Bacon Roses!

I know, I know. Enough with the bacon!! Where are the pictures of pretty things, like clothes and shoes and tutus. Well, I promise to make a better effort to post about that, but there has just been so much great bacon related news and products.

Earlier this week I retweeted the following:

RT @helloross This bouquet is just for you, @LoniLove.http://yfrog.com/hsttnvmhj

I got really excited. In general, I am not that into roses, I wouldn't say no to 12 long stems if a suitor was trying to woo me over, but they aren't my favorite by a long shot. Just throwing it out there universe, I love orange wild flowers. Thanks

No sooner did I retweet Ross Matthews, did my aunt send me an email with the subject of "I know you are a bacon fan..." The body was simply a link to Bacon Roses

Yes, I now know how to make my own set of bacon roses. These will be made for some future brunch, I promise you. I just need to find my electric drill...

Five Pounds of Love

Meet Miki:

He is a Morkie (Maltese and Yorkie mix), was born on July 11th, and has stole the hearts of my mum, dad, sister, and me. This little dude loves darting under our feet and pacing around the house to learn the lay of the land. He has the best fluffy hair-do which flops over his eyes in a "I will cause all the bitches (proper use of this word) in the yard to swoon".

At this point, we know very little about Miki and his interests. What we have determined is that he loves decorating his crate with small items he finds around the house (such as a travel size tissue pack, and a fake cardboard cellphone from a cellphone accessory), and has a thing for all things made of paper. Don't drop a receipt around him, he will pounce.

I can't wait for my next visit back home so I can cuddle up with the ball of fluff. Seriously, try to resist this dude.

Black Friday

Thanksgiving was great. Per usual my family drove up to New York to spend time with my mom's clan. Things were a little different this year, as the main meal was held in a different relative's house. Fortunately it was just as loud and tasty as always.

Now normally, we stay Thursday -Saturday, but this year things were cut short. In and out Thursday and Friday. For a moment I thought that we were going to skip Black Friday shopping. It was quickly determined that we were going to stay up in Troy for dinner so nothing kept the women from heading to the malls.

The sales were great. I managed to get some gifts for the family, and, well, gifts for me. I need new clothes. Anyone crazy enough to pass up deals like this clearly doesn't live on a budget. As mentioned in my previous post, tights can really help stretch a wardrobe. New York & Co had a sale where everything was 60% off before noon. I got 3 pairs of new tights. Go me!



The tan tights actually are glitter tights. Sadly, couldn't capture the amazingness with my driod.

In addition to some new tights, I also managed to score some new underwear (always a plus), a dress, gifts for sister and dad, and a new Lady Gaga MAC lipstick as I have no clue where mine went. All and all, a very successful Friday.

....Oh, and this doesn't include the score I got from Ruelala.

Amy Sedaris is pure joy

My mother sent me a to Amy Sedaris's new book "Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People" asking if I would be interested. The book centers around crafts for people with no money. I am taking this as proof that mother knows me well. She understands that a) I love crafts, especially tacky ones and b) I often tell her that I am poor - mainly due to my life choice of living by myself. I was thinking about posting about the book, even though I don't own it, but had been holding off. I am glad I did, because if this had gone up 3 weeks ago, she would not have yet interviewed with Wendy Williams.

Amy Sedaris is one of those comedians that I love and forget that I love until I see her again. Strangers with Candy was a great show, which, if memory serves me correctly, only lasted a season. Shame. Personally, I think she is the funnier Sedaris.

Anyway, she was on the Wendy Willaims Show. I have only seen clips on The Soup, but Wendy seems like a hoot and a holler. Having a wack-a-doo like Amy had to become entertainment joy. And it was.

The only other interview that I have seen of Amy was a few years ago when her first book came out. She was being interviewed on Chelsea Lately and decided this would be a great forum to discuss female health issues...with homemade props.

Celebrating my sister's academic accomplishments

Normally, I try to keep my blog centered around me and my life. But today, I would like to say congratulations to my sister and her classmates at Assumption College for graduating. Sadly, she does not yet have a job lined up, but I am sure things will work out. I didn't have one either, but that was a different economy, so who knows how long it will take for her to get something going.

