Happy Halloween!!!

Hey all! Happy (real) Halloween! I hope you’re days are full of tricks treats! My day will sadly not be filled with too many Halloween themed events but it will be filled with preparations for the funtivities to come this weekend! Friends touch down in LA-town in T-48 hours so cheers to the cleaning/baking/prep work that will make this weekend go smoothly!!! I leave you with (what else) picts to make you smile 🙂 Have a good holiday everyone! XO

4 Ingredient pumpkin ice cream! Yumm!

Lauren Conrad-cute Mary Poppins Costume! -idea for next year?

Spooky mantle! –mantle decorating obsession continues!

Halloween tablescape

Best Halloween candy ever-candy corn

Best-Halloween movie–Hocus Pocus!

🙂

Have a good night all! XO

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Halloweekend Recap

Happy Monday everyone! First off to all my East Coasters-I hope you’re all staying safe and hunkered down from the storm!!! I’m thinking of all of you! Stay inside near heat-snuggle in and watch trashy tv, eat lots of food, and drink wine (it will keep you warm).  The only change in weather here is that the Santa Ana winds have definitely picked up.

Previous to living here my only prior knowledge of the Santa Ana winds was from watching the scene from The Holiday when Jack Black is caught in the winds

…You don’t have to tell me I’m pathetic, I’m already aware.

Anyway, today I woke up bright and early to my rude cell phone alarm  which I then couldn’t find because it had fallen behind my bed #morningfail.  I then contemplated working out for hmm….2 seconds before I hit snooze and woke up 30 minutes later.

Hope you all had a great weekend! It’s weird because even though Halloween is this Wednesday, I feel like it’s already happened! To quote the JoBros via Ryan Seacrest this morning “adult Halloween happened this weekend, kid Halloween is this week.” Touche JoBros, I agree.

Speaking of Halloween…I hope you all had fun this weekend drinking celebrating.  I can see VIA Facebook that a lot of you dressed up and I was loving the costumes…very creative/entertaining/funny/cute/and slutty. They all ran the spectrum.

After I got out of work on Friday my roommate Susan and I made the trek up to Griffith Park to do the Halloween Hayride. I went last year and it was really freaky so I knew we were in for it this year.  I also read that they made it even longer this year and they added a water element…hmm. This made me question the outfit I was wearing.  I have to say, the ride freaked me out. First of all, the characters who dress up as —> insert the scary villain here <—- are ALL SO GOOD! They never break character and they know exactly where to hide.  My biggest scare came right when we were walking in. I was on my phone (obvi) not paying attention and out of NOWHERE came a guy with a CHAIN SAW who jumped right in my face. We both screamed and ran. Like legit SPRINTED away from the guy who followed us for a long time and then gave up.

I’m telling you though, my heart was racing for a longgggg time after that. Touche chainsaw man, touche. We were given ponchos when we got in line and prepared ourselves. (Apologies for the bad quality of pictures. I took them with my iphone and things turned out very orange).

headless pumpkin-headed man playing piano…until his power went out

Handed ponchos…good or bad sign?

Woman in a straight jacket with 20 feet of metal chain wrapped around her.  Spoiler alert: she escaped.

It was actually a really fun time. We just did the hayride but they also had a haunted corn maze but I couldnt summon the courage (or cash) to do it.  LA Locals: I highly recommend it!!!

Saturday was a fun lazy fall day. After a quick trip to Ralphs to gather ingredients before we came back and spent the afternoon cooking delish fall treats and drinking mimosas (what started as a glass or two turned into polishing off 2 bottles of champagne. Success).  I made pumpkin bread pudding, Jinny made cupcakes with a homemade frosting, and Susan made pumpkin brownies.  They were all super good but now we have the leftovers in our fridge. PROBLEM!

Anyway, Saturday night Susan had plans to go to an LA club for a Halloween party! She was going  as a sex-ay cop.  I played hairdresser and curled her hair, WHICH turned out pretty snazzy if I do say so myself.

They were very full and bouncy but they lessened their teenage-irish-dancer style a few minutes later.  I lazed around the apartment for a while and then headed over to my friends Jenne and Rodrigo’s apartment 🙂 It was so much fun hanging out and catching up with them.  FYI-Jenne makes a mean homemade pizza 😉 YUM!

