what do you know about the Secret

Remember a few years back not only Oprah, but the whole country was obsessed with 'The Secret' basically (if you don't know or forgot) it's this 'law of attraction' thing where if you 'visualize' something enough, you can bring it into reality?

Anyway, in my Patti Stanger book (I'm reading for the 2nd time) she talks about the law of attraction thing too. She gives all these examples of bringing things into reality (and she has a reality show on Bravo, so I assume she knows what she's talking about). 

So in Patti Stanger's book she talks about bringing things to you. An example she gives to try is for a rose. Basically, you think about a rose, you imagine what a rose would smell like, etc. and then in a short time, if you think about it enough a rose will show up in your life. It could be taking home a centerpiece from a party, it could be a co-worker getting flowers and leaving for the holidays and letting you have them on your desk because you will be there, etc.

So I just wanted to put this out there now that I'm going to work on the visualization thing. I'll keep you posted on when (not if but when) a real rose shows up in my life.

So far I've seen them in a few random places, but I am thinking about a real rose here. and it's for me not anyone else. I've seen photos of friends on FB with roses randomly, I have seen roses in movies, maybe I'm just more aware of roses all of a sudden, but I am bringing a rose into reality.

Work Party - Holiday in Paradise

So here are a few pictures from my holiday party at work aka me in my amazingly awful outfit!

It's like tacky christmas sweater meets the islands in the winter. So bad yet so good at the same time!

"Please vote for me so I can win the target gift card!"

"I will touch my boob and kick up my leg... I have no problem with that"

(ok so really, I was MCing this thing so I am at the mercy of everyone who felt like taking pics of me to capture this event and the awesome tropical food and desserts. Oh wait, there weren't any other pictures)

Velvet tights and our awesome anklets made of garland.

Here's a video of courtney dancing and me to the right trying to make people smile to take a picture.

Here's a lovely group-shot of my coworkers and I.

I was pretty mad at everyone who didn't theme it out. Boo on them. At least we had leis for everyone.

So that was it. Then we went to Glow Golf which was fun for a little while. Then we went shopping, then home for the day.

1- has your work had their holiday party yet? Don't you wish I was there to plan your event?

2- Do you want to hear an inappropiate story I didn't share here? It's HILARIOUS

Holiday in Paradise...

(I'm looking serious b/c I'm such a good model!)

Today's our work party!so I don't have a bunch of amazing photos (and probably won't because Courtney and I are kinda in charge of this thing) but maybe!

Anyhow, I got courtney to snap a pic of me because I thought I did pretty good theming it out today. We're calling the party "Just another day in paradise..." aka "Holiday in Paradise" aka, we have an island-themed lunch (grilled pineapple, jerk chicken, keylime pie, rum cake, you get the idea) at this event facility, then after that we're all leaving to go play glow golf! (like cosmic bowling but with mini-golf. it's inside, don't worry).

So here's my look:
Courtney hooked me up w/ an ugly xmas sweater that fit the theme perfectly, I have on my velvet leggings (sarah, don't hate), my faux juicy lime green cover-up (aka skirt), some boots (couldn't go there w/ flip flops, there's ice/snow on the ground!) and my hair is gorgeous! but you can't see. it has beads in it. Oh! and a real lei from hawaii!

you guys... it's cold

but that is okay because I have a fabulous ice lantern tutorial for you!
and it has to be below freezing for this to work, so yay for frozen, icy weather.

Like many of you, one of my favorite things about this time of the year is enjoying holiday lights.
The only bad thing is that these beautiful lights use A LOT of electricity. Piled on top of our already higher heating bills, it is very expensive and not very ‘green’ to have lights strung all over your home. Don’t worry… I have found a solution for outside your home that is not only beautiful, but practical (green and inexpensive) that I wanted to share with you!

ICE LANTERNS

one of my ice lanterns on my patio (multi-colored battery powered lights inside)

I found this ice light tutorial online. With my luck though, of course the week I found it, the Greensboro temperatures soared back into the 40’s and 50’s.

I had hope it would freeze soon again, so I created my ‘container within a container’ of water and set it outside, waiting for the next frigid day to come... And it finally did on Monday!

How I created my ice lanterns

• I filled a large plastic container with water and then placed another container (also filled with water, rocks work too) inside of it.

• I left the containers outside to freeze. Once frozen, I brought them inside and ran them under warm water in the sink to release the plastic containers from the ice.

• I then had a hollow ice shell that resembled glass.

• I purchased several strands of battery operated holiday lights (available at Big Lots, Target, Wal-Wart, etc. for around $2-$4 each).

