what could justify this purchase....

So while i've been procrastinating my last minute studying for my boards exam... i decided to take a glance at the nordstrom's sandals (they sent me an email, obviously they had concern that i had not looked yet). I click on "flats" as i'm not a big fan of heels in the summer so i always get a dressy flat sandal (as oppose to my vast day havaianas collection). I notice some nice choices to choose from. I get kind of excited for my feet they enjoy new summer sandals. And then i see these...



Ok... are they cute. Absolutely. Are they well made? They are from burberry so absolutely.

But here is the thing. Would i pay 550 dollars for them? I don't know... first of all they are flats. More specifically flat sandals. I thought i was out of control with my spending for considering sandals in the 95-185 range.

So then i got to thinking... what does it take to justify a 550$ sandal? I know myself, and one day i will fall in love with a 550 sandal. And i'll to need to know.

clear skin? me?

I love the gym, watch what i eat and practically never wear the same shirt out at night if i can help it. But skin care for me has been a hassle. I have frequented more dermatologists then i can count... but none have ever fixed my mild acne or a cyst on my chin. In fact they have really just dried out my skin. I've even tried home remedies. Example: the gel of an advil... not smart.

While in connecticut this week i kept looking at my skin... i realized from afar my skin had improved but i had a horrible complexion and the texture of my skin looks unhealthy.

I've never really LOVED facials, any time i'd gone for a facial (once a year if that), i had never felt as though my skin felt so different i couldn't wait to go back in a month or two. So i decieded to try some place new... it is well known for all of its services... considered a bit of a snooty place but always provides wonderful services.

Plus they could get me in at 1 oclock- skip ahead 3 hours i'm laying there and it begins. Me and Facial Lady make friends... here and there she discusses the product line they use Repechage. It was all natural with seaweed, cucumber, antioxidants, blah blah blah. Oh... and it wouldn't dry my skin out like the medication i used to be on... hmmmm.

Cut to the chase FL breaks the news to me, i could really use the "10 step four layer facial with deep pore cleansing... for 125$." She would even show me how to care for me skin afterwards. I can't say no can i?

So i get the 10 step...deep pore... whatever facial. FL goes through the routine: massage, steamer, squeezing, different masks (minimal talking!). That last 1000 layer seaweed mask comes off and i'm a new women. Not only did it feel great... it looked great. So she takes me outside... picks out new cleansing mouse, astringent and deep pore cleanser (these are not comparable price to my neutrogena products).

So i think to myself one pair of jeans is more then this facial... that cute new splendid dress i just got is more then the products. I take care of my body and always buy great clothes... isn't it time i treated my skin to the same standards?

It's been less then 24 hours but my skin is still smooth... even after my intense spin class at 6am, i am feeling hopeful!

ok fine i plan my wedding

not that is is going to happen any time soon... but ooooo wouldn't this be a great location?

http://www.crossedkeys.com/

which way to life satisfaction?

Boston bride (BB) and I are bff's. I will be there on her big day dressed walking down the aisle in a tee length navy blue dress (she PROMISES i will be able to wear it again)- cheering her and boston groom on.

So i read her post today regarding her wishes to be a stay at home mom raising her kids. Nothing of a shock to me- i know one day she will be a great super soccer mom.

But it got me thinking... this whole growing up thing is not as easy as i thought though. Three years ago the future seemed so easy and open. Graduate from college (check) graduate from grad school (check) pass the boards (in progress) get a good job (check).

But now what? Do i want to get married? absolutely... but not right now. Me and boyfriend are not exactly ready for that life changing step (he has a year of grad school left).

I guess what i have been wondering is what path do i choose so that i have some type of life satisfaction? I think what i fear the most is just going through the motions of life... getting stuck in a rut.

So for now i am focusing on being great at what i do... and when you work with children with autism that is NOT easy. But that is really just a 8am to 4:30pm job. In college i felt like i was always running to one thing to another and i felt fulfilled. And i could list out the things i wanted to do "after college"... but thinking and doing are very different.