Sunday was a day of rest shopping.  I headed up to the Glendale Galleria who was having CRAZY SALES! I was in mall heaven. After some difficulty meeting up (that mall is HUGE!) Susan and I finally found each other in all the craziness and we hit up LOFT, F21, and The Limited.  I scored these polka dot pants from LOFT and this sweater (but the top is black) on sale with an additional 40% off.  It was at The Limited though where I found my best frugal find: I bought this shirt (another 40% off) and this super cute dress  LOVE IT! The rest of the night I hung out, cleaned, relaxed and watched THE WALKING DEAD! Gahhh each episode just gets better and better 🙂

Anyway, have a happy Monday (if you can) 😉 Hope you all had fun (pre) Halloween weekends!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday Ya’ll! I hope you all have fun plans this weekend! I know I do…

As most of you probs know, this is the weekend when people are celebrating Halloween. Since it’s on a Wednesday this year (LAME), parties and clubs are decking the hallowed halls for scare-fest 2012.  Like any super scatter brained unprepared person, I am still not quite sure what I’m going to be and what my plans are. AWESOME. It’s okay, it’s a good thing I have time to figure it out…wait. Whatevs, I’ll probably spend the weekend doing this anyway…

Well, like any red blooded working American knows, it’s Friday Friday gotta get down on Friday Friday. Before you all enjoy a weekend of ghosts and goblins, here are a few things that have caught my eye over the past week while I’ve been surfing the net until my brain exploded working. Ciao! XO

Favorite bite: Slow cooker spinach and tortellini soup-Can’t wait to try this! Such a great recipe for fall 🙂

Favorite indulgence: Pumpkin Fudge I mean come ON people! So delish looking and very holiday approps.

Favorite outfit: Skirt & Boots Love everything about this

Favorite DIY: Wall Art Love this!

Favorite room: Window Seat–Love this cute sitting area!

Favorite funny: Hollywood Assistants Tumblr
You guys, this gif Tumblr is hilarious. It’s just plain ol’ good humor. I promise, you’ll enjoy it even if  you’ve never been an assistant before, it’s that good. INSIDERS TIP: The girl who created the Tumblr Lauren Bachelis sold the rights to CBS to make it into a 20 Somethings comedy. Look for it in the future!

Favorite hair: Thinking about cutting my hair again…hmmm

Favorite cutie: Don’t you just want to snuggle with this cutie patootie!?

Favorite mantle: I wish I had a fireplace for so MANY reasons. Decorating it for the holidays, snuggling in front of it watching tv, and let’s be real, starring into it being mesmerized by the soft glow.

Favorite must-have: Tory Burch Riding Boots-anyone have an extra $495 dollars they want to give me? 😉

Favorite love pic: Notebook inspired save the dates…how CUTE!?

Favorite place: Rome, Italy. Ahh Rome. I studied abroad here for 5 months and loved. every. SECOND

Have a great and safe faux Halloween weekend! XO

Those Who Can’t Build, Plan.

Oh, hi everyone. Just wanted to start my post today by showing you my house.  And by ‘my’ I mean my “in-my-dreams” house. My “will-never-be-reality” house.  Better known as my “only-will-exist-if-I-hit-the-lottery” house.  Just because I don’t have money doesn’t stop me from planning and plotting my future dream home.  Also, as I’ve stated before…Pinterest is a great source of ideas. Weeeee!

I mean come ON! Those closets! That living room!!!! It’s going to take some serious cheddar to build.  Soooo what I was thinking was, you all get wildly rich and then build my dream home for me?! Mmmmmkay? Good plan.

Dream of all dreams…a HUGE porch.

With a porch swing…ahhh a girl can dream, right? 😉

Bit By The Travel Bug

I’ve been bit…bit by the travel bug that is. I want to get on a plane and go somewhere. ANYWHERE. Right now! Mmmmkay? I know, I know…I sound like Veruca.

But I want it now!…she was a bad egg

But seriously guys, I’m getting antsy.  I love traveling. It started at an early age too. Growing up, my family was always big into traveling. I’ve been fortunate and had the opportunity to visit a lot of places already.

En route for Spring Break 2012-Punta Cana!

In Tuscany…post wine tasting

In Montepulciano, Italy…and yes-that is where they filmed the Italian scenes in Twilight: New Moon.

Italian cast and crew of New Moon

At the Vatican for Easter mass 2010

Trevi Fountain-Rome, Italy

Punta Cana 2012

Some crazy cats on (an all inclusive resort) Spring Break

@ Disneyland 2012

Hometown Kennebunk, Maine

As the minutes tick by slowwwwly at work, I’ve been dreaming of my next adventure. First up, I’m having a mini stay-cation when two of my besties come into town for vaca. I’ll be showing them the sites of LA for 4 days and I cant wait for these chicas to roll into town.

So cute.

Sadly, this year I’m not making it home for Thanksgiving 😦 sad face. BUT my roommate Susan and I are making the journey up to San Fran! I’ve never been and I’ve been making my list of my ‘Must Sees’ while we’re up there!

