Getting ready for Thanksgiving

The Honeybaked Ham dinner has been reserved, will pick up the day before Thanksgiving and the new dinnerware arrived today.Usually Ken and I prepare the meal ourselves but we are actually taking dinner up to his Mom's in Wisconsin on Thanksgiving day and then having a second dinner when the kids arrive at our house over the weekend. Aside from making some desserts we are ready to go....

Help! Shark!

With our entire apartment being wood floors with the exception of tile in the bathroom I really hated mopping. But with 2 adults, 2 dogs and a cat it needed to be done frequently.Good bye swiffer, no more wet pads.. I shopped around and had been looking to get either the Bissell or the new Shark steam hard surface cleaners, but they run $120.00 ish. So I went to Big Lots! and found a 1st generation Shark steam cleaner for $55.00. I love it. Steam clean the whole apartment and toss the microfibre pad in the laundry and poof ready to go again.

Revised Gift wrap closet

I changed the way the wrap was hung. I used 2 lenghts of hanging Lamp chain and ran the curtain rods holding the wrap paper through the link in the chains. I used plastic stoppers on the ends to keep them from falling out of the chain. Look for yourself.. Much better I think.

The Den, redone

attached are the pics of our redone den. we added the fireplace and shifted things around a bit.

new shoes

I have found myself leaning seriously into the JCrew world as of late. I do believe it's because of Mickey Drexlers influence on the company's style trends. I worked under Mickey at the GAP in the late 1980's and found him to be very inspirational. I love that JCrew does a separate Men's catalog and has separate Men's stores as well, but I do hate that they always put their men's departments on the second floor when it's a combo store.. I guess that's why shopping is my Cardio. Listed as a must have for fall 2009 is the Stan Smith sneaker by Adidas. Paired with the skinny jeans, and a v neck sweater = awesome. So in my ever creative way and never liking to pay full price I found the Stan Smith sneaker by Adidas on Ebay for get it! $29.99 vs. $60.00 at JCrew. Don't get me wrong.. I love JCrew but don't necessarily like their prices. Behold the must have sneaker....

I just love all things Blue Dog

He reminds me of Korki, my childhood dog. Now mind you Korki wasn't blue.

Gift Wrap center

Gift wrap closet is ready to go.. Bring on the gifts, cuz we're ready to wrap.... Lots of paper, ribbon, extra ribbon, bows and gift tags in the black crate. Tissue paper and boxes easily accessible, and extra gift bags and raffia in the plastic tote below.

Xmas gift idea

How cute is this? and who wouldn't want to get a s'mores kit for christmas?Easy to find pieces too... clear plastis boxes available at Container store, everything else your local market.

dilema resolved...

so the weekend is over and what a beautiful one it was. 70 degrees both days made for a lovely Indian summer weekend here in Chicago.I searched far and wide for the perfect Christmas Dinner Plates and had decided I really would just go with the Christmas Tree pattern from the previous post but I just wasn't sold on the ornate border. I decided to look on Ebay and behold the dinner plates set of 8 that I won for a mere $10.49. I can't wait till they arrive.

hmmmm.. big decision

so this is the biggest decision facing me this week.. which holiday dinnerware do I choose ? I'm leaning towards the xmas tree pattern.