Merry Christmas to All and Happy Birthday to ME!!!!

Merry Christmas my lovelies!!!!

Well technically its 11pm on Christmas Eve when I'm writing this but by the time you read it, Santa will have already visited all you good girls and boys!! It's the most wonderful time of the year because it's CHRISTMAS TIME and it also happens to be my birthday!!!! Yes that's right, I was born on Christmas Day!!!

Now for some time there has been a debate about whether or not having a Christmas birthday is a good thing? I honestly go back and forth with loving the fact that I have a Christmas birthday and hating it.  When I was little I used to think it was so cool that my birthday was on Christmas because I was the only person I knew that had that birthday.  However, as I got older it became more and more difficult to celebrate my birthday because I could never have a physical party on my actual birthday, many of my friends would go away for Christmas, or everyone was busy with shopping or planning their Christmas parties.  As I got older I began to find the fact that I shared a birthday with the big man upstairs pretty hilarious (i.e. this year I dared my mom to ask the bakery to write "Happy Birthday Tori and Jesus! which shockingly they did!!!)  I'm also rocking this great shirt for my Christmas PJ's from lookhuman.com

Now, every time I tell someone my birthday is on Christmas, 9 out of 10 times the first thing they ask is "Do you get ripped off when it comes to presents?" Honestly, I've been fortunate that my parents have always spoiled me rotten when it comes to presents and really go out of their way to make sure that I feel appreciated on my birthday!  To make this day feel super special, I laid down a few guidelines for my family to follow... 1. NO CHRISTMAS/Birthday cards.  I'm sure many of you have never heard of this but the lovely company known as Hallmark actually makes a card that is marketed for those of us that were in fact born on 12/25.  2. Wrap my presents differently.  Now this may not seem like it would be a big deal for people who don't have a birthday that shadowed by a major holiday but for me it makes a huge difference.  I simply ask my family to wrap my Christmas presents in one wrapping paper and my birthday in another so we can distinguish which is which.  3. Opening my presents at different times.  Usually my family will all open all our Christmas presents first then take a little break and later open my bday presents.


For those of you that have the privilege/misfortune of sharing the same birthday as me I wish you A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY and oh yeah, Merry Christmas, or what ever you celebrate!

My next post is probably going to be showing you what I've bought/received for Christmas and my birthday!

My Warby Parker Experience

Hello Lovelies,

Sorry for the delay but I've been busy trying to accomplish my Christmas shopping!  I'm practically done but I feel like I could use a few more little tiny gifts!

Anyhow, the last update I posted showcased the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G  home try on program Warby Parker has to offer.  I did two rounds of home try ons and found that I liked most of the glasses.  I was able to narrow my choices down to two choices: the Nash and the Welty.  Ultimately, I decided on the Nash glasses because I had those in front of me but I can honestly say I don't regret my decision.

I absolutely love these glasses.  The quality of these glasses far surpasses the $95 price tag.  When I went to order these glasses I did experience a bit of a hold up (which I attributed to the busy holiday business) but the lovely customer service representative explained that my prescription actually held up the process.  So aside from that hold up I would definitely, definitely recommend this company!!! I actually visited their showroom in SOHO because my friend wanted to pick out a pair of glasses and loved that experience as well.  I would highly recommend visiting one of their many showrooms because you can try on all the glasses in every color imaginable instead of only getting 5 choices at a time.  They are also able to order your glasses and do any test that may need to be done in house (which is awesome!).

This morning I awakened to the Santa mail man delivering my glasses.  I couldn't wait to open them and try them on because I was wondering if I made the right decision.  Once I opened the package I can honestly confirm that I did make the best decision.  Who knows, maybe I'll even buy another pair in the distant future!

Until Next time.....

* my next post will probably be after Christmas and it will be updating you on what I got for Xmas/birthday.  Hint hint... it may include a new Kate spade bag that I've been eyeing for months!

  

Read It: A Beautiful Disaster Review

Hello lovelies long time no blog.

I'm not even going to begin to apologize for my lack of posting but I'm back now so let's forgive me for this long overdue post!