I guess finding direction isn't so easy when your not sure where exactly you want to go. Even though i don't share her dream to settle down with a family right now... i wish i shared her ability to know what i want and go ahead and do it.

cocopops

i have a new love. cocopop's. They are fresh made rice cakes. I found them at a local food store by my house, they are similar to stew leonard's own kind but with a liiiittle fluffier taste. Like in stew leanard's they POP out of a machine that is on display to watch. It is entertaining.

These are NOT the Coco Pops of my youth... these are snacks that if i had children i would be FINE with them eating. Actually... drip a bit of chocolate on them... go ahead. Want to know why? Cause it is literally like eating air with a little crunch. Nutritional Info (sorry for size i have NOOOO clue how to save a copy of my screen as a picture):

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 cake/piece

Amount per Serving

• Calories 16 Calories from Fat 0

% Daily Value *

• Total Fat 0g 0%
• Saturated Fat 0g 0%
• Monounsaturated Fat 0g
• Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
• Trans Fat 0g
• Cholesterol 0mg 0%
• Sodium 20mg 1%
• Potassium 0mg 0%
• Total Carbohydrate 4g 1%
• Dietary Fiber 0g 0%
• Sugars 0g
• Protein 0g 0%

• Vitamin A0%
• Vitamin C0%
• Calcium0%
• Iron0%
• Vitamin D0%

Est. Percent of Calories from:

Fat 0.0% Carbs 100.0%

Protein 0.0%

Ok fine there is no fiber... no protein, but there is some sodium and carbs. But remember it is just a quick snack when you want to eat for the sake of eating.

Anyways i like to eat for the love of chewing food (its a sensory thing). I am a compulsive eater, so in order for me not to weight 300 pounds i trrrrryyyy to surround myself with healthy snacks all day. For instance today i snacked on blueberries, an orange, cocopop's, banana and a handful of wheat thins. But that is because i started this week DETERMINED to un-do my wrong doings of last week. I even got the grandma semi on board with the plan (she made broccoli, marinated chicken breast and a salad tonight score one for me!). In no way would i live off of these. They almost fill in for that chip craving that you get late at night.

Plus look how cute the machine is:

POP! enjoy.

i was tagged...

BostonBride tagged me in a photo/blog game... the rules were go to your 4th photo folder on your comp- upload the 4th photo in that folder and provide an explanation!

sooo here is my photo:

Explanation: I actually lived in San Francisco this summer. This was taken one morning when i woke up reeeeeally early to run the Golden Gate Bridge.The morning fog was still there for the start of the run (this picture was taken beforei had gotten to the actual bridge) you could not even see the top parts of the bridge! However by the time i turned around and got back to the San Fran side- it was a beautiful sunny day. A nice treat for my hard work.

I wont officially "tag" anyone but anyone who has not been "tagged" consider yourself tagged!

gym euphoria?

To say i was moody last week was an understatement. I was moody, grumpy, feeling sorry for myself and a big brat. Monday night spin? No thank you i think i will lay on the couch and watch TV. Overall i went to the gym for a total of 30 minutes... i ate everything within arm range. Example: I went to a serve yourself buffet type lunch place... got mac-and-cheese, pot stickers, onion rings and sesame chicken all in one container. I eat none of those things on a regular basis.

Then the weekend came and i ate like i was visiting new york... possibly forgetting the boston bride was the visiting new yorker.

Saturday night getting dressed was miserable. I apparently don't own any large plastic garbage bags because that seemed the only outfit that was appropriate for my imaginary love handles and pot belly. None the less... even while we where socializing at a friends apartment i still continued to eat everything in sight.

It had to end. Sunday morning i went food shopping- stocking up on fruits and veggies. Then while everyone else was watching the big game... i went to the big gym. I will admit it, i had to push myself to finish my work out. However when i left the gym i sat down in my car and found myself singing along to Beyonce. At this point i realized going to the gym really does jump start my mood. Going to the gym really does make me mentally healthy too.