Christmas and New Years will be spent in my beloved Maine ❤

Dock Square-Kennebunkport, Maine

And I’m making moves to spend my big 2-5 in New York City with my besties!

I’m so excited! These plans are helping the slow/mundane times at work go by a little easier 🙂

Happy Wednesday!

Pinspiration

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or you’re a 60+ year old man, by now you’ve heard of Pinterest.  It’s the newest better-than-sliced-bread phenom.  Whenever I’m lacking inspiration or want a new project/recipe/clothing style or just to blow a few minutes at work (SHHHH) I log onto Pinterest. I’m telling you, it’s a never fail situation. Except for yesterday when the server was down.

But that one wasn’t my fault.

…Anyway, lately I’ve been searching all things decorating! I don’t know what it is but lately I’ve become OBSESSED with all things-

HGTV! I’m telling you-this obscure NEVER-before-my-24th-birthday-watched channel is now almost always on.  I’m told it’ a sign you’re getting old when things like DIY projects and paint color are fascinating to you but, I’m denying any truth to that.  But I mean come ON, who doesnt love a good fall themed table-scape?

Other than tablescapes, I’ve also been obsessed with all things fall lately! Ever since I was little it’s been my favorite holiday by FAR. Winters in Maine were far too harsh, Spring…what’s Spring?! And Summer was all about dodging tourist traffic and construction.  Fall is the best for a thousand reasons. Football, leaves, crisp air, scarves, sweata-weatha, layering! I mean come on…who doesn’t love fall?

Ahhhh gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling doesn’t it? If you want to kick it up a notch, listen to Frank Sinatra-Pandora station while you Pin.  I knowww I know, SUPS random but it just feels so good! 🙂

Happy Fall ya’ll!

Take Yo Pick

Happy Monday Ya’ll…

Hope you all had a marvelous and relaxing weekend whatever you did! This weekend was pretty relaxed for me, which I’ll take any day!  Friday night was spent relaxing and de-stressing from work.  Wine, yoga pants, and our overflowing DVR was calling my name.

Saturday I dragged my butt to the gym that I spend too much money on and never use where I proceeded to die attempt to get back into “shape.”  And by “shape” I mean be able to fit into my skinny jeans and run away from zombies if need be…(okay, watching a little too much Walking Dead. DID ANYONE ELSE think Herschel was going to be a Walker when he woke up?!?) After I peeled myself off the death machine stair master and reached a normal heart rate again, I went home and got ready for the Pumpkin Festival.  The Pumpkin Festival is held each year at Cal Poly Tech in Pomona.  All of the proceeds go toward the College of Agriculture and the students in the program run the show.

From LA it’s about an hour drive to Pomona and after some stop and go traffic (when is there not in LA, right?) we made it in pretty good time.  I had never been there before but my co-pilot for the day and roommate Jinny had.  We parked at what we thought was the event parking for the festival but ohhhhhh no no kids, we were sadly mistaken.  After following signs for what felt like A THOUSAND MILES-bobbing and weaving throughout their entire campus and bookstore (pretty sure we shouldn’t have been in there) we made it to the pumpkin fields.

I was super surprised how many people were there! The festival ran all day and we showed up around 3:30ishh thinking that it wouldn’t be that packed.  BOYYYY were we mistaken.  Obvi our first stop was the food tents.

I got the Pumpkin Ice Cream-natch. Jinny got homemade mini donuts with cinnamon sprinkled on top (I might have stolen a few).  After having a fall photo shoot taking a few fall pictures, we made our way to pick out our pumpkin friends.

The pumpkin fields were PACKED. Jinny found her pumpkin match right away whereas I had to hunt a little.  That’s okay because I ended up finding the cutest pumpkin with a curly stem…straight out of Cinderella-looking.  Very adorbs.
After picking up a few mini pumpkins for my desk at work (gotta liven up the place somehow!) we packed it in and set out for our Himalayan trek back to our car.

Meanwhile, my other roomie Susan had some family in town all weekend (which I GUESS is an acceptable excuse to bail on the p-fest).  They came over to see our apartment on Sunday morning before we all piled into Susan’s new car and went off to church.  Afterwards, we piled back into Susan’s new car (it’ll be called that for a while…it’s just so PRETTY!) and headed off to lunch in Malibu! After the gorgeous and fairly traffic free drive along the PCH we ended up at Geoffrey‘s. You guys…I can’t EVEN! First of all it was right on the water so it was SOOO gorg. The weather was perfect and the food! DYING. To quote Rachel Zoe it was bananas.
After consuming my body weight in deliciousness, we took a stroll along the Malibu pier before regretfully returning back to la casa.

