the complexioN of love

(image)

conversation last night:


me: my skin has been clearer than it's ever been lately... no zits!

rob: see what happens when you finally agree to marry me? you're in balance. i complete you.

fill iN the blaNk fRiday: JuNk iN the tRuNk

1.   people always tell me i look like  ...i'm tired. awesome. actually, i don't ever really get a look-alike comment. which is cool. i'm unique!


2.  friends don't let friends  drive hungry.


3.  a sunny day is perfect for   sitting on my deck with a good magazine. or a hike in the woods!


4.  my favorite accessory is my butt. seriously. once i got this thing, i just can't leave home without it! and it makes my jeans look awesome.


5.  if i could afford it i would   travel the world, while scoping items to sell in my boutique.


6.  the cure for boredom is  lost to me. but lauren's suggestion is good!


7.  i am currently "in like" with  pearl and the beard, exploring wines of the world, laura george prints, and purging my closet to make room for the refined/defined style on which i am currently curating in my mind. enough of this office wear takeover!!

committed

so now that our engagement is finally (okay, for months now) official, i'm "allowed" to talk about it, and marriage, and all the work it took to get me to this point of acceptance. for years, simply being in a relationship was hard for me. my brain is so very independent that it often fought my heart over being attached to someone, potentially allowing myself to - dear god! - depend on someone, and worst of all, the idea of forming a union with another person that would, on any level, make me feel a loss of self. clearly, marriage requires the realization of all of these ideas.


i really hated the concept of wifedom. i'd get all spazzy just thinking of the word "wife" and how it seems to inevitably become a title, an occupation, an excuse... even though i know deep in my heart that there is nothing "typical" in the functioning of our relationship (rob probably cooks 60% of the time / i've never done his laundry / we clean the house together / we socialize regularly without one another), i couldn't fight off the fear that becoming a WIFE would change all of that. because, after all, isn't that what everyone claims? that being married changes everything? i didn't know how i was going to be able to move on  and really, truly commit to rob. i mean, we had lived together, bought a house together, discussed and agreed that we were in it for the long haul, and would stop running away and quitting when shit got ugly. or boring. or lonely. we agreed to stick it out and really, really work to be together; choose to be together. so WHY couldn't i stand the thought of marriage??

i spent hours trying to solve this riddle with my closest of friends; i made a little bit of progress. i witnessed my best friend's wedding and confirmed six months later that nothing, in fact, had changed in her relationship after said nuptials; i felt a little better. i discovered the blog a practical wedding and quickly found that i wasn't the only woman on the planet to feel this way - so much so that there is an entire section for reclaiming wife; i saw a light at the end of the tunnel! i kept reading; i started feeling brave enough to form my own opinions. i read committed, a gift from my best friend that worked wonders on my brain. i read more APW posts about forming baby families (whether or not actual babies are involved). i learned about infidelity, betrayal, doubt and loss; i learned about strength, commitment, compromise and joy. ...all the while, paying very very close attention to my reactions and their reasons, and what thought processes i could adjust to change that fighting feeling. i did all of this because i wanted to. even though my brain felt like it was on another planet, my heart wanted very much to marry rob. not because everyone thought we should, not because society told us we had to, and certainly not just so that he could be on my health insurance plan. i wanted the reason for us to get married to simply be that we wanted to.


oh, and i should mention that all through this, rob patiently waited. even though he didn't fully understand my need to work through the concept of marriage, he never rushed me. occasionally, my guilt rushed me. and in those moments, we would talk about marriage, weddings, and our relationship. these conversations always ended the same: rob telling me to take my time, that he would wait forever to marry me. and guess what? eventually, the absence of pressure - from rob - pushed me through the last hesitation. i was finally ready.


and then i waited.


i had considered proposing to rob. it made sense. he was the one waiting for me; i was the one holding things up. so i should do the dirty work, right? except i knew that it was something that he (sort-of) wanted to do. in our conversations, numerous things had come up regarding marriage or weddings where i would say, "oh, no - that's not going to happen!" and he would need a day to process, and then accept, my declaration. like me not taking his name. it wasn't that it offended him; he had just always imagined that i would. somehow one of those conversations included thoughts on the actual proposal - and the fact that he had thoughts on the proposal. i decided to let him have this one. i mean, you can't take a boy's dream of his wedding/marriage away from him! so i sat back, trying to reassure rob that i really, really meant it, while his best friend urged him to hurry before i beat him to the punch (unaware of my scrapped plan to do so). finally, while on vacation in february, "it" happened (maybe i'll share that story another day).

