Love Day!

Brian and I have never gone crazy for Valentines Day. We usually go out for a nice dinner or get some takeout and spend time with each other. We've exchanged gifts a couple of time but it's usually not a big deal for us. Everyone else I know goes nuts for it. The guys buy flowers, candy, jewelry, the girls buy cologne, cute cards, new videogames or an ipod or something. I don't really get it. This year I've seen so much cute stuff coming out right around Valentines Day, though! So I guess this is my guide for what to buy a cool girl for Love Day:

Set of 3 Momiji Love Dolls, designed by Kong Soo. A$59.95 at Tesora.com/au

Mac Cosmetics is releasing a Hello Kitty collection! 2/10 online, 2/12 in stores.

Speaking of Hello Kitty, Sanrio is offering a free Valentine HK plush with an Valentine's jewelry purchase.

Betsey Johnson candy heart watch, $135 @ UrbanOutfitters.com

Dior heart box ring, $165, necklace, $149, & more @ eluxury.com

Gucci Heart bags. Left, $2195, Right $4590 to benefit Unicef @ Gucci.com


KidRobot Love/Hate bag with candy hearts and Fatcap charm, $148 @ Nordstrom.
Marc by Marc Jacobs pink patent heart flats, $99 @ eluxury.com

Lolita Sunglasses, $16 @ Urban Outfitters

Of course cute undies have to be on the list! Hanky Panky 2 pack, $36 @ Nordstrom

Vans Candy Hearts slip-ons, $42 @ Vans



Tokidoki Polpettina figure (SO CUTE!), $12, tokidoki

Sweet 16

On Saturday night Bri and I went to his cousin's Sweet 16 in Staten Island. It was at this place Marina Grand by the water. It was really nice and they had good food and drinks. There were two rooms, a family room and a friends room. The friends room had the dais and the dj, the family room had, well, the family. His cousin looked so pretty! I love dressing up and don't usually have a reason to do it so I love events like this. Once or twice a year I splurge on a new fancy dress. I hardly ever wear them but they make me happy so that's all that matters, right?

I went shopping last minute (as usual) Friday night. This time I was torn between two BCBG dresses. One was grey, short with a bubble shape to it and had blue, white and purple woven criss-cross details on the bust. The second was black, with straps, a little longer, with some more criss-cross weaving on the bust. I chose the black one because I could bend over without worrying that I was giving everyone a view:


Then I remembered I needed a new sweater to go over it. I am always cold, especially in the winter. Anything under 75 degrees and I'm freezing. So, since the stores were about to close and I was in a total rush to go home, I grabbed the cutest, closest black cardigan I could find and went to the register:

I was pleasantly surprised when I found out the dress had JUST been marked down to 50% off, especially since I was fully prepared to pay full price. I love when that happens! The girl told me the sweater had just been marked down 30%, too. She told me my total. My jaw dropped. I knew how much the dress was (it came out to about $150...I know, I know, but I only do it 1-2 times a year!) and the total was twice that! Turns out the sweater retailed at like $220, but was $150ish with the discount. Insane! I was going to buy it and then decide later if I really wanted it (I totally didn't but I didn't want to look like a cheapskate) but I asked about the return policy and it was store credit only. Thank god I asked. I bought the dress then ran to Target to see if they had any reasonably priced sweaters. Smartest thing ever. I got this sweater:

$13! That's 92% less than the BCBG cardigan! To reward myself for making such a wise decision, I bought this tank top, too (in black):


$10.49! I don't know why I don't shop for clothes at Target more. SO cheap, and cute too!

Snow day

Today is awful. We got a bunch of snow overnight and then sleet and rain this morning, so it's wet and icy and snowy all at once. The roads were barely plowed on the way to work. Speaking of work, I wish there were such a thing as snow days for adults. When I was living it Brooklyn my dad would give me snow days sometimes. He understood the hell that was commuting through the city under normal conditions, let alone in a snowstorm. I was watching the news this morning and got instantly jealous when I saw all the school closings. I really wanted nothing more than to stay in sweatpants, cuddle up with Icey and Brian and watch CSI marathons. But, no, I'm at work. I saw three people so far, including a truck driver bringing us a delivery, I'm thinking I may see a few more later on, but who knows?

