Work Perks

The magazine I work for was having a beauty sale from the editorial closet and I scored these two polishes for one dollar each. The first is Dr.'s Remedy Tender Terracotta and the second is Nars Back Room. Neither are spring colors but they'll get a lot of use next winter and how can you pass up Nars nail polish for one dollar? That's right, you can't.

Omnishambles

Om·ni·sham·bles: noun 1. a state of complete and total life disorder

Maybe I'm being a bit melodramtic. Or maybe I'm just being 22. Either way, I've been grumpy and disgruntled. I'm almost 100% positive I'm going to get murdered on the subway from all the dirty looks I've been giving people, but I mean, you can only get bounced around like a pinball so many times. I miss school, I miss my friends, I miss dancing, I miss not complaining all the time. Let's see what the month of May brings..

Weekend Recap



• Met up with my friend on Friday evening after work for our traditional Grand Central beers. $2.75 for a 24 oz. can of beer.  Cha-ching. We talk, we rant, once I cried. Good times.
• I’m anxiously awaiting to hear important news that will determine the rest of my life forever (not really, but kind of) which has caused several panic attacks in the span of three days. Usually I’m not this uptight but my god, I just want an answer.
• Saturday morning and afternoon, I tried cleaning my room. This has been going on for about a year now since I moved home from college. I spent about an hour "organizing" and have gotten nowhere. My stuff is just sprawled out around my house and I’m convinced this is the reason why I can’t get my life together. Unorganized room = unorganized brain = unorganized life. And I can’t stand un-organization.
• Saturday afternoon/evening/night/early morning was significantly better. My friend came into The Bronx where we ate delicious Bronx pizza (I’m a total snob when it comes to my pizza and I’ll take my neighborhood pizza over anybody else’s) and then got picked up where we went for a bar crawl to benefit autism. A ten dollar donation lead to drink specials the whole night and I found out a few things about myself and life in general:
• I’m pretty decent at playing pool
• I get jealous of outfits on four year old girls (she had on a chambray button down, white denim jeans, and her accessories of a cream colored belt, bag, and ballet flats pulled the outfit together flawlessly. I mean, come on. Either she is the most fashionable kid that’s the normal version of Suri Cruise or her mom has some great style. I digress..)
• Any friend who doesn’t judge you for wanting a McDonald’s grilled onion chedder cheeseburger at 2:00 am is worth keeping. And if you happen to find yourself in a group of people who will order with you, then you are set for life.
• Sunday morning was a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and denim jacket wearing kind of day so that was phenom. And in the evening we celebrated my cousin’s birthday by eating steaks, potatoes, and a lot of brie cheese. Mmhmmm…
• Also, apartment hunting. It’s just the worst.
• And I sprained my foot. So I’ll be limping around for a few days. Don’t ask me how it happened, because I don’t know. It just happened. I managed to bar crawl on said sprained foot. A standing ovation is not necessary but appreciated.

Choose Happiness

Small things making me happy today:

• A new employment opportunity for a dear loved one
• The apartment hunt is on. I made the mistake of bringing my mom with me to look at a studio in Brooklyn - as soon as we stepped out of the subway, she repeated one of two things the entire time: "No" and "Stephanie........no." Which was fine since the studio was really a crappy cramped space in a crappy neighborhood with the bathroom OUTSIDE in the hallway. Just...no. And a tiny kitchen which lead to more famous mom-isms: "The listing said it was a micro kitchen" - said I. "Micro? Try microwave because that's all that would fit in there" - replied mom in a snarky manner. Good one.
• I booked a Swedish massage for the end of May. SO looking forward to that.
• This weekend is a bar crawl benefiting a charity for autism so I'll be crawling around all Saturday afternoon and evening.
• The Great Gatsby is coming out soon and there is Gatsby fever everywhere. I might pick up the book and re-read and maybe dedicated a week of posts to Gatsby. Pretending I'm Daisy Buchannon the whole time of course.

