Holiday Cheer

Griffing family Christmas 2011 recap:
1. built a gingerbread house complete with inappropriate but humorous gingerbread residents
2. successfully navigated a Christmas Eve trip to the mall (NEVER AGAIN)
3. had a Modern Family marathon (mom's new favorite show)
4. watched Monte Carlo (thought it would 2 hours of my life i'd never get back but actually ended up liking it - i have a girl crush on leighton meester.)
5. listened to plenty of old and new Christmas music
6. stuffed our faces full of steak, potato fries, buttery rolls and cranberries
7. gained 10 lbs indulging in a 4-layer Christmas birthday cake
8. had a sister sleepover on the floor of Olivia's room on Christmas Eve
9. attended midnight mass
10. had the traditional Christmas Eve screening of Miracle on 34th Street
11. cheered on the Thunder as they defeated the Magic
12. indulged in Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, bacon & OJ
13. laughed our butts off as Charley adjusted to his new "big boy" bed
14. had an at home manicure session (i should start doing that for a living)
15. relaxed and basked in the glory of a 5 day break and enjoyed my time with my beautiful family

It was a wonderful Christmas and I can't believe it's over! Where has December gone? Where has 2011 gone?? It is December 29th and I am confused as to how that is the date. This year flew by so fast. Tomorrow I'll be headed to Birmingham for New Year's Eve and I'll be back Monday!

See you in 2012!

Ginge

One of our big traditions is making our annual gingerbread house. Ordinarily it would have been done a lot earlier, but because Nikki and I don't live at home anymore, we had to wait until we were all together. But I have to say, we outdid ourselves with our masterpiece this year, especially with our little gingerbread peeps. We have a very different style of decorating than our engineer father - he once used tweezers to make a window pane out of sprinkles. We have a more "Jackson Pollock" approach as Olivia literally threw mini M&M's at her side of the gingerbread roof. As usual, I spent more time eating the candy and licking the icing spoon than actually decorating. Gimme a break, it's Christmas.

Charley spent most of his time groveling and begging for treats.

We all thought our little gingerbread people were pretty hilarious. Yes, we are that immature. It's the small things in life.

So thankful to be at home for the holidays surrounded by my wonderful family! Count your blessings and thank the Lord for the things you have, instead of thinking about the things you think you need. That's definitely something I have to work on in 2012.

Merry Christmas!

The Stables

Home for the holidays and taking full advantage...got to spend a little one on one time with the parentals tonight when they took me out to dessert. Two years ago, at Christmastime, the whole family drove up to Guthrie (a small town about 20 minutes north of my parents' house) to look at lights and we ate some delicious pie at this place called The Stables Cafe.

I've dreamt about it ever since and tonight, I got to go back. Had some chocolate cream pie that was to die for and got to catch up with my mom and dad and fill them in on my life to date. Also, we attempted to make butter by shaking a little container of half & half for about 30 minutes. It did not work. But it entertained us for 30 minutes.

I had the cream pie, mom had the pumpkin, and dad had the original apple and cinnamon pie. They also have the coolest decor...it looks like an old time antique shop threw up in there, and of course this time of year, it's filled with garland, little white lights, and mistletoe. I die.

Countdown

Busy counting down to one of the best holidays and a trip to see my favorite guy (well second favorite, dad always comes in first).

New Years Eve: a fresh start, new beginning and clean slate. New resolutions, new challenges and new things to look forward to. Can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for me. Although I'm not looking forward to the fact that I will no longer be able to say "oh yeah, i just graduated last year..." but will have to say "i graduated 2 YEARS AGO" or "i graduated the year before last." Geez I'm getting old.

Good night y'all!

Kisses & Disses

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a terrible blogger. But I'm going to take a page out of one of my fav blog's book and give out kisses and disses for the things I'm loving (and hating) lately:

kisses:

1) CHRISTMAS!!!


2) new purchases, thanks to a gift card to the mall. Too bad it was in my pocket for less than 2 hours before it was spent. Sorry my receiving it just so happened to coincide with J Crew's 30% off EVERYTHING sale. Don't blame me, take it up with headquarters. I'll be wearing that sparkly number for NYE :) (tip: picked that one up at Gap on super sale - they had a ton, go check it out!)



