Wonderful Things Come in Packages

I love getting packages. I love getting letters. I love getting anything that comes in the mail.

Well the other day I came home to a surprise package sitting on our kitchen table. I ripped into it and found a sweet card from Miss Avery AND..............

This fabulous key necklace that I just can't get enough of! I basically try to pair this whatever I am wearing before I consider any other piece of jewelry right now. It really is a fabulous piece of jewelery and I love it so much! Thank you so much Carly! (ps people she has a new blog that you should check out!) 

The Purchases

Here are the fabulous finds from last weekend! Watch, Ring, and Silver Necklace. Love them!

Company Event and Weekend with Monica

Last Friday our company event  (which is one of my responsibilities to plan and execute) was held at LuckyStrike Bowling and I must say my event planning skills are definitely getting to the point of refined. Things ran rather smoothly this year and I actually was able to kick back and got to enjoy the event for myself, which is usually pretty rare when you plan an event. After the actual event the co-workers went on out to Iron Horse (this bar is bad news bears for me apparently) and we played some rousing games of skee ball and shuffle board before splitting off and going to different locals for the rest of the evening. I had a great time getting to know some of the remote office employees that I don't get a lot of interaction with. There are some great photos from this event but out of courtesy to my defenseless co-workers I will refrain from posting the evidence of the evening :) but here is a great one showing that we obviously were having a good time:

The next morning I gathered myself together in pjs and headed up to BWI to pick up Monica who flew in a few days before her family for an family event here in DC so she could spend a few days hanging out with me!

After we got back to my apartment and hydrated and rested on the couch we got all cuted-up in sun dressed and headed over to Georgetown to browse the stores and get a cupcake at Georgetown cupcake. Well we did some unsuccessful shopping and then witnessed this line at GTC:

                                                   

Yes, that is right. There is a 2 block line to get a cupcake at GTC. Now I understand the show has created a lot of hype for this place, and yes I love me a good cupcake. But a 2 block wait!! It's a mini cake with frosting. I make them all the time. Anyways. We didn't end up waiting.

After GT we headed home and relaxed for a bit longer (aka took a nap) and then headed out to Old Town Alexandria to hit up the Fish Market. Monica and I had some princess seating luck and ended up with a romantic little table on the balcony where we could people watch and avoid the restaurant noise. We both ordered forms of seafood pasta and devoured a crab dip before hand. After dinner we strolled up the street and checked out this darling little boutique that SM and I discovered when she was visiting. I ended up leaving with a brand new watch AND a fabulous bling ring that is now a staple in my wardrobe. Or shop browsing caused us to miss getting custard at the Dairy Godmother but it was actually a good thing as our tummys were aching from all the food we inhaled at the Fish Market.

                                         

                                               Monica on the balcony at the Fish Market

Sunday morning we headed to Eastern market where we each purchase some beautiful Sterling silver jewelry staples, munched on some yummy pieces of fruit and tried on some outrageous hats and head bands. The heat drove us to retreat to the Dairy Godmother to get the custard we didn't get the night before. Luckily all my raving about the custard lived up to expectations and Monica was wooed with the DG Custard. Monica had the tin roof and I had my usual door county sour.

                                                

                                    

After custard we headed back to the apartment and relaxed and nibbled on delish delights from the market before heading to dinner at Commissary.

Monica was scheduled to leave me and meet up with her parents on Monday but due to a glitch, Monica got to spend another night with me where we ordered pizza, salads and consumed a delightful bottle of we while gossiping and catching up on life.

Monica is actually leaving town today to head back to the best coast and I was lucky enough to get to see her briefly last night and meet her family. Safe travels Mon and thanks for the great DC memories!!

All Keyed Up

I love these ideas for displaying keys and am going to have to try some of these at some point. The boxes are really neat, but I would do mine in black frames (naturally!) and I LOVE the idea of getting thick satin ribbon and hanging big keys at different lengths. If I had an outdoor area you better bet I would have a key-chime to make some zen sounds! Send me any other Keyspriation any of you have come across!

