In America!

Well, I've just landed in Boston! Amazingly my flight got in an hour early! Unfortunately my dad thought it was meant to get in at 7:20... It was actually meant to get in at 6:30... And add an extra hour early to that...5:30! So basically when I called my dad he hadn't even left from Cape Cod! Awesome! So I'm sitting here with a Dunkin Donuts iced latte (its been 3 months since ive had one)on Logan Airport wifi. It will pass the time!

I was seriously envious when I got into baggage claim. All of us coming from London were pale and dreary, surrounded by sun kissed people in their summer gear coming from places such as Cancun and St. Maartens. Not to mention my mom just got back from Turks and Caicos and when I see her in a few short hours I will look see-through next to her. Ugh! Can someone please tell me why the heat-wave and beautiful weather had to come to London for exactly the week I was gone!? The weather here isn't even going to be that nice. What's up with that?

While I'm only here for one week, I have big plans of getting in the Spring/Summer state of mind. I plan to do a wardrobe flip to bring back to London and do some bargain shopping at TJ Maxx and Marshalls for my June Holiday to Greece! I have been craving a good hour spent rummaging through the racks of TJ's and Marshalls! They are two of my favorite stores! I am my mother's daughter!

I am also excited to see my pets. I miss them so much! Oh ya, and my family ... Obviously! This is the only time I will see them until the end of August. Because the Olympic rehearsals start next month, I can't skip out of town for more than 6 days as I am committed to that. Therefore, after this, I will have to wait until the Olympics are over. This week will be some intense R/R with the parents.

Will keep you updated!

Help! I need a wardrobe makeover!

This day has been quite the stressful one and it is all because I'm trying to get myself organized for London. Before I go through the stress of packing a year's worth of clothes and belongings into two suitcases, I need unpack my year's worth of clothes and belongings from New York City. I truly believe this unpacking is the more difficult of the two tasks. The greatest task of all...organizing and fitting all of my clothes into a single, average-sized walk-in closet. Sounds easy, right? WRONG! I know I have been complaining about all of the crap and clothes I own...but today has been the true realization. I wish I could just purge everything and restart with a completely fresh wardrobe. Somehow over time I have collected a ridiculous, disgusting amount of clothing. I blame it fully on stores like Forever 21, H&M, Marshalls and TJ Maxx. I would say about 60% of my wardrobe comes from these stores. The great low prices and huge variety is the problem. It is so easy to buy a lot of clothes for a decent price...hence the pile up of more and more articles of clothing and now the jam packed closet. Many of you are probably thinking, "you just need to get tough and throw things out or give them away." Believe me, I have gotten rid of a lot and have been pretty ruthless about it. I have two huge 40 gallon trash bags full of clothes to bring to goodwill. Here is one of the trash bags and here is a pile of purged clothing from the other trash bag.
So what now? I am still left with a closet filled to the brim with clothing. And what do you do with clothes that have sentimental meaning? Like that t-shirt you got at your first concert? Or the clothes that you know you can fix...like the good pair of Lucky Jeans (handed down from my mom) that fit perfectly but are missing a button. The funny thing is, they are not really in style anymore. Ugh so why are they in my closet!!! I may or may not have some hoarding tendencies. HELP!

My dream would be to have a OCD organized, monochromatic walk-in closet that felt like I was walking into a small boutique, ready to pick out my outfit for the day. These would be some of my fantasy closets.

The funny part is I can only bring about 1/10 of my wardrobe to London. The refreshing part is that it will teach me to live simply and to work with the best of the best from my wardrobe. I know this sounds crazy, but I am sick of having all these clothes. I just want a basic set of 20 classic pieces to mix and match that fit perfectly and I love. Then I could OCD organize those 20 pieces and make my life so much simpler. Only in a dream world I suppose. Maybe that dream world will be London. Time for a fresh start to my wardrobe. London is calling!

Babysitting at The Jeremy Kyle Show and change...

So today I was called for an emergency babysitting job at this new talk show called The Jeremy Kyle Show. Well, actually it's not so new to the Brits. Turns out this is a really popular show in the UK that is coming to American TV this fall. I had to babysit the guests' kids in the green room while they were on the show. Because I wasn't totally sure what I was getting into, I gave Matt a call (my expert Brit) to find out a little more. Welp, turns out its essentially the English version of Jerry Springer meets Maury Povich. GREAT! Anyways, I don't want to talk too much about the family for privacy purposes...I don't know much about them anyway. The three little girls I was watching were adorable. I have no idea why the their mom was a guest on the show but I guess we'll only know when it airs this fall. Seeing shows like this makes you realize that your family isn't as crazy and messed up as you thought. I thank God for my upbringing.  It's so unfair when innocent children are forced to live in these uncontrollable circumstances. To say the least, today was a unique babysitting experience...a lot of people running around with headsets on! Different!

After that I stopped by one of my all time favorite shops: TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Filene's Basement, H&M and Forever 21 are some of my favorite stores because I am a serious bargain shopper. I'm afraid to say it but I am turning into my mother. She happens to be an expert at finding the best things at these types of stores. Some people don't have the patience to weed through the endless racks of clothing, but my mom is a super star! I have gotten so many cute things from Marshalls and TJ's in particular because of her skills. Thanks Mom! Today I finally got a new little zip wallet for $9. I haven't been able to part with this stupid little butterfly change purse thing that I found in my closet from Christmases past. Who knows how long ago I got it as a gift...middle school? Then a year or two ago I found it still in its box in the depths of my closet waiting to be used. Well its been used...OUT! It's so middle school, so I thought it was time for a grown up wallet, but its been hard to find anything similar. I'm not crazy about change, so it had to be worth giving up my butterfly wallet that I was so used to and comfortable with. You can see it was a very good upgrade!

Finally, tonight I was able to start purging my bedroom of things I am not going to pack up and bring home. I think I had to finally say goodbye to 6 pairs of shoes that are years old and broken. I don't even wear them...the zippers on the boots don't even zip...the heels are non-existent, but I JUST CAN'T LET GO. I have random papers and bills around the room that just need to get tossed. Why didn't I throw them out months ago? No idea...thought they might be important late? They weren't...just a waste of space gathering dust. Something I did find was a bunch of playbills from the numerous shows I've seen over the past year in NYC. I have to say, thanks to working in this industry I've had some amazing experiences including opening night parties and seeing a lot of Broadway shows. Here are just some of the playbills I was able to find:

Cleaning this out has been a ride down memory lane of my past year. I have to say it's been amazing and I've met some great friends and have a ton of memories...but now its on to the next phase in a new city...a cleaner one ;)

Oh by the way, dinner turned out well! BBQ chicken and buttered pasta..I have a really exciting palette.