how to dress well

On Valentine's day, Johnny and I spent the night in, cooking and writing. I had a short story to write that I had to turn in the next day, so I spent the whole day at my laptop conjuring up lives and worlds and conditions. We did make an amazing kabob with pineapple and peppers and a parfait for dessert. Yum. No pictures, though (I know it's been a while for an outfit post. I've been feeling not-so-cute lately).

I did want to share my VDay present from J with you all. It's not the complete thing though, because he hasn't made the cover of my mix cd called "I'll Be Yr Bird" (he makes the best album art). I'll post it up once he gives it to me :) This cd manages to be lovely, and cute, and beautiful, and silly, and too too cool, and CUTE, and wonderful, and perfect. Every. Single. Song. Here's the epic tracklist:

1. La La Love You - Pixies
2. I'll Be Yr Bird - M. Ward
3. You And Me - Penny & the Quarters
4. Love You - Syd Barrett
5. Wowie Zowie - Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
6. I Love You - The Velvet Underground
7. By Your Side - Beachwood Sparks
8. Forever In My Life - Prince
9. Islands - The xx
10. Blue Moon - Big Star
11. Bluish - Animal Collective
12. You're So Good to Me - The Beach Boys
13. That's How Strong My Love Is - Otis Redding
14. My Girl - The Rolling Stones
15. Love Story - Harry Nilsson

Anyway, he got me this perfume I had been sniffing out from Anthropologie when we were in Santa Barbara. I know, I know, I never did a post on our trip. The short of it is that we went to SB for a little weekender, stayed at a cute little B&B called The White Jasmine, hiked up to this ruins called Knapp's Castle, went to the zoo where I found the cutest little fox that I wish was my VDay gift, ate lots, walked lots, and shopped on State Street lots. :) Click here to check out my album from the trip.



...and Cape Dory from Tennis on vinyl! I lovelovelove Tennis and J ordered it and it came in the mail that night. :) Check 'em out.



...and he got us tickets to go see How To Dress Well perform in L.A. this Friday :)

Speaking of vinyl, J and I went to the record expo in Claremont the day before Valentines Day and scored some great soul classics like Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke (and I got a "Best of" collection of James Brown just for the song "I Got The Feelin'" because it was featured on the Cosby Show, which is on Instant on Netflix in its entirety. I'm on Season 4 already!) LOVE.



And since I've deprived you of my face for so long, here are a few pictures from my Writer's Conference in D.C. that took place at the beginning of the month :) It was about a half a week long in Washington D.C. Just enough time for me to do some site-seeing with some of the other girls in my Fiction program. For more pictures, click here. I guess I could give you the lowdown on one of my outfits, too :)

Forever 21 dress tucked into American Apparel high waist pants, UO bag, Anthropologie headband.


ASOS trench

i want these...

...to not be $250.


Look how cute they are on Rhiannon.



Other loves.

too much

So I have lots to do. Reading, editing, story writing, making J's VDay present, cleaning/decorating my room, working, papers. I also have two update posts to write here; one being my Santa Barbara trip with J and the other being the Writer's conference I just got back from in D.C. Those will come later. In the meantime, here's a little post on this cute vintage space out in LA called Space 15 Twenty. My friend and coworker Aaliyah modeled for them for the opening of the store The Loved One Pop Up Shop (from Hannah of Hannah and Landon. Check out her Etsy shop here.) recently, where she was all prettied up in cute lingerie and sat on a swing in the middle of the floor. Super cute. Here's some pictures from Space 15 Twenty's flickr. Click on the link to see all of them. And as usual, click on the pics in my entry to view 'em bigger (Sometimes I don't like big photo entries).

Cute lil Aaliyah.






Our friends Alia and Jerod went to see her. I wish I could have gone but I was in DC. :(


If you're in the LA area, check it out. Just in time for valentine's day :) I think Aaliyah and I will be there Wednesday! See ya there, perhaps!

you and me

"So there's a child molester and a little boy walking into the woods. The child molester and the little boy keep walking further and further, and it's getting darker and darker, and they're going deeper and deeper into the woods. The little boy looks up at the child molester and says, 'Gee mister, I'm getting scared!' And the child molester looks down at him and says, 'You think you're scared, kid? I have to walk out of here alone.'" (a joke from the movie)




Yesterday night I went to see Blue Valentine with J and our friends Cindy and John. We drove out to Irvine where it was playing across from my old school UCI. Loved it. Stinkin' good. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams both did a great job. If you're fortunate enough to live in an area that's screening it already, you should take advantage of it and see it. Aside from Ryan Gosling's adorably adorable ukulele version of "You Always Hurt the Ones You Love", there's this cute old song "You and Me" by Penny & the Quarters that's the two main character's song in the movie. Here it is. Super stinkin' cute.