Italiano

In my last post I said I don't like talking politics. I also don't like talking ethnicities. Maybe it's because I grew up in NY and it's the so-called "Melting Pot." Everyone here is so diverse and people are so eager to find out "what you are" so they can, in turn, pigeon-hole you into this stereotype they've created in their mind of what kind of person that is. There is so much more to a person than what countries their families are from. Truth be told, I'm a complete mutt. I'm a full 1/4 Italian, 1/4 Russian, and the rest is a mix of English (close to 1/4, if not more actually, but from 2 different sides), Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian (I recently discovered that one), American Indian and possibly Irish (my great grandpa was adopted but he and my grandpa, his son, have red hair and freckles and drink like fish). Almost no one in my family placed any type of importance in marrying someone from the same ethnic background as them. I consider it a blessing. I feel like I'm made up of a lot of great parts. Unfortunately I don't know much about any of them. The only two that I've been educated on and that I've celebrated are my English and Italian roots. I love both.

My Italian comes from my Grandma Kay's parents. She's my mom's mom. Her real name is Catherine but I couldn't pronounce that when I was a baby so Kay just sort of stuck. My great grandma (my Nana) was from Piemonte (the home of Agnolotti pasta, a.k.a. Priest Hats, one of my favorites), and my great grandpa Luciano (I never got a chance to meet him) was from Genoa (home of awesome salami). They came over separately when they were young and landed at Ellis Island. My great grandpa's paperwork wasn't in order so he had to go back on the same boat he had just came on, and then make the trip to the U.S. a second time. I have so much respect for people who want to come to America and do it the proper way. I know it's a long and arduous process and you have to really want to be here to go through it.

Growing up, my Grandma Kay always made the most delicious food. She took a lot of my Nana's recipes and "old world" cooking styles and somehow did them with a little bit more modern flavor. I always looked forward to the holidays because I knew I'd be eating well. To this day my favorite thing to cook is her homemade caesar salad and pork cutlets in homemade sauce over pasta. My mom tried mine once and said I really did it justice. Italian is my absolute favorite type of cuisine ever.

Where I work I'm really lucky to have this amazing deli/restaurant/cafe around the corner. It's called Gracie's Ravioli. They have a whole assortment of different pastas, homemade sauces, a pretty extensive deli counter with imported and really high-quality domestic cold cuts (my favorite brand of salami is Columbus, from San Francisco) tons of Italian imports like pasta, olive oil, vinegars and so many delicious hot dishes. I get lunch from there on a pretty regular basis. Today's Ravioli-of-the-Day was Wild Mushroom and Truffle Ravioli with Garlic Butter Sauce. SO insanely good. I usually get a San Benedetto peach iced tea with lunch, too.

I already ate half when I took this photo.

Inauguration Day.

I really try my hardest not to over-express or push my political views on others. We're all different and come from different perspectives, I get and respect that. Today was an important day, though, and I really feel the need to express my thoughts on it.

I'm technically a democrat. I don't agree with all democratic views but I definitely lean more towards the democratic side of things than the republican side. I voted for Obama. I will be honest, in my mind I voted for him because I felt like he was the "lesser of two evils". Not that he's evil, but he doesn't have all that much experience and his voting record doesn't necessarily coincide with views he claims to have. That being said, the views he claims to have are much closer to my own than those of McCain. I believe in change. I believe that this country needs a lot of changes to take place in order to be put back on a path back towards where we need to be, a path towards a better country. We deserve to be happy, healthy and successful and we deserve to have a fair chance at being those things. I just hope and pray that Obama really has what it takes to get us closer to that.

Slow/busy days.

Today has been a pretty slow, yet productive, day at work. I had a few good customers throughout the day so I think we made a decent profit, plus we got a lot accomplished.

Brian woke up early and rented storage for these products that my uncle and grandpa patented and created. They are Executive Door Closers, basically you put one behind any door and you have a remote that will trigger it to close said door. It's ridiculous but I guess in a corporate-type setting they come in handy? I mean, they must, I ship them out all the time. My uncle was actually quoted as saying that after the invention of this door closer, the thought of getting up to manually close a door was "repulsive." He moved to Cali at a very young age, we don't judge him. Just kidding California, I love you. If it weren't for work and family I'd totally have moved to San Diego already.

