New Year's week

I have been an incredibly lazy blogger this week! Sorry my friends. I have been running around all over the bay area catching up with my nearest and dearest. and I have, of course, been taking ridiculous amounts of pictures and can't wait to share them all with you. Once the New Year starts I will have time to sit down and edit them, but alas for now I am taking a break week. There are so many festivities going on in the next few days, I am just going for the ride and going to enjoy them, :) I'll be back soon with more photos and stories then you will know what to do with, promise. Until then, I wish you all the most fabulous of New Years. I hope you will all be safe and happy, and hopefully cuddled up against someone to kiss come midnight. wink wink. I cannot say enough how wonderful it has been getting to know all of you this year, and I can't wait for all the fun we will have next year! cheers friends! :) xoxo

cheetah mashup

Hi ladies! quick post. still trying to finish up the tucson photos! I am running around with the families the next few days and just wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. whatever you may be celebrating, I hope that this week finds you all with wonderful family and friends. cheers. xoxo

black, white, and maroon.

Happy day before Christmas Eve everyone! I finished up all of my shopping yesterday, and oh boy was it nuts. I have come to the conclusion that people do indeed, lose their minds this time of year. I just about had to knock some lady out who was trying to steal the twilight scene it game from my cart. are you kidding me? get your own lady! my niece and I have plans to enjoy that present for a few hours Christmas day. as if, crazy target lady. I was super excited to find the very last Rodarte dress at target! The very same one that was featured in the great buys section on the december vogue. score. The only draw back is that it was a size large, so this is going to mean some serious altering, but it was worth it. :) Anyways, still leaving you with some shots from back in Tucson. Hopefully, we will be caught up this week, and next week I can start posting some San Francisco pictures. hope you all have that shopping done and are busy spending time with your wonderful friends and family. I know I am. cheers all :) xoxo

pink and green butterflies

This has got to be one of my favorite dresses. hands down. I bought this little Betsey Johnson number for one of my bridal shower luncheons that was a pink and green theme. so perfect! the best part is that it has pcokets! love pockets in dresses. Still have a few picture sessions to post from down in Tucson, but I am safely back in the bay area. hooray! Its so relaxing to be home. I've only been here for a few days but already I am back in my routine. Did some morning jogs over the golden gate and back, had a coffee date down in tiburon and checked out some art galleries, and took the pups over the bodega bay for some beach time. I am so in love with being back here, its just fantastic. today, I am headed to get my hair cut and colored! not sure what look I am going to go for yet. My parents want me to dye it back to brown, but I love being a blonde. Then its time for me to finish my christmas shopping, I am a brave girl to be venturing out now, its crazy out there! wish me luck, and happy holiday week to all of you! xoxo

Queen of Hearts

woo! I am done with this semester! So very excited and beyond relieved. Can you tell that I am celebrating here? Well, I am. :) This has been such a hectic week and its not winding down. The hubby and I are off to do house stuff. Who knew buying a house could be so time consuming? More contracts, inspections, and realtors are on the menu for us today. After house stuff its time for a little gym, some sushi for dinner celebrations, dog park time, and PACKING. I still haven't started to pack and I am leaving in the morning for San Diego. I've decided rather than driving straight through to San Francisco, I am in no hurry. I am going to stop and visit all my fabulous friends along the way! :) San Diego, LaLa land, SLO, and everything in between. I will keep you posted as I travel this weekend! Everyone take care, and I promise as soon as I am crashing at home in Sonoma on Monday I will have time to check out all of your lovely blogs and see what you have been up to. Cheers ladies! xoxo


on a quick side note I have to mention my AMAZING friend Leah Dancer. Yes, that is her real last name and yes we did meet on dance team during our college years :). Anyways, she has built this fantastic baking company from the ground up, and the little confections she makes are HEAVEN. She won't even tell me, her best, how she does it. But trust, these morsels are de-lish. Have a look, you will be so happy you did!

Love Bucket Baking Company

black and tan

The lovely miss Christen tagged me last week and I am finally getting around to answering these fun questions! And I am going to go ahead and tag Lisa of Knit, Teach, Ride and Sarah of Small Town Chic. Have fun ladies!

1. Your hair? is always up! I try to wear it down, but years of dance have ingrained the need to have it out of my face. I just get flustered wearing it down. silly, I know :)

2. Your favorite food? oh jeez this is a difficult one. I'm a big lover of Italian and Mexican food. so pretty much all the stuff thats bad for you. Sushi also floats my boat. yummers.

3. Your favorite drink? coffee, coffee, coffee, did I mention coffee?

4. Your dream/goal? I'm going to be completely honest and say that I have always wanted to work in theater. I wish that I had really pursued this, as many of my friends from college have. I get to hear all of their wonderful stories of where they are working, and what shows they are doing. They are all so ridiculously talented. Hopefully somewhere down the road I can make a living using my artistic side.

5. Your hobby? anything artsy! painting, drawing, scrapbooking, photography, writing, dancing, performing, singing, theater going, the usual stuff.

6. Your fear? the only thing I am really scared of is spiders. hate the creepy, little things. I'm good with much scarier stuff like heights, deep water, the dark, all the commonly feared things. but send a creepy crawler my way and I will FREAK. Can't even kill them myself. pitiful.

7. Where were you last night? walking around my soon to be new house! imagining how to decorate it and make it all home sweet homey. yay!

8. Something you say all the time? My friends say I have a few go to's which are apparently "ridiculous". They tell me that I say everything is "ridiculous". And also "um. yeah.", I don't notice them, but I guess they happen.