The weather was perfect on Sunday-very fall-like.  I said goodbye to the Borbely family and did my Sunday errands…grocery store, picking up my room, sadly no laundry-that’s tonight’s chore :(.  I did my Sunday baking-for-work recipe.  This week I chose a Joy The Baker (love her) recipe of Orange Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Pound Cake.  I just put it out at work a few minutes ago and it’s already a hit.

I closed the weekend out with a little Walking Dead, Tumblr stalking, and J.Crew Catalog reading.  All in all, the perfect Sunday night 🙂

I’m linking up with Leeann from Join the Gossip, Sam from Sami’s Shenanigans and Dana from five30three for Weekend Update!

How was your weekends? What did everyone do?

Schmashley Turns 24!

Ahhhh to be young again…My little Ashley turns 24 today
Smash-bomb/AK47/Schmashley…aka Ashley-on right

When we were in college all turning 21 in our Junior year, our poor Ash (along with a few other late birthday besties) had to wait to celebrate until the fall of our Senior year.  Although, I think the wait made her bday celebrations even better!

I’ve know Ashley for almost 7 years now ever since we stumbled into each other at Stonehill College.

She’s been the best friend

travel buddy…

adventurer…

…and partner in crime anyone can ask for

Happy Birthday Schmashley! I wish I was on the east coast so I could celebrate with you but I will be seeing you shortly when you come visit me in LA!!! WoooHOOOO!!!

Horse Pulls & Cheetah Fedoras

Sometimes living in LA can be a little…much. Which is why it’s always a good idea to get away for a bit, clear the old head…you know, take a breather before you start to go CRAZAYYY. Anyway, two weekends ago I boarded a jet plane and flew home to New England.  On a read eye. OVERNIGHT flight. Needless to say I was lookin pretty sexAY when I landed at 6AM. NAWWWWWTTTT.  My older sister Kelly and her BF John picked me up at the airport along with their super cute super energetic pup Sisi.

She’s…a special pup 😉

They picked me up from Boston and off we went up to Maine.  We spent the weekend at our camp/lake house/cabin whatever you wanna call it. It’s been our getaway house for YEARS and it’s my second favorite place on earth. Anyway, we met Mama Raff there and she was super excited and ready for the weekend shenanigans.  The matriarch of the family can get into crazy moods and this weekend was no exception. Papa Raff came up a few hours later. He was stuck wrapping up some last minute football things. He’s the head coach at our high school and had a game the night before (they won!) so he had to do a film exchange with another coach and then he was ours for the weekend! After he arrived the five of us piled into the car and headed to Attitash Ski Mountain Resort.  It was the weekend of their 15^th Annual Oktoberfest and it was just like the real thing. Wellll maybe not, but it was still a lot of fun. They had four or five tents which came in hand later when it started to drizzle out.  Local breweries came out and brought their best fall-ish brews with them. It was delish and fun.

Kelly and John in the beer garden

I slept all the way home (getting 1 hour of sleep and having a few brews will do that to you).  When we got back to the house my aunt Diane had arrived.  She came up for the weekend from Kittery and was staying with us!

Don’t they look like twins!?

That night we had a FULL ON seafood feast-lobser, steamers, clam chowdah…the WORKS. It was sooooo good I can’t even describe.

Day 2 of Family Fun Time was spent at the Fryeburg Fair.  My family and I have been going to this fair for years and it never fails to entertain.  Tractor and horse pulls, pig scrambles, llama shaving demonstrations, and lots and LOTS of fried food, the fair is always entertaining.

 Sassy cheetah fedora wearing Mainer…we know fashion people

Horse pull!

llama chat

Needless to say the weekend was super fun and went by in a blur. Before I knew it it was Monday night and I was on my way back to Logan Airport, shuffling through the security line and boarding another red eye flight back to LAX.   Sadly it had to come to an end…but that’s alright. Countdown to Christmas begins! Love forced family fun time!

One last pup picture to make you smile 🙂

New space, new face

Hello!!!! Welcome to my second attempt at joining the blogosphere.  In my very misguided first attempt, I started the Tumblr account http://aceinlace.tumblr.com/ HOWEVER, although Tumblr is amazing (great for picture stalking) I would often be denied a post because it was too long or had too much media in it. Therefore…onward to the proper medium wordpress!
My first attempt at a blog started out with the best intentions.  Sadly I lacked motivation to post after my first week writing around the summer and let my little blog collect dust. Thank goodness I have gotten a second wind because God knows there is a lack of blogs out in the world.  Here I will attempt to jot down my snarky thoughts, feelings, and travels.  I know how much I love reading my regular blogs so I hope you guys like this too!