Wednesday, November 26, 2014

I'm Dreaming of a Dreamy Thanksgiving

Even though I am traveling and not hosting Thanksgiving this year, I imagine some day Kristina and I will dabble in this effort together. I envision a very chaotic day of sweat pants, wine and lots of food...and fighting.

For instance...here is a little glimpse into one of our Thanksgiving gatherings circa 2009:

Starting a live auction of items in the fridge in an attempt to get all the leftovers into the fridge. Kristina is on the phone with an anonymous bidder.
Who wants creamer?
The bidding starts getting competitive over a bottle of Grey Goose.
I am getting yelled at for my choice of Tupperware containers.
It all finally fits- Success!
Now if that doesn't scream a non-dreamy-unorganized-unPinterest-Thanksgiving I don't know what does.

However, right now we are in my dream world and there Thanksgiving looks like a Pinterest ad. Here are my dreamy Thanksgiving finds in case you too would like to dream of a festive-organized-Pinterest looking Thanksgiving or maybe actually can execute this...or maybe you are just looking for distractions to avoid talking to relatives...whatever the case may be, hopefully I can help!

1. Dreamy Decor: 
Thanksgiving Decor courtesy of Ivanka Trump's new website which I also love. I also love her shoes. I am a major fan.

2. Dreamy Food: 
Rachel Ray's essential Thanksgiving recipes courtesy of The Skimm which I also love. If you don't read The Skimm you are missing out. It's the only way I can figure out what is going on in the world.

3. Dreamy Apparel:
While everyone else is sitting around watching football or napping, I intend to be getting my pre-Black Friday pre-Cyber Monday online shopping game face on and figuring out what is on sale where. So far all I've got is JCrew Factory but that alone is enough to stock my closet. 50% off every.single.thing. Boom.

4. Dreamy Cocktails:
I usually have zero patience for mixing up a cocktail at home and stick to wine. Pop the cork, pour, done. However, in dream land I would mix up all kinds of cocktails and this list would be where I would start.

5. Dreamy Day Overall:
And to sum it all up, here is a Modern Guide to Thanksgiving Etiquette that I can only wish to achieve every aspect someday.

Wishing all my friends and family a Happy Thanksgiving! So thankful you are in my life!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

It's Game Day- Get Your Monogram On!

I feel like I am late to the party on the monogram. I grew up having things like my dance bag, sweatshirts or bags monogrammed but then I just kind of stopped. I think it grew harder to find a place to do monograms and then at some point in college, I had in the back of my mind that I would eventually get married and my initials would change...so I just stopped.

Then I did get married and my initials changed and I went through some sort of identity crisis. It is really hard to change your name. It's really hard to all of a sudden not have the same last name as your family or your sister. Four years later I feel I am finally settled into being AGW.

A few weeks ago Kristina told me to enter a blog contest she saw where Marley Lilly was going to send a few bloggers an item to blog about...so I entered. They asked me to describe my blog and I was a bit stumped....so I said I write about my life sarcastically. This blog is basically an exercise in not taking myself too seriously.

May I also point out that it is really sweet how my sister is thinking of me as she trolls her instagram. 

So I entered. And guess what....last Saturday I had a notification that we had a package and Gregg arrived upstairs with a box that had this inside:

A creme colored scarf with my initials in a dark brown. AGW. That's me! 
Coincidentally I was also getting dressed/more like prepared to freeze at the Texas A&M game that evening before we drove to College Station that day. I thought hmm...this goes perfectly with my outfit, it is really cute, I think this will be the ultimate test of this scarf. It is SEC game worthy with its southern monogram style...but will it keep me warm....stay tuned for the verdict...

My new scarf packed in my bag to head to College Station with my A&M gloves courtesy of Forever 21. A neck scarf for my Grandpa. Beanie hats. You get the picture. It was basically like we were moving to College Station for the day and trying to stay warm.
Let me tell you what would have made for a cuter bag though:



It has a zipper, it is lined and in black it would work very well sitting in the stands. It is the perfect "throw around and throw everything in" bag. You know what I am talking about...everyone needs one and you really need one with a zipper. Instead I took a big purse that I shouldn't have taken and was not super durable in the elements and well...I think it is going to recover but the poor bag was never intended for such use.

Back to my story...finally made it to College Station. Gregg and I headed to see some friends briefly before Kristina arrived with Papa. They were driving up on the A&M bus from San Antonio.

Wearing my scarf. Staying warm. 
One final picture in front of what is the soon to no longer exist side of Kyle Field. Look how cute my AGW scarf looks.  I know they appreciate me renaming it my AGW scarf.
Can I also point out that it is really fun to wander around your old college campus drinking beer? Luckily the tailgate I went to was giving out some free koozies. But I think a fun stocking stuffer or addition to a gift for a friend who loves a tailgate would be a monogrammed koozie. It would also be the perfect gift if you had a friend who just got engaged or a friend who just had a baby...since everyone I know seems to fall into one of these groups recently, this seems appropriate. The newly engaged friend would appreciate seeing her new initials and the new mom would appreciate you thinking of her return to the land of beer and wine. She'd probably also appreciate a cute monogrammed onesie for the baby. Onesie inside of the koozie. Boom. Done. Someone is getting that soon.