Images via unknown

Little Books

The last night I got to spend with E. Her little little (sorority talk) was in town for sorority things and we met up in GT for some crepes, GT cupcakes and shopping. At Urban Outfitters I stumbled across a collection of four little mini books. I could not resist! They are such a darling size and with witty titles they HAD to come home with me. Luckily E was the voice of reason and I only took two home with me:

If you can't read those titles they are:

• Lines for All Occasions: Pep Talks & Picker-Uppers: Pithy Proclamations for Life Dreams,The Daily, Financial Straits, Romantic Woes, Family Matters, Self-Esteem.
• Lines for All Occasions: Insults & Comebacks: Looks, The Young and the Old, Brains, Character, Counter-Attacks, Famous lip.

So pretty much I love them. To share their magicness with you I am going to start sharing randomly selected pits of wisdom from these with you.

Tonight's Wisdom:

From Insults and Comebacks: Aging Bodies is the Topic

• Your biological clock has stopped ticking.
• The good news is you look like you should be respected; the bad news is you're not.

From Pep Talks & Picker Uppers: Problematic Profession Topic

• Doing any job well is noble.
• Everyone loves a man in chicken uniform.
• Twitter is totally journalism!
• Your job would make a great reality TV show.
• Your my hero.

Pretty Pretty Princess

Ok I will write one personaliknowyoudon'tcarebutIneedtoblogaboutit post. And then I promise I will move on to things that interest someone other than myself. So thank you for bearing with me and being loyal readers. I give you full permission to skip over this post without thinking twice.

Where have I been you ask?
A. Work


It's been a challenging few weeks and I am so thankful that it is coming to an end because I can feel my emotional ability to cope and deal slowly crumbling away. (i.e. resulting in my being beyond moody and upset an unnatural amount of time followed by streams of tears). My boss returns this week and fingers crossed that I will find some more balance and harmony in my work-life balance and therfore more time to dedicate to self happiness and fulfillment.


It may be bleed over from my stress at work, but I just feel out of place in my own life.This it the only way I can describe it: I remember my mom would take my clothes shopping and I would fall in love with an outfit and it would be WAY to big. She would buy it for me so I could grow into it and I would constantantly lust after it while it hung in my closet. One year my mom let me buy a princess Halloween costume that was too big for my 3 foot frame. She taped the hem under the dress so I could wear it and not trip all over it. Now I knew no one could see the tape, but it felt all wrong and I threw a huge fit the night of Halloween. Princess did not have masking tape on their dressed! She let me take the tape out, only for me to realize I couldn't walk in the dress and we just had to put the tape back in so I could go trick-or-treating. There were a lot of tears that Halloween and I remember being so frustrated that I couldn't wear the dress like a normal person.


This is how I feel about life right now. I want to wear this big girl dress. And I want to be taken seriousl. I want to have a big girl life, with big girl friends and relationships and yet I just feel like I have to keep "taping" the bottom of my big girl dress up, so that I don't make an idiot out of myself and trip and fall.

It is frustrating because I don't know if the dress would fit better in different circumstances, different places, etc. or if I am just not ready for a big girl dress yet. Granted my mom knew I was going to grow into the clothes and that is why she would buy my outfit that were too big. But I feel like I have been trying to grow into this "life outfit" forever now and I just can't seem to do it. Frustrating. That is all I can say about that.

Some of it is I feel like I have a superficial relationship with this city. I know at first I did it, and positioned myself the way I did because I could always tell myself "you'll go home in a year, or two at the most" so I didn't put down roots. No idea where to get your laundry dry cleaned? No problem! I just won't wear it for a year. Having a place to get coffee and a friend to gossip with every Sunday morning lacking? No problem! Back in Seattle before I would know it. I kept telling myself this was temporary. I was not in DC for any signifigant period of time. Then everything changed.

 I can't tell myself these things anymore. They don't trick my mind like they use to and I am realizing more and more than I need/want to find some grounding. Find something less superficial than the excuse of a job to keep me somewhere.

It is an emotional challenge for sure. And it isn't that I don't enjoy my life here, it is just I want it to be more established. I want people and places that are mine. I want a big group of friends again. I want to not feel lost when I venture to some part of the city that is out of my regular 12 blocks that I frequent. I want to have my coffee shop, my dry cleaner, my lunch place, my library, my grassy place to lay and read, etc. I just miss feeling like I have things figured out. I miss the community I had.


I just want to pull the tape off the hem of my dress and not feel like a little girl trying to play dress up!



(PS any one who can laugh at the title of this post based on previous events in my life....feel free to get a good chuckle in. Because I certainly did)