NOTE TO SELF: when feeling grumpy don't skip the gym... 7:30 spin class here i come!

ooo a post regarding spinning to come

guilty celebrity pleasure

I'll admit it i HATE perez... he annoys me, everything about him. From the minute i met him on VH1 to every time someone is cracking up about something he wrote... i hated him. Sorry... i know hate is a strong word...

Truthfully i'm not one for celebrity worshiping... but i do love the gossip for the mindless entertainment value it provides my otherwise typical life. So i read www.wwtdd.com.

Warning! This site is fully directed at the male population. The writer is inappropriate... sexist... and hysterical. He treats each and every celebrity with this sarcastic slander... He often states he could care less about celebs (which is ironic cause his job is to write about them....) But even when he writes something nice, he will on occasion, throw something completely inappropriate.

Honestly you might hate him like i hate perez. You might be offended by him. I apologize in advance. He is my guilty pleasure and i felt the need to confess.

snow days

Weather report in the tri-states says snow starts around 6pm tonight-ish and should go right through tomorrow morning. Now if i was still in college i would be soooo excited and run off to the bar because well... i would definitely be having a snow day.

But now i'm back to New York snow days... and that means there needs to be a blizzard on the ground. Connecticut- one of your best qualities were the snow days that ended up not having snow... actually the snow days with snow where great too.

Come on New York... you can't let Connecticut one up you with this one.

happy news!

its restaurant week in new york and i'm fiiiiiiiiiinnally going to nobu with boyfriend and my sister and her boyfriend (who need to get married already, gosh).

I know what you;re thinking... what has taken me so long to get to nobu. But I really just can't give you a decent answer. Oh well i <3 resturant week prices.

RIP rum raisin uggs

I'm sad to announce that i think my pride and joy... rum raisin classic uggs are no longer in wearable condition.

I hate shoes of all kind and would much rather be wearing sandals. It took a while to conform but uggs are now my winter staple. My classic tall chestnut uggs are my favorite i wear them every where and any where in the winter regardless of weather. I weather proofed them and i never had a problem. Same thing with other pairs. So when i waited 3 weeks last winter on back order and got my rum raisins i weather proofed and wore them with love and care.

Two months ago i wore them in torrential rain... and then parked my car about 3 blocks from my destination. They had a stripe across both from water marks... even after they dried. I did not fret it had happened to the chestnuts and the line always went away.

I got concerned when 2 weeks later it didn't go away. So i bought the UGG cleaning solution (took a while i'm a busy lady)- read the directions and cleaned them. 3 days later went down stairs to check on them (i have a bad memory) and they look worse then before!

I might try to take them back to nordstroms as they have the BEST return policy ever... or maybe a shoe cobbler guy... but coming from a non-shoe girl... i've never been so sad about the loss of a pair of shoes before or put so much effort into a pair of shoes!

Pathetic? maybe.... but as common as uggs where... i never met anyone else with rum raisin. suggestions? I guess i could buy a new pair but i just counted and i have 5 pairs of uggs... excessive, definitely.

generational gap

Since moving back home from school i've moved in with my grandmother. So technically that makes me a elder caregiver before i have even had the chance to celebrate living for a quarter century. Although i will clarify it was totally my choice and i have a full apartment with kitchen, livingroom, bathroom and bedroom. And besides my grandma commutes full time to the city 5 days a week (by choice) to work so she still has at least half her marbles in her bag.

I have a ton of space to do as i please however during the week i do like to eat dinner with my grandma. Here is the problem:
She tells me olive oil is good for you as she puts a gallon on the little bit of salad she made that night. Pasta, we have it fresh twice a week and then there are always left overs. Some nights i would just love sushi... she wrinkles her noises and makes a UGH sound. I call her and tell her i only want grilled chicken and salad. She fries me chicken cutlets and tells me that she has eaten them her whole life and she isn't dead yet (shes 75 so it is hard to argue that point).

