Hey a Movie!: What I Will Be Doing Thanksgiving 2011

Words can seriously not express how excited I am about the latest Jason Segel movie.

I've been a fan of Jason Segel's since we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall a few years back and now, of course, we love him on How I Met Your Mother. Husband likes Amy Adams so this movie is going to be something we'll both enjoy.

It's called Green With Envy and here's the trailer.



PSYCH!

Oh my gosh. Even the trailer is freakin' awesome, utilizing the ol' switch-a-roo, one of my favorite things ever!

I've been a fan of the Muppets since I was just a mini-princess. My family still tells tales of me whining to my uncle, "No MASH. Muppets!" when he wanted to watch MASH and I wanted to watch The Muppet Show.  And just a few weeks ago, I insisted that Husband watch The Great Muppet Caper with me when I found it on television!

I'd heard a while back that Jason Segel was a Muppets fan (some of you may recall him playing the theme to The Muppet Show during one of  his depressed scenes in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and that only made me love him more!

Whee! I can't wait!

Another Saturday Night: Justin Timberlake hosting Saturday Night Live

By now I'm sure most of you have seen (or at least heard about) Justin Timberlake hosting the season finale of Saturday Night Light, with musical guest Lady GaGa.

Husband and I DVR Saturday Night Live every week and watch it over breakfast on Sunday morning. That said, we're not really big fans of the show. Many of the current "stars" are overrated (i.e. Kristen Wiig), their sketches are out of date (i.e. The Lawrence Welk Show. Seriously, SNL?) and the writers couldn't properly end a sketch if their lives depending on it.

But for some reason we continue to watch.

I said to Husband before he hit "Play" yesterday that if they couldn't manage a funny show with a host like Justin Timberlake and the biggest musical act in the world, they had better be planning some pretty big renovations over at SNL this summer.

Luckily for the cast and crew of SNL, the show was funny. Probably the funniest show of the year (not that that's saying much).

I'm always excited when Justin Timberlake hosts Saturday Night Live. Not because I'm a Justin Timberlake fan. Because I really don't think I am. In fact, if you had asked me 10 years ago in the height of his N*Sync days, I would have said I hated him.

But slowly, over the past decade, he's begun to grow on me.

Sure I still don't own any of his albums. And I'd never go see him in concert. But somehow his mixture of halfway decent acting and not taking himself seriously has won me over, despite myself.

It's weird how we shape our opinions of celebrities, people whom we've never (and probably won't ever) met. Over the Easter weekend, my family and I had an interesting conversation. My sister had read an article about Gwyneth Paltrow and how many people seem to inexplicably hate her. (For the record, I did try to locate the exact article, but when I Googled "Gwyneth Paltrow" and "dislike" about seventy pages of articles popped up. Seems this topic is nothing new in the media.)

I'd read the same article and chimed in, "Yeah I hate Gwyneth Paltrow and I seriously can't figure out a reason why."

Gwyneth Paltrow has done nothing to offend me. In fact, I've really only ever seen a few of her movies (Sliding Doors, which I loved, and Shallow Hal, which is actually kind of sweet). I've never really seen her outside of acting either: I don't watch daytime or late night television so I rarely see a celebrity interviewed. But yet the very thought of her makes me cringe.

I feel the same way about George Clooney. For some completely unknown reason, I hate him. This is despite an adorable article I read in Time magazine several years ago. George comes to the interviewer's home for dinner, ends up in the climbing around in the attic trying to locate a smoke detector, and then two days later bumps into the interviewer again at a local restaurant, where he invites him to join his party.

Talk about an everyman! I should love George Clooney!

But I don't.

Conversely, I always think that I love Alec Baldwin. He's hysterical on 30 Rock and for the last ten years has stolen every single movie he's appeared in (his role in The Departed in particular was truly inspired). Then he appears on Real Time with Bill Maher or 60 Minutes and I realize that he's actually rather obnoxious: political to the point of nauseousness, arrogant, and generally not at all funny.

