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Em & Tini

tini hauls: modcloth, free people, old navy, case-mate

Hahahaha, look, I made another pun using Tini that no one else will think is funny. I personally find it hilarious though, so you all can just go sit in the corner.

Anyway, point being, I've done some shopping recently. Mainly online. Since right now is basically "back to school" for me (I start classes on Tuesday!), it seems appropriate to buy new clothes. And a new phone case. And four pairs of colored tights. And contemplate buying a Longchamp Le Pliage bag (if you guys have one, PLEASE comment below and tell me if it's worth it. I'm thinking about buying the large one as a school bag because I'm a commuter and will be hauling all my notebooks and whatnot around all day, and I really want to know if it's worth the money because I consider that a pretty sizable investment).

I started out by buying some dresses off of ModCloth. Even though I ordered four, I ended up returning one because it had some pretty awkward pockets on the sides that stuck out (that definitely didn't show up in the picture online... I was pretty pissed).

This first dress I am in love with. To me, it's sooo Blair Waldorf from the front and the back cut out is adorable and completely unexpected. It was on sale for $35.99 and now is on an even better sale. Honestly though, I would have snatched this up even at full price. The website calls it a "navy" but I think it's more royal blue. The only thing about this dress is that if you get the back tangled, it takes forever to get straightened back out. I just love everything about the appearance of this dress; I could not say enough good things about it.

I can't figure out if I should apologize more for my hair in this picture (I just got out of the shower and was trying to keep my wet hair from getting my dresses wet) or my face. This dress looks super dark (almost black) in the picture, but it's actually a gorgeous dark purple. It is hands down the thickest, most wonderful material I've ever had a dress in. I thought I might have to give you the terrible news that it was out of stock because at the time I ordered it, mine was the last one, but luckily, they've restocked!

This was the most expensive dress I bought, which might sound a little weird, but quick backstory. One time, at Francesca's, probably about two years ago, I saw an elephant print dress, but I passed it up. I have since been looking for one forever. Then there was the Lilly Pulitzer "Tusk in Sun" Cassie dress, which was just too expensive for me to justify. And then I saw this. And I had to have it. I've had none of the problems mentioned in the reviews about the arms being ridiculously tight, though it is a little hard to get off and the button in the back of the neck is a little difficult to put through the loop. In any case, I'm so excited to have this dress now. The bow is a little sparkly and there is nothing about it I don't love.

Of course, since it's winter, I needed some tights to go with my new dresses. I have a disappointing lack of tights. The first three pairs are from Free People and the red pair are from ModCloth. Kind of boring I guess. 

And then, while I was waiting for my order to come, I went on a little trip to the mall with my mom and sister (who is home from college for about a month). If I didn't have these clothes coming to my house when I was there, I would have been disappointed, because I only bought one thing. 

I'm sorry about how I both look like I'm going to vomit and about my pants (they were just the pants I was wearing with the shirt I actually wore today!). Oh, also how wrinkled my shirt is -- I wore the shirt to orientation tucked into a pair of jeans, and I just put it back on to take a picture. I'm literally in love with this blouse. I got it for around 8 dollars on sale -- it said it was going to be about 11 on the sign, but the tag said otherwise. No complaints here. I've been lusting over these shirts online (ever since Sarahbelle93x showed one in her haul) and I finally have one -- I can't lie, I want to order more, but they're out of all the sale colors in my size, so I don't know if I really want to pay full price. In her video, Sarahbelle93x mentions that they're "pretty much the same" as the Blythe blouse from J.Crew -- except way cheaper (and it's a pullover -- the buttons don't go all the way down). I've been lusting over the Blythe blouse for months, but even when it was on sale I couldn't justify buying a silk blouse that I'd have to worry about whenever I wore it and dry clean. This shirt is the perfect alternative. I'm so excited about it.

The last thing I bought requires a little back story. So my old phone case has elephants on it. It's perfect. It's Tiffany blue with white elephants. It's so me. But sometimes I just get a little bored with it. I want to be able to change it. So when my mom got an iPhone and wanted to order a case from Case-mate, I ordered another one.

