Everyone Loves a Boston Girl

Happy New Year!!! And what’s a new year if not for making resolutions? Seriously. I know it’s cliche and people rarely follow through with them and blah blah blah. But my philosophy has always been: Since when is making goals a bad thing? It’s not. And this year I’m feeling good about it.

Considering I started my year with a huge plate of cinnamon rolls, weight-loss and healthy eating clearly didn’t make the list of resolutions. But that’s OK, because I’ve got a big one this year.

Drum roll, please…

1) Get Organized!!!!!:

This is my main goal of the year. Ladies and gentleman, I am a mess. I’m able to admit it and now I need to do something about it. Other than shoving more junk under the bed and ignoring more e-mails. My file box is overflowing with tax papers and important documents. My bedroom is filled with food magazines with half the recipes torn out. Last year’s calendar was filled out to July 2010 when it abruptly stopped. And not because my life stopped. Sometimes I feel too deep in to crawl out. But this is the year I’m doing it. I’m crawling out from the masses of papers, e-mails, clothing, and stress.

So, starting now in 2011, I vow to:

a) Completely organize my files. I even bought a brand new file cabinet… I just haven’t touched it yet. But that will be changing in the coming weeks as I rifle through my massive amount of (scary) papers and try to be organized. I work for myself, so um, this is kind of necessary and I’m sure I’ll be feeling the pain come April.

b) Finish ripping recipes out of my magazines, throwing the magazines out, and putting the recipes in their respective scrapbooks. Continue doing this with each magazine I get in 2011. Come on, Susie, it’s really not that hard.

c) Keep my GCal and Filofax completely up-to-date. Throughout the entire year. Because things happen. And I can’t keep them all in my head.

d) Keep my e-mail accounts at zero! You have NO idea what a big deal this will be for me. Earlier this week my e-mail accounts were at 1,366 (personal) and 1,839 (work). That’s NEW e-mail. Now, I have them down to zero, meaning all e-mail has been answered and everything has been archived. I need to keep this up and it doesn’t sound hard but for me? It is. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried. But it’s never lasted more than a week. I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I hate answering e-mails and procrastinate like nobody’s business.

e) Putting my clothes away every night before bed. Instead of having them strewn around my bedroom. No, I’m not 12 years old. Yes, I live with my fiance. Yes, I know this needs to stop.

f) Staying organized with the wedding planning process from the start. I need to keep everything together and not spread out around the house. And I need to keep notes on every vendor we talk to (fun fact: I am the WORST note-taker in the world. I always think “Pshh I’ll remember this; I don’t have to take notes.” And I always forget).

g) Keep on top of blog posts, especially for We are not Martha. Again, I often cook a meal and then wait to blog about it for week or so. And then I forget what it tastes like and end up rushing a blog post. From now on, I’ll write the posts as I make the food. And I’ll take my time. And read things over. And work on making the best posts I possibly can. Really, I will. Maybe going along with this should also be to stay on top of my Google Reader.

e) Make a to-do list every day. And work my hardest to complete items on to-do list. I’m usually good with lists for about 3 days in a row before they just stop.

f) Send out thank you cards, birthday cards, etc. in a timely manner. That means I need to send out my thank you cards from Christmas now. It’s rude not to send thank you cards and I’m a freaking adult now so I need to grow the heck up.

g) Take a few nights off. I generally never end my work days. I work from the time I get up until the time I go to sleep… with a few breaks in between. It’s what I have to do to make money and get ahead, but I hope by the end of 2011, I can have my career organized enough that putting the computer away for an evening or two is not a big deal.

2) Um, do I really need a #2?? Did you not happen to see all those resolutions up above? Honestly, if I can get myself completely organized in 2011, I will be the happiest person ever. OK fine, I’d also like to save money, too. A lot of it. You know, wedding’s don’t come cheap. Nor does the eventual house we want to buy. Nor do all the clothes I want to wear. Le sigh. I think I need a life coach or something.

Here’s to a well-organized and prosperous 2011. I can’t wait to look back on this in December of 2011 and see how I did. Eeeek. Taking bets now. Go.

(Shhhh)

Just when I started realizing how 2011 was already becoming packed with fun stuff, I got a new fun little task for the year. Plan a wedding! Yup, I got engaged and am now wearing this beautiful sparkler on my finger (squeeee!):

I’m amazingly excited and in love and just so, so happy. Plus, I can’t believe what an awesome job Chris did picking out my ring. OK, I believe it because he is pretty awesome, but I love it more than I ever thought I’d love a ring

I’ve never really been one of those girls who grew up planning my wedding. In fact, I go through phases of “big weddings are such a waste of money, ugh” and “omg can’t wait to plan our big, amazing wedding!!” So, this whole process will be interesting. I’m not much of a DIYer (my artistic gene is missing), but I might try to get into it some, considering we’ll probably have plenty of time. And the one thing I know is that we want the wedding to be totally 100% personalized to us.