One more day until it's Friday. Thank God!

Into The Woods

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If I were to ever find myself in the middle of the woods, any one of these dresses would be ideal to have on. Except that I would probably trip over a tree stump and smudge dirt everywhere. Elegance is dead.

Burns Don't Heal Like Before

Men Putting On Makeup

I saw this article on BuzzFeed yesterday and practically pissed my pants. I was reading it in an environment where you're not supposed to laugh out loud and trying not to laugh at something that's funny = a million times funnier. Especially when the weird heavy breathing, air-through-the-nose begins. The article title says five men, but there are only four present in the pictures. Personally, I think the fifth one just could not handle the will power and finesse it takes to apply liquid eyeliner.

Weekend Recap: Park Slope, Brooklyn

On Sunday, I planned on heading into Queens to scope out different neighborhoods as the apartment hunt has commenced (apartment hunting is the worst. The worst.) Instead, I met up with a friend who just moved into Hamilton Heights and we moseyed about Riverside Park. After about an hour of moseying, we hopped on the subway and decided to go wherever the polluted subway wind took us to mosey some more. We ended up in Park Slope, Brooklyn near the new Barclay's Center - I might be seeing Queen B there at the end of August. No big deal folks.

Park Slope was super cute and kitschy. We stayed on 5th Avenue which was full of boutiques, thrift shops, dive bars and ale houses (my favorite,) sophisticated bake shops (my other favorite,) quirky named stores (Pork Slope for a butcher shop, Pita Pan for a sandwich shop,) and people hanging out. There were also a lot of brownstones on the streets between the avenues and a lot of families gathered on the stoops. Everything was in bloom and it felt like we were in a different city altogether. We grabbed a delicious and cheap dinner at Ginza, a hibachi and sushi place that had half-off sushi. Fifteen pieces of various sushi and a soda cost 10 bucks. Boom. After, we walked from Park Slope to the Brooklyn Bridge and over to lower Manhattan. My legs were killing me but we decided to do the same thing again soon - wander and explore new neighborhoods throughout the boroughs. I mean, I have to get in exercise somehow right?

Riverside Park View in Hamilton Heights

Weekend Recap: Nai Tapas Bar

To celebrate my friend's 23rd birthday, we all met up on Saturday night at Nai Tapas Bar for tapas and flamenco dancing. Tapas are a Spanish cuisine (they were all I ate when I traveled to Barcelona two years ago) that are eaten as snacks or appetizers but can be combined to form  full meal. "The serving of tapas is designed to encourage conversation because people are not so focused upon eating an entire meal that is set before them." We ordered a bunch of tapas (my favorite was the chicken potato croquette though everything was delicious,) and two pitchers of sangria (sangre means blood in Spanish - used because of the drink's dark color.)

The flamenco dancing was amazing - sitting at the back of the table, I had to awkwardly crane my neck around to see the dancer's feet but it was worth it because it's incredible to see how fast their feet move. Flamenco includes four parts: singing, guitar playing, dancing, and handclapping. One thing I noticed was how the dancers looked down - I've been told countless times (when I was on the ballroom team and kickline dance in college) that it was necessary to look up so I though it interesting that these two flamenco dancers kept their gaze down.

A Gift To Give: Dinosaur Candle Holder

I consider myself a fairly bad gift giver. Some people know exactly what to get a friend based on personality or inside jokes whereas I just cannot put into a gift the character of a friend. Usually I find the perfect present for someone when it is nowhere near their birthday/Christmas and then I grapple in the moment with purchasing it ahead of time/praying not to forget about it or passing on it and hoping to find something as good later. Although my friend's birthday was two weeks ago, we celebrated it this weekend and I tried to think ahead of what to give her - "think ahead" meaning purchasing something the night before verses running into a store ten minutes before I'm due to meet everyone. Maybe that's why I'm always running late? (re: blog title.) Maybe that's why I'm an awful gift giver!?!?