• I placed the battery-powered lights inside of my ice shell and voila! A beautiful, eco-friendly (batteries are recyclable) option for your outside holiday décor. (you can also use candles instead of the lights, but I get nervouse leaving fire outside... even with ice over it lol!)

mani/pedi day

so yesterday I told you guys about my amazing, blissful trip to target where I had the TO DIE FOR starbucks salted caramel hot chocolate. So after that Lauren came over and we got the cutest mani's pedi's ever!

Yes, I have tiger toes (people are all down w/ the zebra, what happened to the tiger?) and I love my nails. Yes, people say it looks like I hit them with a hammer and to that, i just say I look B.A.

I have one with mine and Lauren's toes on my phone, but I can't get it to download. So here's her nails and my nails and courtney's un-mani'd nails at outback lol.

 ok well this was a random post hahah. but I have even more to come!

the best thing I ever drank. salted caramel hot chocolate

{via starbucks}

so I am not a starbucks girl. If someone's going on a starbucks run I will only get some if they are buying. I am down for pumpkin spice frappiccinos, chai lattes, the normal stuff. but it wasn't until people around my office started getting the salted caramel hot chocolate that I took an interest. I think thought getting hot chocolate at starbucks was just odd... I mean open up a pack of swiss miss people, it's all the same.

....and then it was this past weekend. I had an early gav drop-off so he could go out of town w/ his dad and I found myself cold, in the car at 8am with nothing to do. So I did my favorite activity, I went to Target! I got inside and they were playing trans-siberian orchestra's christmas cannon

I thought I was pretty chilly and for some random reason I was hungry so instead of getting food at the starbucks in target, I figured a salted caramel hot chocolate would be equal to breakfast and lunch (at 16 g fat and 450 calories, it totally is).  But whatever, I ordered it regular and

oh
my
freaking
God ! ! !

I had to literally stop in my tracks in the $1 section to try to get a hold of myself. The taste is unlike anything I have ever tried. I just did a little c&p from the starbucks website (because if you have not tried this, it sounds kinda random, I mean hello? salt? but no, trust your girl on this...)

Hot chocolate with mocha sauce and toffee nut syrup, topped with sweetened whipped cream, a caramel drizzle and sprinkled with our sea salt and Hawaiian Turbinado sugar topping.

hold on here's another discription from the starbucks website:

What could make chocolate even richer than chocolate? What could add even more depth, more levels of flavor, more of that sensual warmth that only chocolate seems to give us? Caramel, of course – and a few of its friends.
A smooth, buttery drizzle of caramel adds so much to this classic warmer, but we didn’t stop there. We went deeper, with mocha and toffee nut syrup and just to be absolutely sure that you could taste every layer of this mouth-watering delight, we added a sprinkle of our sea salt topping blend that features Hawaiian Turbinado sugar for a hot chocolate like no one has ever experienced before.

Ok that's what's up. No wonder I didn't eat lunch until like 4pm. Oh! I will have to show you my mani/pedi I got with Lauren. But I'll talk about that tomorrow because this is all about the hot choc. With the music playing, it was just a little piece of heaven. And just a side-note, I have had a salted carmel brownie before (people say they are so delicious) and I disagree. This is different/better/more amazing than that. You must go to Starbucks today, right now, go get it. Seriously! Mary, and other vegan friends, they can do it with soy! See, no excuses! get it already!!!!! You will thank me!

I'm a genie in a bottle, baby

uh no, this post isn't about Christina Agulera (sp?)'s nude cell phone photos. I mean seriously xtina, anyone could google you for some racy photos, you don't need to be snapping your own. I digress, this post is really about if I had a genie and was granted 3 wishes!

So fun, right? My good bloggy friend Sara over with Unofficial Mom thought of this awesome post theme, and you all know I spend 1/2 my day in la la land imagining all the wonderful things that are *just* about to happen to me. Hey, it gives me hope, right? lol! So here are the 3 wishes I'd have (after wishing for more wishes first, duh! this isn't Aladdin, in my world you can wish for that!) PS all of these are doable, so my wishes really can come true! (awww)

1- My dream townhouse. So I'm in the market for a townhouse. This is real, not a dream. I actually have located some pretty darn gorgeous townhouses that *almost* meet my criteria. What is my criteria, you may ask? it's actually pretty simple. 1- it has a garage, 2- it has a pool, 3- it has a jacuzzi tub in my master suite. So cruising around last weekend with gav (I pretended we were looking at lights, which we were... just in front of townhouses lol!) I stumbled upon THE most gorgeous, yet fabulous, yet great location and *almost* affordable (when I start making like uh... $20k more a year...lol I wish!). The picture above are the actual townhouses I really want, so fab,right? well I stopped by there yesterday (for fun!) and there are only 4 available left (they are new)... and they are HUGE like 4 bedroom and all start at like $260k so um yeah... not going to happen hahah. Anyhow to go along with my barbie dream house... I mean my townhouse, I want new everything in there, furnature, a decorator to just hook it up and make it look fab.

