L.L. Bean Booties

Have you seen these? I think they are hilarious! I wish TCP Baby still wore the Robeez type of shoes, because I would be forced to buy them for him. Speaking of which, remember the adorable lobster baby shoes that I posted a while back? Well, I still have not received them. I did pre-order them, so I knew it would be at least six weeks. But it has been much more than that. And the email that I received in response to my inquiry did not exactly inspire confidence, as it seemed to be written by someone without a very firm grasp of the English language. At this rate, they'll be too small for him by the time they arrive! Stay tuned, I might be posting a TCP Rant about this company soon...

Happy Halloween!!!

Three Unrelated Topics

Public Enemy #1

1. I am officially At War with the squirrels in my neighborhood. They devoured all three of my pumpkins! The last one went down yesterday. They bit through the skin, climbed inside, and scattered seeds and pumkin guts all over my porch. And these were not small pumpkins. Horrid little buggers. So now I'm torn...do I run out and get another one tonight, so we can have a jack o'lantern for Halloween and pumpkin seeds to eat, or do I call it a day? I hate to admit defeat, especially when fighting a rodent. But google tells me that I am not the only one! Squirrels are evil and must be stopped.

2. An interesting article (along the lines of my recent post) in Slate today about the great books that famous critics and authors have never managed to read.

3. I found yet another cute longall for TCP Baby for the holidays. Decisions, decisions.

Lands' End Free Shipping Ends Today!

Here's what I have in my shopping bag right now....

Baby/Toddler Fleece Helmet and Mitten Set in Dark Cherry Red...to be monogrammed, of course. The child has already nearly outgrown his first hat of the season!

Boys' Fair Isle Family Holiday Sweater in Parrot Green...perfect for the holidays.

Women's 21-wale Corduroy Boot Cut Pants in Parrot Green. (are you sensing a theme here?)

I can't copy the pics for some reason (the zoom feature is tripping me up!), but believe me when I say that the little holiday sweater might be the cutest thing ever.

Self-Improvement Project

Here on the third coast, we have a trashy tabloid newspaper called The Red Eye. It's given away for free at el stops and contains a mixture of news-lite, celeb gossip, and local goings-on. It's trashy-- designed to be consumed and discarded in a single el ride. I realized over the summer that The Red Eye had become the only reading I was doing. People, I was an Lit major...I had fallen pretty far pretty fast.

So one day, I came across a link to the summer reading list for the Upper School of a rather well known prep school. (Don't ask me how I stumbled upon this. Fine. It was on urbanbaby.com. Shut up. I know.) I felt compelled to print it out. And I've been working my way through the list ever since, going to the library every two weeks or so. I knew I had read some of the books in the past, had forgotten that I read a few of them, had meant to read an awful lot of them, and had never heard of some of them.

So far, I've crossed off 78 books. I'm keeping this list until I finish reading all of them. No deadline, though I am a pretty fast reader. So far, I've only returned one book without finishing it--Cane, by Jean Toomer. I just couldn't read it.

I'm adding a new sidebar featuring what I'm reading at the moment. I'm a total nerd when it comes to novels, so feel free to ask me about any of them. Just because one likes to keep up with what Britney has done this time doesn't mean that's all we read!

Seriously!

Dear Hallmark,

There is no need to remove half of your regular merchandise prior to October 25th (including specific cards that I wanted to purchase) in order to make way for Christmas stuff!! If you must do so, do not then direct me to another Hallmark store several blocks away, assuring me that they have the cards I seek, when they have done the same damn thing. I cannot handle The Rage that this provokes.

xo,

TCP

M-O-M-M-Y needs C-O-F-F-E-E

Do you all know that song? By Ralph's World? God, it is so true today. Also, it is completely stuck in my head.

...I need a latte, a capuccino, and tonight, I think I'll have a little vino...

This is the kind of children's music I can get behind.

Mr. TC's birthday was yesterday. He's traveling for work, as usual, so we aren't celebrating until this weekend. This is good, because one of his gifts has not yet arrived and the other, well, his brother got him the exact same thing that I had bought (and already wrapped!) for TCP Baby to give to him. So, anyone have any great ideas? What's your foolproof gift for the guy who says he wants nothing and has everything?

Good Month for Magazines

Loos like I'll have great reading material for the commute in November!

