Pink Champagne Cake

A great cake for celebrating a birthday, New Years of anything worthy of a celebration. The cake was inspired from the film, 16 Candles. I found this recipe on the Cabi Blog.
Just reading the recipe will make you happy and want to celebrate something.
http://cabicanary.com/?recipe-details=1&rec_id=176

Vacation...Hiatus? I am back.

After what appears to be a year but only about five months, I am back. It was a busy summer. In fact, this is the first summer that I have worked full time in 10 years. Navigating child care, camps, play dates and trying to maintain a home while working was challenging. But..I managed and learned a few life lessons.
1. Summer child care can be a nightmare. I was prepared with nine possible sitters on stand-by and I used all nine.
2. I think I spent more on child care, camps, activities, etc. than I actually made working.
3. It wasn't so bad.

My family has three months of the fall and the school year behind us and I think we finally found our routine. So, with that said, I will be blogging more regularly. Look for information about fashion, beauty, entertaining, cooking and other lifestyle topics.

It's good to be back!

Norma Kamali at Walmart -- What???

Today, I met my daughter and husband at the pool. My daughter was instructed to bring my bathing suit and pool bag. I arrived at the pool, grabbed the pool bag and proceeded to change into my suit...only, my daughter forgot to pack my bottoms. My husband said, "Is that a big deal?" WHAT, are you kidding me? Yes, that is a huge deal!

I drive home to retrieve the bottoms of my swimsuit only I cannot find them anywhere. I searched everywhere, for the sake of time I grab a black bottom from another suit and drive back to the pool. While driving back I am becoming angry, because that bathing suit fit me really well and I paid more a than usual for the suit.

Eventually, the next day the bottoms appear, hidden under stuffed animals in my daughter's room (don't ask). I had assumed the bottoms would never surface so I started searching the web for Norma Kamali bathing suits hoping to find last year's suit on Ebay or something. In my search results was a link to "Norma Kamali for Walmart". WHAT??? Is this a joke? So, I clicked on the link and to my delight, Norma Kamali created a line for Walmart. Quite nice I might add. I ventured off to my local Walmart to find just a few items from the line. I purchased the black sleeveless dress for $19.99. I am browsing the site to order several pieces on line. Give it a look over, the line is amazing.
http://www.normakamalicollection.com/catalog/NK_WMT_SPRING_2009.aspx

J Crew and Shelly O

I have always been a fan of J Crew since Emily Cinader took over her father's company in 1986. I find J Crew classic with a twist and affordable. It appears that Michelle Obama is a J Crew fan as well. We saw Michelle wearing J Crew throughout the campaign and she has carried the trend to the White House.

Great news for J Crew although I doubt the company could ever forecast for the amount of sales the company is generating, thanks to Shelly O. I have tried to order a couple of cardigans to no avail - - in fact, I don't know when they will ever be available. I know that J Crew is not a publicly owned company but we may see that change with growing sales and interest since the First Lady took them public.

I have included my favorite ensemble from Mrs. Obama's trip to London.
Enjoy!

I Am Back

It has been a while since my last post. I have been on hiatus with good reason, I returned to work in a full time role. My husband and I were both self employed and given the recent economic turmoil it made sense for me to return to work. This transition has been difficult to navigate but I am finally stearing the ship. It has honestly taken three months for my family and I to adjust.

I had to up my game and become more organized and plan, plan, plan. I get everything organized and ready for show time for the week on Sunday. I have been laying out my clothes for the week as well as my daughters, my husband is on his own here. Whatever I can do in the evening to make the mornings run smoothly helps too!

I am back and ready to post and tweet. Follow me on twitter too!

Thanks for your supportive emails! :)