2- To be a VS angel. I would love to be Miranda Kerr if I could choose, but not sure how fast I could pick up the accent. Basically I know exactly what I'd need to do to get her body (hi? lypo j/k), eat right, exercise, get a spray tan, get some 6" stilletos and some super cute wings. But what I really want is to be in the VS fashion show. To walk the glitter runway and wear the wings. The body-part would of course be part of it, but I look forward to the VS fashion show all year and want to be in it! And you KNOW I'd make a heart with my fingers at the end of the runway and wink, like all the angels do ;)

&

3- To be a combination of these 2 ladies. Patti Stanger & Lisa Loeb
Here's why... I love Patti's brains, humor, wit, and take-charge/aggressive attitude. She is the best 'people reader' ever. AND I love her advice on relationships, dating, self esteem, body image, etc. she's so sassy... just a blast :)
Lisa Loeb is so pretty! she is so sweet, cute, and seems like everybody's bff. she's great with kids (she's always on nick jr. singing), and loves hello kitty. I love her highlights and her glasses. Her style is just perfect.
What they both have in common: they are bicoastal (both with houses in NYC and LA), both have (or have had reality shows), both celebrate Hanukkah, have written books, and both are awesome!

So what would your three wishes be if you had a genie? Link up with Sara, the Unofficial Mom!

so... here's my 2011 holiday card

as you recall, I already ordered and sent out my holiday cards for 2010. Then shutterfly (my photo-sharing company of choice... always!) had this amazing 50 free cards to bloggers offer. Well hi? how could I not take part. so i went ahead and got my 2011 cards. We took this picture at the xmas tree farm the day after tgiving. funny how there's not an xmas tree in sight! I don't love this card as much as I love this year's card (see post below). It's not as 'bright' 'colorful' etc, but because I have no clue what I'll be up to/where I'll be living next year, etc. this seemed like a 'safe' kinda generic, yet still fun picture, right? (just humor me and say it's the most awesome card you've ever seen)

... and if you're seeing this and in my family or IRL friend, just forget this all before next year (technically this one and the other one I sent this year are slightly different, include our 'real names' hahah etc).

 so anyhow, yeah here are the rejects... we weren't having the most photogenic day (and my puffy vest under my coat wasn't a good look either. whatev, it was cold in the mts.)

Gav of course, is always handsome

Here's the man cutting down the tree!

Holiday Card from Me?

Hi! I know I could just e-mail you guys individually, but I'll just open it up to all of my fab blog readers...

who wants a holiday card from me and gav? Ok so technically it's the same card in the post below, and you could totally just print it out (it's a single-sided card)
but... if you would like to have an actual piece of mail from me... (and I totally expect one from you back!!!!) hit me up on this awesome, super-private, confidential form! CLICK HERE
PS don't you just love my new banner? I already created one for n. years. so exciting lol!
PPS we are going bowling at work this afternoon! yayay!

Happy Holidays You Guys!

So Hanukkah's almost over, and it's a couple weeks until Christmas and hopefully (with the exception of my sister who's in Denmark) everybody's gotten their holiday cards from me (Sarah, it'll get there sometime before you leave... hopefully)! So I can now reveal to everybody else my super fun/exciting/festive design this year!

so great, right???? It's gav's 1st ride on the ferris wheel at the nc state fair on the left, then the rest are pics my cubee courtney took of us this summer.

And... I ordered my 2011 cards (I got 50 free from shutterfly, I think that promo's still going on so if you haven't ordered yours you better get on it!)  I already got those back. I know, I know, Gav and I'll probably look totally different next year. But he's all bundled up and I am too and we are running and it's in cross-process, so hopefully if he's a foot taller or I'm 20 lbs skinnier, it'll all look the same...right? And really, who is going to care? Not me because I got 50 cards for free from shutterfly ($102 value!) wooo hoo!

(ok I may show you that card.... idk!)

• have your sent your holiday cards this year yet?
• have you even ordered them?
• do you agree that it's awesome to feature your pets on your cards? (even though I haven't since Gav has been born)

It snowed this weekend!

