A good hair day everyday

I'm ashamed to admit that after I had my hair chopped into a short bob earlier this year, I just never got back to the salon to get it trimmed. So it kept growing and growing until it was past my shoulders. And there it's been, hanging limp and one length for several months. I finally got sufficiently annoyed with it and made an appointment with my regular stylist. She had been out on maternity leave and then working really short hours so I'd been seeing a sub, who I like, but it was nice to work with my regular gal again.

I'm not usually one to jump on the celebrity cut bandwagon. The cuts either wouldn't work with my hair or they're too trendy for me. However, after seeing Katie Holmes' new 'do on the October cover of Elle magazine, I sort of fell in love with it. And most importantly, I thought that it would actually work with my hair. My stylist hadn't seen the cover when it was first released, but after perusing it for a minute she declared that it would be a great cut for me. And added "Your hair is so boring right now, this will definitely pep it up!"

She chopped the hell out of it, but when it was done, I was in love. LOVE! The front has a ton of short and long layers right around my face. The back is stacked with a ton of layers cut into the rest of the hair. I have to use a thickening spray on it to give it a bit of body and for the hair to look styled, but that's a small price to pay for a cut I love this much. She also taught me how to use a flat iron to curl my hair. I have poker straight hair, so the idea of buying a flat iron is still hilarious to me, but it curls my hair better than any curling iron ever has.

I think my favorite thing about this cut is that it can be styled so many different ways - straight and spikey, turned under, flipped out and curled. I've never had this versatile of hairstyle - it's so fun!

I already have my trim appointment on my calendar. I forsee keeping this style for a long time!

I love free stuff!

Especially free stuff that I was considering actually spending money on, in the first place. :) At the end of October, one of my favorite sewing bloggers, Lindsey T, was hosting a giveaway for Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. I've been hemming and hawing over this book since I started sewing, so it was a no-brainer to enter. She has a huge following and I knew that lots of people would enter, so I pretty much didn't think about it after throwing my name in the hat.

So I was SHOCKED when I was reading her blog the next month and saw that I won! I WON!! I totally did a happy dance at work and my CWs just shook their heads in amusement. A couple of weeks later, this little gal showed up on my door:

I've quickly flipped through it and I have my eye on the wrap skirt and overnight bag. Thank you so much Lindsey and I can't wait to make some fun projects after the new year! :)

Vogue 1151 - Hot Vegas dress!

When the Winter 2009 Vogue patterns were released a few months ago, I absolutely fell in love with 1151, a fitted knit dress from Cynthia Steffe. I loved the fabric, the style lines and that exposed zipper. Erica B recently made it up and her dress was beautiful, which made me want my own version even more. However, I've been preoccupied with baby gifts and such so it got pushed to the back burner.
Skip to the beginning of December. Jim and I decided last minute to go to Vegas this past weekend to help his brother celebrate his birthday. Jim has complained in the past that when we do Vegas in colder months that I "tend to dress like a nun." Hmph! My answer has always been that I'm way too old to run around in a skimpy dress when it's 40 degrees outside. But, it did make me think that maybe I should put a bit more effort into dressing more vegas glitz and less nunnery chic for this trip. And I immediately thought of that Cynthia Steffe dress. It would be a perfect!

This dress was done on a total time crunch and while I was recovering from a nasty URI and sinus infection. Thankfully, I had already purchased some beautiful aubergine rayon poly lycra doubleknit fabric from Fashion Fabrics Club (sold out now) earlier in the summer without any specific plans for it, just that I had fallen in love with the fabric after purchasing a RTW dress that was made in a similar fabric. Really, this stuff isn't your grandma's doubleknit. It's nice and stable, but is much softer than traditional doubleknit and looks a bit more luxe. The interfacing and thread were easy to pick up, although the zipper took longer than it should have to find locally.

I cut a smaller size on top than the bottom to accomodate my very pear shaped figure, but after I put together most of the dress, I realized it was all too big. Grrrr. Thankfully, I have been to enough tailors in my years that I had a good idea of how to fit the dress. I grabbed a box of pins and went to town on it. I pulled several inches off the top and about an inch off the skirt. By the time I was done with it, things were looking great! The collar and arm facings needed a few alterations, too, but I was really proud of myself for being able to identify the problems early and fix them without hassle.

