The Pirate Purse

I recently upgraded my laptop. Now since the size was different I now needed a new case. Apparently everyone with a laptop wants to look like they are going on a business trip. It's totally lame.

So I started a hunt.

In the end I had to settle for a pretty standard laptop case. The bright side to this tale though is that in my searching I found this.



That's right. A purse. With a pirate on it. And not just any pirate. A girl pirate!



And not just a girl pirate! A giraffe with a five o'clock shadow, an elephant blowing bubbles, a dinosaur wearing mascara, and a frog with a lollipop!



And even that's not all! There's also a hippo wearing sunglasses and a hypnotized gorilla with a...whatever that is!

But, even with this giant acid trip of a purse, my most favorite part is the handles.



UPDATE: I totally spaced mentioning who this bag is by or where to get it until one lovely someone wrote to ask. The pirate purse is the Miss MARC Pirate Mabel Tote by Marc by Marc Jacobs. I purchased it through Neiman Marcus.

When life gives you pink lemons...

There is such a thing as pink lemons. I am not kidding. This has pretty much made my week.



As they ripen the skin goes from green and yellow stripes to just plain yellow which is why some of them are not like the others. I'm planning to make lemon bars with them but I would love more ideas, other than pink lemonade.

When seperating wants and needs becomes difficult...

This weekend I went shopping with a friend. One of our stops was the most amazing Twist on NW 23rd. Twist is mostly a jewelry store but there are also some home things as well. As soon as I walked in I saw a wall of animal pillows. I wanted them all but I knew I could only have one. Because really, how crazy is a studio apartment full of animal pillows going to look? I'll keep my crazy slightly more under the surface thankyouverymuch.

So, out of all the animal pillows I chose a baby bird of some sort (there's some debate over whether it's an emu or ostrich).





You can see why I want every single one of these here.

Butter

Butter London is one of my most favorite nail polish brands. They make somewhat out there colors but if you're looking for something wild or happen to find something in their selection that will work for a day to day polish it's guaranteed to be gorgeous.

I've posted before about my new found appreciation for tan nail polish and when this weekend it hit 60 degrees I decided it was close enough to Fall to break out the neutral.



This color is called Yummy Mummy and has a teensy bit of a cool tone shimmer to it but doesn't look sparkly or metallic when on. Here is an admittedly bad photo of it on my nails. I have a chip on my left hand and taking a photo with your left hand while trying to adjust the lens with that same single hand is more difficult than it would even seem. So this is what you get.

My most favorite thing this week.

It's So Amazing!

So, a few weeks ago I went to look at a couple cookbooks I keep on my kitchen counter. When I picked them up all the pages were stuck together. I'm not really sure how this happened since if anything spilled I would have wiped it up but, regardless, the books were no longer functional. I really really love these super simple books so I wanted to replace them.

This was no problem, I found both the books I wanted through the website of a local bookstore as well as a book on curries. So I ordered the books for in store pickup and paid for them online.

Then I got these suggestions for other books I may enjoy as well.



All of a sudden I'm a bit wary of these cookbooks...

Hip Hop Horray...Ho...Hey...Ho...

I hate running. It doesn't really make sense to me. It feels like something you should be doing when you are in danger, not for fun. I do need to start working out more though. I used to do the eliptical machine a lot and that was okay although it can get boring. I love basketball but in Portland there are few chances to play outdoors and at the gym most of the time the boys take over the court. I've taken yoga and all I want to do is talk and giggle which is heavily frowned upon in yoga classes. Spinning would kick my ass.

I needed to find something that would get me excited to go to the gym and not kill me.

That's when I discovered hip hop dance class.

For an upper middle class white girl I have an inordinate love of hip hop. I quite honestly relate to just about nothing when it comes to the lyrics but I love the music. In high school there was a group of boys I hung out with who called me "White Chocolate" due to my love of hip hop. I really can't imagine a more fun workout and I'm so excited to get started. I even went and saw Step Up 3 (it was no longer playing in 3D) in preparation.

I start tomorrow with my friend Craig and am looking forward to giving an update. I'm sure I will make a fool of myself but at least it will be fun and as far as I know you're allowed to laugh in hip hop class.

What I'm Wearing Today

I bought this dress to wear on my birthday this year. I spent the day volunteering at Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls followed by Last Thursday, dinner at Le Bistro Montage, and drinks at Blue Moon. It was mellow and sweet and very different from the parties I had at 21.

I wasn't about to not take the opportunity to wear something fantastic though. It was my birthday.

Today I woke up at 8:26am. I usually aim for leaving the house at 8:30 but can leave as late as 8:40 and be okay. I'm not really sure what happened but I was late so I ran to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and with no time to think saw this dress on the rack and grabbed it. Luckily I wore my hair curly yesterday which actually looks better the more bed head and crazy it gets.