As the supportive sister that I am, I opted to get her a tool to prepare her for the workforce:

Happy Mother's Day

This year I am being a bad daughter by staying up here this year. But I will be seeing her next weekend for my sister's graduation! Hope all mom's have a great day!!!

Hello 2010!

The holidays have come and gone. I was able to celebrate my birthday with so many different friends, had a great Christmas Eve and Day, flew down to Florida for some relaxation, and came back to Boston to ring in the new year. The week and half of friends and family has put me in such a great mood for this upcoming year.

I have now been blogging for about a year and think that this experience has helped me to determine where I want to go with my life. I will be taking an intensive multimedia course in January. This will hopefully help me figure out if content management and web design is where I want to go with my career. I am thinking about getting into communications and marketing, so we shall see. The intensive course will mean that this blog will probably be ignored a little more but I do have a number of things I hope to post about in the next few days before things go completely crazy. I have a few more thoughts on shoes, skirts, trends, and being the domestic goddess that I like to think I am that I would love to be able to share. :)

Thanks for sticking with me for my first year of blogging. I believe that there will be two new blogs that are going to be more focused debuted by mid-February. But we shall see.

Crunch Time!!

Christmas is in less than a week. Which is awesome. But I am getting a little panicky. My Christmas cards have all been personalized, addressed, stamped and mailed. My gifts not only purchased but also wrapped. And yet I am extremely concerned. Why? I have not yet watched any of my favorite Christmas movies!

Love Actually starts 8 weeks before the holiday and I try to start watching mid November to work with the time frame. I will subsequently continue to watch it semi regularly while cleaning, decorating or just hanging around. The flow of the different story lines is so well executed with the way the characters interact and are intertwined. Even with all the love, the movie keeps it it light and funny with some spectacular lines, such as; "I am Colin, God of Sex". This movie will forever and always make me think of college. I don't even know if I can count the number of times we got together to watch this one.


"Buddy the Elf. What's your favorite color?" Another new Christmas classic. This movie is so quotable. Everyone seems to around saying lines from this one... "SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!" This one let's your inner kid come through. Who doesn't like Will Ferrel in a small green elfish costume? It is truly fantastic. Makes any grump into a believer. After seeing the movie I can't help but to sing a Christmas song loud and clear for all to hear.



My mother's favorite Christmas movie is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We watch it annually as a family, often in Florida. Nothing says Christmas like palm trees. There are so many physical gags in this film. Personally, I love it when they untie the tree and the branches just explode everywhere. Just thinking about it makes me giggle. Chevy Chase is doing well for himself on Community, but he will always be Clark Griswold to me.



I hope to find some time to get some movie watching in stat! In the mean time, at least I can enjoy the cartoon intro to Christmas Vacation.

Competitive Conversations

Some families compete with each other by playing flag football, others play board games, my family, we are competitive conversationalists.

The last few years have been a little quiet at my aunt's house as one of the families had been spending the meal with their other grandfather. This year, they came back to Clifton Park and brought him with them. Even though we were down 3 people as my cousin's family (they have a 2 year old) opted to stay down in North Carolina, the house was still booming with noise from the 13 adults who were milling around.

I'm thinking that it is the Italian part that causes each and everyone of us to use what many people consider shouting as a natural method of communication about every day events. From interacting with friends, it would appear that most find it necessary to be in the same room to have a conversation. Not us. There is no reason someone in kitchen cannot ask someone in the living room their opinion on a matter. Additionally, if two people are in the living room talking about their day and a third person walks by with something on their mind, there is no reason to wait for a pause, that person can jump right in. The better topic, or louder voice, will win out.

Minus the brief moment after grace where everyone ate, not a minute went by where at least 6 of the 13 were talking. Being able to not only follow multiple conversations, but also participate, AND eat your share of shrimp cocktail (with extra horseradish in the sauce) is an art form. I dare anyone to try and survive one of our functions.