And to give you a idea of how much I haven't changed since, well, high school probably, here's how much I haven't changed in a little less than three years. The first picture is from when the store opened in November of 2008 (my beautiful coworker Karlee was 16 in this picture and I was 26), and the second one is from earlier today at work, in front of the same door (even though it's white now).

be happy now

School has started up again and I didn't put up any new treasures in the shop like promised. I have been going thrifting and scored some great finds that will be up shortly. I found a great photographer, so it should be a doozy. She's talkin' makeup and concepts and lookbooks. Fancy. :)

In the meantime, here's some uber-cuteness I stumbled upon. I love Moleskines. I think I've had about five and I'm on my sixth right now, but I mostly just use them for story writing ideas, directions, recipes, and writing down lists (grocery, to-do, what have you). I'd like to venture into concept journals though, like this talented Russian lady, Jenny Meilihove. Here's a couple of her YouTube videos of her Moleskine drawings. The music she uses is cute too. Click on her name for her website.





She also has an Etsy shop, Be Happy Now, full of her artwork and illustrations. Check it out!

Some of my favorites.

there are two things that everyone loves, cats and lasers!

I have to say that I had mostly negative experiences at American Apparel before working there, mostly as a customer at the one in Huntington Beach when I still lived in Orange County. I always had the impression that the employees were a bunch of snobs. I remember getting rung up once, and the whole time, the guy didn't look up once or say one word to me except to tell me how much it cost.

The same can't be said for the amazing staff at Victoria Gardens :) I must admit, unbiasedly, that we are the friendliest and pretty much the greatest. Also the most really ridiculously good-looking (though there's more to life than being really ridiculously good -looking, of course). This is not an opinion. Only fact. Agreed?



Yesterday we had our holiday party (a little belated this time round). We went bowling, which I always enjoy but hardly ever do. I am probably the worst bowler ever, but I love it. I took turns with J, and I alternated between missing every pin and bowling a strike! I think my highest score ever is an 80 or so. :)

My secret Santa was my coworker Michelle who loves the Laser Cats skit from SNL with Andy Samberg and Bill Hader. For her present I bought a navy knit sweater from H&E in Redlands, for a nickel! (All clothing, accessories and linens were a nickel yesterday, and today they were a penny, though by now it's definitely slim pickins.) I put cat patches on the sweater and sewed lasers coming from the cats' mouths, and voila! A one of a kind laser cat sweater! All under the $25 limit. I was excited to see her reaction, and she liked it so much she wore it the rest of the night!

new friends, new year!

So I know this is long overdue, but before the new year, I went to a get-together with some lovely bloggers, held by Blythe, called Dressember. I'd heard of it off of Beatrice's blog, Dear Beatrice, and Ashley (my blog bestie) and I decided to go. I'm glad we did, too. I'm a really shy person, but I try to not be, and this was as good an opportunity as any. We met up at the Gypsy Den in Santa Ana on Thursday, and just sat and ate and chatted. It was nice, and you all should check out the Gypsy Den. (The one in Santa Ana is much bigger and cuter than the one in Costa Mesa, by the by. J and I have gone previously to see our roommates' wonderful and talented band Swiss Alps play. One of them, Alyssa, has a cute little blog called Love & Space. Check it out!)

Blythe, Beatrice, Gloria, me, Ashley


At the Gypsy Den.




Ashley and me. We finally meet in person! :)


Afterwards, we went to J's family's to spend New Years Eve. Pretty uneventful, but nice. We played Kinect sports and dance games, which are fun and hilarious. Other that that, there was lots and lots of eating. I'm not big on crazy New Year's Eve parties. Gimme board games and food and a fireplace, and I'm good.

Outfit for Dressember.


J's niece's Christmas present, Blueberry!


HAPPY 2011! I don't have any grand new year's resolutions. I'm hoping to just be more open, and outgoing. Put myself out there more. Also, I want to go on adventures! Let's travel, please!