friday. october twenty two.

I followed myself around all day. I documented the mundane, the precious, the working... all of it. You may be interested, or you may be bored to tears. If you are bored to tears, apologies in advance.

(*no one likes a copy cat - but I have to admit that I am 100% stealing this idea from one of my favorite bloggers. I haven't decided if I'll link it or not, her life is much more glamorous than mine*)

October 22, 2010:

6:00am: smell of coffee, goodbye kiss from eric.

7:30-8:00: snooze 4x, shower, get ready.

This is my product line up from left to right in chronological order.

1. Complex 15 (amazing face moisturizer) 2. Origins: Quick, Hide!* 3 & 4. Bare Minerals 5. CG Bronzer 6. TooFaced: Rich Bitch 7. Maybelline Define-a-Lash

*(I swear by this stuff. I have used it since the 5th grade: A bully called me 'death' because I have really dark circles under my eyes and my mom - being amazing like she is - bought my this concealer and some natural blush. She had the Origins lady teach my how to use it. She told me that I was beautiful just the way I am, but if it would make me feel better, I could use it. And I still am, 13 years later.)

The great boot debate. I never wear heals, but I was seriously contemplating wearing the beauties on the left which are hand-me-downs from my aunt. {who is way more stylish than I'll ever be} I went with my favorite Steve Madden riding boots. Shawl cardigan from jcrew last winter. Jeans are the only pair of American Eagle jeans that have ever come close to being long enough. Scarf is also a hand-me-down from my grams.

I left our condo and it was a beautiful (but COLD) autumn day in Michigan. This here is my weak attempt at some fall decor on our patio. The yellow mums and the smaller pumpkin are a surprise from my amazing and kind land lord. Who I'd like to adopt as an aunt.

Then I get in my car, which is only 5 years old and has 107,600 miles on it. The poor thing has been coated in mud for the past 4 weeks now (dirt roads on a rainy day are a pain). I think she cries at night.

30 minute drive. Arrive at work. And make it to my desk - that has collected an ever growing amount of toys and randomness over the last 3.5 years.

From L to R: Two of my favorite books - 1000 Packaging Designs & Design Matters: Packaging, toy truck from The UPS Store print shoot, Marley Coffee (given to me by Bob Marley's son, Rohan, himself), Killians Irish Red & Heineken bottles (necessities for late nights in advertising) killians label is colored with sharpies and the heini bottle has a flower in it, various toys, and a framed photo of me and my beautiful little sister.

My little sister made the drive to come have lunch with me {at Potbelly's! - Uptown salad is to die for!} and visit for the afternoon! My salad didn't last long enough to take a picture of.

Meet Amanda (who is also more stylish than I)

She's reading the blog that inspired this randomness. Notice our matching purses? Recently I got sucked into the Vera Bradley trend. {my mother, grandmother, and sister are all obsessed}

My grandmother who has been into Vera Bradley since the 80's when the company was born, bought me this purse (my very first vera purse - oh my!) It's grown on me too. I love the style, and it's so lightweight! Mailbag in Dahlia.

Then Amanda left and I decided to victimize Rachel, my lovely copywriter partner. We discuss all sorts of randomness. She recently got married in August so she's been a great sounding board for wedding ideas. We talk about crazy dreams, our goals in life, our love for animals, and pretty much every single thought that come to our minds - it get's pretty ridiculous. When you're stuck in a gray box together for 8+ hours a day, that happens. She just started a blog of her own not long ago. Check it out!

While I'm at it, I might as well share that I'm jealous of her owl mug. super cute.

I never wear gold, but I love this thing. If you haven't explored Forever 21 or For Love 21... you gotta. I think this thing was like $3. Love it.

Once I got through the craziness of the day it's off to meet one of my most favorite persons, Jenna, at one of my most favorite restaurants, California Pizza Kitchen. Two Bell's Oktoberfest's please! (If you haven't had the privilege of Michigan brews, I apologize) Look how cute she is...

We split an Original Chopped Salad and The Works pizza. DELICIOUS. If you've never been to CPK, you're missing out. It's the best. We chatted about work, a lot, our fellas, and more randomness.

Then, we went on to Borders Books to have our first business meeting. Jenna and I call each other 'ninja'. That story is for another day. Short version: we used to be partners in advertising and we always had to initial our work Niki & Jenna/ N&J... somehow, someway, that morphed into "ninjas". It stuck.

We talked about future classes we want to take (we crossed 'motorcycle endorsement class' off the list in September - we are both legally allowed to drive motorcycles on the road. watch out!) And we talked about our bucket list, and then we did some serious brainstorming on a business endeavor that I'll hopefully be able to tell you more about someday! Take note: GOOD magazine = awesome goodness. Here is our to-do list that Jenna so beautifully drew up for us.

GOOD magazine featured this book: Rework. We previewed it in the store and decided to order it on amazon. 2 lovely books should be on my doorstep next week. One for each of us. (a girl's gotta save money when she can - sorry Borders. Amazon won) We can't wait to read it. And if you're making fun of us for hanging at Borders on a Friday night, ordering books and talking about our future, - I don't blame you! :)

We commence our meeting and feel inspired.

I finally picked up Eric's wedding band that has been sitting at the jewelers for 2 months now. It's a chisel cut Tungsten Carbide ring with satin finish and beveled edges. I love it. This is what I'd like if I was a boy. He picked it out all by himself too. From Medawar Jewelers.

Then it's on to meet with friends and my fiance at a Tanya and Justin's house. There was a lot of laughing, baked goods (Tanya is an amazing host), autumn seasonal beer (Leinenkugels Oktoberfest - yummy), and singing/guitar playing.

And when I say singing/guitar playing, I wasn't kidding. I even got a song all to myself, thanks to Justin:

The video was quite possibly the highlight of my night. My cheeks hurt from laughing.

I should mention how awesome Tanya is, I'm sorry I didn't take a good picture of her for this. She loves to paint nails, and every time I see her I get freshly painted nails! She should open up her own salon. This time the choice color was 'Light my Saphire' by OPI. Love it.

Meet my friend Tommy, he's a big ol' goofball. And we take goofy picture together all the time. That's just what we do.

After lots of shenanigans at Tanya & Justin's house we were off to Legends, a local bar where all of our friends were. Our one friend, Cathy, has twin nephews that were celebrating their 21st birthdays and there were a ton of people there to join. Might of had something to do with the fact that there was a stripper waiting in the party bus, in the parking lot, for the boys and everyone who wanted to join the show.

These are my friends Kurt, and the infamous Bob S - who is always a good time and plenty of entertainment (if you can't see that for yourself). Thumbs up.

Well, if you know my friends, of course they wanted to go see a stripper. To them it's more of a joke than anything. We got on the bus - which was jam packed. The 'exotic dancer' was um, well, interesting. The bus was crammed and eventually we found out they were leaving the parking lot. So we got off the bus (thank goodness) *Sidenote: this is not something that occurs often on my weekends. I should also mention that I'm not crazy about bars these days. However, the people watching is amazing. I should have documented that now that I think about it. This is Tommy, very excited for the stripper.

This is Garret, it's his Birthday too. You can tell by the party attire. Note the tuxedo t-shirt, hoodie, and suit jacket. He always has the best outfits found from the local thrift store. He told me that some day he'll take me and teach me how to shop thrift stores like he does. Good stuff.

We left Legends, made a pit stop at Mickey D's, and stayed the night at Eric's brother's house nearby. I watched HGTV and crashed on the couch. It was a very long and random day, but a good day.