You could do blue if your friend is a new boy mom, pink if they are a new girl mom. any color if they are a new fiancĂ©. I could come up with tons of reasons to buy this koozie
It's also really cute that you could choose to put the monogram on the bottom instead. 
Post-beer....Kristina arrived with Papa.

These two. The hilarious duo. 
The second she got off the bus she was showing me the mini wine bottles she had stolen from Dad...she had one left. And you know what...she could've used a koozie too...granted she wasn't drinking a water bottle... but I think this size would've worked best
It is a water bottle "koolie" but considering the size of Kristina's mini wine bottle, I think this has multiple purposes. I also think I need one of these for summer. I may also be getting her one for her  upcoming summer honeymoon.

After wandering around and hitting up another tailgate with Papa we finally were ready to head into the game.
See those smiles? Approximately 5 minutes after this picture it started drizzling, then raining. Do these look like the faces of people prepared for freezing temps AND rain. 
We all could've used a rain jacket over the tons of layers of clothing we already had on...the irony is I was sitting there thinking I wish I had a rain jacket like I had when I was in college that said Pi Beta Phi and lo and behold this is the same thing but I could get it with my initials. Granted, I would love to still sport my sorority letters everywhere I go but I may need to update.  

Sigh. To be dry.
Don't be fooled by the smiles. We are FROZEN.
I tried getting the monogram portion of the scarf in a large amount of 'stand selfies' Kristina and I were taking because we were losing and frozen. It wasn't working out so well and this is the best one. But I was as warm as I could be given the elements. 

The verdict: This scarf did its job keeping me warm and looking as cute as possible given the weather. 
Let's be honest, we look pretty rough. We left at halftime and found warmer and drier temperatures across the street at the MSC where we finished watching the game. There's my AGW scarf. Still keeping me warm.
The only that would've been better is this sweatshirt....which I think I need for winter. It's cute enough that I can wear it indoors lounging or running errands and look like I got dressed even though I didn't. That is my favorite kind of weekend outfit, fyi.

It comes in a lot of colors but duh, I want it in purple. This neon is amazing though. It gives the  sweatshirt such pizzazz! 
There are approximately 5,000 other things I could've used to stay warm at the game. I was already wearing leggings, jeans, cowboy boots, wool socks, and two shirts and a jacket and a hat but clearly that wasn't enough for or any of us. 

Maybe a fleece vest would've made the difference...or a fleece...or who am I kidding we were never going to make it out of there warm or dry. The other people in the stands that dressed in full on hunting camo gear with wind jackets and pants though clearly came more prepared...similar to the guy next to us in the stands who brought a cardboard box to shield himself from the rain. We have so much to learn.

Crazy game days of being crammed into Aggie football games with these people- they are some of my most cherished memories. We won't have these exact season tickets or seats next year but it's been a fun ride full of wonderful memories with Papa, class of '47.

Hope you enjoyed my game day recap combined Marley Lilly post! 
Go get your monogram on! 

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The Case for Online Shopping

I know this may sound awful and lame of me, but I really don't like the mall. Let me be clear here- I do not dislike shopping, I just dislike the mall.

Here are the thoughts of anxiety that go through my mind when I realize I have to go to the mall to get something:

  • Panic over parking
  • Confusion over where to go once I get there as crowds of people stand between me and my purchase 
  • Annoyance over long lines of people at registers
  • Even more annoyance over the inefficiency of people working those registers 
  • Frustration because I can't remember the links I saw online am trying to find in the store. 
  • Anger when my cell service doesn't work meaning I can't look online to see which items I was trying to find in store. 
  • Irritation because of the waste of my time this "fun experience" has been.
  • Exhaustion when I got home as I promise to never return again. 
My Sunday went something a little bit like that....because consider this a newsflash/PSA/news you can use:

If you purchase items from JCrew Factory you cannot return them to a JCrew store. 

You have the following options:
  1. pay to ship them back yourself 
  2. have the cost of shipping deducted from the return you are owed 
  3. find a JCrew Factory store and return them yourself. 
I discovered these options after dealing with first Annoyance over the two people behind the register ignoring me and taking 10 minutes both helping the one customer before getting around to me. Then there was the panic over parking to get to that JCrew in the first place. Then the confusion of figuring out where to go in order to get to that JCrew and the closest JCrew Factory. And finally this has led to exhaustion and promising to never return to the mall again. 

It also led to me calling Gregg and yelling about how we would not be doing any Christmas shopping in store and would be doing it online again, just as we did last year. All I can say is #worthit

And if I can find a way to purchase all gifts from Nordstrom's with free shipping and free returns it is happening. I would honestly purchase my groceries from Nordstrom's if there was a way to do it. 

Anyone else feel this way or maybe you just think I am crazy?