Best. Gift. Ever.

The only person I ever exchange Christmas gifts with is my best friend Kristin. It's become a tradition to exchange presents on Christmas Eve and give each other an ornament. This year Kiki gave me the most thoughtful present I've ever received... and anchor necklace. While the necklace is beautiful, it's what she wrote on the card that had me in tears...

I wear this necklace everyday. And every time I touch it I think of not only Kristin, but also of hope, steadfastness, taking chances, having new experiences, certainty, and trust. I love this card so much I put it in a frame. Sometimes we need those daily reminders to trust ourselves and try new things!

Thank you Kiki! I will cherish this gift all the days of my life <3

Gold leafing

I need to stop going on Pinterest. I keep coming up with this "brilliant" ideas/projects that take me forever to complete. My most recent project was on a blog I saw HERE. This chick turned this Vittsjo nesting table from Ikea into a beautiful high end looking table, so of course I had to do the same. It's easy she said, only need  little patients, she said... UM YEAH RIGHT!

Have you ever worked with gold leaf? Cause it's a bitch! 

Before attempting this crappy project I watched countless videos and read a number of blogs on gold leafing. Apply adhesive, slap on gold leaf, and then add another coat of adhesive... seems simple enough. NOPE!

Issue #1: I live in a 750 square foot studio apartment, without a balcony

Issue #2: Spray adhesive gets everywhere (my remote will never be the same)

Issue #3: Gold leaf is a fussy fussy bitch. She needs to be handled as delicately as possible and even then she may still have a nervous breakdown                      and fall apart. 

 I started off with spray painting the table gold (at my moms house). Then I brought it home and put it together. As I was doing this I noticed that some of the spray paint was chipping, but thought that's okay I'm putting leaf over (#doomedfromthestart). Then I started with the gold leaf. I tried a number of different adhesives, but found Modge Podge to work the best. I must have put 40 hours into this table and it was not looking good.That's when I found this little gem... Liquid Leaf.

I should have started with this bad boy from the beginning. Once I finished leafing the entire table I went in with the liquid leaf and filled in all the cracks. It looked so good that I ended up covering the entire table with it. Doesn't it look so much better?!

Now I'm proudly displaying my gold work of art in the middle of my dining room...

PS I'm never gold leafing again!

31st Bday

31 Was. Epic. 

I can't even begin to tell you how much fun it was. Of course I was running late (as usual) to my own party, but eventually I got to 9 Muses in Greek Town, where I found countless friends ready to party the night away. The evening starting out pretty calm and quickly became a shit show (it may have been the 31 shots I had consumed!) 

As you can see I started to get carried away and throw every napkin with in a 3 mile radius into the air, which quickly ended up in a mess on the floor. At some point we must have ran out of napkins, because I have a fuzzy video of me throwing 4,000 straws at Peter LOL.

After Muses we decided to go to Underground, but the problem was we had wayyy too many guys with us, so I knew we were never going to get in. That's when the brilliant idea of heading to Boss Bar came to me. (Now I don't know if you've ever gone to Boss Bar, but it is the hole in the wall of River North and open till 4 AM.) 

Of course we started drinking more and taking more shots... everyone was a mess (I was so hammered I even forgot to take pictures!). At one point I was sitting on a bar stool giggling, when Gina walked over. Her coat was on the back of my chair. Instead of asking me to move she started to pull at the coat. That's when I looked over and saw Gina go down like a ton of bricks. It was amazing and I could not stop laughing. Suddenly there were 15 guys trying to help her up, but for some reason shit was getting tricky. 

After that Priya, Gina, and I realized we were done for the night and that it was time to go home... thank God!

Love them for making life so special...

Bestie Bday Party

I love celebrations, especially when it includes the people closest to me. One of my closest friends (and bosses) had an awesome 39th birthday party with just the girls that started at Fig and Olive and ended at Underground...

Haha I can't even handle how fun this group is... I don't think I'll ever get tired of this lifestyle!

#Hashtag

#notupinhere #cantstopwontstop #sorryimnotsorry #myfriendsarecoolerthanyourfriends

Pumpkin Carving Contest

This week the R&D Gum team was split into teams and given a pumpkin for a pumpkin carving contest. Being slightly (ahem) competitive, I knew we had to win. First thing I did was go on Pinterest. After a brief meeting my team and I decided to make a cookie monster pumpkin. It was so easy... cut out the mouth, paint it blue, cover it with a shiny clear coat, and add styrofoam balls.

Tada! (haha doesn't it look like his eyes are my boobs?!)

Buffy

I want to make a difference in the world. Once day I want to look back on my life and know that I did all I could to make the world a better place. It's easy to go through day-to-day life wrapped up in your own bubble - thinking about how things affect you and only you, crying oh poor me. When you stop and take things into perspective though, you realize how good most of really do have it. Anyway, I digress...

As you know I've been fostering dogs on and off. I got a call that some tiny tots needed a place to stay for the week, until they could be transferred to their rescue group in Minnesota. I thought, how bad could a week be? WELLLLL it was a mess - these poor things all had kennel cough! I don't know if you've ever experienced kennel cough before, but it's non-stop excessive coughing. Did I mention that it's excessive and non-stop?!

On day 1 I took in the 2 small chihuahuas. They were taken from a hoarders house who had something crazy like 15 dogs and 25 cats. The pictures of house were CRAZY! On day 2 I found out, that they had left a little gremlin behind... they wanted to know if I would be able to take him too? Being the mush that I am I said yes. I was told that these little guys didn't have names, so it would be my responsibility to find perfect names for all 3.

I chose the obvious name for the guy on the left... Gremlin. He looks small in this picture, but trust me he's a solid 25 lbs. The 5 lb guy on the right I named Bob. I thought a big name for a small dog was the perfect name.

Then there was the little girl, Bob's sister and BFF. She was a bit fussy. She didn't really like me at first, but we grew on each other. Actually she really wasn't a fan of most people. You could tell she just wanted to do her own thing and not be bothered by others. Before I knew it, she wouldn't leave my arms. It was then that I knew I had to name her after my favorite person in my building... Buffy. Let's just say I saw a lot of similar personality traits between them. Buffy the person, unlike the dog, was a well seasoned woman. She had done so much with her life and was extremely interesting. I wasn't sure if I should tell Buffy that I had named my newest foster after her, she might be offended, but I thought imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so I told her. Guess what, she LOVED it! <3

Bye Bye Stratus, Hello Benzo

After my car accident, my Uncle Tony gave me a Dodge Stratus. It's been a bit of a love hate relationship... as in we both hated each other ;) 3 weeks ago, The Strati, finally decided to kill itself (busted transmission).

In the meantime, I was taking public transportation, but on Monday I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy a car. I went to the dealership to look at CTS, but ended up settling on an E350. First I had to see how I looked in the car... HaHa

After much debate I decided I was ready to start the car buying process. I told my salesman Anthony to move over so I could input all my information into the computer.

And eventually I decided to sign my life away...

 ... and it was official, I bought my first car!

HELLO GORGEOUS! 

PS I named her Benny... Bah bah bah Benny and the Jets!