That doesn't stop me from tuning in to 30 Rock every week and defending him when a co-worker attacks him, which occurs on a regular basis. A few years back some of Alec's voicemail messages to his daughter were leaked, causing a public relations nightmare. In one of the messages he called her a "little pig" and my co-worker simply will not forgive him for that, despite how critically acclaimed his work may be.

Husband has a total irrational hatred of Jake Gyllenhaal. I'm not entirely sure when it started, but he hates him and is convinced that he's only 5 feet tall. In reality, Jake is over 6 feet tall, but even if they were standing next to each other, Husband wouldn't believe it.

Are there any celebrities who you irrationally dislike? Or that you suddenly realized that you actually liked? I'm sure I can't be the only one out there who does this!

Rapture: What I Wore

So I thought my days of being able to post these colder weather outfits were numbered, but it seems like I was wrong. It's May 18 and it's 50 degrees outside. And raining. It's seriously like The Day After Tomorrow out there, which is appropriate considering some wacky folks are convinced that the world is going to end on Saturday.

Sugar-Coated Shirtdress, Anthropologie

Sweater, Loft

Leggings, Macys

Franto Sarto Panko Boots, Macys

Belt, Kohls

So was the first round of markdowns in Anthropologie's tag sale as disappointing to everyone else as it was to me? I emailed my mom and sister to ask them. My mom responded that nothing on her wish list was marked down and that she agreed with me. My goofy sister agreed with me too but then listed out the ten things she had already ordered and was considering going back for more!

I'm holding out hopes that we get better second week markdowns and maybe even an extra % off promotion, particularly since my birthday is next month and I'd love to treat myself to some pretties in honor of my third decade of life!

Happy Wednesday!

The Way You Look Tonight: What I Wore

Since it's finally been warm enough to start dressing for spring, I figured that I should start to clear out some of my outfits from way back in April when I was still freezing my geezer off on a daily basis.

Evening Lilac Top, Anthropologie

Acting Out Skirt, Anthropologie

Hue Tights, Macy's

AK Anne Klein pumps, Macy's

Pandora Bracelet

Necklace, Kohls

Honora Sterling Cultured Pearl Tutti Fruitti Dangle Hoops, QVC (available here)

*EDIT* I totally mislabeled these earrings! These were a gift from wonderful Husband for our Fourth Anniversary back in March. Get it? Fourth Anniversary is fruit; these are Tutti Fruitti hoops? Oh I'm so clever!

This top was my first purchase in my recent attempt to basically wear pajamas to work: it's super comfortable and soft and yet looks rather polished and appropriate for the office. Since this top, I've supplemented my collection of "practically pajamas officewear" with the Monthly Meetup Pullover and two Translucent Dolman Tees.

With my new job comes a lot of reading and writing and frankly, it's just not comfortable doing that when I'm all dolled up. Thus far, I've gotten no reprimands and even a few compliments on my evening to day-wear so I'm thinking if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Happy Wednesday!

Throwing Around Blog-Weight

Have any of you fellow bloggers ever done this?

My situation: I ordered pair of sandals on 4/28. My local running store had done a review of the Montrail Lithia Loop Sandal and I knew immediately that I needed to own it. Every summer I buy a new pair of sandals, typically Reefs, and every year I kick myself for trudging around all summer in a sandal with absolutely zero arch support. These Lithias sounded amazing though and I immediately searched around online for the best deal.

So order placed on 4/28, I get an email confirmation of my order, and then...nothing.

I start to get a little annoyed. So much so that I go to the customer service page of the site where I'd ordered the shoes and fire off an email inquiring where my shoes are. They are listed as in stock on the website so what's the problem.

And then I get no response to my email!

Now I'm super ticked off. I could have bought these shoes from a thousand other places and this particular site doesn't even have a cancel order button so I'm just at their mercy until they decide to cancel the order themselves or ship the damn sandals.

My second email to customer service went out today. In essence I said that I wanted a response THIS AFTERNOON via email that my shoes were shipping TODAY or else I wanted the order cancelled. Then for good measure, I added a sentence about how I would say nasty things about the website and even nastier things about their customer service on my blog if I didn't hear back from them.

