Monthly Favorites: April

I was once again short on funds ($20 to last me 10 days sort of short…), so my monthly favorites are a bit meagre this month but no less awesome, promise. Without further ado…

Vince Camuto Snakeskin Heels –

I made a somewhat frivolous buy when I went to DSW a few weeks ago. I had intended to buy a pair of black ballet flats since mine are in disrepair but made a series of mistakes that led to my leaving DSW without them. First, I went into the clearance section and spied these gorgeous Vince Camuto heels, in my size no less. Second, I proceeded to try them on and they looked all sorts of gorgeous on my feet. Third, I noticed that they were 70% off. These black and white snakeskin heels with the ankle strap are normally $100, but at DSW they were $80 with an extra 70% off. I ended up getting these beauties for $24 when all was said and done. I really can’t resist a good bargain… I haven't worn them yet, but I’m going to love styling these. I can just as easily wear them with jeans as I can with a nice dress.

New York Color Nail Polish –

This wasn’t a new buy, but I rediscovered this NYC Tudor City Teal nail polish when I put it on for Easter. It seemed like a springy color (and matched my dress), and the rest is history, but I wore it so much that Dad started complaining about it! I Honestly, the polish doesn’t have the greatest staying power (it chipped something fierce by day 2), but the color is just so striking that I didn’t care. I got a ton of compliments on it too, so I might need to find a longer lasting version of it by another brand. Anyone have any ideas?

Special K Salted Caramel Chocolate Snack Bars –

I will eat just about anything if it’s covered in caramel, so this was the perfect snack for me. They fit easily into my bag when I’m running out the door in the morning to catch my train, and they’re great little pick-me-up snacks during the day. I’m not a huge fan of salty snacks, so this is the perfect balance of sweet and salty for me. Plus, at 100 calories a bar, what’s not to like?

Freesia –

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen the day I impulsively bought freesias instead of my typical bouquet of roses. They seemed spring-like to me, maybe because they remind me a bit of forsythias which are among the first flowers to bloom in spring by me. I loved the vibrant color of this bouquet but it’s the beautiful fragrance that has turned me into a freesia fan. I walk into my room after a long day of work and it smells like someone has just sprayed this subtle, sweet perfume. They’re a bit wild looking too which has made for a nice change.

Monthly Musings: April

Dad finally bought a New York Times subscription, and I may have gone a bit NY Times happy this month.  I felt very grown up reading the paper on my way to work though!

• The Duchess of Cambridge's Last Public Appearances Before Baby #2 - I've been a Kate watcher since the beginning, so as the birth of the second baby Cambridge approaches, I've been checking the Duchess Kate blog regularly.  Kate's style has always been inspiring to me, but I love how she dresses herself while pregnant.  She doesn't wear that frumpy, maternity clothes that we've come to expect of pregnant women; she's always fashionable. And the woman wore heels til the bitter end!
• Elle's "Do Unattached Women Have A Problem with Themselves?" -  An article on "what it's like to choose independence and a series of partners over becoming what [was] [...] once called 'that useful animal, a wife and mother',"  For someone who is determinedly single like me, this was really interesting!
• Medieval hospital burial ground discovered under Cambridge University - I happen to have a morbid fascinations with graveyards and cemeteries, but let's pretend I was only interested in this article for the historical stuff.
• What Bloggers Must Do to Follow FTC Disclosure Laws - Oddly Lovely breaks down the FTC Disclosure Laws in a way that actually made sense!
• NY Times' "A Century After the Armenian Genocide, Turkey's Denial Deepens" - I wrote a paper on the Armenian genocides for a history class, so I had a bit of background on this topic. I find it fascinating that the Turkish government is so resolute in its denial despite 1.5 million Armenians losing their lives and at least 15 countries recognizing the genocide (including the Council of Europe and the European Parliament).
• Buzzfeed's 34 of the Most Brilliant Shakespeare Quotes - The Bard's 451st birthday was yesterday, and I have always been a sucker for a great Shakespearean quote (especially the snarky ones)!  Fun fact: While I've grown to appreciate the beautiful language in Romeo & Juliet, I consider it one of Shakespeare's worst plays.  
• NY Times' "Hillary Clinton Announces 2016 Presidential Bid" - Hillary 2016! Enough said.
• 9 Benefits of Warm Water and Lemon in the Morning - I found Because I'm Addicted's post really interesting.  I didn't know that lemon could do so much!

Every Day is Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

I’m not a huge Earth Day celebrator, but I do think that taking a day to raise awareness about environmental protection is great. We all share this planet, not only with the people living now, but those in the future, so it’s important that we do our best to protect it. I think you’d have to be living under a rock not know about global warming, deforestation, and a slew other environmental issues (fracking is a huge one in my neighborhood).

