British Holiday

Whit and I got Adele and Duffy CDs for Christmas. Fabulous young soulful singers under 25 from England and Wales. But it's all just one big island..right Rie?

Duffy is already doing pretty well for herself, with over four million albums sold, but miss Adele is a little less known.

Buy 19 IMMEDIATELY. She is nominated for four grammies, and mark my words, after February 9th, this girl is going to completely take over. I could listen to either of these girls sing the phone book...

*****

Listen to Adele here. A personal favorite is Hometown Glory.

Listen to Duffy here. A personal favorite is Stepping Stone.

Did I mention that Adele will be in SLC on January 23rd? You're all coming with me.

ho ho ho

We had a Nielson/Christensen Austin outing last night. We hit up Hut's for some greasy burger goodness and to 37th St. to take in some quality Austin Christmas lights.

Your standard Christmas preying mantis.

Welcome to Austin.

There was also a nativity with LBJ as a wiseman and Obama as the baby Jesus.

Merry Christmas from ( a very warm) Austin!

Two things..

1. I'm back from the depths of educational hell

2. Why don't we dress like this anymore?

Probably my favorite iconic costume from a movie..Grace Kelly in Rear Window, created by Edith Head

Apparently Hollywood is obsessed with this dress as well....

Mark Shaw photographed an imitation during a fashion show in the '50s..I'll take a few ribs out and squeeze right into this little number

Vanity Fair did a Hitchcock tribute a few years ago...

..And Carolina Herrera created her own interpretation for a benefit last year...somehow my people didn't get the memo to purchase...

Serenity Now

Apparently, higher education dictates that I can't get into the Christmas spirit until December 18 at 10:30 AM.

I'll be back when I can come up for air. I promise.

I give thanks...

..that Thanksgiving was so late this year..I go back in two weeks

In the meantime, could someone please give me a reason to wear this:

(minus the tights and witch shoes)


plus this:Did I mention that the shirt is cashmere and costs more than the skirt?...You can't have too many $120 cashmere t-shirts

Banana's models are especially wonky these days, however. This should be remedied.

Review

I am choosing to withhold complete judgment until I can see the movie in a theatre without hundreds of screaming pre-pubescent girls in capes and "team edward" shirts. No seriously, they screamed and clapped every time a character came on the screen. There were mumbled death threats coming from our row for the entire two hours. Apparently all of the twenty-somethings got their tickets at the Riverwoods early and we were stuck with moms and eight-year old Cindy-Lou-Whos at Scera who can probably barely spell their own names, let alone understand the intricacies of teenage vampire romance. Please sense the sarcasm.

My favorite part of the NYT review is ..."..oh-so-confusing feelings, like, OMG!! He's SO HOT!! Does he like ME?? Will he kill me??? I don't CARE!!:)." Eight year-olds seeing this is more inappropriate than my eight year old self seeing Titanic three times...in theatres...with the caveat that I closed my eyes during all nekkie scenes.

But I digress...if they can get a larger budget than the paltry 37 million they had for this one and if they can get a longer run time than 120 minutes (the books are 400-500 pages people), I think the stunts will become less laughable and maybe Edward's hair can have more screen time. I mean c'mon, they have to make his freaking skin glitter and have him glide through 500 foot tall trees. I'm done, now I'm just making myself laugh...so, umm who wants to go this afternoon?

Splendid

This little nugget by Splendid is usually $80....on sale now for $40 at Anthro. Do yourself a favor and go buy it immediately. It feels like you slathered a mixture of silk and butter on your skin. And who doesn't like silky butter?

You heard it here first...

...I have midnight tickets to Twilight tonight.

Consider this my official jump back into teeny-bopperdom. I have no shame. The movie may suck, the theatre may be full of shrieking and giggling, and I may be paying money to see teenage vampire love. But, at the end of the day, I can at least stare at Mr. Pattinson for two hours. Well worth the eight bucks. Search "Never Think" on youtube..Mr. Pattinson has a little little Rufus Wainright in him...care of Rie.

See these photo shoots here and here.


Nope, no shame.

I've come to a few conclusions...

All groups of guys chillin on the strip are tools. No, seriously. Every single boy we saw was wearing this.

Usually, this would be just fine, but when there is a gaggle of ten+ guys all thinking that striped button-downs are the only way to dress up for a night out in Vegas...it just begs for some creativity. Not to mention their tactics for picking up girls. We either had to be interpreters or deal with men screaming about various and assorted body parts while we were stopped at a light. He had no shame..right up on the front of our car. I'll give the more G-rated rundown of the weekend later.
Love the Vegas.

CMAs

The good:

Miss Reese..my favorite of the night

The Bad:

Reba...velvet floor-length cocktail dresses are appropriate...never

Kellie...bikertramp...once again, appropriate..never

The Ugly:

Sarah Buxton, virtually unknown. I love the girl, and the only reason I can think that she would dress like a wild-west trampy cupcake is for this very reason. She gets her name in every article that mentions the CMAs. It still doesn't change the fact that she wore black opaque tights to an awards show.
Thanks for distracting me for three hours last night from studying! My failure in college thanks you!

Cheap Cheap

For the next three days, all of J. Crew's full-priced sweaters are 20% off in stores and online. Enter SWEATERS at checkout. This little hand beaded nugget is regularly $2,500....which means I can get it for $2,000..or roughly the price of my first-born or a semester of college.
Perfect.
While we are on the subject of the new luxe items at J. Crew..can someone please explain this business plan to me? If I was going to buy a one of a kind hand beaded sweater, I probably wouldn't go to the same store that sells blue chinos with green embroidered doggies all over them. Just throwin' that out there.

Workin' for the weekend

The only thing getting me through 3 tests and a paper this week?