So first of all, yes, nerdy Doctor Who case. If you caught the reference, 100 cool points to you my friend. Anyway, it's the same style of case as my old one -- a design your own "tough case". I think this case is literally the bomb dot com because I drop my phone all the time and nothing ever happens to it. It's a hard plastic outside and a rubbery inside. You can upload any picture or graphic you want and they'll print it on the case for you! Also, if you google it, you can usually find a discount code of some sort. Next time I need a new phone case, I'll probably go right back to Case-mate.

Anyway, that's all I've bought recently! I've got a big list of posts to make going and I'm about to schedule some of them into my planner, so that's really exciting! Comment and let me know if you've bought anything recently, or if you have any questions about the stuff I've bought, or seriously IF YOU OWN A LE PLIAGE I want to know about it (I cannot tell you how badly I want to know about it). I'm going to go snuggle up in my jammies in bed and do some post planning/enjoying my last week before my semester starts.

xx, kristina

storytime with em: nyc food

Oh my goodness. Where do I even start?

Okay, so you guys probably don't know this but I am actually in love with food (says every teenage girl ever). So of course I had to post about all the amazing places we went to while in New York!

So the first day wasn't that exciting, since it was road trip day, but we did eat dinner when we got to the hotel. We went to this place about 5 minutes away in the middle of the snowstorm called Gianna's. As I've said before, my sister and I shared a delicious cheese pizza with super awesome crust (possibly my favorite part of pizza).

The next day ( and all the days) we had breakfast at the hotel (blueberry muffins what up). That lasted until whenever we had lunch at the natural history museum. It was decent food and could have been worse, considering. The real treat was diner. We have this cookbook for Clinton St Bakery, and there are some delicious pancakes in there. They serve pancakes all day. The only problem is that it gets insanely crowd and there's a super looooong wait. When we got to the restaurant (at around 7 pm, mind you, the "slow period") the wait was an hour and a half. We didn't want to wait there, so we went across the street to this place called The Cocoa Bar. They serve lots of delicious drinks in stylish cups (seriously that's part of it). We had such a fun time waiting, the only employee was super nice and gave us chocolate almonds for free. Seriously, if you're ever over there, check it out. It's like a coffee shop but better. They also serve wine and coffee but we were to cool for that. Anyways, Clinton St had a handy app, so when there was one party in front of us we rushed over and were finally seated. We ordered etc. Mu dad got a bacon cheeseburger with (supposedly) really good bacon, and my mom, sister, and I shared pork taquitos, sweet potatoe fries, and banana walnut pancakes. It is so worth the wait it's ridiculous. Everything is burned just enough to keep its taste but enough to be crispy and the normal fries are delish.

The next bakery we visited was Sarabeth's Bakery. That turned out to be a complete accident, but a totally delicious one. My mom and I wanted to browse in Lord & Taylor, so my dad and sister went to the coffee shop and got hot cocoa. About ten minutes later we joined them, and realized we were in Sarabeth's! Their hot cocoa was great (I stole my dad's since he didn't like it). It was really thick and rich and like drinking mud, but chocolate mud like from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. We also bought a croissant, cookie, and scone, all of which were delicious.

Oh wow, we went to a lot of bakeries that's really weird. Okay, well we next ended up in Crumbs, which is a famous cupcake store, and since my sister has this thing about cupcakes, we had to go inside. We got a little cupcake sampler with 12 cupcakes, which we ate while waiting in line for tickets. I wish we could have spent more time there, because everything looked really good. I also really like decorated cupcakes, I think they're really cute.

Afterwards, we did not go to a bakery (surprise!), we instead went to the Rockefeller Center because that's what you do in New York as a tourist. We got pizza from Harry's Italian Pizza Parlor which turned out to be really good. Maybe it was because we were super exhausted, or maybe it's because it was New York pizza, but it was some of the best pizza I've ever had. (And we got a free slice!)

So then we skip ahead to Saturday night when we got Mexican food. I am absolutely in love with Mexican food, which is a problem, since we don't have any real places (not counting fast food Mexican) around here. I had a chicken fajita thing, which, to be honest, I didn't really enjoy, but you know what? It was Mexican food, and I love fajitas so it was okay.

We also ended up at our fourth (?) bakery of the trip, Magnolia Bakery, which was inside Bloomingdale's. We bought four little pastries and two hot chocolates. We unfortunately don't have the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, but  I'm positive it would be a good buy, if you wanted it. I got a chocolate pudding pie, which I really liked because chocolate + whipped cream is a really good combination.