An Open Letter

Dear Hearst Magazines,

Town & Country is one of my favorites and I look forward to reading it each and every month. So when I received a statement to renew my subscription at the low subscriber rate of $26, I planned to drop a check in the mail. Until I received an email from you today with a special! limited! time! offer! of subscriptions to a variety of magazines, including Town & Country, for only $6.99. You might want to have the left hand check out what the right hand is doing...

xo,

TCP

Doing My Christmas Dreaming a Little Early This Year

I think this would be adorable for TCP Baby for Christmas. In black or maybe red corduroy*? With a plaid shirt? It's from new (to me) discovery Sophie Says. I need to measure TCP Baby before I order it, though, to see how long it would be. I don't know if a john-john is always shorts length, but that would not cut it in December around these parts.

Although, it's mid-October and supposed to be 80 degrees today, so who knows?

*Why does that always look like it's misspelled? I did spellcheck, and it is allegedly correct, but it still looks weird...

First of all, I think it is hilarious that a discussion of The Hills has garnered me the most comments to date. My readers clearly have excellent taste in television.

I am so frustrated right now. I am trying to win a $1,000 shopping spree at Lilly, but need to fill out a survery to be entered. But the fricking computer is working against me--I keep getting an error message that "Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000e' Out of string space /piq/generatesurvey.asp, line 1655." Jerks at microsoft clearly do not understand the lure of a new LP wardrobe!!

Two for Tuesday

1. When you wear a sweater over an oxford shirt, do you usually go collar in or out? Wearing one right now and trying to decide. I usually keep them tucked in, but it looks weird today for some reason. Maybe the neckline of the sweater?

2. Is there anyone in the free world, besides Heidi, who believes that Spencer did not spread The Rumor? He is so vile.

Ready for Turkey Day!

TCP Baby just got this in the mail from the always adorable Maggie & Alison. Could it be any cuter? Perfect for Thanksgiving!

Mother's Little Helper

No, not that kind.

If your midsection has endured pregnancy, you already know what I'm talking about.

SPANX.

That's right. I said it. From Gwyneth to Julia, the ladies in Hollywood have 'fessed up. I had to go to a wedding less that one month post-partum (sidenote: this was a bad, bad idea) so you know I bought some. Not content to simply improve the waistlines of America, Spanx is giving back to the community--and saving you some dough in the process. The Junior League of Chicago has a special promotional code (Chicago) good for a 25% discount on any online purchase at http://www.spanx.com during October 2007. For each order placed using this special online promotional code, SPANX will donate $5 back to our League.

If I keep eating these damn pumpkin bars at my current rate, I won't be able to leave the house without wearing a pair!

Finally!

Fall has arrived on the Third Coast at long last! It's been sweater weather for the past two days, and you know how happy that makes me. I mean, I'll still drink the pumpkin spice latte when it's 90 degrees outside, but it tastes much better when it's in the 50s. How crazy is it that I've had both the a/c on and the heat on in the past four days?

The cool weather inspired me to bake--I finally made those pumpkin bars with brown butter icing. Oh.Mah.Gawd. They are so good. The icing, in particular, is to die for. (And I'm not usually a frosting girl. But this? Is legendary.)

Thanks for all the nice wishes for TCP Toddler's birthday! The party went off without a hitch, even though we eventually ended up moving things indoors--the fact that it was eleventy billion degrees out made it a bit too warm for the birthday boy and the octegenarian great-grandparents in particular. But he had a blast with his cake and now my living room looks like FAO Schwartz exploded all over it. Now I need to finish up his (read: my) thank you notes. He's run out of his personalized note cards, so I'm in the market for some new ones. Once again, little boys get the shaft. I cannot tell you how many cute pink -n- green things I have seen for little girls, but the options are so much more limited for boys. Consider this my personal plea, all you crafty, Etsy types: Please make cute things for boys too!!! So far, here are my contenders:

Cute, but pricey, from Pen & Parchment:

And a new discovery (god bless google), Amy Adele, has some really cute ones:

I think I'm leaning toward the bugs from Amy Adele. But we really need to start working on this kid's penmanship so he can write his own notes!!

Slippery Slope of Shopping

So, it should surprise no one that the (non-price adjusted) boots have not been returned. In fact, I am now in love with them. I wore them earlier this week and had one of those days where all is right with the world because you really, really like your outfit. I know that must sound shallow, but when I feel like I am pulled together, I have a much happier outlook on life.

But here is where the trouble begins. Now that I have The (free due to gift card) Boots, I keep seeing all these (not free) things that would look Just Sensational with my Boots. Like these courduroy skirts from Skirt Spot:

Aren't they adorable? I also saw a ton of cute fall skirts at Talbots when I was in Virginia. I didn't try any on, as I was on my way to the airport at that point and could not fit even one more thing into my bag. But again, how cute would this be with The Boots? Also, Ann Taylor Loft has some lovely skirts that called to me... This is how it starts...