current obsessions

Although the weather outside is frightful (or, you know, what those of us here in Miami consider frightful) in my head it's already the middle of spring. I just want bright colors and flowers and all sorts of nice things along those lines so I've decided to give my hot candy cane tea a rest and started drinking iced Passion tea by the bucket loads instead. It's so delicious and refreshing and overall perfect to help fight off the winter blues. Thankfully the cold weather around here comes in very small bursts. It can be in the 50s one day and then nice and warm in the 70s the next. Either way, it all beats the scorching hot days we've got coming up in the summer. You've got to enjoy the cool breezes and excuses to actually wear sweaters while they last.

Something else I've been really into lately is redecorating and renovating. I feel like I've got my dad building something or repainting something everyday. We started redoing my room a few years ago and then kind of stopped in the middle but we've finally gotten ourselves back on track. In the last few days we've refinished a bedside table, painted and nailed together my book/dvd cubes, and put together a shoe rack that highly resemble a giant hamster wheel. I ordered it from HSN thinking it would be a breeze to put together. Boy, was I wrong. It took pretty much the whole family about an hour to figure this thing out. The bright side is that I think it might really be the answer to all of my shoe organization dilemmas. I'll take some more pictures once I've got it all filled and it's saving space in my closet. The other big reason for all of the room improvements is that it looks like I'll have a friend moving in for a little while by the end of this month which means I've got to really get everything in order. It also means I need to finish emptying out a closet a for her which hopefully won't be as bad as it sounds. 

Last but certainly not least is anything by Lush. I hope you all enjoy Candy peaking out from behind that bag as much as I do. When I want to take picture of her she tries to hide and when I'm taking pictures of anything else finds a way in. Anyway, Lush products, I absolutely love them! There's nothing nicer than a nice long soak in the tub with a magical smelling bath bomb after a long day or the way the amazing scent of a conditioner, that actually works wonders on your hair, lingers around until you wash your hair again. I don't think I've ever been let down by anything I've purchased at Lush. I actually ran out of my American Cream conditioner a couple of days ago so a trip to Lush for a bottle might be in order. I'm sure I'll find a few other goodies to bring home with me, too.

Last one for real this time. The current obsession honorable mentions goes to my LOLcats desk calendar. I got it at Barns and Noble a couple of days into the year just because all calendars were half off and I needed to buy something so they'd validate my parking ticket. What I actually wanted was an Audrey Hepburn calendar but I guess everyone else had beat me to it. Actually, I might have been the last person in Miami to buy a calendar this year because the shelves were pretty empty by the time I got there. This little calendar has brought an inexplicable amount of joy to my life. Every morning I wake up, tear off yesterday's page, and have a little laugh at my funny cat of the day. I'd say, not bad for something that was sitting all alone on a shelf in a kind of beat up looking box that I bought on a total whim.

time management 101

For as organized as I usually am, you'f think time management would a breeze for me. Wrong-oh! I've actually always been horrible with time; it sneaks away from me without me realizing it. Half the time I couldn't even tell you what day of the week it is. Right now time is slipping away from me and before I even realize it I'll need to be at work. That's pretty much what happened to me the other day. I was sitting in bed, watching Breakfast At Tiffany's, drinking some tea (check out the adorable elephant mug I got at Target), and painting my nails (O.P.I You're a Pisa Work, if you're wondering) when all of a sudden it was three in the afternoon. I had to be at work at 3:30 so I rushed out of bed to get ready and speed off. Fortunately I managed to be on time, unfortunately my nail polish didn't care about my scheduling needs and got totally ruined. Fast dry top coat really should be more instantaneous. After that I vowed to abusing my multiple day-planner apps to avoid being caught in the same situation again. I'm an excellent list maker, I just couldn't put a time frame to things if my life depended on it. The rest of that day was awesome, though! I stopped by Ulta on my way home and picked up a few more Revlon Lip Butters (pictured from left to right: Lollipop, Candy Apple, Strawberry Shortcake, Sweet Tart, Creme Brulee, and Tutti Frutti.) and then had some drinks over The Big Bang Theory with my mom. 