I think that's everything. Really, it's food, so you're going to have a hard time going wrong with it, especially in a city. I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, life kinda caught up with me for a bit (also I discovered Gossip Girl), but I'm definitely going to post more, I promise! What are your favorite foods? Mine is probably pizza or potatoes (they're so versatile, think about it!).

-em xx

storytime with em: new york city part 2

So last I left you we went to bed really late because the next day was my favorite favorite favorite day: the day I saw my cousins!!! They were in Connecticut for Christmas, and we were on the way, so we spent the day in Yonkers, and got to eat lunch with them. They're one and a half and absolutely adorable!!

I'm not blocking out his face cause look at how alike we look and how adorable he is!! We ended up getting to the mall before them, so we shopped at Forever 21 and H&M (two of my favorite stores) and I got this super cute lace dress from H&M (I think it was $30?) and then 2 jeans ($10.80 a piece) and fake peral necklace (I don't remember how much that was) from Forever 21, my first purchase at the store! (Literally I love them, but they're a hot mess and I can't find things so I don't buy anything from them.) By that point my cousins were there, so we went to Applebee's for lunch and I got to play with cousins and they're so cute! After they left we stopped by Macy's but there wasn't anything good there, so we went to Barnes and Noble for a while and just read. Then to dinner with Mexican food (literally the only Mexican places we have around here are fast food unless you want to drive 30 minutes and it's not worth it really) and the end of Saturday.

Sunday I had French Toast sticks for breakfast which I am in love with. It's a problem. Then we hopped on the subway to The Battery and we froze our butts off for a bit and then headed into the American Indian Museum which I didn't really enjoy (awk since I'm probably majoring history) but they had these super comfy chairs which I did enjoy. 

After that, we went to Wall Street and saw the Stock Exchange and the place where George Washington was sworn in as president. We then started to walk towards the 9/11 memorial and stopped for lunch at Panini Co (or something like that) which was packed. (I really hate packed places.) We tried to see the memorial, but a) it's still under construction and b) you needed special passes so we just saw the carving/statue thing they have across the street. 

Finally we headed to...

Dylan's Candy Bar since I really, really wanted to go. We ended up getting candy, which I finished a few days ago (sigh) and I got to see FOUR of the Project Runway dresses. (I love that show, but I'm not caught up yet, which is ridiculous.) Also a worker made a reference to Doctor Who (It's bigger on the inside...cause there are 3 floors you know? also if you don't get that reference for shame.) Then we headed to FAO Schwarz with a pit stop at Crate & Barrel (I really want to furnish homes now). I got to see the Plaza from the outside which was super cool as well. Then we said bye to the city and went back to the hotel after dinner. 

Then Monday (New Year's Eve) we came home. And that was that. Oh, and I forgot like two things we did the second day, so I'm saying them here. AFter dinner at the Rockefeller Center, we went into Saks 5th Ave and the church (omg I'm blanking here....it's right across the street though) before we went to the show. Also at some point we went to Bloomingdale's and got stuff from Magnolia's Bakery which I think might have been that last day as well. They were super fancy too. 

Anyways, that was my trip to NYC (it's still perfect in my mind) and look out for my food post!

-em xx

storytime with em: new york city part 1

I hope you all notice the font size change because I did and not because Tini told me thank you very much.

If you're following this I think I've said that I was going to be without the internet for a few days after Christmas, because I went to New York City! I was super excited about this because I love love love NYC and it's got like some big idealized thing in my head (but not really. More on that later.) My mom actually went to high school in a suburb of New York, and my grandparents lived there for a while. We used to go to their house for Christmas until I was in 4th grade (I think) when they moved closer to us. Anyways, the point being, I've been to New York before, several times when I was too little to remember and then once the summer after ninth grade when I went to a Girl Scout camp and we got to go for three days and see Wicked (aka my favorite show ever).

Despite all that this time was going to be different because I would be able to see stuff that I wanted to and because I was going with my family. I don't really want to say where I live, but I am close enough to drive to the city (it just takes a while).