9. Something that you're not? shy, timid, or quiet!

10. Wishlist Item? yeah these shoes. oh yeah and this for New Years in the city.

11. Last thing you did? emailed my boss, and finished a term paper. exciting stuff, I know.

12. What are you wearing? tan high boots, black colored tights, black dress from London (forgot the store name!), and I'm wearing my glasses today which is unusual since I prefer contacts but I had so much work to do! I have been wearing tons of color, so I felt like playing it down today.

13. Your pets? my girls! the hubs and I have 2 dogs of our own right now, Crash and Nicky. We are totally ridiculous about them. We treat them like they are our kids. I know I know, usually I hate those people. But the 4 of us are a family, and we take the pups everywhere! most of the time we have a foster dog, but our last guy Buddy was just adopted.

14. Friends? couldn't live without them. I am lucky in the fact that I have many amazing groups of friends. My girls from Chicago that I grew up with and still see every summer when I visit home, my wonderful friends from college that are all over California these days, and my wonderful friends in Italy who I email with constantly. And of course all of my lovely blogger friends! You are simply wonderful!

15. Missing someone? My family, back home.

16. Something you're not wearing? my contacts. rockin the glasses today, finals style. :)

17. Your favorite store? oh SUCH a difficult one... I love little boutiques and thrift stores so I am going to have to go with Buffalo Exchange over in Berkeley and Diva in Walnut Creek.

18. Your favorite color? red, pink, and black. have you seen the wedding photos?

19. The last time you cried? last night. I am so overwhelmed right now!

20. When's the last time you laughed? This morning, when the hubs was playing with the pups.

21. One place that I go to over and over? Sweet home Chicago. Favorite. City. Ever.

22. Where do you eat? Love to cook, so we eat at home quite a bit. But we can also be found over at our favorite sushi bar, On the Roll, often.

The Blues

Happy Monday ladies and gents. :) Finals round week 2 begins today for me. SUCH a busy week, it is kind of making my head spin! We are trying to figure out our final offer on our house, I am wrapping up this semester, we are swamped at work with holiday orders, I've got to do some Christmas baking and to top it all off.... I have to figure out how to pack for a month back home! I am going to try to bring just one large suitcase and see where it goes from there. Winter clothes take up so much more room than summer. It is not likely that all the sweaters, boots, and coats that I would like to bring home will fit into one suitcase, so I am going to have to be creative with outfits. Love me a challenge. Any who, I felt like rocking some blue colors today. I have been loving headbands as of late. Probably because I am getting sick of my short hair and am running out of fun options! I'm glad its chilly enough to wear this vest from Vegas again, because it is so much fun! Though I have to say, its only 9:00 am and I have gotten some very interesting looks so far. :) Hope you are all having a great start to your week, and if anyone has any great packing suggestions I could sure use some help! xoxo

the times they are a changin.

I had to title this little number with a Bob Dylan song, as I am feeling very Dylan-eque with the hat, the glasses, the scarf, etc. anyone with me here? well anyways, what is this awesome mish-mash of clothing that I am rocking today? well, today I have right around one thousand finals. ok, possible exaggeration. more like three finals, but I will be running around like crazy trying to get everything done. on top of the finals, I still have work that needs to be done, emailed, and faxed. yikes. its one of those busy bee days. I've been up since 4ish and I cannot wait to collapse into bed at the end of this day. anyone care to wager how many cups of coffee I will partake of by the time this day is out? well, for a day like today I really wanted to be comfortable. It finally feeling winter-y in arizona so I can layer up all I like. I have to say I am incredibly JEALOUS of all of you with snow. It even snowed back home in SF. seems like it is snowing every where but here. sigh. but on to the outfit. I really loved how funky it came out. all these mismatching patterns, but with a flow of pinks throughout. and I apologize for the unfashionable uggs, I really do, but what can I say? they were calling to me this morning! anyways, enough of a break for me. hope you all are finishing out your week on a good note. :)

tis the season

So this past weekend was the festival of Christmas parties. Love getting all dolled up to go celebrate and dance. We had 2 work parties, and a party at one of our neighbors. They were all just fabulous and left me in the mood for Christmas in the bay! It snowed in San Francisco for the first time in a decade yesterday and sadly, I was not there for it. I got to hear all about it from everyone enjoying their winter wonderland back home. :)

This purple number was worn to the Holiday brunch hosted by the wives at my hubby's work. Most of them know each other already, so I was the "new girl". They were very welcoming, but it was still daunting being so out of the loop with everything. I wanted to wear something fun and light, but still seasonal with the tights and accessories.






Are you all enjoying fun holiday type celebrations? What are you wearing to your seasonal parties this year? Lets hear all about it! xoxo

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Happy Monday morning to all of you! I hope that everyone had wonderful weekends. I know we did! The hubby FINALLY had some weekend time off, so we spent it together. We looked at a zillion and one houses and are narrowing it down to our top five with our realtor this morning. Very exciting! Other than that, we did have a few Christmas parties and I will be posting those outfits later in the week. Thanks for all of your help and suggestions!

This is what I wore while jaunting around to look at more houses yesterday. I bought this top for only four bucks last summer at How Sweet it Was Vintage. It totally reminds me of what the Beatles wore on the cover for their Sgt. Pepper album. Just look at all the detailing and you will know what I mean. :) It was super light weight, and the color is just gorgeous.







I really can't wait to wear this one again. Got lots of comments on it from the other home hunters that we ran into! Well off for an incredibly busy week.... today I begin two weeks of finals, and begin all of our holiday work business! yikes! Hope you all have a fantastic day. xoxo