3) a sweet card from a sweet boy



4) sparkly nails



5) only thing better than sparkly nails: gold flecked nails (please Santa, bring me some "Meteor Shower"!)

6) puppies, my favorite



disses:

1) colds, yuck. I've been drugged up for the last 3 days and yet the amount of snot filling my head hasn't decreased at all. sorry, that's gross, but if I have to suffer through it, so do y'all.

2) the real world not having a month-long Christmas break. major diss.

3) Christmas scrooges

very blessed this holiday season to have a wonderful family who put up with my antics most of the time and support me all of the time, friends who have become like family, an incredible job, and my health (except for the cold). i'm thankful for every single person in my life and consider myself very lucky to have the life i do. i love you all!

happy holidays my friends, i'll be back soon!

Shoes. Oh My Gah, Shoes.

We're supposedly getting an Anthropologie in February - I'll believe it when I see it - but as much I love their stuff, I really am only able to afford to browse the sale section in that store. Next on the list for what I'd like to see in Oklahoma City is Urban Outfitters, then Zara. I first discovered Zara when I was in Orlando. The closest one to us is in Dallas....roadtrip anyone?

Soooo shout-out to UO & Zara: Get here quick. OKC is the place to be.

Loving all these shoes...

Meet me in Dallas.

Sistas 4 Life

One of the more exciting things that has happened to me in the last few months (okay, this is going to show just how dull my life is) was my little sister going through rush and joining a house - which just so happens to be my house too.

See this is something that should have been blogged about like 3 months ago, however she was just officially initiated last weekend, so it's still kind of relevant?

Anyways, I'm so excited for her. She's learning all about our sisterhood and our secrets, but most importantly, she's already experienced the presence of Debbie, aka Becky, the ghost that haunts the Alpha Phi house, more specifically the room that two of my bffs used to live in. I feel like she only shows her presence to very special people, so this is a good sign.

I look a mess, but I'm so proud of her. You're initiated sista!

Pretty family for Red Dress Gala 2011 - don't they all look so festive?


Me and my dashing dad at RDG circa 2009.

Nikki was just a little freshie in high school here and baby Livi (the best part about this picture) was like 6. Her biggest aspiration at that time was to be an OU cheerleader. she's so ambitious.

One of the best and sweatiest moments of my life - totally TMI, but I had sweat stains the size of Texas as we (impatiently) waited in 110 degree weather for Nikki to show up at the house.

I haven't always been the best example for my sisters - in high school, I was an absolute pill - so I'm even more proud that she chose to follow this path and will get to experience all the wonderful things that I did. I love you little sis, you da best!

AOE. RAPMF.

Class & Sass

Wow. So my first week of consistent postings went really really well. Number of posts last week: 0 (Coincidentally, only one less than the number of touchdowns OU scored in the entire first half of their heartbreaking, national championship-ending loss to Texas Tech last night...but I can't get started on that because I'll just have to break the tissues out again. Just kidding. Kind of. Okay, not really.)

Well I can only go up from here. I need to learn to set the bar low so I can consistently beat the expectations. Is that a bad attitude to have? Oh well.

Right now I'm super obsessed with J Crew's fall collection. I'm also obsessed with the fact that their in-store sale items have been 30% off the past week. And even more obsessed with the fact that I can still use my student ID to get an extra 15% off of that. To the cashier lady who interrogated me last week about my student status: Yes, I am an advertising senior - or I was two years ago - and your clothes are too expensive for me to not get some kind of a break. I've come up with an elaborate story about my schooling so I can be more prepared next time. Although I think my problem is that I'm too specific - maybe when they ask me what my major is they only want a one word answer and not a synopsis of my entire fake/made-up-on-the-spot schedule. If you can't tell, I'm a terrible liar.

But the point is, I seem to be even more in love with J Crew than usual these days.










(A) I want to model for J Crew one day. At 5'7" I think my chances are really good. Don't you think?
(B) When I win the lottery someday, I will buy every item in the store.
(C) I would love to work for their corporate office and design their catalogs - how freaking awesome would that be?
(D) I want to be this girl when I grow up: Libby Wadle

I'll be back again 3 times this week...hopefully.

Consistency

My goal from now to the end of the year is to blog more consistently...I have a habit of blogging once every couple of weeks and making it a long loooooonggggg post. That's never intentional, I just tend to ramble. A lot. So I don't blame any of you if you start reading my blog and never make it to the end of the post.