As for the finished dress? I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this dress!!! LOVE IT! It looks chic and rich and is so very comfortable. I think this might be the most on-trend I've been for a night out in Vegas in years. The dress itself is hot, but paired with patterned black tights, booties and my new fancy hair style, I felt like a million bucks.
I think this is my favorite thing I've made so far. Not only because it turned out so well, but because it opened my eyes to the world of fitted dresses again. I haven't bought a RTW fitted dress in years because to get one that fits my hips, it requires too much expensive tailoring to fit my bust. Just not worth it. Instead, I've stuck to dresses that are fitted up top and full through the hips and thighs. A good style for me, sure, but one that gets old when you've been wearing it for years and years. I love having this whole world of fitted dresses opened up to me. I've been dreaming of tailored work sheaths and fitted cocktail dresses since I finished this little number. Oh, next year's sewing projects are going to be so much fun!

Lastly, I loved that I was able to have a designer dress for a fraction of the cost. This dress pattern is a pretty exact copy of the Cynthia Steffe Lia dress, which retails for $258.

My version - $35, including fabric, pattern and notions. Mmmm hmmmm. Pretty substanstial cost difference, eh? ;) Not to mention that the original would have never fit me off the rack. I just keep liking my version more and more.

A Year

November 20, 2008 was the date that we found out my father had passed away. I can't believe it's already been a year. I think that most of the anger is gone, but I'm not sure that I've really dealt with the situation. My M.O. this year was to just bury it all and move on with life. Healthy? Eh, probably not. But, it seemed to be the only way I could really function. After getting through the holidays in 2008, I pretty much made like a hermit crab and just took a lot of "me time" over January and February. My nights revolved around coming home, eating comfort food and losing myself in a book. I guess you could say it was therapy of sorts, except that I just remember feeling incredibly numb. I had a couple of epic breakdowns during that time, but after the tears were over, the rest of the emotions just got reburied. I still have moments when I'm driving or cooking or some other mundane task, when I suddenly remember he is gone and will find myself close to tears. I'm still so sad that things ended the way they did. That he died the way he did. That I had severed communication months beforehand. That I couldn't have the relationship with him that I wanted. That he couldn't change to be what my brother and I needed him to be. That things weren't better before they abruptly ended. Things we saw in his house after the fact still haunt me. I think this is why I've just buried the whole lot of it and have tried to move on. It's just too painful to sift through everything and really deal with it.

Surprisingly, the anniversary actually passed without any tears or even much conscious acknowledgment of the day. I think my brother had a different experience for the day, but we process things very differently, so that is to be expected. I wonder what this year will bring. If I'll feel ready to confront some of the sticky emotions or if I'll just be content to leave them buried for the time being. Time will tell.

Putting a smile on my face

My new Ferragamo flats (70% off at the company store in Carlsbad - woot!)

A huge apple-cinnamon muffin

A cup of tea in my new Selfish Seamstress mug (and yes, of course it's pink!)

Plans to start reading this book tonight

Calling my doctor for an appointment yesterday and being squeezed in this afternoon, before the weekend.

That it's FriYAY!

What's making you happy today?

Quickie Post

So many fun things have been going on that I'd like to chat about. I even have some pictures to share. Unfortunately, I'm a)sick sick sick again and b)am frantically trying to finish up a few Christmas gifts for the first holiday gtg of the year that is this Sunday. 3 items down, 9 to go. Can't say what they are here because almost all of the recipients read the blog. :)

Hope to get caught up on the bloggy blog this weekend. In the meantime, if you're looking for a killer chicken soup recipe, please use this one. Made it last night for dinner and it rocked my world. I'm not sure if it's because I was craving something hearty, yet light to make me feel better or because this soup just kicks ass. Either way, it was delicious and I can't wait to have the leftovers tonight.

On that note, Happy Hump day folks!

Stayacations are the best!

Through the wonders of mid-week holidays combining with regular days off, I lucked out with a very short work week last week. In the office Monday and Tuesday and then home until the following Monday. Awwww, so lovely. :)

This random stayacation coincided perfectly with my mom's plans to come for a visit and do our normal early Thanksgiving dinner. This started years ago when Jim and I first started dating - I would head home a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, sometimes with Jim, sometimes alone - and celebrate the holiday early with my family. Then for Thanksgiving, I'd head to his family's huge gathering in LA and then on to San Diego to hit up the sales on Black Friday with my bff, and shopping buddy extrodinaire, Blondie. Now that we're married and my mom is coming to LA for holidays (my brother lives here now, too), she prefers to only have to travel during the height of holiday traffic for Christmas and to still do our Thanksgiving celebration early. It seems to work out the best for everyone.

After last year's debacle (more reflections on that in a subsequent post), I think all of us were hoping for a smoother and more uplifting visit with my mom. I'm happy to say that the time she spent here was so much fun and the complete opposite from her time here last year.