We left the day after Christmas, but our first stop was the mall to pick me up a new winter coat (which I'm in love with. It's from Columbia, and I think it was like $120 ish? It was on sale, plus I got three coats in one). Anyways, after we ransacked the mall for everything (we got calendars, and hot chocolate mix as well) we finally left. So we drove, and drove, and finally, we were about an hour or so away from the city when BAM! a snow storm hit. We were on the express when and literally everyone slowed down to five miles per hour. Suffice to say, it took us two hours to get there. In a snow storm. When we finally got to where we were staying (suburbia what up) we went to dinner at this place called Gianna's (we were staying in Yonkers, if that's any help). Either way, my sister and I shared a pizza and it was delicious. My dad had this seafood pasta special and I had my first taste of lobster and my mom also had pizza. And that was about it for the first day.

The next day was the Museum of Natural History day wooo (not really). So we got up, had breakfast, etc, and then got in the shuttle bus to go to the train station five minutes away. Well, we ended up at the station 20 minutes away but that wasn't so bad. We bought our tickets and hoppen on the train to Grand Central Station (also another place I'm in love with. It's gorgeous!) We ended up getting there earlier than expected, so of course we had to be touristy and look at everything in there. (I blocked out my sister's face since I don't know if she wants to be on here)

After that we exited and walked to Times Square (yet another place) in the rain.

I don't really remember why but we ended up in the Disney store (probably cause we were looking for the metro) which was great because I love that place. After we found the metro and rode it to the museum we had to wait in line FOREVER because the museum has a metro entrance. And then we spent the entire day there and I was bored out of my mind so we are not going to talk about it. But hey look what a great picture of me in there! (This was the food exhibit, which I actually really liked what)

The other big thing that day was Clinton Street Bakery!  (I actually am going to make that a separate post just because I loved it so so much. But suffice to say that it is delicious).

The third day was "my day" aka we went shopping on Fifth Ave. But first we stopped in the NY public library because it's free and it was on the way. It wasn't too bad, and I got to see the lions! The first store we went into was Lord & Taylor since my mom loves that store, and holy goodness it was HUGE. We tried shopping for boots and dresses but we didn't find anything. However, my dad and sister went to drink hot coco while we were shopping, and we found them in Sarabeth's Bakery! (another cookbook which we own. again, delicious. I might just make a food post?) So then after they finished we went to Macy's (largest store what up) but first we took a detour in H&M since I love that store but we didn't find anything. Oh wait, I did get a set of earrings that are going in my stocking for Orthodox Christmas. And my sister got socks. So then we headed over to Macy's and I swear it was bigger than Lord & Taylor.

See the Macy's sign in the background? And yes, my sister is wearing a Gryffindor hat. And it was PACKED. It was just super overwhelming, so we decided to leave shortly afterwards. By that point it was 2:30 ish so we decided to run to Times Square (well, walk really fast) so we could try to get tickets for a Broadway show. We did make a detour into Crumbs (bakery, delicious, see my food post) and then pushed our way to stand in line. We stood in line for an hour and a half in the freezing cold. And we ended up getting tickets to The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which is an excellent show, should you ever get to see it. Before hand, we went to the Rockefeller Center (HUGE MISTAKE it was really crowded) although we did get some excellent pizza. I think we got home at 12:30 in the morning but it was so worth it.

Anyways, this post is way too long, and the photos are super blurry so I'll make a part 2 (and fix the photos) and post it later, along with my food post. Have any of you guys been to New York?

-em xx

tini updates: just one of those days

All of the pages of my new Mensa puzzler-a-day calendar are piled up on my floor, along with all of my heated hair tools and my iPod nano (a second generation blue one from seventh grade, thanks much). And approximately a week's worth of dirty clothes and jeans I'm refusing to accept are no longer clean. Sometimes you've just got to accept that you've passed the point of "saving the environment" and gone to "straight up disgusting."

On a less repulsive note, today was one of those days. And by one of those days I mean a day where you come home from the mall and get a really awesome deal on a shirt but then you order your college textbooks and the cheapest books you can find are the ones from your college bookstore and even if you're lucky and get the used ones, you're going to be spending way too much money on some books you might not even end up using. You have no clue how much this makes me hate studying science. It's ridiculous how much science and math textbooks cost (yay for two science classes and two math classes... I know, I'm doing this to myself).

If anyone out there was actually reading before... or now... I made the font on our blog bigger. You probably didn't even notice... in fact, Em probably didn't even notice. It was just one of those things, like, hey, yeah it's a great idea to tweak little things about your blog layout RIGHT NOW when there are about 300 other things you could be doing (like ordering your textbooks for the semester or sending in your health records or selling the textbooks you never used when you decided you were taking a semester off from school just a few months too late or writing the post about how you decided to take a semester off from school).