So I just literally finished the book "Beautiful Disaster" by Jamie McGuire.  Holy smokes this book was Ahhhhh---Mazing.  I would easily give it 5/5 stars.  I purchased this book on Amazon for my Kindle for 7.59.  Now you may be thinking that's a bit pricey, and normally I'd agree, but this book is worth every penny! It's 404 pages long so you're getting WAY more than you paid for.  I'm going to run through a few of the things I LOVED about the book and some of the things I wasn't crazy about (I'm also writing this post because my friends and I decided the other day that we wanted to start a book club and this is the first book we'll be reading and i needed a place to jot down my notes).

Things I loved:

1. Abby and Travis's relationship.  Although to many they were a disaster, something about them just made you want to root for them.  It didn't matter if you knew that they physically could not be together, you were still somehow pulling for them.  For example, travis is known on campus for being the raining one-night-stand champ, yet once he meets Abby he's willing to completely change his life for her.  Even though at times Travis is a bit possessive and obsessive of Abby, I still somehow loved him and could only hope for a Travis Maddox of my own.
2. The writing: I loved how Jamie McGuire wrote this book.  I could not put this book down.  I'm normally someone who values their sleep and I was seriously considering pulling an all nighter because I wanted/needed to know how this book was going to end.  Even when I went to work today I couldn't stop talking about this book.  For me any book that you can't put down is easily a  5 star kind of book!
3. Conflict. Spoilers................................................................................. Even though you know every book has a point where something has to go wrong, this book had so many twists and turns you weren't sure what was going to be the breaking point for this relationship.  Just when I thought Travis couldn't do anything else to piss off Abby, he does it.  

Things I didn't love:

1. The typos.  The book had a decent amount of typos, which always annoys me.  I'm not perfect, but if you're charging someone to purchase a book, I would think that the publishers would have been able to pick up on some of those typos.  One of these days I'm going to highlight every typo in a book and send if back to the author, free of charge just to show how an average person can pick up on these mistakes.  I wouldn't mind if some of these authors would send me the manuscripts a head of time, just so I could help them!
2. The violence.  Travis is a bad boy who partakes in an underground fighting ring.  Clearly Travis has anger management issues, but he's always fighting someone and always beating their face into a bloody pulp.  Sometimes the violence seems justified, but other times not so much.

Like I mentioned about I loved this book.  I would definitely recommend it and would re-read it.  In April ,Jamie McGuire will be releasing the same story from Travis's perspective which I'm interested in reading called Walking Disaster.  I think the next book will be reading is 10 years later by Hoda Kotb

Until next time......

A Week in Review... outfits, movies, and shopping

Hello Lovelies,

Sorry again for the lack of posting.  I've been super busy at work since it's Christmas shopping time.  However, the only plus to working a lot is I get to put together some cute outfits.  This past week in NJ was unseasonable warm so I got to wear a few items that I would never imagine wearing in December.

So without further ado, let's get on with the outfits!!!

 The first outfit was a black and white plaid chiffon blouse from Old Navy paired under a black V-neck sweater.  I also chose to pair this outfit with my boyfriend fit pants from Gap and my J.Crew CeCe flats, which I absolutely adore.

Probably my favorite outfit of the week was the one I wore when it was 65 degrees this Tuesday.  I paired my skinny cropped navy polka dot pants, a lavender boyfriend fit shirt, and a navy crew neck sweater all of which came from the Gap.  I also work my favorite gold cece's from J.Crew and my bubble necklace, which has quickly become a staple for me.  

Although I mentioned above that the polka dot outfit was my favorite of the week, this Chevron outfits was a close second.  I love this blouse that I got at Nordstrom during their Anniversary Sale, and this is actually the first time I wore it.  I paired it with a pair of Black Rockstar skinny pants from Old Navy, which I took a chance on because they were only $15 and surprising I liked the fit.  I also decided to wear my pink CeCe's as my pop of color because I felt like this outfit needed something to spice it up.


