These are a few of my favorite things...

Christmas is just around the corner and my days have been full of holiday parties, shopping, gift-wrapping, cooking, and all around fun times with my family and friends. This is my favorite time of the year for so many reasons so I thought I’d share a few of my holiday favorites so far this year:

The sparkly wreath on my parents' front door is easily my favorite Christmas decoration.

Mini cheesecakes (thanks to Grandma Sheridan for the recipe),
these are perfect for parties and are super easy to make!


Hot Chocolate and Bailey’s treats as a special holiday surprise for my lovely roommates.
(Got the idea from one of my morning ritual blogs: Hey Gorgeous)

My new go-to gift this year! Great little lenses from Photojojo to attach

to your smart phone, they’re a huge hit for all my camera-loving friends.

Gym? What’s that?

After talking about it for at least two months I finally found myself standing at the front desk of a gym one day, handing over my credit card so I can watch 30 Rock while on the elliptical. Now that I’ve successfully gone a couple of times every week, taken a few classes, and had a personal trainer give me a limp I think I’ve earned the right to go shopping for some cute gym clothes! Lulu Lemon has yoga pants that I would wear to work every day if they didn’t insist on a business casual dress code and Old Navy has some great work out tops according to their latest sing-along commercials. Here are my current gym must-haves:

Lulu Lemon Groove Pant

If I’m going to sweat and turn beat red at the gym

I might as well wear a cute compression top while I’m at it.

Technically, these are not a must-have since they are already in my possession

but these lightweight FAAS 300 Running Shoes from Puma are the best things to ever happen to my feet.

Hello stove, let me introduce myself...

As the saga to live up to my New Years resolution (read: early November resolution) to make food for myself that requires me to do more than put it in the microwave for 2 minutes, I decided to make myself Chicken Zucchini Alfredo on Monday. This decision was based on an my strong desire to wear my adorable Anthropologie apron (a gift from my amazing friend Amy), my love of zucchini, and the fact that the Food Network labeled the recipe as “easy”. Although this seemed like something that would be difficult to massacre the idea of making an alfredo sauce from scratch scared me enough to pick up an Amy’s organic frozen dinner as a back up plan. Luckily I can report that Amy’s frozen dinner was not necessary and my dinner turned into a delicious success! Check out my (sometimes less than stellar) food photography:

I would’ve been happy just eating all of these for

dinner once they were all sautéed up.

The most terrifying part of the process…

alfredo sauce (dun dun dunnnn)

Success! It turned out delicious and now I have at least one

go-to dinner recipe in my back pocket if necessary.

Hello adorable apron that makes cooking

just that much more fun!

Football Goodies

I swear I love writing on this thing. Due to some unforeseen extended hours at my place of business, leaving my friends wondering if I’m still alive, I have had little time to write. Though, thanks to the power of smart phones, I have stored lots of little blogging ideas and pictures for when I reemerged into society. So without further adieu…

Football is one of the few joys I get out of the cold weather seasons but how can I complain when it brings me delicious food, good natured yelling at my TV (I’m looking at you Eli Manning), and the opportunity to plot how beautiful my wedding to Tom Brady would be (come on, you know you do too). Even though I make a mean grilled cheese I’ve recently been trying to get more adventurous with my cooking skills and the Patriots-Giants game sounded like the perfect opportunity to ease into it. This Sunday I regaled my guests with homemade salsa, guacamole (which I sadly can’t find my picture of womp womp), kale chips, and snickerdoodle cookies and it turned out pretty gosh darn good thankyouverymuch. Next conquest? Chili.

Extra spicy salsa yummm

They may not look like your ideal chip but they come out

so light and crunchy you’ll fall in love instantly.

Snickerdoodles! If you don’t love these cookies for

the name alone you’re crazy in my book.

PWG Photography

My younger brother has been an amateur photographer for a couple of years now and after much urging and several purchased and framed photos on my family’s behalf he has finally set up an Etsy page! Therefore this is my obligatory proud sister, shameless plug if you’re looking for some good wall art or a fun gift check out his page.