Less than an hour later, I got an shipment confirmation email. I can't say definitively that the idea of being slammed on a blog is what finally lit a fire under this company, but it seems pretty significant that less than an hour after I make the threat, the sandals are on their way to me.

Because it looks like I'm actually going to receive my sandals, I won't say which website I was dealing with, but I will certainly thing long and hard before I order from them again.

Has anyone else ever done this? I've never before considered having a blog to put me in a position of power when it comes to retailers, but it seems like that could be the case. Or am I thinking myself too important? Or maybe it was just that I gave them an ultimatum: ship the shoes or lose the sale?

In any event, I'm quite pleased with myself and am patting myself on the back for a job well done (even if I'm not entirely sure how I did it!)

Happy Monday!

Anthropologie Fitting Room Reviews (Translucent Dolman Tee, Hamatreya Skirt, Cultivation Skirt)

One of my favorite things is returning to Anthropologie after a short absence. When I'm in the store too often, it seems like none of the new arrivals are the things I'm excited about. But insert a few weeks before excursions and suddenly the whole store seems like my playground! On Friday evening I had some shopping to do and just couldn't resist hitting up Anthro to try some things on.

Translucent Dolman Tee, size Large (originally $38, now $19.95)

 

So as many of you know, Kim over at Anthroholic is obsessed with this tee, so much so that she bought it in two colors! I've been trying to acquire more comfortable clothes recently (so much of my current wardrobe is fitted and dressy) so this tee seemed like it could fit right into a more casual look. My store had tons of this top in a variety of sizes and colors, including the lovely green which is now sold out online, so I stood for a good five minutes trying to decide what color to select. In the end, I grabbed the grey motif, which is the color that I had originally liked so much when Kim wore it here.

I was kind of surprised at how much I liked this top! I had gone with a Large because I wanted it to gather properly around my hips and that turned out to be the perfect size. Seriously I cannot stress how comfortable this top is: the fabric is so lightweight and silky. It felt like I was wearing jammies. I didn't find the grey motif to be "translucent" as the name suggests but I'm sure some of the lighter varieties could be. Despite that, I'd still wear a tank underneath it to the office. The price point was so great that I couldn't resist taking this home with me and today I woke up to news that I was eligible for a price adjustment! Hurray!

Hamatreya Skirt, size 12 ($88)

Truth be told, this skirt was the reason why I stopped by Anthro in the first place. I'd seen that Jacquelyn had found the skirt in her local store and reviewed it here so I was hopeful that it would be in my store as well. I literally did two laps around the store on the prowl for this skirt before I picked up a single other thing and practically squealed when I finally found it.

Sadly, that was the extent of my happiness over this skirt. I'd suspected that the fit would be off for me. As cute as the Thousand Days Skirt, Circle the Globe Skirt, and Field Skirt are, they have just not worked for me. I did manage to incorporate a Field Skirt into my wardrobe this winter, but I can only wear it with tights, which seem to anchor the skirt in place. Otherwise the skirt slips up to my ridiculously high waist, making it totally indecent length-wise. The fit was fine and I didn't find the skirt to be too poofy or even the pattern to be too juvenile (one of the biggest criticisms of this skirt), but even in the five minutes I stood in the fitting room, I had to tug the darn thing down a good four times to keep it in place. And since my waist is so high, the skirt ends up making me look so much wider than I actually am when it's further down on my torso.

Despite all that, I still really do kind of love this skirt and would still consider it come sale time!

Cultivation Skirt, size Large ($68)

This was my attempt at a more adult print alternative to the Hamatreya Skirt. Unfortunately the fit issues were the same and even sitting (unflatteringly) on my low waist, this skirt felt insanely short! I think this skirt is a great option for folks who like the color palate of the Hamatreya Skirt, but not the pattern and for $68? Holy great deal, Batman!

I have a few more reviews that hopefully I'll get up in the next few days. Hopefully everyone is having a great week!

Happy Tuesday!