reat God almighty. it’s raining again! will this madness (or the precipitation) ever stop? it’s made worse by the fact that i have to get in a rental car and drive the 4 hours to charlotte this afternoon. and that’s no fun in the rain! good thing i’ve got some good tunes to keep me on the road, and a starbucks on the other side of the mountain to keep me movin’.
i’m really looking forward to this trip as i get to visit one of my favorite schools in all of the country- and they take me out for a yummy dinner. for the second year i’m responsible for hosting a talk during their “junior night” that introduces juniors and their parents to the college application process. it’s a fun night, made even more fun by their wonderful college counseling staff and awesome students. not such a bad gig.
i’m also hoping to visit one of my favorite stores that recently opened in the charlotte area. i found scout and molly’s when i was staying in raleigh, nc for two days over two years ago. i so loved their mix of ladylike labels (milly, tibi, dvf, trina turk) with denim (my three favorite pairs of joe’s jeans have come from scout and molly’s) and fun (read inexpensive) accessories that i go back whenever i’m in town. we’ll see if the rain slows me down…otherwise, scout and molly’s here i come!
daily drop cap by jessica hische
off to pilates. yippee skippee!
then packing for charlotte, watching the season 2 finale of dexter and attempting to write cover letters…
i understand that with great power comes great responsibility. and my super-human power allows me to disseminate the written word faster than the speed of light. so that’s some pretty big responsibility. but sometimes my friends/family say the funniest things. and though these comments are not my own i want to share them with the world. so here goes…
as mentioned, yesterday was grandma’s birthday. hurrah! she sent me an email this morning to thank me for my birthday wishes. when i was in kc this fall we went shopping, naturally. and grandma fell head over heels for a pair of too cute shoes. well she ordered them. and they arrived. but now she’s caught the bug and she’s found another pair of shoes at nordstrom’s that she can’t get out of her mind.
she writes, “p.s. I’m also after a black suede fergie flat with studs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
yes, she used that many exclamation points. but the funnier point is that my grandma wants a pair of fergie shoes! as in fergie from the black-eyed peas. fergie with multiple piercings and unnatural penciled-in eyebrows.
suspect #1
i was lucky enough to grow up just over the river and through the woods from one set of grandparents. they were babysitters, fellow new years eve revelers when mom and dad were out on the town, personal beauty pageant judges/hosts and volunteers at our countless sporting events. we called them grandma and grandpa from new berlin.
and then there were grandma and grandpa from kansas city. they were no less grandparents in my eyes even though they lived 8 hours away. we had a perfect routine: we’d see them at thanksgiving and sometimes at easter, at my birthday in may, and sarah’s in july. like joint custody we split time, but loved both sets equally.
grandma from kc is like a character straight out of mad men. people like her just don’t exist anymore. except in movies and tv shows. she instilled in me a love of homemade cherry pie and cranberry sauce from a can. homecooked dinners with tablecloths and condiments in serving pieces. halloween costumes that were made from scratch and handed down to sarah and eventually my three younger cousins. she has meticulous cursive handwriting. a wristful of bangle bracelets. she picks on me for slouching, doesn’t own a pair of jeans, and introduced sarah and me to dickies. she went with me to the mall to have my ears pierced and about two months ago i returned the favor. and whenever i picture grandma in my head i see perfectly set waves of hair framing her face, a long velour dressing gown or fur. a trail of opium by ysl lingers even when she doesn’t.
i'm almost convinced that betty draper from mad men is based on my grandma
she’s elizabeth or liz or mom or grandma (but not grandmaw!). and today’s her birthday.
happy birthday grandma!
i read in women’s health (btw i love that magazine) that the average woman spends 56 hours a week sitting. that’s over two dayyyyyys people! though i am sitting while i write this and, come to think of it, i was sitting when i read that startling statistic last night. they caught me!
but i was perusing urban outfitters today praying to the monday morning gods that my covetous boots were on sale and in stock (no, and no) when i spied a chair that i just have to have.
wonky. weird. wonderful.