Since the environmental movement started in the 1970s, we've made strides toward living more responsibly. I know that the sheer number of recycling receptacles in New York has grown in the last decade; animals like the Red Kangaroo and Bald Eagle have been saved by the Endangered Species Act; and the international community has started to take climate change seriously and start initiatives to reverse its effects.

I want to do my part, so this year I’m going to be more conscientious about my recycling. While I do recycle aluminum, glass, and plastic, I’m not always great when it comes to recycling paper (and I use a lot of it for work). So I’m going to change that.

• I’m going to read manuscripts for work on my Kindle rather than printing them out. Each time I have to read a manuscript for work, I’m printing anywhere from 200-600 pages. I’m going to try to get in the habit of reading them electronically.
• I’m going to use double-sided printing.
• I’m going to recycle paper, not just throw it in the trash.

Are you going to do anything in honor of Earth Day?

Reading List #1

I devour books, or at least I used to. Back when I was in high school, I was the sort of person who’d go through 2-3 books a week on top of whatever I was reading for my English lit class. Things started to change once I went to college though. My reading load—even for a speed reader like me—didn’t give me much time to read for fun. I was an English and history double major, so I was going through hundreds of pages of reading a week for each of my major classes. When I started working in publishing, my leisure reading lagged again because of the manuscripts I needed to read for work. After spending all day talking about books (and reading them), it can take a lot of energy to pick up a book just because.

I’m hoping to change that by creating a reading list for myself in hopes that I'll get back into the swing of reading for fun again. Not only do I enjoy books in general, being well-read is a necessity in publishing. Plus, I read so many sub-par manuscripts for work that it’s good to remind myself that there are good books out there!

On Immunity by Eula Biss – I picked this advanced reader copy up as a freebie last year when I went to BookExpo America (BEA). With BEA 2015 going on next month, I thought it was high time I finally got to this book. It’s received a lot of hype since being released and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a New York Times Best Seller. When I picked it up at BEA last year, I never knew it’d blow up the way it did—I just liked the cover. I’ll be interested to read Biss’s take on what immunity means to society.

The 40s by The New Yorker – I got this book from my parents this past Christmas after some serious hinting on my end. It’s a collection of New Yorker essays written in the, you guessed it, 1940s by people like E.B. White, Langston Hughes, and Vladimir Nabokov. I’m a hugely interested in the 1940s (any classic movie lovers out there?), so I’m looking forward to seeing the 1940s through the eyes of the writers who lived through it.

Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton – Hillary for President! Hillary Clinton is sort of the woman of the hour (if not the year) after formally announcing her 2016 presidential bid on April 12th. We’d all been speculating for years about whether she’d run, and I was happy to see that the rumor mill had gotten something right. I’m looking forward to reading more about who I’m hoping will become the next president. Since this is an autographed copy though (and the book is huge), this is something I will not be stuffing in my bag to read on the train.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt – I already wrote about The Secret History in a book haul post, so I won’t bore you by repeating myself. However, I’m definitely looking forward to finally sinking my teeth into this novel.

What are you planning on reading next?

Road to France Pt. III - Advance Tickets

Are my Francophile tendencies showing yet?

Or am I driving you crazy with my French vacation that is now 100 days away? My apologies if I am!  I get overly excited, or so I'm told.

Now that Mom and I booked the flights and hotel reservations, I feel like I can finally sit down and start planning what we'll be doing in Paris and Nice. I love planning these vacations, but I’m also anal about it. My itineraries are planned almost to the hour and include detailed travel directions (street names, metro lines, travel time, etc.) between the sites I intend to visit. Crazy, I know.

My Fodor’s Guides are on a rotating schedule in my bag, and I’ve read them from cover-to-cover several times already. My list of the museums, tourist attractions, shops, and restaurants I want to visit has gotten very, very long. Mom is somewhat concerned about the survival of her feet!

Since I have some idea of what I want to see now, I've started buying advance tickets and booking tours. This was the most budget friendly approach I've figured out for seeing all the sites, and it saves you time while you’re there too. Instead of having to make a dent in my spending money to buy tickets while in Europe, I put aside money each month before the trip and book everything that I can online. Most museums have advance tickets available on their websites, and you can usually print them out. The best part? The queues for advance ticket holders are ordinarily short or non-existent. I also love using Viator.com to book day-trips and skip-the-line tours. These tours sometimes give you access to areas that are not open to the general public, a great little perk! With my spending money intact, I get to do a lot more shopping and eating than I might have otherwise.

I learned the hard way from my Italy trip last year that it’s important to consider proximity so you don’t end up going across town multiple times in one day, for the sake of your wallet, if not your sanity. So, as far as Paris goes, I’ll be trying to stick within a particular arrondisement each day (and sometimes going into the adjacent ones).

We did some booking last weekend, which was super exciting. So far we've booked the Eurostar to London, a Seine River dinner cruise, a French Riviera sightseeing cruise, and Versailles day-trip as well as advance tickets to Musée du Louvre and Musée de l'Orangerie. We'll be booking more next month too!