Ho, ho, ho!

Merry Christmas bloggies!  Wishing you and yours the very best!

Holiday Hugs,
Arielle

i heart you Brett Erlich

Speaking of being a fangirl...I am a total Brett Erlich fangirl.  He makes my heart sing.  He makes everything in this crazy messed up world right again.  It's like he can see into my soul, he gets me....lol.

Who is this Brett Erlich you ask?  Only the hottest, most funniest guy on the planet!  Well next to my husband that is.  Ironically, he kind of looks like Brett.  Hmmm...maybe I do have a type...lol. 

On a side note, Brett is my celebrity cheat (If you're married and you haven't established your celebrity cheat yet, get on it my friend.  Chances of meeting up are slim, but, hey, you never know!)...so Brett, if you're reading this I have a free pass.  Call me!

He hosts the show Viral Video Film School on Current TV.  (Digital Channel 900 for all you Hawaii peeps.  For you Mainlanders, sorry I have no idea what channel that is.)  It is the funniest show that I have ever seen.  Mostly due to his hosting abilities, personality, and dashing good looks, but the crazy stuff that people post on the internet helps too.

Here's my favorite episode, Best of VVFS: The Wilderness.  It's about 20 minutes long, but it'll be the best 20 minutes of your life.  I know this, it is true...lol.



Oh Brett, how I love you...

Tech Humor

If you are a Google fangirl like me then you've probably already seen this, but if not I thought I'd spread the laughter.

Teach Parents Tech is a website launched by Google which lets you customize a message to your parents with a video that teaches them various tech lessons, such as "Making text bigger or smaller", "Browsing the web using tabs", and even how to "Share photos".  It's a total crack up...now if only my parents weren't tech savvy.  Well, honestly, my Mom really isn't, but she barely knows how to navigate her email inbox.  If I sent her a video file, she'd probably freak out and have a heart attack.  So I decided against it.  (Hi Mom!  I'm your favorite daughter, remember? Lol...love you.)

Here's what the message looks like:

Hello Dad,
I'm really shocked that you've been using your computer these days.
It just so happens that I put together this tech support care package for you. I picked out some videos that you can use to learn how to:

Hope you find these helpful! Now, I trust you'll be self sufficient. 

Love, 

Arielle

Too funny, right?  Send one out to everyone you know...you know you want to. :)

Only nine more days...

Nine more days people!  Santa is on his way.  (I know him!  Elf reference...anyone, anyone?  Just me?  Okay...lol.)

Just in case the holidays are bogging you down, here's a little video to distract you for a bit...

 

Ding fries are dooooonnnnneeee!

Be joyous!  Just think only nine more days and the holiday rush will pretty much be over.  Don't worry, you'll survive...or at least that's what I tell myself.

Happy almost Friday y'all!

Christmas, Christmas time is here...

Where has all my leisure time gone?  It seems like once the calendar read December all my leisure time has disappeared.  What have I been doing you ask?  Well besides not blogging as much as I'd like to (Sorry my dears.  I'll be posting more soon, so don't worry.), I've been shopping for gifts (All the Kailua Macy's employees can attest to this.  As I've been there multiple times in the past few days...lol.), working on getting my Christmas cards out (Which still aren't done.  New Years cards anyone?), and trying to get all of my Christmas crafting out of the way.  I still have to make Christmas cookies and candy for the annual family Christmas party this weekend!  I'm dying.  Having fun, but dying...lol.

You know it's bad when you start dreaming about the dimensions and color choice of you latest craft project...lol.  Here's what I've been working on...

Pretty nifty, huh?  They're pockets that slip over a wine bottle and hold a chocolate bar and wait for it...

A gift card!

My husband and I gave away a variation of this last Christmas and his co-worker loved them.  So he asked me to make him some to give out as Christmas gifts this year.  He wanted to be able to give a gift card with it and that was what I came up with.  Here's one of the finished ones for him...

Yes the main card stock is black.  He wanted them to match his Christmas cards, which are black, green, red, and white.  The color combo turned out a lot better than I had first envisioned.  I actually really like it.

I'm happy with the results.  What do you think? 

Birthday, birthday, birthday!