Please note, that this is not limited to just Thanksgiving. Our family will also get together on Black Friday for dinner and pick up two more members of the clan. It is a toss up whether we go to my uncle's house or a local restaurant, going out together is definitely more entertaining as we tend to overwhelm the waitstaff. We all talk a lot, eat a lot and drink a lot. The third only causing the first to get louder...

Trying to get US in the black

Tradition places me in the middle of Colonie Center at about 11 am today. The females of my mom's side of the family have been "enjoying" an afternoon at the busiest malls in the Albany area for about 20 years now.

When we were younger, my grandmother would take all of us cousins to the movie theaters that sit within a mall to see a show and then have a little lunch. Very minimal exposure to the extreme shopping that was going on at the time. Now that we are older, we have said good-bye to Thanksgiving movies and hello to elbowing the crazies for the deals.

By no means do we do the 5 am door busters - at least not typically - but we have been known to go from about 10 am to 5 pm. By five we are tired and over the whole consumerism thing and head on to big family dinner number 2, which has come to mean setting up shop at my uncles for pasta and wine.

This year we didn't make it past 2 pm and later ended up at a sports bar where we overwhelmed our waiter with our volume and ordering. It was a grand time.

But back to the shopping...I would say that the six females did their job and managed to help stimulate the economy to some degree. Personally I got half of two Christmas presents and then a few things for myself. Big purchase (which will be considered a birthday/Christmas present to myself) was a Burberry perfume/lotion/body wash set - that came with a free teddy bear! Burberry clothing is something that I have no interest in, their fragrances are something else. When I was in Vegas I fell in love with a scent and have yet to find it again. I purchased Beat today and while I love it, I am not sure if it was THE SCENT, and I am still ok with it. If you're in Boston, I'm sure you will notice the new smell, I plan on wearing it pretty often, especially given what I paid (even with the deal)

I am not sure what the official numbers were like regarding how much was spent by the people, but I will attest to the fact that mall was not empty. Additionally, people were hungry for deals, we saw many people stocking up on deals and ready to argue about prices with the sales staff. (In most cases these arguments were because the customer didn't bother to read which brand was on sale an decided ALL griddles sold in Macy's were on sale...yeah not so much). Hopefully, the economy continues to move in a positive direction. All I know is that I am ready to jump into the Christmas present purchasing madness.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I am probably in a car right now on my way to Troy, New York for Thanksgiving. Around 10:30 or 11 am every year Alice's Restaurant comes on the radio. And every year my family and I try to find it as we clearly can't be bothered to learn what station it is on. If you never have heard this great story/song, well have no fear, I found it on youtube for you!

Getting my mom interested in woot.

So when I first came back from Alaska, I felt like I really needed to do something nice for my parents. They did pay for the trip. But at the same time they know that I have really no money, so it would have to be small gestures or else I think they would try to give it back. My father is really hard to shop for and so I usually fail when I try. But my mom is a little easier. Probably because she goofy like me. Don't get me wrong, my dad is very goofy, but he has a different way of showing it.

Anyway, my mom told us how after teaching for what seems like forever, RI is now changing the curriculum requirements for middle school. She now has to teach astronomy. But not astrology. At least it was added after the whole Pluto getting demoted from planet to celestial body. Hopefully, her textbooks are new enough they also only show 8 planets. I wonder what the new pneumatic is to learn the planets is now. I mean it is no longer true that My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Maybe she served us nothing? How sad.

It just so happened that on shirt.woot.com they had a shirt out for sale called "You're not one of us anymore, Pluto". I ordered it for her and called to let her know something was coming in the mail her way. It was supposed to arrive the first week of September but I kind of forgot about it. But while we were talking on the phone today, the shirt came into my mind and I asked her if she ever got a shirt in the mail. She got so excited and asked if it was from me because there was no paperwork with it. The only sad thing was they sent her a kids size 10 rather than a woman's medium. In the end she has decided to email woot.com to see if they will do something for her. In the mean time she is deciding between ordering a bigger size on her own or going for the chemist. (see below) Which funny enough, was the daily t-shirt that had sold out the afternoon I got her the Pluto one. She was having a great time going through the site looking at all the shirts. I think she might become a woot addict. :)

Looking underage

Note: this post was supposed to go up Friday night but I ended up hanging out with a friend from high school. I am way to lazy to change any of it so please just go with it.

