few failed attempts, I could see that F was getting frustrated, so I just headed into the racks and started pulling things I thought were closer to what she was looking for. But no dice.
It was fun dress shopping with F. I can't wait to see what she makes for herself.

Good Jeans?

I recently went through a jeans crisis. I decided that I hated all of my jeans and that they didn't fit me and I was sick to death of feeling fat and fighting the "muffin top." All of my jeans were low cut and leg hugging. I started seeing trouser jeans on people and decided to investigate. I went to several department stores and tried on every pair I could get my hands on. Then I went to Anthropologie and The Gap. Here are the results:

These are the Throwback Trouser by Level 99. They fit higher on the waist and have a wide leg with a flair. I am keeping these jeans long so that I can wear them with heels. I can dress casually for work, so these pants work for a meeting or a nice dinner.

These are Faye by Citizen of Humanity. These are my new favorite jeans in the whole world. They sit a little higher on the waist, but barely, and they have a wider leg while still giving your leg a nice shape. I had these shortened so I could wear them with flats and sneakers. I wear flats a lot, so these will also work for meetings or dining out.

And the last pair that I bought was from The Gap. I tried them on and thought I liked them, but I was so put off by the high waist on these that I worried I was buying "Mom Jeans." So I brought my sister back and she agreed that they were flattering and didn't make it seem as if I was giving up on fashion all together. I have not bought jeans from The Gap in a long time and couldn't stop giggling as I handed over my credit card. They were less than $70! They have some very cute stuff on their website, so I might have to go and check it out.
As happy as I am with my jean purchases, there is a problem. I am losing weight! It's a nice problem to have (at least for me), but my new jeans might not fit me for too much longer. I guess then I will sell them on Ebay and head back out shopping.