I think it’s funny that the second I told people we got engaged, they asked 1) when will your wedding be?! and 2) where will your wedding be?! Answers? No clue! I mean, we’re both fairly certain that we want a Boston wedding, but other than that, absolutely everything is up in the air. I would probably die to get married in the Boston Public Library, but I’m pretty sure the price tag on that is outrageous. I have a few place I know I want to look at, but everything is pretty much up in the air right now.

In any event, I’m totally excited to start researching, checking out venues, and all that fun wedding stuff.

But for now, I need a good wedding planner/organizer! I tend to be a huge spazzy mess when planning things (especially when planning lasts a year+), so I need a way to keep VERY organized. Thoughts? Here are the ones choosing between:

(The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner)

(Martha Stewart’s Keepsake Wedding Planner)

(The Complete Wedding Planner and Organizer)

Obviously I’m leaning toward the Martha Stewart one, but would love to hear any thoughts.

And wedding planning… Go!

You want to know something? I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing for New Year’s Eve this year. And furthermore, I really don’t care. I’m at that point in life where I’m just plain happy to be here hanging out with people I love. And I’m so over expectations. And spending over $100 to go to a hotel with a bunch of random people and drink my face off. In an expensive dress. Well, the expensive dress part is nice. But expensive.

But whether or not I’ll be purchasing one this year, I’m still allowed to lust over New Year’s Eve dresses. Right? I really just can’t help myself. Though I feel like I haven’t seen too many amazing party dresses, the one I have seen and loved have really blown my mind. Like so freaking awesome.

I kinda of really, really (REALLY!) need this feathered Jovani. Unfortunately, it’s $640, which is quite a bit over my budget, even for New Year’s. But seriously? This dress is my idea of heaven. (And the skirt is like a nice fluffy heavenly cloud).

This Parker is a bit more reasonably priced at $297.00 and just as glitzy and glamorous. I’m totally feeling the sequin thing this year.

I just can’t get over the feathered dress look this year. Santa, please bring me this ASOS feather corset dress.

There’s not much from Alice + Olivia I don’t like, but this Maggie Strapless Sequin Dress is way up there on my list ($484). More sequins! Grey! Perfection.

OK, if we’re talking budget (and you know I hate talking budget), I suppose either of these will do.

This Express Sequin and Chiffon Dress is actually totally up my alley ($98).

And this Dillard’s Extraordinary Strapless Sequined Dress is only $79! The girl wearing it is totally 12 years old. But that’s OK because I’m definitely fine wearing a junior’s dress. Shopping the juniors department is one of the best things you can do for your wallet.

And it’s a good thing I’m not getting married right now because I’d totally be all over the skirt of Nicole Richie’s Marchesa wedding dress. Some might see it as excessive; I’m too busy swooning (and drooling). It just happens to be 100 yards of organza and tulle. She looks stunning and this is just perfect.

Hey, you can’t say I don’t  know myself quite well. And now, I suddenly want to buy a New Year’s Eve party dress just so I can sit in my apartment and sparkle.

The thing I love about my family is that we’re all about the parties. Anything we can celebrate, we will. And so, my very favorite parties are those that occur around the dinner table with my family, celebrating birthdays, holidays, and more.

I know. I’m an old woman. I’d rather sit around the dinner table at my parents’ house, eating steak and birthday cake and playing board games. And yes, I refer to those occasions as “parties.” What of it? But wait, there is always wine. Lots of wine! And sometimes even martinis. And occasionally even champagne. So, therefore, yes, I believe these events do qualify as parties. Take that.

Other than that, in January 2010, we celebrated We are not Martha’s 2-year anniversary and had a superbly fun party, complete with lots of people, tons of food, a glorious cake, and a full bar. No board games were involved.

But there were super fabulous gift bags:

Happy faces:

And SO SO many of our friends, family, and fellow bloggers. So, yeah I guess that was the party of 2010 for me.

Hopefully 2011 brings many more “parties.” And a whole lot more board games. Bring it ’11.

This post was in response to #reverb10, with prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

As a blogger, Bostonian, community manager, and human, I feel like I have so many different views of community. And I’m so lucky to have so many different communities interspersed in so many different areas of my life. But the most important community is and has always been that of family.

At the beginning of this year, my sister and brother-in-law moved right down the street from me. Literally, a 4 minute walk away. And while my sister and I have always been “close,” we’ve never lived near each other as adults. And though I’ve lived in Boston for 5 years without her, there’s something so comforting about knowing my big sister is just a couple blocks away.

I still often forget they’re living so close. But then I’ll get a phone call or a text saying, “wanna come over?” and it’s like “oh yeah, we can do that!” Between my boyfriend, sister, brother-in-law, it’s like we have our own little community. And while yes, we kinda have to love each other, we don’t actually have to like each other. And the older I get, the more I appreciate that we do.

And without the community of family, I have no idea who I’d be (of course, my parents are included in that community, too).

Wait. I said “sister,” not “Sister Wives.” That’s a whooole different kinda community.

OK, fine. That’s Community, too (The NBC show I sometimes find funny). Ugh.

This post was in response to #reverb10 day 7, with prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010?