Valentine's Day... A little late.

Hannah is much more on top of things when it comes to updating this blog. And incidentally, I always remember it after she's posted something. Must be those telepathic signals I get from her all the time.

Now then, I am FINALLY getting to tell you about my Valentine's Day fun. I baked, my boyfriend cooked, and we watched a movie. Aaaand.... This awesome package came in the mail for him while we were watching the movie.

Thanks to Hannah, my boyfriend got these at a great price.

And the food he cooks with them is goooood.

My boyfriend didn't tell me what he was going to be cooking for me on V Day. My favorite food is Thai, but he isn't a fan of most kinds of Asian food, so I was going to be content with whatever he made.

It's ok. You can be jealous.

He ended up making pad thai with shrimp AND lamb steaks with feta crumbles. It was all quite yummy.

He knows I'm not shy about eating.

Meanwhile, I made a delicious Italian cream cake.

Recipe from the food genius, Emeril.

So dinner was a mix of Greek and Thai, dessert was Italian, and then we watched a Swedish movie, Let the Right One In. We're quite the multicultural couple.  And then French kissing? ;)  Can I count that too?

All in all, it was a good, laid-back Valentine's Day. I'm not really the romantic type, and neither is he, so it's good that neither of us made it a big deal.

My Peruvian roommate, however... He's the kind of guy that wants to tell everyone what romantic escapades he has in store for his lucky girlfriend. Extravagant dates, dancing on the top of a parking garage under the stars, lots of thought put into buying her presents, et cetera. I always laugh when he starts to tell me, and then I feel a little bad. Just a slight twang of guilt. Someone needs to bring his ass back down from the clouds. I'm more than happy to be that person.

Buffalo Exchange

With Fashion Week in full swing, seeing all of the clothes being previewed for next fall makes me want to rip out my entire closet and buy an entirely new wardrobe. Then I remember I'm pretty much broke. Damn.

So, I've decided to find a better option. Which if you're like me, needs to be pretty damn inexpensive. I have many options stemming from that. Initially, I think Target, H & M, American Eagle, Charlotte Russe, etc. However, I kinda like super cheap, not spending money, and potentially trading in my closet for more clothes. So I need to stick to Buffalo Exchange or Goodwill, which is just cheap as cheap can be. But I like Buffalo Exchange, which was founded in Arizona. It's a buy/sell/trade used fashion for cheap retail store. And since I'm by the University of Arizona with about 37,000 undergrad students... You can bet there are a ton of clothes there. The fashionability of some of the items are totally questionable though. I try not to judge harshly. However, the largest group of buyers are Buffalo Exchange are hipsters. I'm sorry, your cut off t-shirt with cowboy boots and mullet/unkempt mo-hawk is not fashionable. I really loathe that fashion, and it sours my experience to see them some. So, to say none the less, sometimes I really avoid that place like the plague.

If you're willing to put in the effort, and look, and look, and look, you can find some great deals.

H & M

White House Black Market, initially about $80, now, $9.50.

Jones New York. I'm pleasantly surprised by the style of this dress, and grateful that maxi dresses/skirts are still in style.

So, out of all of this, I see how much of an athletic frame I have, and I now own a weird amount of White House Black Market dresses (which will be another post)... But for 6 dress (thank god I live in AZ where I can wear dresses almost 10 months out of the year) and one cardigan, I really spent about $39.54 beyond the clothes, shoes, and accessories I traded- in that I never wore. At most, the most expensive dress was $17.00. Which is still pretty damn good, even places like Target, Macy's, or Sears, where the dresses are a minimum of $20+.

So, sometimes spending the time to really look, you can find some pretty good deals if you're like me and you're trying to keep your spending to a minimum. Or, you can go because you're too lazy to do laundry and you need new clothes.

The Valentine's Day Challenge

I like to consider myself a baker, but you know what? I hate making cakes. I can't really explain why, I don't think I have a valid reason for it.

Even after that notion has lived in my head for a few years, some how I decided that I was going to make a cake this weekend. It was my boyfriend's birthday and of course, Valentine's day is on the 14th.