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Today I was having lunch with my mom and sister. Out of the blue my sister exclaimed "I know why you're wearing dark eye make up [this is referring to my amazing eyeliner and mascara], she looks older with it on...like actually 25". This caused both my mom and me to laugh but I quickly stopped and realized that my sister may be spot on with this.

See the two of us always get questioned about our ages. When she was 19 she was told that she couldn't sit in the emergency exit row on the airplane because you need to be at least 15...True story.

Other examples would include any time during our trip to Florida last December where every waitress carded me when I attempted to order a drink while out with my parents and sister for dinner. You may think that they waitresses were just doing their jobs. Or that they they were confused because there are so many old people down there. Well you would be wrong. Most of the places we were at were bars/pubs filled with families.

Since this seemed to happen to me for too often when we were out as a family (see time on plane when my sister sat in the emergency row, I tried to get a drink with a free drink ticket and the stewardess said that I had to be 21, I replied I just turned 24) we started to try and test the waitresses' judgment. Basically we would ask them guess how old I was. Most thought 18, one realized that she should probably guess at least 21 because we gave her a strange look, but broke down and said she wouldn't put me past 20 and that was being generous. Again, we let her know I was 25. My sister didn't fare much better. Since most of these people were making me her age, we wanted to know where they thought she fell...apparently she is 14. One waitress did make my sister a year older than me, that was not my favorite guesser.

So why am I telling you all of this? My sister turned 21 earlier this month. I did not return home to celebrate with her so I chose to take the family out for dinner tonight. I ordered us a scorpion bowl. As soon as the words came out of my mouth the waitress immediately asked for some ID. Obviously she overlooked my parents, was about to leave the table when we stopped her and informed her that my sister would be drinking this too. She did a double take, asked for ID and after carefully thinking about my sister's birthday, told her that she really didn't look the age and somewhat jokingly said it was a fake ID.

Yep. People think my sister and I should be thankful that we have such young faces. No, it is kind of annoying. People seem adamant that when we are 40 we will appreciate that we look 32. Who knows whether or not that is true. The silver lining I am giving myself is that even though children are so not in any part involved in my immediate future, if I had to become a mom sometime soon, I'd like to think I could be considered a MILF because of this :P

When In Doubt, Flip a Coin?

♫ My father likes to forward me articles by Harvey Mackay. This week's article was all about making choices. I found the follow section particularly interesting:

Sigmund Freud was once asked why it is so difficult for some people to make decisions. He shocked people when he said he asks them to toss a coin. He went on to explain: "I did not say you should follow blindly what the coin tells you. What I want you to do is to note what the coin indicates. Then look into your own reactions. Ask yourself: Am I pleased? Am I disappointed? That will help you to recognize how you really feel about the matter, deep down inside.

After reading through the whole article, I realized that that I have been trying to work through some obstacles/problems in my life recently- slash for like a year - and just needed to get some real direction. So I figured I should go with the idea of flipping the coin to see how my gut feels about some of this stuff.

I dig through my bag and wallet and am able to come up with a quarter. You have to agree, it is so the most superior flipping coin of the bunch. I take a deep breathe, label heads and tails accordingly and flip. In true NFL fashion I opted to let the coin fall to the floor and go with those results rather than catching the coin and flipping it onto my hand. Of course, with my luck, the coin fell to the floor and bounced --- right under my desk. Not under the desk where the feet go which is easy to retrieve, but under the desk under the set of drawers where my arm only reaches so far and apparently not far enough. So I have no idea what the answer to my flipping was. I am no closer to learning if "heads" is how I really feel or if I would have been ok with "tails" That was my only quarter at the time.