Yesterday was another rush of minutes and hours that I couldn't quite grab onto. I got a bit of a later start on the day than I had planned which was my first mistake. I'm currently in the middle of some very rushed home improvements that have been set into motion to accommodate a house guest. There has been lots of cleaning and emptying and touching up. The biggest part of this project isn't even the fact that I want to paint half of my room or that I'm kind of totally redoing a bedside table to fit my room's current decor; it's emptying a closet. I have too many closets and too much stuff and in an effort to make temporary living arrangements and comfortable as possible I'm totally emptying out one of my closets so my friend can take it over. So far I've got my purses out of it. I know, not very impressive. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to pull out the rest of everything and sort it into appropriate bins so it can get stored away in shed-land. But for now I'm out of time to worry about cleaning and redecorating because I've get to get to work soon and don't want to be left stuck in that same rush.

Vacation: Day One

So I haven't really updated on here in a while due to a lot of things going on with my family right now and all of the preparations for my vacation. I'm finally here in Sarasota though and the friend I'm staying with is at work so I figured now would be a good time to let you guys know I'm still alive. Let me go ahead and start off by saying I finally got a new camera so, as much as I love instagram pictures, get ready for some real camera shots. I didn't get anything too special, just a simple point and shoot that fits in my purse or pocket for daily use and has a few little features I thought I were interesting. It's a Canon PowerShot Elph 100 HS in case anyone was wondering.

Anyway here are a few pictures from yesterday which was the first day of my vacation.

This isn't so much from yesterday as it is more of an aftermath shot. I was messing around with the settings on my camera and the picture ended up not doing the highlighter red color of my terrible sunburn any justice at all. I feel like I'm wrapped up in a blanket made of fire.

Alright, I lied, these aren't really pictures from my first day of vacation. This is another picture I took in bed while watching How Do I Look? The magazine I haven't even flipped through because I want to save it for when I can hit the pool again. The book is awesome. I'm only like on chapter two but I'm already really into it. I haven't seen the movie yet (shocking since my favorites star in it) but I really want to as soon as I finish reading the book. I also started reading Are You There Vodka, It's me Chelsea yesterday and I've gotten such a kick out of it. I'm reading all of her books while I'm here. Her books are the perfect light summer reading to put you in a good mood while you sip margaritas and tan.

These are the cupcakes Sara and I thought we wanted to eat yesterday. Both of us just sort of picked at our frosting and then ended up going to CVS at like one in the morning to buy chips. Whole Foods always has the most adorable and delicious looking cupcakes but then you go to eat them and they're giant and too sweet and overwhelming. We'll never learn though. We just keep buying them.

This is my buddy Jude. She hangs out with me while Sara's babysitting. I feel bad because I've been yelling at her since yesterday to not get too close because she's very affectionate and ends up clawing at my fire skin and then I want to cry.

That's Sara with the little girls she babysits. They met me at the pool yesterday which resulted in a my tan time being cut in half which was a blessing in disguise. The back half of me is totally fine. Not even lightly burned. I'm sure this will look really weird once the red goes away and from the back I'm too white but at least, for now, I can sit. The girls were surprisingly not terrible. I'm usually not good with children because I have no patience for them but the girls were generally sweet. I'm pretty sure they were only well behaved because Sara told them that I hate kids and wouldn't be there friend unless they were good because I have heard some serious horror stories about them.

Sara and I also took Jasmine, the oldest of the girls she's babysitting, out to dinner last night. Sara's in the Big Brother Big Sister program and she's had Jasmine for like two years now. The girls were pretty good while we were at the pool but fast forward a hours and dinner wasn't as simple. There was a lot of singing on her part and it was kind of annoying. Sara and I decided to split the most delicious drink ever for dessert though and that sort of made up for it.

Tonight we might go out and maybe see a movie and get some drinks or something. Tomorrow will hopefully be a Dinsey day. We need to decide on whether we want to see Nelly or Third Eye Blind at Universal so we can figure out which Saturday to go where. I still have like nine days of vacation left and I'm already dreading it ending. My friend should be getting home in just over an hour so I think I'll go deplete her Lush stash and take a bubble bath so I can be ready for whatever ~adventures~ we might embark on today.