A new year

I love New Years Resolutions and I always make them. Sometimes I finish them (2009: learn to cook five new dishes), and sometimes I don't (2010: run 1000km - I stopped at 500). But I love to set goals and try to achieve something new.

 via Society 6

So here are my resolutions for 2011:

1. Less stuff, more life: De-clutter my life of things that I don't truly love, and take better care of these few.

2. Continue my new healthy regime: Keep taking vitamins, going to bootcamp, getting tons of sleep and drinking my smoothies. 2011 was my healthiest year yet and I'd like to beat it.

3. Keep chipping away at my 101 in 1001.

4. Spend more time reading books at bedtime and less time on my iPhone.

5. Surround myself with more art.

6. Learn to be a wife - starting after our wedding next week : )

Pretty simple things really.

What about you? Any goals for 2012?

Happy Weekend!

photo by Alison Conklin via Snippet and Ink

Getting less nervous as the days go by - one more week to go!

Hope your weekend is romantic and smoochy. Here are some links I've collected the past few weeks. Enjoy.

Can I pull off the playsuit look?

Excuse us, tree

Worlds collide: Star Wars paper snowflakes

Stay healthy, stay sane

Beary cute leggings (that I would totally wear if they made them for adults)

And an amazing llama sweater to match

Gratuitous holiday mix tape

Proof that you can be the best by being second best

The very spooky Bennett School for Girls

xo

Clever tricks for the January bride

Here are some Clever Tricks I've learned as I am struggling to get through the stress of having Christmas, New Years, a Wedding (and all that entails), without taking any time off from work*, all within two weeks.

I think these would all work during a Christmastime renovation, breakup or other stressful thing too!
Without further ado:

1. Constantly wear black eyeliner! Then when you have your fifth meltdown of the week and mysteriously burst into tears in the grocery store, it will smudge in a most sexy way and you will look so glamorous!

2. When anyone asks how you're feeling/doing/coping, say you are feeling very festive! Everyone thinks that word means this:

 via Haley Sheffield

But really it means: meltdown in the grocery store!

3. Whenever you want to say something like "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!" instead ask a question! Any question will do. People love to talk! And while they're talking, you can either a) have an inner meltdown, or b) listen to them and get your mind off things. Either will do!

4.  Make this roasted eggplant tapanade. This recipe makes a huge batch, and it works as pasta sauce and sandwich spread (thereby covering basically every meal), plus you can bring it to Christmas parties and look like someone who makes fresh homemade tapanade and not like someone who is having a nervous breakdown!

5. Host a potluck. You have to clean the apartment eventually anyway, and this way other people bring you food and wine and you get credit as hostess. Impossibly perfect! Plus there's always leftovers, thereby solving your need to grocery shop all week.

There you have it - if I were to do it again, this is what I would tell myself. My goal is to completely unwind on Christmas Eve/Christmas and maintain that level of relaxation until the wedding. Here's to dreaming!

xo

*Does anyone?

In which my subconscious is telling me something

Three weeks to the wedding and the nightmares have set in. I'd heard about this happening, but didn't think it would happen to me. Or more accurately, I didn't think they'd bother me if I had them, because I have nightmares multiple times a week about tsunamis and murder and really scary things. You know, scarier than a wedding.

But last night I dreamed my wedding bouquet arrived from our florist, and it was made of broccoli, accented with dying thistle, wrapped in a stained red paper napkin. And it was really upsetting. In the dream I worried about finding time to get to the florist and grab some peonies. I worried about people thinking I had bad taste or that I had asked for broccoli. I worried about people judging me as I walked down the aisle for having lost weight. (?)

Anxiety I didn't know I had. Thanks a lot, wedding, for letting me know.

Marketing poster c 1960 via Meatless Monday

A little thought

Lately I've been thinking that getting married in the first week of January was a completely insane idea because the Christmas/New Year season is so bananas  already that I am not only going nuts from being three weeks away from my wedding, and running around to makeup/hair trials, meetings with the priest and final dress fittings, but also I'm somehow having to fit Christmas shopping, holiday parties and triple the family time into this exhausting schedule.


But then I realized that everyone feels rushed and stressed and broke this time of year, so maybe my hysteria is blending in unnoticed and perhaps (!) I even seem impossibly calm to some people.

Or maybe I've just gotten to the point of insanity where I think I'm a genius.

Coveting these fish hook martini glasses

I love a dirty martini.

I love ordering them, I love drinking them, and I love how glamorous a woman looks holding the triangular glass daintily in her fingers, in high heels and red lipstick. Plus they totes count as a vegetable (because of the olives, dur).

Hooker's Delight (yes, really) martini glasses via Greece is for Lovers

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This post pretty much sums up exactly how I'm feeling.

Miss you loves xo

Hello

What a long week month year.

I miss blogging! There seems to never be enough hours in the day. 

via Beside the Willow Tree 

And while I'm excited for the charming music, glamorous dress, fabulous feast, and abundant libations, I honestly can't wait for the wedding to be here (and done!).

If there's one thing I could tell my pre-engaged self, it's this: life does not stop for wedding planning. Stock up on cash, good will at work, time with your friends, phone calls with your mum, cleaning supplies, blog posts, and canned soup. Deep clean the apartment. Be on the lookout for exercise Groupons to push down that stress. Because somehow, all those little normal-life things become much more insurmountable with the weight of one simple piece of jewelry.

Hindsight, amiright? Kisses, friends. xo

Miss Piggy redux

Is it just me, or does this Tibi dress look somewhat familiar?

(And yes, I emerged from my overwhelming to-do list, guest list follow ups, vendor meetings, work deadlines, boot camp, Christmas shopping, mountain of laundry and general insanity just to point this out.)