Don't get me wrong... i love my grandma she has been a second mother to me my entire life. I've been eating in this house my whole life... but i never realized how generational food is until i've had to eat here every single night. Past generations enjoyed food in such a simple way. Now we look at every gram of fat, calorie and card. One the other hand i think we are so much more aware and educated of what is good for your body. At some point foods became soooo processed that we really do need to watch what we eat. My grandmother believes that if we make it fresh it is good for you. But sometimes when i watch her oil content or bread consumption i go alittle nuts.

So its been hard... trying to bring two generations of food philosophy into a house. I've never been called a picky eater... but just cause i state that i want a veggie burger i get a look of death.

But then i think about all my grandma has done for me she really is a best friend. And what can i do but shut up... eat my pasta and on the random night i get away with eating sushi... i celebrate my small victory.

real world brooooklyn

Back in the days of my youth (haha i still consider myself a youth... maybe i should say my childhood?) i was a huge fan of the real world. That was until maybe the seattle or boston season. Then it just turned into a big drunk show with no personalities that really stood out in a way that made me want to learn more about the characters and care about them. Not that any season of the real world was ever free of drunkeness and sex. But some part of the show just lost what i had found made it genuine....

However when they re-showed the old school season one new york i loved every minute of it. It was just so interesting to see these peoples real and sometimes brutal opinions regarding people who come from cultures they had never been exposed to before.

Culture has always interested me. I have been fortunate enough to both live in cultures with a both a diverse population as well as an analogous population. Personally... it is interesting just to come to realize that people no matter how similiar they are are different. On the other hand some people can be sooo different that they really are the same... i think i'm off topic and rambling.

Anways, back to real world... this season i became interested again due to hearing about the transgendered women being casted on the show. Within the first 10 or so minutes i find out she recently went to thialand to have the surgery done. In addition there are a wealth of other characters who have multiple backgrounds from all over the country. Actually it includes two individuals from Salt Lake City, one a mormon who has a personality like i have ever seen before and another a hip hop dancer.

You get the point... i think... i'm just so impressed by MTV (shocking...). In a time where every channel (especially MTV) has been making more and more successful reality shows which are based somewhat on scripted plots or wanna be famous people, they have finally gone back to their roots. At least with the original product.

newly employed & sooo not in the loop

Alittle bit more about myself, I'm an occupational therapist working at a school for children with special needs- a really great school. This week is the start of the 3rd week of my new job, and while it is a super great environment in a place that i reeeeeally wanted to get hired- i can't help but feel a little bit lost. I don't have clear deadlines for when i need to turn in reports. And during team meetings- i'm almost under the impression that my "specialized" opinion does not really count or matter. It seems i stepped in mid-year and everyone has their routine going.

On the flip side the other occupational therapist seem really knowledgeable and great but i'm having a hard time getting to know them. For goodness sake i have not even went to lunch with anyone yet... aside from a lunch meeting a had with one employee. I also feel like i should know a great deal more then i do. Its my first job so i know there is alot to learn. I guess i'm just so used to being the loud and in charge person and now that i'm the new girl on the block who doesn't feel confident i have lost my voice alittle bit.

In other news... we have a new president and i truly wish him the best. I am in no way political so i don't want anyone to think i'm trying to be. However after hearing the amount of money that was spent on today... i almost wish they would have reconsidered and had a nice small party for about ooooo $100,000 and put the rest of that money (i think was alot of donations) into the economy. Then again i don't think i really needed those new Frye boots i just bought... so who am i to judge?

OOO! exciting when i spelled checked i didn't have any missed errors except for my lack of "i" capitalizations! Wahooo, wasn't such a downer day after all.

in a relationship & ready to (gasp!) mingle.

This saturday i went out for a college friend/sorority sisters birthday. It seemed that everyone had replied "attending" on facebook. So i went to Bloomingdale's that morning bought a cute new dress (on sale! wahoo) and got ready for my night out.