So onto movies.... I just got back from seeing Playing for Keeps.  Overall, I say the movie was cute and heartfelt but by no means was it amazing.  My favorite part of the whole movie is that Gerald Butler has the sexiest Scottish accent ever.  Jessica Biel, on the other hand was a little annoying in the movie.  I love Jessica Biel and am considering dying my hair like hers but in the movie she has this dark hair that just washes her out.  Again, it was a cute movie but I definitely think it's one of those that you can wait to see on Redbox or OnDemand.

I also attempted to watch Rock of Love but I lost interest about 45 minutes in and don't think i'll ever be able to watch it again.

Until next time......

Boston

Hello Lovelies....

I just finished uploading my pictures from my weekend in Boston and I figured I'd write a post about all the fun I had.  Now, as a Yankee fan I never thought I would ever like the city of Boston.  I was brought up thinking "Boston fans are the worst" and everything from Boston is "evil."  Unfortunately or maybe fortunately I know love BOSTON as in I kinda sorta want to move there.

So on Friday, my friend Amy and I flew to Boston from New Jersey.  I know a few of you may wonder why we chose to fly. Well, if you had the option of flying roundtrip for $120 and getting there in under an hour, driving for 5 hours paying for gas, tolls, and parking, or taking a 6 hour train ride.  Seems pretty easy right.  We flew JetBlue and thankfully we had an absolutely gorgeous pilot.  In a moment of bad judgement I tweeted JetBlue and got a lovely retweet with a creepy winking face.

So once we checked into our lovely hotel, The Boston Marriott Long Wharf we set out to discover Harvard.  Unfortunately, we missed the guided tour of the university but we did pay $2 to get a guided map of the university.  I don't know what I was expecting but Harvard was not as prestigious as I was expecting.  Don't get me wrong, it has a beautiful campus but I was expecting more.  After wondering around Harvard for a few hours we decided to head over to Fenway Park.  Like I mentioned above I am a die hard Yankee fan and never imagined I would want to tour Fenway Park.  Being that this year marks the 100 year anniversary of the park I figured it was an appropriate time to visit and I'm glad I did.

You probably can't see it but on the scoreboard it said "Kelly and Craig save the date 11-9-13"

The Yankee fan in me LOVED this sign

 After spending the day in Cambridge and at Fenway Park we decided to head back to our hotel and rest for a little.  After resting we decided to head to the "Little Italy" of Boston in the North End.  This strip of restaurants are all amazing.  It's really difficult to decide which one to actually go to.  We had a recommendation to go to one restaurant but when we got there we couldn't even decipher the menu so we decided to walk around.  Eventually we settled on this great restaurant that was packed.  The food was delicious and honestly I don't think there would have been a bad restaurant on that road.  After dinner we headed to Mike's a famous pastry shop.  Mike's is known for their cannolis but we decided to get their cupcakes.  I'm really boring when it comes to cupcakes but this vanilla cupcake was delicious.  We actually went to Sweet's cupcakes on Sunday and it was good but not as good as Mike's.

 On Saturday we started our day going on a Segway tour.  We decided to do the 2 hour tour with Boston by Segway.   Our tour guide Jay Arr was funny, he randomly would play music over the walkie talkie we had to wear and I'll admit it I danced occasionally.  We saw so many great sites and it was a lot of fun.  Although, my only complaint with the tour was that our captain would some times lead us into oncoming traffic.  Now being from Jersey I am use to bad drivers but Massachusetts drivers are in a class of their own.

After Segwaying we went to eat at the Barking Crab.  Now from the looks of the restaurant it wasn't too impressive but the place was packed.  The food was really good and it was a great atmosphere.  After eating we decided to head back to the Back Bay area of Boston.  This is home to Newbury Street which hosts all the expensive stores ever made also where Tom Brady lives.  This trip was filled with a lot of window shopping because frankly I couldn't afford anything on this street.

Other highlights from the trip include touching a stingray at the New England aquarium and seeing the cute little blue penguins.  

cutest little penguin I've ever seen

 Never in a million years would I ever want to admit that I'd love to live in Boston but I actually could see myself living there.  It's not too big of a city yet it does offer a diverse amount of people and experiences.  Who knows maybe in a few years I'll be blogging from Boston!!!!