Instead of starting out with something simple, I decided to go big! Big as in; a two tiered devil's food cake with strawberry frosting, covered in ganache! It would be my version of chocolate and strawberries, the traditional Valentine's day food. Did I mention that I actually don't like Valentine's day? I'm just not a big fan.

Not sure what I was thinking with this cake. The cake was a messy affair. It initially started with funny texts to my roommate, and then me getting off work at 8 at night and then proceeding to buy all of my supplies, including cake pans. And sangria.

Step one, drink half a bottle of Bacardia Sangria before you do anything else, And then get your roommates drunk. And then start to cook. Yeah, I totally finished at midnight.

I mean, baking cake is pretty basic. Combine ingredients and mix, blah blah blah. Except, for somehow I missed the note where chocolate powder goes everywhere when you turn the mixer on. Duh.

In the long run, this is what you get.

\

Bake and cool. And then frost.

So I love Martha Stewart, she's a little waaaay too OCD for me in her designs, but she has good recipes. I borrowed her strawberry frosting for my cake. Initially, the frosting was too sweet so I added more puree, which was very fortuitous on my behalf. It was a great balance to how much chocolate was in this cake.

I'll eat it now please.

Regardless! Ganache! It sounds intimidating. Ganache. Found out? Super simple. Pouring is a little harder.

Meh, could have been better. 

 

The end result? Pretty damn good. I got approvals from everyone who's eaten it so far. Score one for me!

Drooooollll....

~H

My name is Jessica, and I have a problem.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch; With delicious cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite!
More like CRACK COCAINE SWIRLS in every bite.

Do you see how it taunts me?

I may need to go to cereal rehab. I bought 2 boxes of this cereal on Monday. One lasted until yesterday, Wednesday. 2 days. The other is now hidden in a closet so I won't polish it off by tonight. I have a problem.

In other, less despairing news, I had a fun little gathering last weekend. Girls came over, brought clothes they didn't want, swapped. I had some dresses and shoes to get rid of, and after stealing all of those, the girls decided I had great taste and wanted to see my closet. I feel like I need to lock it up now... I saw their hungry eyes, gazing at my beautiful shoe collection. Caressing my dresses with their lustful hands. Back off, bitches. Those are mine. I herded them all back downstairs with the temptation of delicious desserts.

Not pictured: chocolate-dipped strawberries, and large quantities of alcohol.

It was a fun night. Girl time is always fun. Especially with mixed drinks, cookies, and shoes. The boy showed up and we played Apples to Apples. One of my roomies, the one who looks like Shaggy, showed up and was entranced by the cute girls in the room, so he hung around with us. It wasn't a bad time, especially after being snowed in all week. We had another snow day yesterday. Wtf Texas? That's not why I live here. I want my sunshine and warm weather. Not this cold, snowy crap.

Baby, it's cold outside.

The Snowpocalypse hit Texas. For the past 4 days, I've barely left my apartment. Work was cancelled all week. All other events cancelled. Everything. Shut. Down.
On top of that, we've been having rolling blackouts. One of them came at a most opportune time when I was in the shower, so I got to fumble and drip through the dark to get a candle because I wasn't about to cut a hot shower short when it's this cold outside.

After spending all week being bored and wishing I was somewhere warm, preferably with a sandy beach and fruity drink in hand, I threw caution to the wind and decided to go outside anyway.

It wasn't quite the sandy beach I wanted...

That would be me and the Peruvian roomie. I would like you to note the sexy combat boots (military-issued, cause I'm a bamf like that), and my sweet Jantzen swimsuit. I got that swimsuit at the end of last summer for half-price when everything goes on sale. :)
Also, I'd like to note that there are $6 and under bikinis online at Victoria's Secret right now, and I've already taken advantage of that.

Tomorrow I'm having a bunch of girls over for a clothing swap. We're all cleaning out the clothes, shoes, bags, and jewelry that we don't wear anymore, and everyone is bringing it to my place to shop each other's closets. We've done this a couple times, and it's always fun. But this time, since I have some newly-single friends (hooray for holiday stress on relationships!), we're going to do a little celebrating while we're at it. Bubbly drinks, sweets, maybe a piñata... I've already made some cookies, and my boyfriend made some (waaay too salty) deviled eggs.

