Kitty Khronicles

Hello all! Sorry about the delay in posting. It has been CRAZY these last few days with school winding down (more like up) here before Thanksgiving break...BUT I have some exciting news! Hubby and I expanded our family this past weekend by adopting a cat. A CAT!
We've been wanting one for a long time, and we decided to rescue one from a shelter. She's 6 years old, but very small-- actually the size of about a 5 to 7 month old kitten (read: VERY CUTE). The only thing is that she has had a very traumatic last couple of months after losing her owner (apparently to brain cancer) then being abandoned in a parking lot, being picked up by the shelter, spayed, getting teeth removed and then entering the stressful shelter environment. Needless to say, she's a little skeptical of her new home and environment. Basically she's been under the couch for the last 48 hours. However, we HAVE made progress in that I have gotten her to eat a couple of times and this morning when I woke up I realized she had ventured out from under the couch in the middle of the night to finish off her dry food. All the articles I've read online say to literally leave them totally alone and just go about your daily business just making sure they have food, water and litter. So that's what I'm doing (even though I just want to grab her and make her love me!!!) It's so nice and exciting to have a companion while hubby is gone. Here are some pictures of our new family member; more updates to come! Also, in the next post, my Birchbox review for this month!

Will add more photos when kitty comes out of hiding :)

An Outfit and Some Favorites

Hello blog world! Alright well I'm definitely putting myself out there with this, but I wanted to share an outfit with you that I came up with for my father-in-law's retirement banquet. I am usually not this creative nor do I think that my outfits are worth sharing really at all, but I got excited. I didn't really have anything to wear (a couple of my dresses have gotten um...a little too small, working on that!) so I improvised. I put this slightly oversized short-sleeved black sweater over this nice lacey dress that I have literally had for about 6 years. Put that with some beige shoes and hoop earrings and bam- a new outfit!

You never know what you have lurking around in your closet!

Now here's a possible future outfit that may make it to the blog-- I got this dress shopping with a friend and I paid 14$ for it. Originally it was 44$! I love a bargain!

And now for something that is just a favorite. It's a Tyler Candle Company candle that has the Birthday Cake scent. I loooove anything that smells like cake or cookies. The Tyler Candle Company has great candles and lots of scents so check them out. Plus the packaging is cute too, and I'm a sucker for cute presentation. You can buy them at Sample House in the DFW area! I am already enjoying it!

Sparkle and Salmon {Favorites}

What do sparkle and salmon have to do with each other!??! Read on...
One thing that becomes more rare as time goes on (at least in my experience) is good customer service. Everyone (including myself a lot of times) has times where they seem to just being going through the motions and trying to do so as quickly as possible without giving their business OR the people that are doing business with them a second thought. But I have had TWO experiences this week where good customer service is making me want to go give more business to those places!

First, I got my rings cleaned. Oooooh how I love my rings. And I never take it off. You can tell because up until yesterday it was dull as dull can be, covered in the daily grime of every day life (and I'm pretty sure some sour cream when it got accidentally dunked in some one night). Since my hubby got my rings from Blue Nile online, there aren't any shops that I can take it to- and they wanted me to ship my rings (and pay for it) which would leave me ringless and sad for days. I didn't want to just go anywhere because I have heard of some shady things going on with diamond swaps at seedy places! But I decided to go to a local family owned business that my mom has been going to since about 1990. I walked in, talked to a sweet lady and told her that I needed the prongs checked and the rings cleaned. She did just that and in 5 minutes I had a beautiful sparkling new-feeling set of rings! The thing is, when I asked her how much I owed, she replied "Oh nothing!" Now, I realize it was 5 minutes and it's easy to clean. But I didn't get my ring from that place. I'd never even bought anything and she didn't know my mom had been going there. You can rest assured that I will be taking my business back to them in the future!

Pretty.shiny.sparkly.love.

Then, tonight I went to peruse Central Market (lovelovelove) and I wanted to get some fresh salmon to cook this weekend. At the seafood counter, I picked out the cheapest, best-looking salmon I saw and asked the seafood guy for help. He mentioned that I should really get the "New Zealand King Salmon" that was on sale and neeeevvveerr is...and I was like "well don't get me hooked on something I can't keep buying because it's expensive!" He proceeded to tell me that he was so sure I'd love it that he'd give me a pound but only charge me for .8 of a pound-- saving me 3$! Not only that, he proceeded to give me a simple recipe including a spice rub for the salmon. He asked me to come back and tell him if I like it, and you know what I think I will!

Beautiful weekend dinner!

My encouragement is to take the time to appreciate those who take that extra step for you and make sure to extend that grace to someone else. I know it's made me think about it and appreciate it so much!

Sequin Me!

I really want to know how it is that some people are able to get their driver's license and peruse the streets of our towns. I almost got side-swiped AT LEAST 3 times today, saw about 3 other people almost get side-swiped and got cut off by a bus. Some days I just feel like everyone got the "drive crazy" memo but me!

Anyways, onto the topic of today. I saw this via Glamour Fashion's twitter- a way to wear sequins in the DAY!! Fabulous for me because, well, I love sequins (who doesn't love some sparkle) but often don't really have anything glamorous enough to wear sequins to. This look would be a little daring and would probably get you some attention but I think I might try it and just wear it with confidence!  It would be a really fun fall weekend look. I think darker sequins would be better to keep it understated- of course you could go bright if you wanted to! If I try this outfit (er...WHEN I try this outfit) I'll be sure to post pics! If you love sequins you should give it a try too. ;-)

image via Glamour