After Christmas Shopping

J Crew factory skinny cord in brilliant coral

Kate Spade Broome Street skinny jeans in lavendar

 

Kate Spade Cleo dress in blue

A Few of My Favorite

Gifts this Christmas . . .



Lilly Pulitzer Maddie Zip Front Jacket



Tiffany's Ziegfeld Collection pearl bracelet



Lilly Pulitzer Toasty mittens and earmuffs

Brooks Brothers boucle fringe jacket in tan-gold

 Julie Brown Celine dress in black and white (mine is an inverted version of this with more black than white)


Lilly Pulitzer Maria boatneck sweater in navy and orange

What I Come Home to These Days

Made for TV

I love Christmas movies, even those terrible ones that come on the Hallmark Channel and ABC Family. Nothing is too cliche or cheesy.  They always have some dried up actresses that I love.  A few I've watched this season . . . 

Tori Spelling sings All I Want For Christmas is You badly.  Tia Mowry murders Chistmas, Baby Please Come Home.  It was a pleasure.

This is just a slightly different version of a movie you have seen at least twenty times.  Orphan kids live with their poor but attractive aunt until their rich grandfather and literal prince of an uncle invite them to the castle and embrace them.

I will literally watch anything with a 90210 alum.  I love Shannen Doherty for some inexplicable reason. 

A Jewish boy switches places with another kid because he desperately wants to celebrate the holiday and finds that Christmas really is for everyone.

Apparently I missed this one when it premiered back in 2011.  Loser boyfriend breaks up with the leading lady the day before Thanksgiving so she has to scramble to find a fake fiance to take home with her for the holidays.  Of course the fake fiance marries her by Christmas and you know this will happen from the beginning.  It's still fun to watch.

Thanksgiving

I'm astonished that we were able to pull off Thanksgiving in my tiny tiny apartment.  This is the smallest kitchen I've had since living in the city and C had to show me how to work the oven that had not been used in the three years I had been there.  Most of our nice furniture is in storage until we stop traveling and find a bigger apartment.  We used C's work desk as the table, our new white everyday china from various wedding guests, and even the Jonathan Adler salt and pepper shakers our T-day guests had gifted us with.  Thanks to my new MIL we even had some cute decorations.

Pumpkin soup

We used tv trays to hold up the meal since we had zero counter space left

I own a butter dish for the first time in my life.

Next year I hope to have a more proper Thanksgiving, but I was struck by how much I have to be thankful for this year. I cannot imagine having more to be thankful for than I do right now.

Closure

Veronica Mars THE MOVIE will be out in March 2014 according to Entertainment Weekly.  I didn't start watching this show until the last season when I was introduced to it by my law school roomie, A.  I was hooked quickly and very sad to find out it was getting canceled.  Now I'll have to go back and watch the first couple seasons.  I hope they're on netflix.  It's so hard to say goodbye to shows that should have lasted way longer.  My shows are cut short quite often.  I am convinced that this has to do with my preference for female protagonists vs. everyone else's preferences for dude heavy casts.  It's not too late for the movie version of My So Called Life.  What ever happened with Bryan Krakow?

Ladies Who Lunch

My sister was the greatest maid of honor.  She did so much to make my wedding the best time of my life. One of the nicest things she did was to host a bridal luncheon for all the ladies in the wedding party.  It was at the beautiful Swan Coach House in Atlanta. There were so many sweet surprises and it was only the beginning of my magical wedding weekend.

private room at the Swan Coach House

monogrammed handkerchiefs in keeping with my all white wedding theme

delicious red velvet cake pop favors

with my lovely wedding attendants

I wore the Jazlynn Chiffon Draped Dress from Elizabeth and James and cobalt blue Kate Spade Karolina bow pumps.  I ended up with six different white dresses for all my events and four different Karolina wedding pumps.  I'm only doing this once so I just went for it.

back of the dress

vegetable soup and pimento cheese tea sandwiches

delicious dessert in the shape of a swan


with my Aunt Ruth and Mom

new mom, sisters, and nieces

Last Night

Last night my amazing friend C got R, S, and I VIP passes to the Kanye West show at Barclays.  We entered the VIP lounge around the same time as Grace Coddington and Anna Wintour.  I looked "the devil" herself square in the face and she didn't scowl or frown.  She had a perfectly pleasant smile on her face and I could barely hold it together.  I love my life.

Photobooth in VIP lounge was broken so we took selfies.

It was their idea.

The concert was awesome.  He did most of my favorites and fortunately I watched the Bound 2 video five minutes before leaving work since I appreciate music more when it's more familiar to me.  I feel like Kanye and I are kindred spirits for two reasons.  He is both deeply self aware and deeply honest.  Unabashed honesty is about as rare as a music video getting played on MTV.  But I know first hand that the truth will set you free, regardless of how uncomfortable and angry it makes people.

Dancers who did not dance?

White Jesus?

Red eyed monster thing?

Unfortunately, every aspect of this performance other than the music went over my head.  I loved it anyway.

Sample Sale Scores

Chris Burch Capital Management just so happens to be located in my office building.  Finally, we had the perk of sample sale for both Monika Chiang (his gf?) and C wonder.  It was nice not to have to go out into the cold.  I got scored some cute stationary for $1, regularly $10 and a couple tops for $5 a piece.  Here was the biggest deal I found.  The regular price is pretty far fetched but the sale price was incredible.