Oktoberfest

Even though I would never complain if it were 75 degrees outside year round I’m reluctant to admit that colder weather does have its benefits. One such benefit I experienced with friends today was Oktoberfest. The city of Somerville was kind enough to throw an Oktoberfest party with trick-or-treating and games for kids and bars offering food and assorted pumpkin beers for the grown up kids. We promptly planted ourselves at the first bar we found and enjoyed hot dogs and Shipyard Pumpkin beer while snuggled up in our boots and scarves. So as much as I claim that I should’ve been born in Southern California I sure would miss these perfect New England fall days!

Boots, boots, boots!

Despite giving my favorite dresses and summer outfits one last showing thanks to the surprise 80 degree weather these past couple of days I’ve been secretly creating a cold weather wish list in my Firefox bookmarks. My current desire? Boots, boots, and more boots! Last year I was all about the riding boots so this year I’m working on adding to my (slowly but surely) growing collection. These are my current “must haves”:

1. Steve Madden Candence

2. Steve Madden Bonanza

3. Aldo Laughead

4. Prada Leather Tall Boot in Mogano (a girl can dream can’t she?)

20/20

After five years of avoiding the eye doctor like the plague and two years of squinting at my computer screen telling myself that’s how all the women working at Vogue view their monitors I decided it was time for new glasses. I was a little worried that my dilated eyes blurred my judgment while picking out my new frames but I love them! And, I'm sad to admit, that upon opening the case I was almost more excited about the inside of the case then the glasses themselves. I adore the sultry eyes peeking through my glasses every time I open it. Thank you kate spade for remembering the little details!

In September I moved into a new apartment that I’m in love with (hello roof deck with Boston skyline views you read about) and with my new place came a bigger bedroom, which meant I could finally set up a desk! I wanted the space to be welcoming and comfortable so after two weeks of standing at my desk while checking my email the hunt for the perfect desk chair was on. After a brief affair with the free section on Craigslist and a misguided attempt to recover an old, ugly brown desk chair, the Pier 1 website came to me as if sent from the interior design heavens! Everything about this chair made me share pictures of it with friends as if I were a proud new mother. The deep purple fabric is perfect in my room, with the design on the back making me sigh "Isn't it pretty?" when I show it off to friends. The best part is probably how the back seems to almost wrap around me as I settle in to do work. Say hello to the current love in my life:

"Breezy to the touch, great for going out..."

I’ve been an Old Navy enthusiast since my style-impaired middle school years (why didn’t anyone tell me blue eye shadow wasn’t the look for me?) and I still love going to them for affordable clothes and accessories. Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of this ad on TV and as I was thinking that the song was getting really annoying I also found myself saying “…but I really do want that blouse.” Tunics and blouses are my current wardrobe staples for work and play because they work so well with my favorite skinny black pants and with jeans. I think it’s safe to say an Old Navy trip is in my near future. Some of my favorite new tops that will be hanging in my closet soon enough:

Good Eats

One of my favorite finds once I moved closer to the city was a little slice of froyo heaven commonly referred to as BerryLine. Their various flavor options (think Nutella, Peppermint-Oreo, Apple-Cinammon, Taza Chocolate, etc.) and a counter full of fresh toppings to pick from cause my indecisive self to go into a frenzy every time I walk through their door. Luckily they offer their customers a stamp card to encourage you to be a regular and this weekend I finally earned my free medium, one topping froyo!

It’s the lunch of champions!

Fall's Here, time to Blog!

As fall starts to settle in and I start daydreaming about all the boots I’d like to give a good home to in my closet I thought this would be the perfect time to start a blog where I can share all of my favorite things. It's the little things that make me happy and my blog will focus on my favorite topics: shopping, decorating, people, and food. So, without further adieu, welcome to my blog and to starting new adventures!