Skip's Boston Reunion

Oh, happy weekend!

My lovely friends from W&L were reunited with yours truly in Boston after a 6-year hiatus. It's so reassuring to know that some friends never change or, more accurately, evolve with you. It was fantabulous.

You can view more of the (duplicative) fun here.

Skip's Self-Portrait #3,542

At Mary's Wedding

Skip Loves Mrs. Smith

RTT and I had the lovely lovely pleasure of attending the Miss Mary Woodard (now Mrs. Mary Smith) wedding celebration in Houston, TX this past Saturday. The Houston heat and humidity and an eerie feeling that concrete was slowly eating the city alive were such a burden to bear for four whole days (I was actually looking forward to my return to boring Boston). On the other hand, the welcoming spirit of its hosts, decadent Southern food and friends aplenty made the entire trip completely worthwhile.

More than anything, though, it was Mary's stunning performance as the bride that made me melt with happiness, sink with euphoric love, and smile with sincere jubilation. She was the picture of perfection -- beatific, humble, unbelievably gorgeous, statuesque and graceful. It was as if she floated on an air of earnest, genuine love for Jonathan. I cried. I was dazzled. Star-struck.

Truly. We should all be so lucky to experience the warm halo of such a dear friend's wedding.

Fast Forward

I told you I had been busy.

While it was never the objective to actually buy a new car last Saturday (we were merely browsing on the last day of the month), RTT and I just simply couldn't hold ourselves back.

We aimed to peruse the selections at an auto-mall-type setup just near Boston University. Honda, BMW, Infiniti, Saab and Nissan were all within walking distance from each other (and even owned by the same Herb Chambers) and open to inspect at our leisure. The thought was that we would eventually need a different automobile when the weather inevitably turned frigid and the Accord couldn't handle the icy roads and insanely, crazy, stupid Boston drivers (and, honestly, a vehicle that would make my 45-minute drive to a work a little less life-threatening). All our preconceived notions about purchase intent changed, however, when we laid eyes on Little Tiger.

We are such suckers.

Our lovely Little Tiger, returned that morning by a relocating couple and so named for the WWII German tank, is a barely broken-in 2006 BMW X3 in silver with black leather interior and the world's most amazing retracting roof. It is ridiculously, ridiculously fun to drive, unbelievably comfortable, has a killer sound system and, um, did I mention that the roof completely retracts?

It's the best 90 minutes of my day.

Jewelry Takes Time

Forgive me, dear readers! I have not been neglecting my blog without a good excuse. While it has been a good while, I've been very busy not planning my wedding, not saving money, and not going to the gym (that is literally one block away).

Rather, I've been very busy slaving away at Talbots, my new employer, as the Buyer for Fashion Accessories, Legwear and Jewelry. I have two lovely little minions to do my Fashion Accessories and Legwear bidding, but it's a one-woman show when it comes to the Jewelry. Where it took 9 people at Banana Republic to operate a $40M annual Jewelry business, at Talbots, it's yours truly who is running the $38M show. Yipes!

It's been quite an empowering, stressful, exciting and daunting month. The beauty of this whole arrangement, however, is that as the president-CEO-Chairwoman-Commander-Fascist-Leader of the Talbots Jewelry World, anything I see that I want to develop, design or make I simply make a few phone calls and voila!

This particular perk came in very handy, in fact, when I discovered the designs of a one Kep New York, the sole jewelry designer for Lilly Pulitzer who also has her own line. I was madly in love with the gloriously delicious Chrysophase and Pearl Necklace and the Tumbling Turquoise earrings, so I simply sent them to the vendor.

Just 2 weeks and my craving will be satiated! In the meantime, the rest of the world can buy the pieces from Kep's fab website.