Speaking of which, I'm trying really hard to get that post done. It's just that I want it to be absolutely perfect (which I think is understandable). It's also a little painful to write (also probably understandable), so I can only take it in little amounts at a time.

Tell me about your day! Please?

xx, kristina

em's new year's resolutions

So I'm kinda thinking that this title might be misleading since these are probably more goals for myself than resolutions, but I guess those are the same things aren't they. But I don't usually make resolutions for New Year's but I'll try to stick to these (especially since I'm telling all of you!)

Either way, 2012 has probably been my most fab year yet. Honestly, like Tini, I didn't think that I had accomplished much in 2012. To be honest, it's hard to remember what I was doing a year ago (like midterms maybe? I don't even remember those) so it's easy to see why I couldn't think of what I'd done in one year. I didn't quite make a list of goals last January, but from what I have written, I actually did quite a bit. I passed my 3 APs (4's on all of them, even Physics what), I took the SATs and SAT II (and killed the math sections so I now can lord over my math teacher from last year oops), I got my driver's license (after I thought I had failed the test), and I made a new friend(s)!

And on top of that I got my Gold Award (it's like becoming an Eagle Scout just for Girl Scouts, a new post idea maybe?), I got my lifeguard certification and my first job, I got into two colleges (with a scholarship!), and helped some people through tough times. Not to mention my half finished attempts like writing a novel (I will get there someday) or knitting or crocheting something. All in all, I think I did more than I ever thought I would and I'm happy about it.

Somehow I've changed in the course of a year (the left is yesterday night, and the right is January 6th, 2012 can you see it well?) My hair's gotten longer, I've grown up a bit, realized I liked painting my nails and shopping at Forever 21 and H&M and that I needed pants other than jeans in my closet.

So here are my goals for this year:

• Get into college and go to college. I know I'm already in college, but I'm still waiting on eight more schools and I would love to get into a few of them. I already have a good feeling of where I'll end up next this August, but you never know!
• Get at least 4's on my APs. I think this is self explanatory.
• Do my laundry on a regular basis. I do my laundry, it just needs to be done more, you know?
• Blog more. Like Tini, I want us to make a mark, if that makes any sense. I will update on a regular basis, even when I move away (probably more oops, don't let me get distracted from college! We're going places Tini, I promise)
• Take more pictures. I don't have a super nice camera, but the one I have is really easy to carry around and I always take it with me but never use it. I always feel bad when I come back from something with very few pictures. So there's that. 
• Take care of myself. I'm starting to learn that I need to put myself first. I can't let other people take me down with them. Also, I need to eat healthier and exercise more (and learn how to do 100 push ups) I'm tired of killing myself over the way I look so I need to do something about it. 
• Finish writing a story. Whether it's for NaNoWriMo or just on my own, this needs to happen. I have 365 days and countless ideas, the only thing I need is time. 
• Get an A in math. I know this seems kind of silly but I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten a real, decent A (93+) since 8th or 9th grade. I think this is my year. Bring it on Calc. (FYI, first quarter I got a 96, so this isn't baseless).
• Get straight A's and A's as my final grades. This kinda goes hand in hand with the previous one, but I need to. Getting straight A's would be fantabulous and guarantee my spot at whatever school I end up at. 
• Make amends. There are at least 2 people I can think of who I've been not so nice to or ignored for a looooong time. And I'd like to go off to college with a clean slate. 
• Keep in touch. I'm literally terrified of losing friends when I leave for college. Even though I know I won't stay in touch with 90% there are a select few who I do want to keep in contact with.

So that's that. I'm not sure how well it's going to work (but hey, look at last year!) Oh goodness I forgot the big one: I want to graduate. Hello where's my brain, obviously not here. Like I said, I don't know if this'll work. I don't know how many I'll keep or complete, but I'm going to try. 2013 is the year I graduate (and we all know 13 is Taylor Swift's lucky number) so all in all, I'm hoping know it'll be a good year. Even if I end up at the state school.

Happy New Year guys, (and if you have a resolution you want to share with us, post it on either this post or Kristina's, we'd love to read them!)

-em xx