Anyway, so we have these units...and I'm not talking a few little boxes. Basically they arrived here in giant wooden crates from China (think crime movies where they discover drugs/guns smuggled in crates...that's what these looked like, minus the drugs and guns) and take up ohhhh I'd say a 7'x9'x10' space in the back corner of our warehouse (ps: warehouse means adjacent storefront that we use to keep our stock). There is a possibility that 12 pallets of really big and heavy things are coming tomorrow. Couple that with the fact that I have 3 big orders that are waiting to be picked up and taking up massive amounts of space, I have a bunch of big items sitting around that I'm waiting to return to one of our distributors and I have an entire corner that we're not using for actual business-related things. I should've gotten these out of here a long time ago but I felt bad and wanted to be a good niece and help my family. My dad initially said he'd only help my uncle for a year, so I don't feel toooo bad moving this stuff, especially since we've been storing and shipping it for free for 2 1/2 years while my uncle and his friend (who also owns part of the company) collect the money. Plus we seriously NEED the space. I also forgot to mention that we had a flood a couple years ago and never moved any of the boxes, just claimed the bottom layer as a loss, so the first layer of boxes are moldy and gross, along with the floor underneath them (we put down plastic first but that really didn't do much when the laundromat next door overflowed about 6 inches of water into the warehouse). Needless to say, it was a fun day.

Plus I got some check-writing out of the way, two guys from one of the main companies we deal with in Canada came in and we bs'd for awhile. I'd actually never met them before, but I'd "known" one of them for years from calling all the time. He taught me how to fix one of the units they make without having to ship it all the way to Canada and back, which honestly makes my life and my customers' lives SO much easier.

So that was my day. Now I'm just waiting for B to get back from the storage place (he's been back and forth all day) and then I think some customers are coming by after-hours to pick some stuff up so I'm going to be sticking around for awhile. I think. It would be nice if they filled me in.

No No No-tor-iousss

Last night I went to the movies with Brian and my friend Carla to see Notorious. Unbelievable (no pun intended). I think they did a great job at capturing his life and his music and the affect he had on people everywhere. Coming from NY and growing up when Biggie and Badboy were on top made me appreciate the movie so much more. I loved seeing his life story and do I even need to say anything about the soundtrack? I was really glad to hear Party and Bullshit on there, that's one of my favorite B.I.G. songs. Here's a mix of a few of my favorite B.I.G. and other Bad Boy songs:

Sorry I'm not home right now I'm walking into spiderwebs...

No Doubt is going to be touring again. I know if I go to one of their dates I will probably be surrounded by teenage girls who are all "OMG GWEN!" but I don't care. I used to be one of those girls. I want to feel like I'm 13 again, bouncing around like an idiot to Spiderwebs!

I stay up too late.

As long as I can remember I've been plagued with the inability to go to sleep at a decent time. I can pretty much find any reason to stay up. "OH I love this movie/tv show/book/magazine, I've only seen/read it 9 times, I just have to watch/read it again right NOW." Replace any of those things with something equally (or less) distracting and it will still be very true. So I have ADD, so what? Tonight I went out to eat with Brian's parents. They left at around 10:30, then we thought it would be a good idea to go to our friend Dre's house. He wasn't even awake but we hung out with his brother and roommate for about 2 hours anyway. It's not like I had a bad time or anything but I totally should have just stayed home and went to sleep early. When the weather's ridiculously cold like this (at this very moment it is 8 degrees in NY, says weather.com) the store can't get warm enough. Today it was 66 degrees at its max, probably lower at times. It takes a lot out of me, I come home after these kinds of days and just want to pass out. For some reason, though, I always end up awake until at least 1-2am. I totally need better self-discipline.

Procrastinating

So, I haven't been blogging this week because I know I should be doing my mandatory "Vacation Update" but I haven't gotten a chance to yet. I came back home on the 1st and went straight back to work. Between work, getting together with customers after work, getting together with friends after work and trying to catch up on life, I haven't been online at all. Plus, this was the most insanely awesome vacation ever so I want to give it the proper attention. Again, though, I'm at work right now (we close at 6pm, it's 6:49) and don't have the time. I made Brian promise to come with me to Lowe's tonight to get curtain rods and hardware. For Christmas his parents gave me an Urban Outfitters gift card and this is what I bought:

Curtains for my living room.

Curtains for my bedroom.

A 3x photo frame for my bedroom.

A jewelery stand.

A blind box Hello Kitty toy (I got the one on the right that looks like a brick wall! I have the one on the left, too, my mom got it for me for my birthday.)

So, tonight, I'm on a quest for the perfect hardware to replace the cheap ugly brass stuff my apartment came with. I have to get to that, so I will leave you all with a video of the song that's been in my head all freakin' day:

Bahama Mama

Back from my trip to the Bahamas! I am absolutely in love with Staniel Cay and I want to go back as soon as possible. So much to update with! I just got home from work (ugh we close at 3pm! It's past 8pm!) and need food, so I'll post later.