(this is gav eating the gingerbread house he made with my mom... see I even work on saturday!) anyhow its 4pm today (monday) and I JUST ate some lunch. yes I'm that busy. I know you all think i'm joking but it's legit crazy work piling up and it just goes on and on! But i'm not stressed, nothing is difficult, just A LOT!

Anyway, I did want to share more fun snow pics! After I got home from work on Saturday (like 3pm, not too late) it had been snowing a few hours so I took gav out to go sledding and to have fun :) yeah... these are all off my cell... hahah!

check it out....

so every monday Gav and i do something really exciting. it all started when i had to bring in books on different subjects each week for his school. well after about 3 weeks of him being so pittaful because we didn't have books on 'going to the dentist' 'planets' 'the presidents' I started trying to think where I could get ahold of books so he would be included when it was Tuesday's story time on the week's subject. well after asking my friends if they had said books at their homes (which they didn't either) I had the revolation... the library! Yes, that little building across from my apt. up on the hill that we drive by and I had never been in.

I took Gav one monday, got him his first library card (ok and one for me too, just not my 1st). gav was able to get the appropiate books to bring to school each day.... for free! yes, they let you keep those suckers for 3 weeks. and you never have to talk to a librarian (not that it would be a problem). You just pick out a bunch of books (and dvds... good ones! goodbye redbox!) throw them on this pad thing, scan your card, and you are all set! a tiny receipt prints out telling you when your stuff is due and that's it!

so libraries are great for kid's books... but I still spend a fair amount on Amazon getting random mc randomness books. so today I had this thought... i wonder if the random book I was just about to his 'buy' on Amazon... Patti Spanger (yes, millionaire matchmaker)'s book was at the library. I mean it seemed crazy, they carry educational materials... so I went to the website. They had me type in my card's barcode #'s. I typed in like 1 word off the name on the book... and voila! they had it at the central library! it's not the one by me, but I figured I could go on my lunch hour or something.

well when I went to select the 'pickup' button, it said they were delivering it to my little library across from myhouse and I could be e-mailed or called when it was there! and I get it for 3 weeks, and can renew it... and ok.... probably most people go to the library all the time. but I hadn't been since early HS. in late HS everybody got the internet and forgot about libraries (or at least I did).

Anyhow, that was my revolation that I just had to share! so go to your library, your tax $'s paying for it. get your books for free! it's great!

I'm here! Crazy Busy but here for the in love series!

So I'm pretty sure most of you think I've fallen off the face of the earth. I promise I haven't I've just been so crazy totally beyond comprehention busy at work. I don't have a laptop at home anymore so work's my main blogging location. So anyhow work's crazy busy like I said, but I am leaving early today... and so that means my brain has shut off even earlier... that means I must blog!

So what am I loving this week? that I have to work on Saturday? uh no. BUT that means I was off earlier in the week (I can't get overtime, yo?) so yesterday Gav and I went to see Disney on Ice! Toy Story 3 was the first movie gav ever saw in the theatre this summer (I have a post somewhere on here about it), and so he could follow along pretty well to the ice show. It was much less dark/emotional than the movie (thank goodness!) Anyhow the cutest part were the Barbie/Ken scenes. Check out Barbie's high heel ice skates hahah! (PS no I didn't take these pics)

Thants some pretty impressive/uncomfortable skating for toy story characters... I'm just saying!

2- I finally got new contacts today! for most people they go to the eye dr all the time, but i am the worst, wear the same contacts for 2+ months (when I'm supposed to only wear them 2 weeks). I take them out... um never! yeah, I'm really bad. Anyway, I went today and got some good new contacts that i really can keep in for 1-2 months, not ever take out, and they won't make me get an eye infection! so that's always awesome news. Also, in january I'll be due for some new glasses so I gotta get my Lisa Loeb look going on.  Hotness!

3- I really want a white christmas tree. I could google this probably faster than finding pictures of one, but I think they are so kitch and cute. Maybe after N. years I will find one on sale for dirt cheap

4- know what else I want? A feather wreath. I saw one at this shabby chic bakery and it was the cutest thing ever. not something I'd think I'd like but I do.

5- My girl Vanessa talked about Bakerella today and omg, I forgot how obsessed I was with wanting to make cake pops. I told my friend Kari all about it... we must make these sometime for sure! What'a cake pop? basically you make a box cake, add 1/2 can icing, make into balls, freeze, take out, dip in that kind of chocolate you buy at the craft store, decorate, and eat! ok here are pics...

Yes they do hello kitty ones! I must have them. hi?

Ok I gotta get back to the last 6 minutes of work lol, but I just wanted to say hi!