POST-HOLIDAY MADNESS.

Hi, my loves. I hope you all had a lovely holiday! I'm proud to say that I am back, w/ my repaired laptop. It was returned to me in perfect condition, so thanks Apple. It's the first thing they've done right in a while. Christmas was nice. Spent time w/ my mom and brother on Christmas Eve, then went back to Brooklyn and spent time w/ my dad's side of the family. Christmas Day I went to Philly and had dinner w/ him and his family. It was nice, I enjoyed myself and I got some amazing gifts! Saturday and Sunday we did a little shopping, then I came back home. I'm staying @ my mom's until she comes back from Jamaica on the 4th. It's almost a brand new year! As many of you know, I have a "party" on New Year's Eve, so I'm looking forward to that. I spent the day running a million errands w/ Sue Z around the city. Thankfully, she helped me get everything done before Thursday. I'm baking a million cupcakes, different kinds... You all know how I feel about cupcakes, so I found a store here called NY Cake, it was like my heaven. They had everything you could possibly imagine when it comes to baking. I bought some blue and magenta foil baking cups, as well as some leopard print ones... I also bought some multicolor crystal sugar sprinkles, gold dusting powder and pearly sprinkles. I'm planning on trying icing bags/tips this time around. It'll be my first try, so I'll let you know how it goes.

A few new things:
My boss & I.

Meh on Christmas Day, hi.

The boots that I've wanted for months!
My boyfriend got them for me.
He also got me this adorable dress (wearing it to dinner
on New Year's Day), the cutest slippers and zipper earrings.
& His mom got me a waffle maker, I wanted one SO bad.
I'm a very lucky girl.

Picked up a few new polishes.
Left to right: No Room for the Blues, Copper Mountain Copper and
I Pink I Love You by OPI and just clear gold glitter from F21.
I also purchased Arabesque by NARS nailpolish (not shown), very pretty.

My brother got me Lola by Marc Jacobs and today
I picked up Very Hollywood by Michael Kors.
He also picked up the Space Jams for me on Christmas Day as a surprise.
Like I said before, I'm a lucky girl.

Got these on Saturday.
I plan on wearing them to the NYE "party".

Love Letters of Great Men - Edited by: Ursela Doyle.
I requested this and my dad picked it up for me,
as well as (500) Days of Summer and Elf on DVD.

The cupcake baking cups, so cute!

Creative sprinkles, still edible of course.

My mom also got me a really cute jacket, but I'll post a picture while I'm wearing it at some point. I've picked up some nice tights, shirts, skirts and dresses over the past few days from Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, F21, H&M, etc. I even got some Hello Kitty socks! Our two year anniversary is on New Year's, so I'm excited for that too. It's been a good year. Oh, and I forgot to mention: A- in English, A- in European History, B in Women & Criminal Justice and B- in Art History... On to the next semester, which starts on Monday for me (winter courses). I'm pretty proud of myself, but still aiming for higher. I'm looking forward to 2010 and I hope all of you guys are, too! :)

CATCH UP.

Omg, this is actually over... For now.

A little something I twitpic'd.

My legs look sorta long in this picture...
It was my first time wearing sneaks in a LONG time,
so I just thought I'd capture the essence of my AFII's.

School is finally over (for now). All of my grades should have been posted by now, but my professors seem to be seriously procrastinating. The only grade that's been posted so far is my English grade, which happens to be an A-. I'm proud of it, but I was truthfully about to argue the minus. My winter break is over on January 4th, since I'm taking winter courses... Lucky me. Anyways, I'm one gift away from completing my Christmas shopping. I should be picking up my mom's ice cream maker tomorrow afternoon, can't wait. Then I get on with the gift-wrapping, which happens to be my favorite part! It's so much fun for me, I know, I'm weird. Aside from my holiday spirit, I'm a little bummed that I have to drop my laptop off @ the Apple store tomorrow to be repaired. As I've mentioned before, when I returned home from Jamaica in June, my webcam had mysteriously stopped working. I haven't had a chance to make a reservation to have it fixed because of schoolwork up until now. They usually keep the laptop for about a week, so that's gonna suck a bit. It's cool though, I'll live... I have my phone and PLUS it's over the holidays, so I wouldn't have been on the computer much anyway. I should have it back by next Monday (I hope). I guess I'll cut this short now, I have to back up all of my pictures + tunes onto my flash drive before tomorrow, so I better get that out of the way now. I'll miss you, kiddies and have a great holiday! I'll catch up with you guys first thing as soon as I have my laptop back. Enjoy, hope you get great goodies! :)

LATELY.

Last week I mastered my first fishtail braid.

Us, just looking like interracial Siamese twins.

Classes ended on the 8th, thank goodness... But now it's time for finals. I've actually already taken my English final this past Friday, it was super simple. I'm just glad it's out of the way. Tomorrow I have my Women & Criminal Justice, Wednesday is my European History and finally Thursday is my Art History... Then I'm officially free, at least until January 4th. I actually have an Art History paper to hand in the day of the final. I plan on finishing it by at least Tuesday. I NEEDS to be done and I mean, done perfectly. I really can't afford any bad grades in this course, considering it's my major. Anyways, Christmas is almost here and I'm a step away from finishing my Christmas shopping. It should be done 100% by the end of this week. I feel like once I get through this week a huge weight will be lifted off of my shoulders, I can't wait. We have big plans set for NYE (also our 2 year anniversary) and the following weekend, it should be a lot of fun. I just have batches and batches of cupcakes to make that day, but as you all know, I don't mind because I love baking/cooking. It'll be well worth it. We planned on going ice skating this past weekend, but we didn't get around to it. I hope we can make time for it this upcoming weekend, it's been a long time since I've gone and he's never gone at all. I'm sure it'll be quite the experience, lol. Well, it's pretty late and I'm craving ice cream so bad. I better just take it down. Hope you guys are doing great and had a good weekend. :)

Mattese NYC - Neon15, Power Pink.

NOSTALGIA.

When I was a baby, my Grandpop gave me this jewelry box.
It was made in Italy and when you wind it,
it plays the Nutcracker - One of my favorites.
A few years ago, it disappeared.
I've been looking for it,
mainly since he passed away in 2006.
The other night I mentioned it to my dad and
he said that he hadn't seen it.
But! The other night he came downstairs,
telling me that he found it stashed away in one of the closets.
I'm soooo happy.
This is the best (early) Christmas gift (re-gifted) ever.

Here's a vid of how it plays:

:)

NY senate says NO to gay marriage.

We can send more troops to Afghanistan,
but gays can't marry?
This is truly disappointing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/nyregion/03marriage.html