-----

I'm going here on Thursday....

Maybe I'll throw my sociological theory book into the Bellagio fountains. We'll see how the test goes.

Celadon Wedding

I made this a while ago for my old roomie Lauren's January wedding. She is doing celadon, brown, and platinum..with gardenias and sand dollar flowers. I'm mildly obsessed with the dress...I'm gonna call up Monique later and put it on hold for 2019. Maybe Evans and I should go into business.

Threat

Psycho Carly has strong-armed me into a blog tag. Posting the fourth picture of the fourth album on your computer. She threatened to make inappropriate comments on my blog and facebook until I did so. She made good on her threats today with comments that include bodily functions that should not be discussed in public forums...everyone thinks I'm a dainty girl, and we cannot have that image being tarnished.

So, here ya go. I'm at work (or I'm not at work if this will get me fired)..so here is this picture of hellishness that is saved on our desktop for no apparent reason.

Squirrely

I want an entire Christmas tree covered in these for a little kid's room. I don't have a little kid, but boy, if I did, they would have a squirrel ornament covered Christmas tree.



See more little nuggets here.

Well there ya have it

After my 7 hour date with Wolf Blitzer and my recliner last night, I think I need a breather from any and all political analysis. So, instead, I will focus on the shallowest of campaign topics. Do you think we could do that? Yes we can...man, I'm hilarious.

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First, Cindy. She looked beautiful in her little marigold suit. I think Lindsay is disappointed that we won't get to see her first-lady fashion come to full fruition more than the fact that her husband lost.

Usually Michelle looks beautiful. WHO FREAKING STYLED YOU LAST NIGHT WOMAN? And Jill...lime green? Lime green for your husband's vice-presidential presentation? Gracious people.

This was even more shocking because the Biden women are gorgeous and classy and are living my life in Nantucket...white jeans, polos and all. Give me a call Jill.

I think Obama's acceptance speech would have been even more affective with the following additions:
-A gospel choir singing "yes we can", not just chanting like the lame crowd
-Oprah giving cars to the entire crowd at Grant Park
-The 106 year-old lady that was mentioned coming on stage shaking her cane at him saying that she thought she was voting for Ron Paul
-Changing the 70's powder blue carpet on the stand to navy...honestly people...please consult me next time

-Brad Pitt and Angelina's kids doing a choreographed dance with Obama's darling daughters

Here's to the next four years!
But can we please put Ann in the white house in 2012?.. I would really appreciate the fashion blogging material.
So classy.

Anorexic Halloween

We were going for accuracy, and I think we did pretty good. Maybe I can lose 90% of my body weight by next year so I can look exactly like Mary-Kate.

Flannel, leggings, starbucks, scarves....complete lack of talent, starred alongside John Stamos, famous for being famous....check, check, and check. We've practically lived the same life.

'Tis the Season....

....For obesity



I give you pumpkin cream cheese truffles. I also give you three extra hours on the elliptical. Yep, already over it. Find the recipe here, or just salivate over the ingredients. I love the holidays.

2½ cups white chocolate chunks
1/3 cup gingersnap cookie crumbs, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup canned pumpkin purée
1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs, plus more for garnish
1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of fine salt
2 ounces cream cheese, softened

Sisterhood

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 has hit the dollar in Provo. Hallelujah. Let us focus on the two most important items.

Lena's freaking wardrobe.
"How come you get to wear French Connection beez?"

Luckily, you can buy the original costumes for the low price of $500-600. Perfect.

This brings me to my second item. Jesse Freaking Williams.

HAIII Jesse. Apparently the clothes worked wonders on him and Lena snatched him up...As luck would have it, Shannon spent a magical week in a beach house with him last summer, so it's all but in the bag. Our beautiful children thank you SHAN!

OY

I feel like every girl I know is highly displeased with the offering of boys at our darling school as of late. Maybe it's the weather..regardless, I'm beginning to think that this is all I have to choose from:

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Your standard tool, may or may not wear puka shells, acts too good for everyone, legitimately is holding out to marry Jessica Simpson, still wears shirts emblazoned with Hollister across the middle (note: Hollister is not a status symbol in college, go back to 7th grade) travels in packs with his tool boys, cat calls regularly to hide their insecurities of actually speaking to girls.

Your standard nerd zoobie, returned from their mission yesterday (or seven years ago, it doesn't seem to matter), goes on 4-7 dates a week to mostly church functions, wears youth conference shirts on a regular basis, will find ANY reason to strike up a conversation with you in the library (direct quote: "So how is that Dell working out for ya?")

Your standard hipster/Indie poser, hailing from California, thinks that skinny jeans, v-necks, and throwback Nike's are original (Note: EVERY BOY IS WEARING THIS ENSEMBLE-YOU ARE NOT ORIGINAL), listens to anything from Bright Eyes to Dashboard depending on their level of posering, only hangs out with girls who understand their plight of being a rich Mormon kid from southern California whose self-expression is limited to the varying tightness of their skinny jeans and plunge of their v-necks.

I should stop now, I sound like a woman scorned.

Mental Health Dancing

If you're feeling in a funk, a solo dance routine in your living room to Britney's greatest hits (womanizer on repeat) might just de-funk you. Not that I have any experience with that. And, if that doesn't do the trick, just think that you haven't shaved your head in the past year so you've already got that goin' for ya.

Nie Nie

I'm sure most of you are aware of the Nie Nie Dialogues by now, but it is such a source of perspective and joy that I wanted to post about it. The blogging community has now raised over $150,000 to aid in their recovery costs..unbelievable.


---To find a summary of their story, go here
---To read Nie Nie's blog go here
---To read updates on how Stephanie and her husband are recovering, read her sister's blog here