7 for All Mankind Dress

Need an invite to Gilt? Well today is your lucky day; here you go. Gilt Invite

Scandic Berlin Hotel

The rooms are very cool and “seasonally inspired,” so, different types of rooms, each depicting one of the four seasons.

Between Bread & Butter and other meetings, there are a lot of PUMA people staying at the hotel so they have given the lobby and outside a PUMA Social theme. For example, one of the in-store installations is currently sitting in the lobby. The hotel desk employees are also all decked out in PUMA and our “do not disturb” signs also mimic the current PUMA Social campaign.

Excited about my new PUMA Rhythms I’ll be bringing with me on the trip. These are nice and comfortable with extra cushioning at the bottom. Should be perfect for long days at Bread & Butter.

PUMA Rhythm flats

I just finished the first two books out of the Hunger Games series and am saving the third for my newly formed book club, so that’s out. (Yes. Newly formed book club. You read that correctly.)

Other than that, I just read Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so possibly I could read the other two books in that series, but maybe it’s time for a bit of lighter reading.

I’ve been dying to read The Help, and while it’s on my list, I’m borrowing my mom’s copy (free is better!) so will wait to actually read that in book form vs. on the Kindle.

Has anyone read Water for Elephants? Not exactly a “lighter read,” I know, but I’ve heard it was really good.

C’mon, I know a lot of you are avid readers. Any suggestions?

"feed me"

On the topic of passports, why do the pictures always come out do poorly? I compare this to the photo I sent in and it almost feels like a nasty trick. (Or is it just me?)

Regardless, Germany in T-8 days!

While I’m a fan of making cake from scratch, the book suggests using a mix because of the consistency, so that’s what I’ve been doing so far.

RECIPE:

Ingredients

• 1 box of cake mix (and everything required to make the mix)
• 1 cup of frosting
• 1 package (14 oz) melting chocolate

Directions

• Prepare the cake as directed on the package. Bake and let cool completely (30 – 45 minutes)
• Cut the cake into quarters and, in a large bowl, crumble the cake completely

TIP: Break the quarters again and rub each half against the other to crumble the cake.

• Mix in the frosting as evenly as possible. The result should be a sort of thick mixture that can be easily molded.
• Mold the mixture into small, 1 inch balls and place them on wax paper
• Once complete, place trays in the refrigerator to harden for at least an hour to harden – this makes it much easier to dip the cake into the melted chocolate.

• Once the cake has further hardened, start melting the chocolate wafers in a double broiler
• As soon as the chocolate has melted, remove the coating from the heat
• Dip cake bites into the mixture with a spoon, using another spoon to add additional coating to the cake, coating it completely.

TIP: Do not roll cake around in the coating, this will cause small pieces to fall off and will prevent the cake bites from being covered smoothly.

• Rap  spoon with the coated cake bite on the side on the melting pot to remove excess coating

TIP: I used multiple spoons to manipulate the cake in the coating. Have extra spoons on hand because they become covered in the coating.

• Carefully place coated cake bites onto another sheet of wax paper to cool.

So far I’ve done the recipe a handful of times using both chocolate and vanilla frosting, but have only used chocolate cake so far (the choice of the recipients). I’ve used chocolate as well as white chocolate-colored wafers. The ones pictured at top were sitting with red and green-covered bites, hence the flecks of color.

Enjoy!

Lips: bold colors are carrying over from last year with deep crimsons and pinks to highlight all the floral prints we’re seeing in fashion.

Hair: ditch the feather, but you knew that already.

Eyes: play with other liners besides black, like gray or bronze.

Full article here. Enjoy!

Obviously lots happened in 2011, some good, some bad, but overall I say it was a great year.

That being said, I’m ready for 2012. Resolutions? I don’t have anything new or exciting to add to the list, but am going to stick with what I always try to work on:

• Be healthy. One change this year is I’m saying “be healthy” instead of “lose weight.” I’ve been feeling good lately and want to keep that up vs. drop weight. Loving my gym has a lot to do with this.
• Save money! My rent is less now than it was before we moved, so why am I not saving more? This is a definitely goal for 2012.
• Read more. Sean gave me a Kindle Fire for Christmas and since then I’ve read a book and 1/2 on it – so it seems to be helping my wanting to read more. I also discovered after we moved that living a 2-minute walk from the beach makes it all too convenient to read during the summer. Bonus.
• Travel more. I’ve been traveling a little more for work…I’m going to say that still counts as traveling, even if it isn’t as much site-seeing time. Non-work travel would of course be very nice.
• More time with friends & family. This is a given, isn’t it?

Here’s to a great 2012. Cheers!

New Years Day Mimosas at my favorite brunch spot, Gaslight.

2011 was quite a year. We moved, got a new cat (Cheddar!), I got promoted at work, my sister got married, a number of my good friends got engaged, I lost those pounds I was wanting to lose since graduating from college…the list goes on.

I don’t know why I stopped blogging. Time? Motivation? I’m not sure, but I know I would like to start again. I’m seeing some thing I would like to change on here and will work on that while continuing to update.

So hello there, 2012. It’s nice to meet you. I’m back. Who’s with me?