Having my birthday in late November is both a blessing and a burden.  Many times it lands on Black Friday, the biggest, most crazy shopping day of the year, which equals a blessing because I love to shop.  Thus, it gives me the perfect excuse to go stand in crazy long lines with hordes of people for a fantastic sale and not seem so crazy because it's my birthday and I do what I like...lol.  Other years it lands on Thanksgiving Day, which equals a burden because I still have to work and do dishes and what not even though it's my birthday.  Junkie, but I deal...by celebrating my birthday the whole week long.  Hey, I get gypped on the actual day, so a little extra celebration won't kill anyone!

This year it just so happened to land on Black Friday.  The heavens opened, angels sang, the whole works.  Hey, it is my birthday! :)

My Mom and I went out shopping, naturally, at the ungodly hour of 7:30am...I know, I claim temporary insanity.  The first and really only store that I wanted to hit up was Eden in Love.  They are a cute little boutique store over at Ward Warehouse owned by Ms. Tanna Dang, The Wedding Cafe diva.  They usually have cute little dresses and such and I was on the hunt for a short flower print dress to wear with my new boots (pictures to come, rest assured.).  Plus they were offering 40% off!  They were supposed to open at 9am, in the conference room above their store, and I figured getting there at 8am would be more than enough time to stand in line.  Boy was I wrong.  I had no idea that the store had such a strong following...the line was huge.  I swear people must have started waiting in line at like 6am, that's how long the line was.  I figured no problem.  People wanted to be in and out just like I wanted, right?  Wrong again.  My mom and I waited in line until 10:30am when we were finally let into the door and greeted by this...

Craziness and mayhem that is what that is.  The line to pay for your items circled the room two times.  Yes, that is right, TWO times!  I looked around and grabbed a few dresses, there were no flower print ones to be found.  I looked at the dresses in my hand, then at the hour and a half line to wait in to pay, and then at all the other women around me, many of whom had the same dresses or similar ones in their hand, and I decided that we needed to high tail it out of there as fast as we could.  To me the whole point of boutique shopping is to get something that no one else has.  Don't get me wrong, the dresses and things that they sell in that store are cute, cute, cute, but if I'm going to spend $50 on a dress I better not show up to the party and see three other women wearing the same dress.  Total wardrobe foul, if you know what I mean.

We still got stamped with the 40% off on our hands, so in a last effort to save all of our time waiting in line we headed downstairs to their actual store.  There was no line and I actually liked the stuff there better than the new items that they were offering upstairs.  I got to try things on in the dressing room and take my time.  I ended up buying a flirty animal print tube top (I love animal print.  I know that kind of makes me sound like a douche, but I totally love it.  I rock the animal print like nobody's business!), a belt, and a bottle of nail polish all for 40% off.  Score!  The only bummer was that I probably could have saved myself the two hours in line by having gone to the store first.  If only I knew then what I know now, huh?  At least it wasn't a total wash.

We hit up a few more stores and then headed home so that I could meet up with friends for happy hour at Formaggios in Kailua.  (Happy hour there is everyday from 3-6pm.  Who can resist a $4 glass of wine or a $5 cocktail?  Plus their tapas are amazing and they are only $6!)  It wouldn't be a birthday without wine and yummy food from Formaggios!

Outfit for the occasion...

Eight Sixty dress in blue leopard print.  Had my eye on it since it was at Nordstrom and I actually found it that day while shopping at Nordstrom Rack.  I know!  What are the odds?  The birthday gods were smiling upon me.

Steve Madden sling backs in black.  My go-to shoes for punk rocker-ish outfits. 

The bling.  My new bow ring that my husband gave me for my birthday.  I LOVE IT!  I want to wear it all the time.  

Note: If you want one you need to order it online at Macys.com because this was the only one left on the island...I checked.  Not because I wanted to be the only one with one, but because I really wanted it and saw it at only one Macy's.  They were having a sale (story of my life...lol.) so I called around and had them put it on hold.  Then I sent my husband to get it...lol.  It totally counts as a birthday present from him if he buys it.

We had a few drinks and ate a bunch of food (Courtesy of my long-time friend Nathan, since he wouldn't let my husband pick up the bill.  Thanks Nate!  We're going to get you next time and I don't want to hear any argument!  I'm leaving my card with the waitress as soon as I sit down, so I won't be had again...lol.).  Then Alisha, from Formaggios, brought us out three desserts to celebrate my birthday.  Guava berry cheesecake, Tiramisu, and Chocolate Souffle.  Yum, yum, and yummier.  I'd recommend them all.  Thanks Alisha for making my birthday so sweet!