So from here on out, I'm going to make it my goal to blog at least 3 times a week. I don't know how I'm going to find material to do that - part of the reason I don't post consistently is because I hardly think you'd find what I ate for breakfast interesting or riveting reading material. But I'll try. I'm 2-for-0 on my New Year's resolutions this year - this baby being one of them and my half-marathon back in May being the other. I'm supposed to be running another half-marathon the weekend before Thanksgiving and haven't exactly kept up with that, but that's beside the point (RAMBLING, AGAIN). The point is, I've done well with following through so far this year, so this should be good.

Fact: I've always loved Saturdays in the fall, but I have a new appreciation for when OU plays away games because it allows me to lounge around all day watching football. Perfection.

OSU is currently sucking it up against Texas. And by sucking it up, I mean they're only beating them by 11 going in to halftime.

Also, I love this book/blog/blog about a book: Gridiron Belles

Happy Saturday!

Rinnies

3 years. That's about how long I've been longing for a pair of red skinny jeans. The main reason is obvious: gameday. But as I started thinking about it more, purchasing a pair of jeans soley for gameday is a bad bad idea. Reality is you'd only get one, maybe two, good wears out of it. It's too dang hot here during football season to wear pants to a full day of tailgating followed by sitting in beating sun in the stands. You could only really wear them to a November game.

So, I put off buying some for several years because I couldn't find any that were reasonably priced and I wasn't going to pay $150-$200 for a pair of J Brand, Joe's or AG jeans which were the only ones I could find in a red denim option.

Enter Lucca...I just happened to be at the mall after work, when I stopped by the food court because I can never walk by it without getting an M&M chocolate chip cookie from that cookie stand. I was about to leave but decided to go into Lucca just because. Now I love the Norman and Edmond Luccas but I am NOT a fan of the Penn Square Lucca. It's cramped, the girls who work there are always rude, the music's too loud (I'm becoming my mother - this is exactly what she used to say when I had my Hollister/A&F phase in middle school) and it's just generally not a great experience, especially when you've just been browsing in the spacious J Crew, where the soothing music is at just the right decibel and all the sales associates are wearing an omg-i-want-everything-you're-wearing-right-down-to-your-scarf-and-shoes outfit.

Needless to say, I don't usually go in there. But for some reason, this day I did. And I found....THE jeans. The red skinny jeans. Almost jeggings, but not quite. So from here on out, we will refer to them as the "rinnies" (red-skinny-jeans). As I excitedly brought them to the fitting room, a part of me figured they wouldn't work. It was just too good to be true. Most rinnies or reggings (red-jean-leggings) I'd tried on in this price range were too tight, too low cut, or just didn't fit right. Not these. They're a higher rise, which I absolutely love, and even though it looks like there's pockets on the front, they're actually just sewn up, so it doesn't add bulk to the front. I thought it was weird at first, but I've decided I like it. They're the perfect amount of tight and the bottom of the legs hit at just the right spot so you can wear them with sandals, flats, wedges, heels, or tucked into boots. Success.

Now I don't usually purchase an item of clothing without coming up with at least several different outfits in my head. You'd think with red jeans it would be a little difficult, but not at all. I was coming up with so many options while I was in the dressing room deciding whether to get them or not that when I came out, the girl who had been helping me had forgotten I was in there (Embarrassing? Yes).

Without further ado...I introduce the RINNIES:

Going out options:

flowy top + the rinnies + brown wedges

white tank + black blazer ($15 score at Ann Taylor LOFT!) + the rinnies + neutral platform heels

Casual options:

white tank + slouchy sweatshirt + the rinnies + converse sneakers

slouchy gray tee + oversized sweater + the rinnies + sandals

Semi-casual/dressy options:

checked button-up (tucked in of course) + skinny belt + the rinnies + ballet flats

slouchy tye dye tee + the rinnies + minnetonka moccasin booties

flowy shirt + the rinnies + sandals

flowy shirt + the rinnies + cowboy boots (that purse is a $20 find from Britton Antiques!)

