Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Oh, Flor how do I love thee?



Let me count the ways.

I need a small area rug for our entry way. That's over-reaching it just a tad, I need an interior door matt because the hubs and I are trekking water, salt, and slush all over our hallway and kitchen. I'm really grossed out to think that all that junk used to just get mashed down into our living room carpet. YUCK!



Of course once I started looking at rugs I would find the gorgeous 8x10 or larger rugs. Then I'd I start dreaming about what they would look like in my house. At this point I'd have to snap out of it and say, "WOAH! This isn't your house and hopefully you're moving again this summer. Calm down!"




But, in all seriousness how awesome would this rug look in a mancave. Yes, I'm totally appealing to the male demographic in the house because if I can swing this rug for him, then it's just all to easy to design my own custom entry way area. That's a totally logically leap of faith, right?




Sigh... I should go to HomeGoods, use a coupon and buy a generic area rug for $25. But, a girl can dream right?

Anyone order a rug from Flor? I'm thinking I need to keep this one earmarked for when I finally buy a house.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Taking fashion advice from a metro-sexual man...

might just work out in my favor.

My hubs isn't really a true, "metro-sexual" as he isn't into hair gel, skinny man jeans, murses, skinny ties, designer duds, or almost anything at Banana Republic. Well, the last one is only true because his massive and broad shoulders barely fit in their polo shirts, never mind any of their fitted shirts! But, my hubs is somewhat a connoisseur of quality shoes.

Flash back six years ago and the hubs had just picked up his first pair of Johnston & Murphy dress shoes. I think he got them on sale at an outlet for close to $100. I thought he was kind of nuts to be dropping that amount on a pair of plain Jane men's dress shoes, but that was my own personal opinion. If I had a $100 to spend on shoes I would have tried to get two or three pairs of Nine West shoes from an outlet.

Spring a head six years and take a peak in our separate closets (yes, you read that right! it's a key to marital bliss in our house) and the hubs still has the same pair of brown shoes whereas the vast collection I had compiled during college and graduate school of Nine West and Bandolino shoes has diminished to just a few remaining pairs. And the ones that have survived... they weren't my "favorites" by any stretch of the imagination. The survivors are those shoes that I don't wear all that often either due to comfortableness or they're strictly special occasion type shoes.

So in my corner was well more than $150 spent on shoes and almost nothing to shoe for it. I used to buy on average somewhere between 4-6 pairs of non-athletic shoes a year. Say the average price tag was $50, (way too low, but easier for math) and I was spending between $200-$300 a year on shoes. And they wouldn't last! The hubs, on the other hand, would buy maybe 1 pair of nice dress shoes a year. He was spending less money a year on shoes and his shoes were outlasting my shoes.

Two important things happened this summer that led me to drastically review my shoe purchases.

1. I started running a lot and I expected a whole lot more comfort from my shoes. Plantar fasciitis then dictated that my shoes be extremely comfortable. I was totally screwed when I only had one pair of flats in my closet and had to plan my wardrobe around flats and flip flops :(

2. The hubs wished for a pair of Allen Edmonds "Park Avenue" shoes for our 3rd wedding anniversary.


They're cute and all for men's shoes, but they're $325. Yes, $325 for a pair of plan shoes. There's no fancy heel, no cool embellishments, no frills, zilch, nadda, nothing! Of course, us being us we found them on sale at Jos A Banks for $250 and used a huge Ebates credit to make them much more affordable, but still! That is a lot of money to spend on ONE pair of shoes.

Well, wouldn't you know that when we were discussing the shoes the hubs went over to his closet and pulled out those ol' Johnston & Murphy shoes and said, "these have lasted for 6 years and I've beat them to hell. Those Park Avenues are the same shoes Obama wears and I bet they'll last longer than 6 years."

I hate it when he's right, especially about shoes. He loves his Park Avenues and for Christmas I gifted him with two more pairs of Allen Edmonds. Don't worry, I found them on sale!

So, in preparation for further bouncing along on this thing called "being an adult" I'm slowly going to upgrade the shoes in my closet. The greatest part is the hubs is fully on board. :)

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

It's snowing!

It's pretty bad when I was scheduled to go to conference in Atlanta and it ended up being canceled because HOTlanta had more snow than Baltimore.




But the white stuff is finally coming down in Baltimore. I hope it lasts until the weekend because this whole taking pictures at night thing isn't working for me! Man I'm envious of those who have a profession that allows them to play during the daylight hours.

(Dear snow, if you come and ruin my upcoming trips to either Los Angeles or Orlando, FL I will be very upset with you. Let's not have a repeat of last year's trip to Denver!)

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Alright, pink elephant in the room

It's 2011 and everyone and their mother is making resolutions. Here's a few things I want to add to the pile:

1. Track my running mileage. My Garmin 405 should make this much easier, as I've sporadic with Strands.Com or any other type of journal log. I can't even estimate how much I've run in the past few years because I've been so up and down with my mileage and frequency. Plenty of other runners are proudly proclaiming, "I'm going to run XXXX number of miles this year" and I'd love to say something similar, but I'm afraid I'm going to over or under shoot what I'm capable of doing. Baby steps people, baby steps.

2. Get over my fear of open water. Okay, pools too. I know if I was on a boat and had to swim for my life, I'd be able to do it. Other than that, I'm insanely uncomfortable in the water. But, I did go water skiing for the first time ever last summer and I didn't die, which is clearly a step forward in the right direction. Ideally, I'd love to do a triathelon at some point, but the whole swimming thing makes me want to hurl.


3. Take more risks with my personal style. I wear a ton of black. I wear a ton of grey. I don't have "going out" clothes anymore because my closet is one giant Banana Republic/J. Crew/Ann Taylor/Gap/Nordstrom Career section department store. My idea of a shoe splurge is Cole Haan Nike Air pumps for work. I also tend to wear the same hair style year in and year out. I started things off right and had my hair chopped on January 2nd. I'm not saying I'm going to wear pink any time soon, but I really miss my crazy polka dot days.


4. Get back in touch with my creative side. I've been a serious lull lately. I haven't even used my sewing machine since before I moved. My health nut craze has significantly decreased my creative baking routine. I feel like I'm not even doing my camera justice anymore. I'm in a funk and I need to SNAP OUT OF IT!!! I want to highlight at least one creative a project a month. I hope that will be a good starting point.

5. Buy a house. The hubs and I are so ready. The game plan is to really take a look and hopefully find our dream home this year.



So that's it 2011. Balls in your court.