I'm wearing this dress (Ikat Halter Dress by Free People) with a black tank under it so as to avoid that whole side boob thing and this cardigan over it.


Three Quarter Sleeve Jersey Cardigan by Nordstrom B.P. in Sapphire

Along with these shoes.

Greco Sandal by Sam Edelman

And this bag.

Marc by Marc Jacobs Slinky Hobo

I wear my sunglasses (not) at night...

There's something about sunglasses. They're sexy and mysterious, glamorous...and so much fun. There's an effortless cool to wearing a great pair of shades.

The other thing is, they're actually really useful. Not just in the obvious not being blinded while you drive way but by wearing a good pair of sunglasses you're protecting that super sensitive skin near your eyes from sun damage.

I own a massive amount of sunglasses. I have terribly sensitive eyes so if I forget my sunglasses I usually will buy a pair during the day. This has left me with a mix of both high end and low end sunglasses as well as a great pair of vintage air force aviators I bought at an antique store. Honestly, as far as looks go, it doesn't really matter if you buy cheap sunglasses. I've bought pairs at Urban Outfitters, random little boutiques, and Forever 21. All of them look just as good as any of the more expensive pairs I own. And I'm okay wearing them every once in awhile but in general I try to wear higher quality sunglasses because of that aforementioned cancer thing. My dad had skin cancer when I was growing up and had to get a skin graft on his face. It's not pretty and takes a long time to look close to normal.

This weekend I was in a major sunglasses shopping mood. I ended up with these two pairs.


These are by Tory Burch and apparently she doesn't want anyone to buy them because I can find zero info about an actual name or style number. On her site they are called "Oversized Square Sunglasses with Metal T-Hinge" which also describes about a thousand other pairs of sunglasses. The color is Wine/Brown (frame color/lens color). I bought mine at Nordstrom. They are also available at www.toryburch.com


Jocelyn Sunglasses by Kate Spade in Purple Gradient.

These are incredible and I am super excited about them. I love the almost octagonal shape and the colors. I feel like part of the fun of buying designer goods is that they have all these tiny details you just don't get with things that have less care put into them. Here's a close up of the temple:



These are definitely less expensive designer sunglasses. Besides Kate Spade and Tory Burch some great designers to look at are Ralph Lauren, his frames are universally flattering and run around $100. Michael by Michael Kors has some really fun colored frames that are also very reasonably priced and my favorite, Marc by Marc Jacobs. So many great sunglasses with fun subtle details that add a bit of fun to a classic look.

Happening in Threes

So, it's about nine billion degrees here lately.

Okay, that might be slightly dramatic. It's been in the nineties, which may mean nothing to those of you in other parts of the country but I'm in the Northwest! It's supposed to be a steady stream of seventy five degree days in the summer sprinkled with the occasional thunderstorm. Instead, I am dying.

Besides it being too hot to do anything but lay in front of a fan and eat popsicles I am also having the computer break down to end all computer break downs. I have a 13" Macbook Pro. A friend of mine discovered he had some extra student loan money and decided he wanted to use it to purchase a computer. I've been wanting a larger screen so for a moment everything in the universe aligned to get us each what we wanted. I would purchase a 15" Macbook Pro and sell him my 13" one. So, I bought the new laptop on Thursday.

Maybe it sounds silly but I didn't really see the need to tear into the new computer right away. I had the old one and knew that transferring everything might take a few hours. I planned to just do it the next evening.

Apparently the universe was just teasing me before because the next day my laptop started doing this wonderful thing where all it would show was a blue screen. I took it to Apple on Saturday and they replaced something. I picked it up Sunday and everything was better.

Wrong.

Now the computer would act like a computer but when I tried to Firewire all the info to the new laptop it wouldn't recognize it was connected. So, back to Apple on Monday to have them figure it out. Only, and I'm sort of proud of this but also a bit frightened, the Genius Bar guys were stumped. They have no idea what is wrong with it. So, it was checked into triage once again.

At this point I have a laptop that will connect to the internet but has pretty much no other information on it. No music, no photos, no documents. And I will be needing to make my fifth trip to Apple in less than one week to pick up the 13" laptop.

In more complaining news I messed up the muscles in my shoulder and was prescribed pain killers that basically make it impossible for me to do anything other than melt into a puddle which means I have opted not to take them so that I can go to work and drive and not lay in bed for a week. I'm supposed to take these things three times a day for ten days! It's insanity. Instead I am taking massive amounts of Advil.

If anyone has a kidney they want to donate to me let me know.