After Formaggios, the night was still young.  So we held the after party at my parent's house where we spent the evening playing Kinect on my brother's XBOX 360.  That is, for sure, going to be the holiday gift of the season!  For those of you non-gamers, it's a 3D camera with an inferred light that tracks your body movements so you don't have to use a controller to play games.  It was really fun, but a total workout!  (I don't recommend playing in a dress...lol.)  You are moving and jumping all over the room...good thing I never made it to the gym that day.

Thank you to all who helped me celebrate and all who wished me well!  I had a blast!  Until next year...

Time for some tree trimming fun!

I know that I should be telling you all about the great adventures that I had on my birthday and I will I promise, but I just couldn't wait to post about my Christmas tree!  Did I mention that I love Christmas?  It's my favorite time of year.  The weather starts to get a little bit colder, which gives you the excuse to drink hot chocolate or holiday flavored coffee drinks from Starbucks pretty much guilt free.  (Ironically the weather here in Hawaii has not been getting much colder or much rainier yet.  Usually the rainy weather starts around mid-October, but so far nothing much has happened weather-wise since summer time.  Is it just me or does global warming seem to be coming sooner rather than later?)  You get to bake holiday cookies for friends and neighbors, which means someone has to taste them...just to be sure that they are up to par.  Also, you can shop as much as you want with the excuse "I'm just getting all of my holiday gift shopping out of the way."  Who's going to notice the 5 pairs of shoes that you bought for yourself?  No one when it's mixed in with all of your other holiday purchases that is.  What's not to love?

So to kick us off in real holiday style, please start humming the tune to jingle bells while you read this post...lol.  Actually my favorite Christmas song is "I'll be home for Christmas" sung by Mr. Bing Crosby.  What can I say?  I'm a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas music.  Sure I love Mariah's "All I want for Christmas is You", but "White Christmas" by Bing is my go to album for good old fashioned Christmas fun.

For your listening pleasure. :)

My husband set up the Christmas tree as a birthday surprise for me, but we didn't get the chance to decorate it until last night.  On my way home from work I ran to the store and bought some egg nog to get us in the spirit, because how can you decorate the tree without egg nog?  Personally, egg nog is not my favorite, but my husband really likes it.  It's not Christmas to him without egg nog, therefore I buy the egg nog.  It was the least I could do, since he put up the whole 6' tree, lights and all, by himself.  Nevermind that the lights are already attached to our tree...lol.

Anyways...here's our tree this year.

What do you think?  I'm thinking maybe some floral wrapper needs to be added...though that would require taking some of the ornaments off to put it on and then putting them back.  My husband will be none too pleased with that scenario...

Here's the wide shot of our living room.  It's clean!  I know, a miracle happened.  It stayed clean just long enough to take this picture...lol.

When my husband I first started dating, all those long years ago, we started the tradition of buying each other a Christmas ornament each year in the hopes that one day when we got our own tree to decorate that we'd have some special ornaments to start us off.  Awww...I know.  We're super sappy that way...lol.

Here are a few of my favorites...

WALL-E

EVE.  Both of which are kids toys that my husband fashioned into Christmas ornaments because they didn't have a Christmas ornament out yet.

A purse with wings.  There's just something so whimsical about this one.  My mom gave me this one...maybe that's part of the reason that I love it so much.

I bought this one when I still worked at Ben Franklin.  I thought it would be something cool to have when we have kids of our own...some day.  The plaque reads:

Santa's Magic Key

Our stockings hung upon a wall.

We have no fireplace at all!

You see the problem is quite clear, 

Santa, how will you get in here?

We heard a legend.  Is it true?

Of magic only you can do.

We'll leave out any plain old key, 

and mark it "Santa" so you can see.

Your magic makes the key fit right, 

so you can get inside that night.

Thank you Santa, here's our key.

The milk and cookies are on me!

These are a few that I hand-sewed a couple of years back.  I love felt ornaments.  They feel old and nostalgic to me, like they are from another time in history.

Now that you've seen my holiday decore, what does yours look like?  Are you the "do it up big" or "holiday minimalist" type?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!