i was not prepared for the excitement i would feel upon being officially engaged to marry my best friend (in case you know, and are counting - yes, rob is best friend #3 featured in this story). i was not prepared for the joy it brought our families, especially that of my pappap, who virtually giggled, hugged me numerous times and held my hand for hours after i delivered the news. i had no idea i would feel so at peace with the beginning of the planning process or that i would want to be really, really considerate of our friends and family that would be included along the way.


what i know is that i'm so glad that i took my time.

feeliNg Righteous - or - gloom aNd doom

i am tired of the following:

• people defending models that are too skinny. i am a skinny person and i still think there is something seriously wrong with the fashion industry in the "ideal" body type it defines.
• people trying to be cooler than everyone else. i'm not impressed.
• people who incessantly complain about their ailments. again, not impressed. these details by no means define the person you are. please respect yourself and share with me the important stuff.
• people who can't think outside of themselves. i like to think that i am an incredibly thoughtful person, and it would be nice that, if you reap the benefits of my friendship, you act in kind. return emails and texts. consider me when making plans so that i don't feel as though i'm forcing myself on you.
• people who turn social networking into political platforms. go ahead and voice your opinion, but don't soapbox on my territory. this shit is supposed to be FUN!

i'm feeling a little defeated today, so i won't apologize for this. if you feel targeted by my list above, then you have most likely made me sad recently. try to just be a better friend rather than let this upset you, too. kthanks.

make youR owN samoas

forget the girl scouts.... who needs those little bitches, anyway?!?

(c'mon... i KID, i kid.)

find the delicious recipe here

also: thin mints and tagalongs

foR the biRds

First the birds; now the fish - and crabs? Me telling Rob about the other species dying en masse resulted in the following conversation:

Rob: Well, the world is supposed to end next year, right? So it can't all happen at once; things have to start getting screwy sometime.

Me: If that's the case, hurry up and fix your bus so that I can quit my job.

Rob: Really?

Me: If the world is really ending in 2012, there is no freaking way I'm wasting my time sitting at a desk anymore! We can spend the next year or two driving around the country, selling sandwiches on the side of the road for gas money.

Rob: Sandwiches? That's shady.

Me: Okay, then. We can pick apples. Join the migrant workers.

Rob: And poop on lettuce. Let's do it.

(via)

steal.

i wanted these awesome satin shoes made by simple last year. They were sold exclusively at nordstrom's (from what i could tell) and cost about $70. i "simply" (hardeeharhar) can't justify spending that on sneakers...

i found them at ross dress for less yesterday for $16.99. yoink!! i SO took these bitches home.

fill iN the blaNk fRiday - life love

today's blanks feel to me like they are focusing on the more hopeful, happy side of life. i was just thinking about doing a LML (love my life - because FML was going through my head way too much and i needed to combat it with some positive thinking) post, so this is fantastic timing!

1. the most spontaneous thing i've ever done was  spent the night on the rooftop of a local school with my sister. we both had insane, hazy dreams about getting caught the entire time and had the most surreal, misty morning because of them.

2. the best gift i've ever received was a (diamond) ring from the boy. it was a big joke and the effort he put into a gag gift was impressive: trips to multiple jewelers, recruiting a friend's help, teaching me a lesson to no longer whine in jest for something being heavily sold on a commercial... love that guy.

3. a time that i was truly and genuinely surprised was when rob made a trip home for valentine's day while he was living 5-1/2 hours away. we don't usually keep anything from one another so it was impressive for him to be able to not give it away while calling me to casually find out where i was on a friday night!

4. i can't leave the house without gum. i am a chain-chewer, have been for yeeeears now. lately, i've been craving the carefree bubblegum i was hooked on for years.

5. my favorite day of the week is saturday because there is so much possibilty to the day. i can sleep and and/or stay up as late as i want without really affecting anyone. i can go for a long drive, a long shopping trip, visit family, or stay home and cook all day when the mood strikes. nothing is set in stone.

6. something that can always make me laugh is people making asses out of themselves to the highest degree. rob says i'm mean; i say i'm seizing the opportunity to find the humor in everything.