Anywho, this dinosaur candle holder is what I got my friend and I like to think it's the perfect purchase for her- she likes bright colors, dinosaurs, it can be a shelf decoration and who can't find use for a candle? Tealight candles sold seperately. Assholes. Or maybe she hates it and only pretended to like it when she opened it. The point being there really is no point. Which is perfect because this is a random gift on a random blog that nobody should be reading unless they are really bored. But hey, thanks for tuning in!

And I Feel Crazy When I See Your Face



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Here are some classic quotes on love and beauty from various famous authors in great designs to start your weekend off right. These next few days I'll be eating tapas and watching flamenco dancers, celebrating birthdays with friends. exploring Queens, walking the dog, and taking a lot of naps. And it will be glorious. Cheers to the weekend!

 

 

Daily Snapshot: Spring Things

Long days at the office aren't so bad when you are walking home on streets lined with trees that have finally come to life. This one in particular is in front of the cutest house around my corner (white picket fence anyone?) I've been noticing some plots along our neighborhood sidewalks have been replaced by mounds of dirt which I thought odd; when my mom informed me that the city has designated trees to be planted in these plots, I thought "shucks, that's lovely." And then my Bernie-Bummer father leaned in and said that meant more bird shit on all of our cars. You win some, you lose some. In other news, I got my tax return check in the mail - hello new camera bag! Also, I like to think that the little banner bearing the letter "S" in the picture stands for spring. Or Stephanie.

Daily Snapshot: Killer Heels

I spoke about these shoes in this post, but felt they needed their own spotlight. Because shoes are that important. They just make me feel so official, so tall, so boss lady, so corporate (even in jeans you ask!? Why yes!) While you can't see the full shoe in this picture, the heel is super high and it pretty much makes the grossest appendage look completely fierce. The fact that they are so comfortable makes me believe that God himself sent forth a carrier dove to deliver them to me. Amen.

Look For The Helpers

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May you always be the first to help, to lend a hand. Love can be found here, here, here, and here.

Pray For Boston

It is deeply saddening that something so tragic could happen at an event that brings together such a large group of people to cheer one another on. An event that is one of the most physically grueling challenges for 23,000 peoples lives, that takes months to train for, and high stamina to complete. An event that gives a moment for the families and the loved ones of the runners to feel proud. To encourage. To support. As hard as it is to grasp the reasons, to gain any bit of understanding, it brings comfort to focus on the good. The first responders who didn't hesitate to run towards the destruction. The runners who continued to Mass General hospital to donate blood. Even the millions of people who posted prayers on their social media sites. In the Boston area, you can donate blood here.

Hello, Goodbye

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Watercooler Wear

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I just read this great article about dressing for work: how matching the clothing you wear with your work environment helps maintain character and focus. It says, "donning symbolic apparel can alter our thinking style in beneficial ways that are consistent with the meaning that the clothing holds for us. So whatever project you’re currently working on, consider dressing for that role. Think what clothing symbolizes the attributes you need to succeed and wear those threads while you work." Read the full article here.
I work in sales at a magazine and the dress attire is business casual which is great because I don't have to be stuffed in a suit and can get away with colored denim and nice shirts. However, those days when I throw on a blazer really do put me in a more focused mood and I find I'm more productive. Below are some items that, for my position, help get me into that office mindset.

 

1. A tailored blazer always pulls an outfit together, whether it is over a dress or some jeans
2. A structured dress that hits just above or below the knees is modern and professional
3. A statement necklace makes a statement (uh duh?)
4. A crisp oxford shirt is so versatile it can be worn anywhere
5. Colored skinny jeans (depending on your work environment) are comfy business casual
6. I always keep a pair of heels under my desk to slip on when I arrive in the office. (I'm wearing these as I type and they are exactly as described: polished perfection. I can't get enough of them)