I think this is a sign. I have always been about reading signs and understanding what the world is trying to tell me. This experience is probably telling me that I shouldn't flip coins, that in fact, that would be a bit of a cop out and instead I just need to keep trudging along. I will have to do some laundry shortly - which will involve quarters - I'll see how I feel at that point about the whole flipping thing.

Love family play-by-plays

I called my mum to check in about some things this afternoon, our conversation was interrupted so that I could get the following play-by-play...

"Oh there is a bee in the house. I wonder how it got in here. It must have come in when the door was open yesterday. I am going to try to kill it"

"Let me see if I can kill it without it stinging me. Hold on"

"I got it. Oh I'm crushing it"

"It's dead"

This all happened within a matter of moments. With slight pauses between segments it was a wonderful way to start the afternoon. Well, it can hardly be compared to the time I got a play-by-play of a family of deer that were hanging out in the backyard, but family of deer --- bee...they are no where near the same level.

Whoops...

Easter evening I stopped at my cousin's condo to have a short visit on my way back from RI. My aunt and uncle were in town and haven't seen them for quite some time so I figured it was a good idea to stop by. While there, I mentioned my blog and my aunt was really excited to read it. I told her I had no problem with her looking at it, and always enjoyed getting a new fan. She asked what my mom thought of it, and I said she didn't really read it. I thought nothing of this conversation. I mean, I only write things that I am comfortable with the world seeing so it's not like this would be embarrassing...

I did not count on my aunt calling my mom and telling her that she enjoyed High Heels Short Skirt. My mom felt a little guilty about how her sister was reading my work and she hadn't found the time to read it herself. So she did.

Well, if you recall a few days ago I wrote about getting to church on Easter morning and how my dad and sister didn't exactly make there with me. We never told my mum that I was the only one who went and let her think she was the only bad Catholic in the family...

Well she read the post, then told my father he was busted. She had read it late at night and almost woke him up to bust him immediately. Fortunately she did hold off till morning before breaking the news. But now he is now referring to me as "the rat"! I honestly didn't think she would ever read the post. Oooops. Just a friendly reminder that one should always be care about what one puts out there...

Addiction is contagious

I have been drinking coffee since 7th grade. Clearly, coffee does not stunt your growth. I began my addiction by getting jumbo ice coffees from Bess Eaton. (I believe jumbos were 64 ounces...does that sound right? maybe 32 ounces...I just can't remember)

Well anyway, I started as a fair weather friend to coffee drinking but became an addict once I began working at the beach club. Since I worked the opening shift of 8-4 I always went to grab a coffee on my way in. Then once everyone else arrived I got a second round with our daily coffee run. Nothing like two 32 ounce ice coffees (light and sweet at the time) in the span of a few hours. My daily dose of caffeine has continued ever since. Interestingly enough I did tend to give it up when I was in college mainly because I felt the coffee sucked.

The thing that my family found amusing is that neither of my parents drank the stuff. My father was a tea man and my mother enjoyed her diet coke. A few summers ago, my father began enjoying the occational iced coffee from DD while on vacation. He particularly frequented DD for this treat whenever he was in Florida, but would always go back to his usual lifestyle when returning north.

This Easter I learned that my father has come over to the dark side. He now gets an iced coffee every day on the way to work. No hot coffees for him, as he is a true Rhode Islander. I honestly never thought to get it hot until I moved to Massachusetts. My father has had to deal with my need for coffee for so long. There are times he has gone out of his way to stop at DD because he knows that I just get cranky if I can't get my fix. Well, he too is now in the club. Perhaps we will be making a few more stops from now on.

I am so proud of my dad. I knew it was only a matter time. After all, he was an avid coffee milk drinker. What is coffee milk you ask? Only the BEST drink out there!!!! Thank you autocrat :)

Easter Take 2

This morning I woke up at 6 am so that I would be ready to leave for a 7 am Easter Mass by 6:30 with my father and sister. Everything went as planned until we pulled up to the church down the road from our house. The parking lot was empty.

There was no 7 am mass.