7. my perfect day would include sleeping in late, hiking through the woods - or mountains (somewhere!), eating a hearty meal, and relaxing in the evening with a big ol' bottle of wine. all of these accompanied by people i love. the best part about this scenario is: it has actually happened. in the last month.  :)

happy friday and may you all have an amazing weekend!

dRool.

sometimes i get really stuck/lost on etsy. it's such a great place to waste some time, and to discover amazing handmade things. yesterday, i fell in love with rounan's 2010 xanadu collection. to wit:

extraterrestrial coral reef necklace

this looks rather spinal to me... and i love it.

the wall flower necklace

so organic i want to lick it!

a handful of stardust necklace

in this, i see the drops of water as the base of a waterfall that freeze in the winter.

deaR ...gap???

some people are forecasting gap's rebranding efforts as a kiss of death... this move is focused on the spring 2011 line, so i wonder which aspect the winter 2010 line was focused on: the classic heritage, or the new "interesting essentials?"

my hope right now is that this collection is indicative of gap's new direction - i am loving this styling!

see the rest of their winter lookbook here.

home impRovemeNt fail.

when house hunting over three years ago, rob and i agreed that we wanted a house we could just move into; one that didn't need any work. however, we had a tough time finding anything within our not-so-strict but slightly specific criteria. we needed a home within our price range (duh) with at least a two car garage. preferably, a three-plus car garage so that i could actually park my daily driver in there.


then we looked at the house on grand avenue, and both instantly agreed that the rust orange shag carpet, 50's pine wood paneling, and iron eagles hiding in every nook and cranny were oversee-able. the garage(s) was more than what we could have ever dreamed of, there were numerous bay windows with large sills for the cats, and a well-placed sun room. there was a small yard, a cute deck, and three bedrooms. we were sold. we bought.


my sister and i spent a day pulling up the disgusting carpet, my mom and best friend helped pull down some of the most atrociously hilarious wallpaper i've ever seen the next, and i spent a few days scraping the linoleum off of the sun room hardwood floors. that was the extent of work done on the house until this summer. i was inspired by the kitchen on the show parenthood (if you haven't watched this show, i highly recommend it!) and finally decided what i wanted to do with my cabinets. being under a super-tight budget, i'd paint the cabinets a sage green color now, do the backsplash another time and, maybe way down the line, add a butcher-block counter top. as a last-minute cheap idea, i decided to spray paint the existing hardware.

pine wood = golden hue throughout entire house

early in may, i started on the process, along with the incredibly useful assistance of my mom. she built her own house from the ground up, and is comfortable working with both wood and paint. this was my first real attempt at home improvement, so i was more than grateful for the help. 


after sanding, priming, sanding again, painting, sanding ONE MORE time, and painting the final coat, i got lazy. the painted doors remained on sawhorses in the garage for almost an entire month. all i had to do was spray paint the hardware! i finally motivated to do that, and rehung the doors.

not quite so gold anymore!

so, where's the fail, you ask? the fact that by mid-august, all of the paint was still tacky. anywhere that paint touched paint resulted in NO paint. if i leaned on the counter while cooking or doing dishes, my jean would stick to the cabinets juuuuust a little bit when i walked away. not the end of the world, mind you, but pretty dern discouraging.

i managed, in my first home improvement project, to buy faulty paint. fortunately, i had an experienced painter working with me because otherwise, i would have just thought that i did something wrong. not the case! a complaint to the store resulted in a call from the paint maker, lab tests, an inspection, and the verdict: they will pay for a professional to strip and redo all of the work that i did. so for that, i will disclose: the company was valspar. i may have purchased a bad product and spent a lot of time on something that would never be quite finished, but they are doing the right thing. so really? win.

Right up my alley: james peRse

i like this guy's style. his contemporary knitwear designs, and their pallette, speak to my very soul.

sweater 

top

dress

not that these are even close to my price-range. so it goes...

fill iN the blaNk fRiday: fall

not that these blanks are fall related, but my mind is in such a fall place... melancholy & nostalgia, here i come!

1.   when i get a day to myself i like to  go shopping. it's nice to shop with other people, but i always end up feeling bad about my tolerance (i.e. willingness to spend an entire day at the mall) of it. if i'm by myself, i can shamelessly try on thirty items at every store and take all the time i want. i've learned that shopping with my ipod is even more dangerous!

2.  high school was....  a ton of fun. i know that so many people say it was awful and traumatizing. it's certainly not that i was popular, but you know what? i had AMAZING friends. and i still hold each of them close to my heart.

3.  a little dream i have is  to travel a hell of a lot. i want to see white sand, blue water, green grass, ancient buildings, beautiful people, and new stars in the sky!

4.  a big dream i have is  to try to take over the world!!!