Lemon madeleines

Heart message cookies

My boyfriend took the anti-Valentine's Day celebratory spirit as a sign that I have no interest in celebrating Valentine's Day. He asked... No. Asked is the wrong word. He stated that he assumed we wouldn't be doing anything for Valentine's Day since I was so obviously against it. Whooa there mister. I am a woman. Female. One who is always nagging about the lack of dates we go on. And I don't know if you completely missed all of the commercials and advertising for Valentine's Day, but women have some expectations of their men on this holiday. I'll admit I'm not the romantic type, and I don't have the highest expectations of him, but this will be the first Valentine's Day that I have a boyfriend. I guess I just assumed he would know I wanted to go out. Especially since I always want to go out and I love celebrating holidays. Too many assumptions from both of us. But, as my dear Hannah said, that boy is just clueless. If only I had her to go out with on Valentine's Day.

A Musing...

During times when I should be sleeping, I'm often not. I'm wasting time on Facebook, Stumbl Upon, the Sugar Network, Yahoo!, etc, etc.

After a while, I always turn to the same things, over and over again. Coach.com Check. Chanel.com. Check. Louisvuitton.com. Check. Hermes.com. Check! Sometimes, perhaps pathetically, you can hear me mutter, "Seen that.", "Oh, no new collections yet.", "Seen it." etc.

I may or may not have a small handbag obsession, with nothing to show for it. I blame that on the small period when I used to work at Coach. I also blame that on my home city of Scottsdale.

I grew up with all things modest from my modest Ohio parents, but after a while, I began to yearn for all things materialistic and Scottsdalian (it didn't help that my dad is actually a huge Coach fan himself, and that I lived 5 minutes away from it). Seriously, Cartier, Tiffany's, Jimmy Choo, Nordstroms, Bottega Vaneta, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Neiman Marcus, Salvatore Ferragamo, Michael Kors (who I'm also obsessed with and will undoubtedly show up later), Betsy Johnson, etc, all housed under one large conglomerated mall roof is enough to drive someone off the deep end.

Anyway, when I was a young naive thing working at Scottsdale Fashion Square, one of my coworkers taught me almost everything I know about Louis Vuitton. We would go in to the store during our breaks and sometimes discuss the handbag.

And then I became obsessed. Especially, with this bag.

This is the Louis Vuitton Neverfull GM in Damier Ebene Canvas. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this bag, but I am. I sadly can't spare $800 for it though. Which kind of brings me to my point.

That bag is $800. However, if I know where to go, I can get one for $100. Problem is, it will most certainly be a fake. I sit on the fence about owning a fake versus a real. I have no problem with it, my wallet will thank me, but deep down, I know it's not real. There are three times of people when it comes to this dilemma. The ones who are positively allergic to fakes. The ones who only buy fakes and seem super pleased with their thriftiness. And those who don't really care, and own both.

The funny thing is, the woman I know who is drop dead allergic to fakes, probably couldn't tell you what constitutes a fake or a real. She just knows what she buys from websites are real. If you tell her it's real, she'll believe you. And then, there are some women who know their brands, can afford them, and then toss them around like a beat up Target wallet. Seriously lady, that's a DIOR handbag you just threw on the ground. That bag is more expensive than my vehicle.

Anyway, so I guess my question really is, what is the difference between the two? How does it make you feel to own a real, and then have a fake under your arm?

Interestingly, a professor at Duke and M.I.T. did a study about how individuals handled certain tests knowing they had a counterfeit versus an authentic handbag/glasses. In the short of it, those who were told they were in possession of fakes, were more likely to cheat on the tests than those who had real brand items. The study is called "The Counterfeit Self". 

Amusing thought, no?

The Beginning...

You say good -bye, I say hello, hello, hello!

Gotta love the Beatles.

Well, this is the beginning of a new blog primarily focused on sweets and shoes. And maybe handbags. And maybe Rocket Dogs and sparkly gold skirts. Or any other shiny things our magpie like minds become distracted by.