My father was insistent that he had seen a 7 am mass listed so we went to the sister parish in the center of town. Yeah that was a no go. So we made a pact that we would not let on to my mum that we didn't make in for service as we had given her a hard time about skipping - she went to both Holy Thursday and Good Friday service/mass and didn't want to come along so early in the morning.

We got coffee from DD and returned home.

Then I remembered that I really needed to attend mass. I took Friday off with the plan of attending Good Friday mass and instead I went to O'Brien's in Newport...I haven't been to church since Christmas...

When we got home, I told my dad when I got back that I NEEDED to find a 9 am mass. His response was, "what and make the rest of us look bad?". I said I was really over due. Then he remembered that I said I haven't been in a church since Christmas and he said "GO".

I figured 20 minutes would be enough time to make it to morning mass, and I was right... Barely. I had to park down the street and dash across the parking lot to make it inside before the procession. I'm glad I went. The message of the sermon was uplifting and inspiring.

Clearly I love my family

While in the ICA I got a call from my uncle. He wanted a favor. A big favor. He prefaced the actual request with the fact that in return for my actions I would be rewarded with two bottles of wine that he and my aunt order by the case from the Finger Lakes region that I love. I obviously was a little apprehensive...

He then explains he wants me to go to Mike's Pastry to pick up his usual order. To an outsider, this seems like no big deal. Well, you would be wrong. I had to tell him to call me back as I did not have pen and paper readily available as I was in a museum viewing Fairey's work. When I got back to my friends apartment I got the call and was put in charge of retrieving the following:

14 fudge brownies
6 peanut butter browies
12 raspberry frosted cookies
+ something for myself

The something for myself turned into a fudge brownie and a zepoli. St Joseph's Day is around the corner so I figured the Zeppole should not be ignored. Do you know what all that would cost? I do.

Now unfortunately, my cousin's apartment is between the Heinze and Kenmore T stops so I had quite a bit of travelling ahead of me. It was exhausting. Those brownies are no light!

I will say my uncle was good on his word. Not only were there 2 bottles of wine with my name on them, but I also got a loaf of Garbage Bread. This is a family secret, and can only be found at my family's grocery store. I am currently enjoying both the bread and the wine as I type this. Yumm



And the answer would be $60.

Foiled by Brownies...and free wine

So earlier this week I was writing about how my career as a model was over as I was old and tall. Being the person I am, I thought I would prove the world wrong. So off to craigslist I went. There are a few casting calls this weekend for runway shows. I thought to myself, I did the Black and Gold in college, I could totally work the catwalk again - especially since I have since perfected the art of functioning in 4 inch heels. There was a wicked cool advertisement for this charity show in April. I felt like this was the show for me, it is unpaid and no experience is necessary. I attempted to send a reply with a picture like it asked. After many failed attempts - the picture was too big and I couldn't seem to compress it for the life of me - I sent over an email just expressing my interest. I got a reply back the next morning from an enthusiastic individual saying they couldn't wait to see me and reminded me to bring examples of my work.

My work?

Yeah, I gots nothing there. So here I began to doubt this plan. Let's be honest, I began to doubt myself once I was having a hard time with the email. But now itreally seemed like a silly idea. But you know what, life is about trying. So the plan was still on.

I then went to meet two people to go see the Fairey exhibit at the ICA (more to come on that later) while we were looking around I get a call from my uncle. He wanted me to do him a big favor - go to Mike's and pick up his usual order of brownies and cookies. I would need to meet him at my cousin's at 3:30 on Saturday, and in return I would get 2 bottles of wine - it is from the Finger Lakes region, really good stuff.

Problem was, the casting call would go till 3 which wouldn't give me time to get to the north end and the back out to northeastern in time. So a decision had to be made.

On one hand I had the potential to get cast in a runway show. On the other hand, I could get two bottles of wine (and a brownie) and not have to deal with the fact that I probably would waste 3 hours to just not get picked.

Wine it is!

My career in runway is now officially over. Unless of course one of my readers knows a guy who needs a gal like me to strut her stuff in pretty clothes :)