I traveled the short train ride into the city with my friend, CP, she has been on again off again with a guy, BN, who my circle of friends love (they were together for 3 years before on/off again started). Most recently she is off again and has met up with a new guy who she is madly in love with.

She filled me in on her new love, who was coming to meet her at the bar with a friend or two. CP had already double checked that none of BN's friends would be there (which i knew was impossible) and could not wait for the new love to arrive. It was so good to catch up with everyone that when i felt a tap on my shoulder and got the "he's here" i almost didn't remember who "he" was.

He was extremely nice and very cute. They seemed to get along great. I chatted with his friend about work related topics since CP had veered away from our friends to avoid drama. In all honesty i would have much rather been catching up with my friends but sometimes you have to be the wing-girl.

Everything seemed fine... but then it happened. I mentioned my boyfriend. Apparently a girl who is in a relationship is not allowed to go out sans boyfriend anymore. New guys friend went from being the most friendly guy around to being a huge a-hole. He informed me:

1. i don't have a good relationship
2. i must be a cheater
   
3. my boyfriend doesn't care about me
4. we don't love each other since he is in grad-school in connecticut & i'm working in new york
   

Wow sir... you seem to know nothing about me. Who is this guy anyway? Looking back it was not like he was some random guy i started to talk to. He was the friend of CP's new man... and i know CP and she definitly didn't promise his friend some hott girl to hook up with for the night. If that was the case we had plenty of other single friends around the bar. I was just doing the friendly thing. To say i was offended is an understatement.

Truth be told i love my boyfriend, my first lets meet the parents boyfriend, who i met approximately 5 days after undergraduate graduation. I love that i can go out with out him, have a great deal of fun, but still miss him terribly when my head hits the pillow (or bathroom floor which ever might happen first).

Who was this person to assume that because i was out with out my boyfriend made my relationship bad? Was this guy insinuating that because my boyfriend was not there i should be at home knitting scarf?

I had always thought the opposite, we were so comfortable with our relationship that we were ok with going out alone. It made us healthier. I liked that if one didn't want to go to the bar the other could and would still go (unless i make that face that means he should stay in and watch a movie with me). I always felt like we are still our own persons even though i know he is my other half.

But you know what... that a-hole did nothing but reaffirm what i had already known and i wouldn't want my relationship any other way. Besides i spent the rest of the night with my other friends and every time i looked over he was busy being the 3rd wheel.

we swore each other to secrecy

So i got an IM the other day from my best friend, we shall call her BB, swearing me to secrecy. Before i could think of rediculous things she would have never done (got a tattoo, listened to rap, ate McDonalds sober) she told me... "I started my own blog."

At first she would only tell me what it was about. So i did what any normal 20ish girl does when they need to know something... i google stalked her blog. Any hint that she gave about her blog went into the search bar, but i came up short. And let me tell you i am usually a google queen, i can find anything (ok more realistically anyone... but that is another story).

Luckily after 5 of the looooongest minutes of my life she finally sent me the web page. So i read it and i liked it. I kept going back to the blog, reading her new posts as if i had not just discussed the topic 5 minutes earlier with her.

So then i started clicking on other blogs and i liked those too. I found it interesting to hear about what other people where thinking about and doing and why they did what they did.

Then i found myself wondering what i could call my own blog. As i sat at the table eating dinner i thought hmmmm this could make for an interesting blog post. When i was on the train in the mornings i wondered who can i complan to about these people who take up 6 seats with only 3 bags?

While i was on the phone with BB tonight she started telling me about a blogger's pictures which where posted a month or so ago. When i told her i knew the exact pictures she confirmed what i was beginning to suspect... i was blog obsessed. So i did what any other girl with an obsessive personality does... i started my own blog.

So now we are both sworn to secrecy. Why secrecy? I think the idea of having a place where you can express your self with brutal honesty... it just seems freeing.