Monika Chiang Silk Tie Neck Blouse in bone orig. 345.00 sample sale 40.00

One Night Only

My bachelorette party was only my second.  My friend S's back in August was my first and it set a pretty high bar with the most fun karaoke ever.  My last night out as a single woman could not have been better.  

We started off at a vegetarian restaurant in the east village called Table Verte.  I ordered three amazing courses.  For an appetizer I had their pumpkin soup. I opted for the delicious gnocchi parisian for my entree. For dessert I devoured the banana brulee which was like a fancy creme brulee version of banana pudding.  I would highly highly recommend this restaurant.

Bride to Be glasses, tiara, and boa courtesy of the lovely J who showed up despite battling a stomach flu that day.  I felt so loved!

We then embarked on a scavenger hunt organized by my other friend (and bridesmaid) J who was the hostess for the evening.  We took pictures of street signs signifying the age at which I had my first kiss, plus one at the bar where I had my most awkward kiss, a video of strangers giving me marriage advice among other challenges.  Finally we ended up at an underground bar called Home Sweet Home for my last night of dancing as a single lady.

Fall Shows

My favorite new show this fall is Reign, the story of Mary Queen of Scots.  Typically I'm not a huge fan of period dramas, but for some reason this show fascinates me.  I think it's all the politics of "marrying a country" not a person when you are duty bound to your country.  I know there must be plenty of historical inaccuracies, but I still feel like I'm learning.  Already I've read wikipedia pages for Mary as well as Nostradamus.

I've also added The Tomorrow People, The Originals, Ravenswood, Super Fun Night, Sleepy Hollow, and the Blacklist to my lineup.  I really don't have time for all this, but my TV addiction is worse than my food one.  Also, I have very little hope that more than a couple of these shows will earn a second season.

Showers of Blessings

The best thing that came out of law school was my roommate A. A threw me the most wonderful bridal shower on August 25th.

My fave sandwiches from Num Pang, caprese salad, and this wonderful salad everyone LOVED made by a dear friend

red velvet cake (my fave obvs) from Magnolia Bakery 

My husband, the doughnut connoisseur registered for these.

R and I having a moment

I love these little bird salt and pepper shakers from Jonathan Adler.

It's a good thing no one got cold feet.  C made fresh bread with this baby at least 5 times pre-wedding.

The most special thing she did was to video tape my then fiance answering questions about our relationship. Of course all his answers were so perfect. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

Call me Reliable

From now on I want to surround myself by more reliable people. Reliable people . . .

• Show up to your bachelorette party even though they were battling a stomach virus all day. 
• Don't make excuses.
• Make your dinner date even though work was hard that day and they will have to go back to the office after. 
• Arrive on time or call if they are running late due to circumstances beyond their control.
• Come into work even though it feels as though someone is literally stabbing them.  
• Are conscientious because they know all of their actions have ripple effects for other people. 
• Do not rsvp yes or verbally agree to attend an event and then send regrets.
• Make life fun and easy

Unreliable people 

• Think their problems are more important than everyone else's.
• Dishonest by definition.
• Take others for granted.
• Make life much more difficult than it has to be.
• Are intrinsically selfish.

We all have problems.  We are all busy.  I've dealt with more than my fair share of unemployment, funerals, heartbreak and illness and through it all I have still managed to honor my commitments.  

Mmmm

Too bad I already picked out a wedding cake.  Maybe for my birthday . . .

An Affair To Remember

Over labor day weekend I had the great honor and privilege of attending one of the most incredible weddings I have ever experienced.  My dear friend S, married her college sweetheart K.  I made it through the ceremony without shedding a tear so I thought I was golden.  Nope.  For some reason I got choked up during their first dance.  Then the Maid of Honor gave the best toast in the history of wedding toasts, complete with singing, which seriously had me tearing up and laughing all at the same time.  And then I just totally lost it when they played their same day edit video.  I had never seen that done before, but it was the highlight of the whole night for me.  The most incredible feeling is watching two friends be so happy together, second only to holding babies. What most set this wedding apart from any other was that it was all about making the experience wonderful for the guests.        

And if S ever reads this post . . .

jmg311 

how do you like the way i did my hair for the wedding?

Jeanette G

i thought it was so pretty

i was showing it to HP

(HP = Heather)

i'm tired of writing it out

jmg311 

k

Jeanette G

also - she was exclaiming about how pretty Suz is

because she is

she's so pretty 

Celebrity Sighting

My prosopagnosia prevents me from having all the celeb sighting of the average New Yorker.  Tonight I really impressed myself.  While reading outside at a table in the flatiron district during my break I recognized Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black.  She was enjoying some Starbucks with one friend at first and then another showed up and they were all very tall and striking.  She is prettier in person which makes totally makes sense given that her character is incarcerated.  I bet I'm sitting next to actresses and singers all the time and never notice.  Maybe I was just more alert because I recently started watching Orange is the New Black with C and we are really getting into it.  The background stories of the women are the most interesting part for me.  I could do without the crudeness, but hey, it does take place in a prison so I'm just being my sheltered puritanical self as usual.  Don't mind me.  

Recent Reads

I have finally started feeling the stress of wedding planning and feel like I don't have time or energy to write.  Somehow I still make time to read.