Gameday options:
(these options are pretty unreasonable because chances are if you're wearing jeans, you're not wearing a tank. But all my sweaters are still packed up at my parents house, so just pretend that these are viable options.)

white tank + striped american apparel circle scarf + the rinnies + cowboy boots

striped tank + patterned circle scarf + the rinnies + cowboy boots

slouchy tank + the rinnies + cowboy boots

So, you see, the rinnies can be worn in a variety of situations. Dinners with friends, family fun days, grocery store runs, nights out on the town, dates, and of course gamedays.

Getcha some rinnies!

Beau & Stella

Posts two days in a row - that's a record for me! But I just got something in the mail and had to share. Last week I ordered a necklace from this adorable New Orleans-based company, Beau & Stella. Which I heard about on......you guessed it, Pinterest.

They make moderately priced, beautiful delicate girly pieces. I've been looking for a new go-to piece to wear all the time and I really wanted something personalized. Enter the "personalized initial necklace." Perfect.

Not only is it cute, but the customer service with this little company is excellent. I ordered my necklace Thursday, got an email from Marcie, the woman who owns Beau & Stella, that same day, it shipped on Friday and I received it today, Monday. And did I mention I only had to pay $2.95 for first-class shipping? Yeah. It came in this adorable little box with a hand-written note from Marcie herself thanking me by name for my purchase.


You can't really see it in the picture, but it has a tiny "k" engraved in it!



Better believe I'm getting quite a few of my Christmas presents from here...already got some reserved in my little shopping cart. Next up for myself however is the "tiny luck necklace" pictured below.

4 days 'til gameday.
(not that that has anything to do with this post but it's all I think about these days, duh).

Get Organized

I've been lazy with this blog lately...my apologies. I have no excuses other than it's hotter than hell outside and all I ever want to do when I get home from work is sprawl out on the couch and fan myself while chewing ice. Weird, I know. But I'm back with some short, little organizational projects. First off, our new toothbrush holders:

We've been redoing our bathroom for like the last month and a half that we've lived in this house. Tearing down the ugly-a** wallpaper took a good 2 weeks, then painting it a lovely shade of minty turquoise took a good 2 days. We finally got our new shower curtain hung up. There's still lots left to do, but maybe we'll finish it by the time we move out? Who knows. But with 3 of us using it, we needed a little organization with our personal items. We each have a drawer, but we needed a way to separate our toothbrushes and toothpastes while leaving them on the counter. So, I introduce to you my very ingenious idea of individual mason jar toothbrush holders:

Just tape off a square (or you could use a stencil) with painters tape, then go to town with some chalkboard paint. It takes about 5 or 6 coats and you have to be SUPER careful about the paint dripping all over the place. I learned that the hard way. My roommates would be happy to know that I did this project outside on our patio, otherwise we might have a chalkboarded kitchen table. Oops.

Cost: approximately $25 (for me it was free, because my mom had extra mason jars laying around and I had that leftover chalkboard paint from when I had my chalkboard-crazy-phase. But you can get mason jars at Walmart for like $10 and the paint at Home Depot for about $15.)

Time: about an hour (plus drying time)


Second project: framed earring holder! Wish I could take credit for this idea, however it came from Pinterest, the biggest time-waster since Facebook. Get a frame, take out all the crap inside it (the cardboard, paper and glass) and cut off the part that keeps it all together that has the stand on it. Then get some lace fabric, trace the glass on it so you get the size correct, cut it out and hot glue it into the frame!

Tip 1: Use two layers of lace fabric - this will help hold your earrings on better.

Tip 2: Have someone help you hot glue the lace. Or injury could result. Just ask my fingers.

Cost: approximately $10 (Frames are always half off at Hobby Lobby and you only need about a quarter of a yard of fabric. And then you need hot glue and a glue gun - but I didn't include that in the price.)

Time: about 45 minutes


Last up is a project that is still in the works, but I also got this idea from Pinterest. I'm making a print for our to-be-completed bathroom and I want it to be Oklahoma-themed. I want to get one of these printed on cardstock, matted and framed. I did mine in InDesign and it took less than 10 minutes. I just found a photo of Oklahoma on Google, traced it in Illustrator, filled it in, drew the heart and placed in InDesign. Easy.as.pie. If you don't have those programs and you like this idea, let me know and I can draw you your favorite state as well! :)

I'll keep you posted on how this actually turns out - it could be a dud, but I'm hoping it's not.



P.S. GAMEDAY is in 5 short days!!! Therefor, you can bet there will be a gameday attire post here in the next few days.

boomer sooner forever.