it’s a chair for your jewelry! though the chairs are all tangled, your jewelry won’t be. you can hang necklaces on it. pin your favorite brooches to one of its iron backs. or dangle bracelets from an errant arm. a purse has a tuffet. and now your jewelry has its very own resting place.
available at urban outfitters; http://www.urbanoutfitters.com
i don’t care what you did this weekend, how productive you were. i win.
friday afternoon i shut down my computer, said hasta luego to the office and headed to the university commons to check out guest speaker jayson blair. you know, the new york times writer who plagiarized/fabricated about half of the stories that he wrote for the paper. it was kind of eerie to see him sitting there and know that he was about to get chewed up and spit out by the audience. i don’t feel bad for him. but he is, after all, a human. and doesn’t deserve people being rude to him. no wonder he was literally shaking in his boots.
i got out of the talk and checked my phone. missed calls from sarah. hmmm… she made a spontaneous trip over the mountain to spend the night with me friday because on saturday we…
HIKED THE ENTIRETY OF HOUSE MOUNTAIN. all 3,400 butt-burning feet of the most beautiful (and accessible) peak in the shenandoah valley. though it took some stopping and starting (“ok, let’s just make it to that branch.” “which branch?” “that scraggly one up there.”) we did it! and have the photgraphic evidence to prove it.
take that, silly mountain!
yep. that’s the entire shenandoah valley you see there. and that’s one sweaty, saucy sarah in the foreground…after she was scared of heights and had to sit on a rock.
before i gorged myself on double stuff oreos
sarah told me she employed the “rule of thirds” when taking this picture. she learned about photography from one mr. mahoney in high school. it really captures the beauty of the valley while still giving me appropriate focus within the frame.
hullo down there!
omg. is this not the most beautiful place on earth? are we not the luckiest people alive? it’s so pretty you might think it’s fake. but i’ve got the sore behind to prove that this hike was 100% r-e-a-l.
so what to do after you hike a mountain? hike down the mountain, of course. and this proved to be even trickier than the ascent. sarah and i would be talking, solving the problems of the universe, when we’d wobble, tumble, and trip. there’s nothing funnier than seeing someone teetering around. i felt like a drunk 2-year-old trying to walk. we survived and celebrated with a collective sigh of relief/accomplishment/tiredness when we sank into the leather seats of sarah’s car.
and then i celebrated with about 32 double stuff oreos. i hiked today, i had a good breakfast, i can splurge a little! one oreo, three oreos, 15 oreos. i’m not sure what the actual tally was but let me tell you about 3 hours later i was down for the count. on my bed, drooling on my pillow, wanting to cry. if i didn’t love you so much, double stuff oreos, i would hate you. but i’m back in action after recuperating yesterday. though i’m still sore and still avoiding those oreos i’m ready for a big week which includes a trip to my favorite city in the world, charlotte, nc.
bring it on november. i bet i’ll win.
I just had to physically remove myself from my house because I’d gobbled down so many double stuff Oreos. Love Saturdays!
world,
why can’t we all just be nice to each other?
sincerely,
a concerned citizen
ancy that…it’s friday! and my day has started off in the most splendid of ways. part of my job description includes interviewing prospective students. i was excited to begin with because my first interviewee attends an independent school in manhattan that i’ve visited (score one for jenny). i went out to the lobby to retrieve her and grumbled a little to myself because she was wearing jeans. jeans for a college interview! she is from nyc, however, and they’re always on the cutting edge of trends. at least they looked like designer jeans. i’ll let this slide. slide it did because i spied on her little feet CHANEL BALLET FLATS. CHANEL BALLET FLATS!!!
i looked down at my own feet and casually tried to obscure my own beat up target loeffler randall flats from sight. they don’t even deserve to be in the same room as those beautiful pieces of shoe-ture. i’ve actually been debating throwing these flats out and this sealed the deal. soon as i get home this eve these tattered soles are headed for le garbage. my piggies deserve better…
fancy flourished “f” from daily drop cap by jessica hische
i need another handbag. and it’s this beauty from kate spade. in poppy please!
