Color Me Fair Orchid

When I was fifteen years old, it was mandatory to attend a full-day retreat before I made my confirmation so on a warm September Saturday, I joined 30 other teenagers in the basement of an old Catholic school to listen to a group of college kids discuss religion.  Although a lot of the talk that day was about God, I mainly remember the activities that they made us do so that we could "find" ourselves. If we didn't know who we truly were, how could we figure out what our special relationship with God was, according to the instructors?  (Stay with me here because I'm going somewhere with this).

One of the exercises we did was to pick one crayon from a box of hundreds that best represented ourselves.  I took this task very seriously, sorting through the colors much longer than everyone else, finally deciding on a pale tan crayon.  Kind of beige, kind of boring, completely inconspicuous.  Then, we had to say in front of everyone why we chose that color and why it represents us.  The only thing I could say when it was my turn was, "It doesn't stand out, light brown is ordinary.  It just blends in with the other colors."  Everyone stared at me.  How telling is that of my teenage self?

I like to think I've grown since then.  I'm not as shy, but I'm never going to be the outgoing one or the life of the party.  I finally think I'm okay with that.

So when I looked at this Colorstrology site (sponsored by Pantone), I was happy to see that based on my birthday, Fair Orchid is my color.  According to my birthday color:

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Yes, I think this describes me better than that light tan crayon that I picked out almost fifteen years ago.  Even though this is just the result of a silly colorstrology/astrology reading, I really identify with the description.  I'm proud to be Fair Orchid.

What about you? Find out what your birthday color is and let me know if you think it matches your actual personality.

Pretty = Polka Dots

There's nothing like warmer weather to remind me of how shabby my wardrobe actually is. Spring means that it's almost time to put away the pilly cardigans and worn corduroys and switch over to lightweight, pretty clothes. And for me, pretty equals polka dots. Check out a few of my favorite finds for the upcoming season. 

Flats from Madewell

Sunny Clutch Wallet from Target

Tank top from Gap

Dress from Modcloth

Reluctantly Springing Ahead

Right now, it's 8:29pm, and it feels like it's only 5:30pm. Damn daylight savings.  This weekend flew by, like every other one lately, but it wasn't without some highlights.

• On Friday night, I brought home pizza (Lent = no meat on Fridays) and Anthony and I ate on the couch together, recapping our weeks since we hadn't seen each other for more than a few hours since last weekend.  It was a great way to end horribly hectic weeks.
• I finished a book that I started reading just a few days ago because I was so anxious to see what happened at the end.  Real Life and Liars by Kristina Riggle was quick and fun, and put me in the mood for summer beach reading.
• I took Anthony to the Connecticut Bridal Expo this morning.  I never pictured myself as someone who would attend one of these events (Anthony was pretty excited about the cake samples), and even though I'm happy we went, I don't think I'll be attending another one any time soon.  Also, it was disturbing that there were several plastic surgery booths at this bridal fair.  Whatever happened to marrying for love and embracing our loved ones for better or worse, frown lines and all?

I hope you all had lovely weekends.  On deck for this week is some wedding planning along with a hockey game at MSG on Saturday!  I'm wishing you all happy Mondays, my dearies! xo


Image courtesy of Bridal Guide (totally crushing on these lanterns and twinkles lights!)

AltSummit Class: Round One

So in January, I realized that all of the blogs that I read were posting about AltSummit, with accompanying pictures of adorable ladies, cute hair buns, awesome photobooths and glittery decorations.  Where were they and why wasn't I there too?

It turns out that AltSummit is a conference held in Utah, which is for bloggers and social media peeps.  And I wanted to attend every class on the itinerary.  Growing readership?  Creative content?  Every session sounded wonderful, and I was envious of everyone there and their fabulous wardrobes (totally a reason I can't go to AltSummit anyway: I'll never look half as lovely as any of the attendees there and will stick out like a sore thumb, in the worst way). 

Great news, though: AltSummit started offering online classes, one-hour webinars taught by popular bloggers who are more than willing to share lots of blogging wisdom for a very low fee.  Yesterday was my first class, and I really enjoyed learning about "Bringing Home the Bacon When Your Blog Isn't Huge" with Melanie Blodgett of You Are My Fave.  She was honest and extremely sweet, and so willing to help that she provided her email address several times for leftover questions.  I definitely think I will take another one of these classes in the future.

My blog isn't large, nor does it have a huge following, but I really love it.  I post about things that I think are important or fun or exciting (sometimes all three!) and my favorite part is that it's all mine.  I closed out of Melanie's class yesterday and was extremely inspired to writewritewrite.  Mission accomplished. 



Alt logo courtesy of Altitude Design Summit blog

Warm.

My feet and fingers are so cold tonight that all I want to do is wrap my hands around a huge mug of cocoa, preferably some from City Bakery, and close my eyes.  I think it'll be an early night for me so that I can get under the covers and watch Friends re-runs in bed.

Photo courtesy of Mad Park News and City Bakery

Big Food Week

Let's get down to the important things that happened last week before this new week begins, shall we?  I know this makes me sound like a sad foodie, but two of my favorite places made pretty big announcements.  In the midst of a few of the blah-ist days ever, these little things really made me excited.

Next fall, the wonderful Shake Shack will open a new location about two blocks from my office in New Haven.  There are no words to describe how excited I am about the prospect of walking there during lunch to get a shake.  I mean, it won't be a daily event or anything but it's nice to think that the trip there and back will at least burn some of the calories gained from the delicious liquid treat. 

And then the bakery, Sprinkles, installed an ATM that dispenses cupcakes at its Los Angeles location.  Cupcakes! Out of a machine at any time of the day! What a great idea, except that there aren't any Sprinkles around here.  I guess that I just love the idea of an adorable little snack popping out of a slot at 2am.

Not too shabby at all.  Now, I'm almost ready for tomorrow.  Happy Sunday night!



Photo courtesy of Sprinkles/Facebook page

Reason #102 That I'm Tired of Renting

In addition to waiting for landlords to make repairs and worrying about rent going up every year, one major reason that I wish we didn't rent our apartment is so that I could paint the rooms a color other than white or eggshell (I'd also love a tub and not a shower stall, but that's another story).  I think that if we could, I'd paint the bedroom walls a shade of light peach and then paint the ceiling with this chevron pattern in gray, which was featured on Design*Sponge today.  For now, I'll put it in the "Ideas for Later" folder and just admire the loveliness of these photos. 

Photos courtesy of Design*Sponge