5.  if i could drive any car my pick would be the volvo C30-R, although honda's new take on the cr-x, the cr-z hybrid, is quite tempting. there may be a battle between the two! this is actually a topic that rob and i discuss regularly, and as seriously as two people who have zero intention of buying a new car anytime soon can.

6.  a time that i felt really and truly beautiful was when i stopped trying. i'm pretty sure that's the secret to life.

7.  tomorrow I will....  have a pretty busy, but fun day. i have a bridal shower for a longtime friend, then an end of summer (booo!) party with lots and lots of friends. i'm really looking forward to what the day has in store!

coNsideR me destRoyed

this will destroy you opened for the deftones on monday here in pittsburgh. i was a little unsure of how i would feel about an instrumental band pumping me up for the seemingly requisite (in my brain/heart, anyway)welcome-to-fall heavy rock show. holy schnikes, this band did NOT dissappoint. i purchased a cd on the way out and proceeded to listen to it on repeat for the next three days.

i'll take this oveR floweRs aNyday

rob queued up this song to be the first i listened to on my ipod this morning.

music = WAY > roses.

this is magic!!

Fistful of Mercy from Fistful of Mercy on Vimeo.

joseph arthur, ben harper, and dhani harrison???

WOW.

thRowback thuRsday: Rage.

i forgot just how much i love to rock out to this song. feeling a little ready for a hardcore fall welcome and this hits the nail on the head for me.

bonus: rage against the machine's self-titled album was the first thing i ever shoplifted.

fill iN the blaNk fRiday: RaNdom

today's fill in the blank friday is filled with the randomness that is lauren's brain... works just fine for me! maybe one day i'll submit questions from interviews that i did in 9th grade for the school paper. poor mr. carson tried to answer me seriously and respectfully to questions like, "what kind of toothpaste would you be?" i showed no mercy.

on with the show:

1. the most adventurous thing i've ever done is...  really dependant on what one would consider "adventurous." is shoplifting adventurous? it's my first response, but i really just think that's because of the adrenaline rush that i got while stuffing ridiculous things like makeup and cd's into my pockets in jr. high. i only felt that way again when throwing rocks at passing trains (it's a federal offense!!!) behind a local restaurant. or perhaps it was sleep on the roof at a local school with my sister when she had nowhere to go. we were both so paranoid about getting caught that we had the most amazingly freaky (and similar) dreams and woke to the sounds of summer drama campers arriving and tried to figure how to get the heck out of there unnoticed... i guess by the technical definition of the word, the most adventurous i've ever been was going white water rafting for the first time on the arkansas river in colorado which included numerous class 6 rapids. we had an awesome guide and got through flawlessly! hmmm, that kind of pales in comparison, now...

2. if i were a pair of shoes i would be converse jack purcells. casual, a little unique... but quietly refined.

3. my preferred mode of digital communication is sadly, i think facebook. texting is cumbersome for long-winded me and email is too formal. i really love being able to check in with numerous people in just a couple of minutes. call it lazy, whatever... it works for me.

4. i feel happiest when driving around on back roads when the day (or night) is beautiful and balmy, listening to great music. my brain is a convertible car.

5. a little dream I have for my life is no big secret! i want to be my own boss. still haven't decided exactly what i want to do, but my love for fashion is pushing its way to the top right now!

6. the one modern convenience I could NOT do without is anything that lets me do things myself: pump my own gas (NJ, how do you stay in your cars!!??), withdrawal from my own bank account, check myself out at the grocery store... i love it all. being able to go about my business without talking to anyone? priceless.

7. music, movies, tv or books: if i could only choose one to enjoy i would pick music. it can really change / fix / affect my mood at any given time. everything else just helps you escape from what's in your head and it's still there for you to deal with when the movie/show/book is over, but music can simply change your mindset. that's some powerful shit there. books would be a close second, since you can learn and gain perspective from books, and this could also potentially lead to a new way of viewing the world. that and, who could really imagine their world without david sedaris narrating once in a while?


looking forward to an awesome weekend! going to see my morning jacket tonight. that's actually all that really matters.  :)

awww, yeah.

my boyfriend is putting out a new album in december!!  here is the first single... it's got me pumped already.

WARNING: the tiltle of this song is "f**k you" so, ah... it's quite explicit. in only the way cee-lo can do it. 

yes, please

this top makes me want to revamp my wardrobe. i can see myself now: causal-chic in straight-leg pants (we're talking serious change here, people) and ballet flats. i'll take one in every color, please.

thanks.

p.s. and guess what? it's not j. crew! yay, me.

p.p.s. oh, except it's not any more reasonably priced. way to be consistent.