Wednesday and Thursday we spent shopping and just hanging out. I talked her into getting some more updated sweaters to add to her wardrobe and she talked me into buying some stuff that I probably didn't need, but was fun to buy anyways. We also got matching leather tote bags from BR (mine in silver, hers in purple) that I'm sure we'll wind up sporting at the same time. ;)

We just about bought out Williams-Sonoma - I needed a roaster for the turkey and some food stuff for the dinner. The store clerks just laughed at us adding more and more stuff to our pile at the register. I think we both felt like pack mules walking back out to the car.
I also took her to Michael Levine in downtown. I needed some fabric for Christmas gifts and she was hoping to get some stuff for her good friend that makes quilts. We made a small purchase there, but then headed across the street to Michael Levine Loft. I'd never been, but really wanted to poke my head in to see what it was all about. OMG! People! That place is so fun!!! They sell all the fabric for $2/pound and will cut pieces to smaller yardages if you ask. We had the best time poking through the huge cardboard boxes, pulling out huge cuts of fabric and making a big pile of stuff to take home with us. I'm really not about sewing for folks unless it's a gift, but when your mommy pulls out fabric and informs you that you'll make her some scarves out of said fabric, well, you just smile and say yes. ;) At the end of the day, I left with a HUGE bag of stuff - 3 sweater knits, some polar fleece, gauzy prints for scarves, suiting fabric for skirts and a chocolate brown rayon modal blend. Total cost - $20!! Such a deal!
Thursday night we took her out to a fun, very LA restaurant, The Bazaar. I had recently had dinner there with some of my friends and thought it was great. I liked that while the decor was wacky and the food was different, it wasn't so out there as to be unpalatable for my mom. And Jim was all excited to go as Esquire has recently named it best new restaurant of 2009. I was pretty bummed to see they had done away with their Chef's tasting menu and replaced it with a seasonal tasting menu ... to the tune of almost double the cost. Boooo! We ordered a bunch of dishes to share though and it worked out fine. I was impressed to see my mom eat a foie gras lollipop and raw tuna and then exclaim that they were some of her favorite things of the meal. This, from the lady that proudly states that she "doesn't eat raw fish." Way to go mom!

By the time Friday rolled around I was in full Thanksgiving dinner shopping and cooking mode. Everything except for the gravy and cranberry sauce was going to be homemade, so I had a lot of work ahead of me. The menu I planned was as follows:

Brined Roast Turkey
Mashed Potatoes and Turkey Gravy
Sausage and Chesnut Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Green Bean Casserole
Sweet Potato Casserole
Salad
Bread
Pumpkin Pie
Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

I finished the desserts and brining the turkey on Friday. That night my brother came over to hang out and I got to relax a little with everyone. We gorged ourselves on pizza and watched Taken and The Hangover. The second movie was a repeat for all of us except my mom. Surprisingly, she thought it was hilarious. :)

Saturday started off pretty strong. As I worked my way through the prep work, I kept the kitchen clean and orderly. My mom would poke her head in ocassionally to say how smoothly everything was going and that I was doing a great job. And smooth it was... until the last hour. That whole "5 dishes needing to be finished off at the same time and I don't have a double oven" thing threw me into a bit of a tailspin. Suddenly, the kitchen looked like a bomb had exploded and I was darting back and forth like a crazy person. Because everyone knows me, they all stayed far far away during this part. Ha! Ultimately, it all turned out okay though. I think my timing has room for improvement, but overall, it worked out well.

I was all set to take a bunch of pictures of the food, but it didn't happen. The only one I got was the pie and that was before the meltdown started. But, look how pretty she was. And it tasted even better than it looked, if I do say so myself.

While the food was delicious, I think the best part was the company. Aside from my mom and brother, we also had my in-laws and my youngest brother in law and his longtime girlfriend, whom I adore. The youngins' particularly impressed us as they came over all dressed up, bearing a bouquet of flowers for me and a bottle of wine for dinner. They're like, all grown up and stuff. Sniff sniff. The conversation flowed so well as we sat there for over 2 hours enjoying dinner and then dessert. My brother impressed me with his intelligent and well-articulated explanation of electronic gadgetry to my in-laws, while they entertained us with their latest ballroom dance moves. I remember at one point just looking around and feeling so happy - being surrounded by people I love in our house, enjoying a holiday dinner I made from scratch. These are the kinds of scenes I had hoped for when we bought the house and it's really awesome to have them coming to fruition.

Sadly, my mom's visit ended far too quickly and she was back home the next morning. We really had a such a great time and I can't wait for her to come back next month for Christmas. This was a really welcomed mid-month break and I'm so happy that she got to come and enjoy it with me.