Yay for a CSN Giveaway!

Let's ring in October with my very first giveaway:  

45 smackaroos to spend at CSN Stores!

If you haven't already heard of CSN, they have over 200 stores that stock everything you can think of, whether it's a new bar stool for your kitchen island, a new throw pillow for your couch, or a new handbag for your arm (err, hand?)!

Here are some of my favorite items:

 

Prize: $45 gift certificate to use at any of the 200+ CSN Stores websites

3 Chances to Win:
1. Leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do, but I'd love to know what's on your wish list right now.

2. For a 2nd entry, follow my blog using Google Friend Connect (link is on the left sidebar) and leave another comment letting me know you've done so. 

Publish Post

3. For a 3rd entry, tweet about this giveaway, then come back here and leave a comment with either a link to your tweet or your Twitter name. To make it easy, you can use this message: 

Enter to win a $45 @CSNStores #giveaway from @soalaurable! http://soalaurable.blogspot.com/2010/09/yay-for-csn-giveaway.html

Prize Ships to: US & Canada

Giveaway Closes: Sunday, 10/10/10 at 10 pm Central. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced the following Monday. I will also notify the winner by email, so please include it in your comments if you don't have a blog.

Good luck and have a great weekend!

So Excited!

I am so giddy right now! We just booked a trip to Europe for late February - mid March (back just in time for Match Day)...and the best part is we booked it on points! (Non-stop and only 20,000 each way because it's off-peak - just before it goes up to 60,000 points for Spring Breakers!) 

I'm so looking forward to reading up on and planning the trip over the next several months, which I think is half the fun! We fly into London, will go to Paris (!!!) next, and the rest is still up in the air - we just need to end up in Frankfurt.

It will be a little colder than I prefer (this warm-weather gal dreams about jet-setting it in the summer to Saint-Tropez or Capri), but I quickly pinched my lucky self and am now dreaming about bundling up and strolling down the river Seine with my sweetheart.

I'd love to hear your suggestions if you have them. I've only been to Italy, so it will be all-new and all-amazing to me!  What's the favorite place you've traveled to or have been dreaming about visiting?

I have a feeling I'm going to be singing a lot of this in the coming months:

I love Paris in the spring time

I love Paris in the fall

I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles

I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles

I love Paris every moment

Every moment of the year

I love Paris, why oh why do I love Paris

Because my love is here

Stay tuned for my first giveaway in my next post! You're going to love it!

Images from the lovely Shabby Apple. I'm pretty sure this La Tour Eiffel dress is right up my alley.

Grand Taxonomy of Rap Names

Um, totally love this. How fun would it be to have this on your wall and debate with friends who's missing and/or should be classified in other categories?

Found at Pop Chart Lab, $20

P.S. Notice a trend here?

A flowchart of typefaces

A flowchart of getting shot by the Sartorialist

P.P.S. What would your rap name be? One of my sorority sisters used to call me "Big L". (She swore it wasn't because I always ate my weight in queso on Mexican Lunch day, but I have my doubts.) This rap star name generator says I should go by "Dutchess McDougal". (But am I allowed to spell Duchess properly, oh Rap Star Name Generator?)

P.P.P.S. I so want to create my own chart like this! What subject would you want to classify?

Thinking of You

Wouldn't it be great to tell someone you're thinking about them...

by mailing them a monkey? (The company who will do it for you is called, crazily enough, Mail a Monkey.)

Or how about a polar bear and a hippo?

I'd love to open my mailbox and see one of these guys smiling at me. (Hint hint, J.)

Sending you a virtual monkey, friends!

Dream Big

So sweet for a nursery. (And it goes with one of my current fave color combos!)

robinandmould's Etsy via 6th Street Design School

The Writing on the Wall

Now these are my kind of words on the wall:

Sweet

Oh, hi!

It's true

Would be cute over a bar cart

Who doesn't need that?

You can find them at Etsy seller WilliamDohman.

Gators & Whales

I just added these $10 salt and pepper shakers from Wrapables to my Amazon Wishlist. It's not like we need any - for some reason we have been gifted an abundance of different S and P sets by a certain person who gave birth to my groom* - but they are adorable and I'd like to virtually pretend they're mine. 

They remind me of this $44 set from Jonathan Adler:

 

Although I think I like the Wrapables whale better. The photo shows the whale holding the pepper and the gator (or is he a croc?) with salt, but I'd switch them. Because you know, whales live in salt water. (Oh, and the spray coming out of their blowhole would be white.) And the alligator is meaner, and well, pepper can sometimes give you a kick in the pants.

And in my same dub-dub-dub internets browsing session I ran across this bedding and thought to myself, ooh, they both have gators and whales in blue and green, I can do my own "this and that" post like Oh Joy!. (Put your baby in this crib bedding, season your now-cold food because you don't have time to eat with a fussy baby with these salt and pepper shakers.)

And then I realized that what I thought was a whale was an elephant. Oops.

Gotta go work on my animals.

* How do you nicely sell/donate items that have been gifted to you but aren't your favorite? You know, so you can replace them with objects that will help remind you of the difference between whales and elephants.

Cute Little Illustrations

I just can't get over these cute illustrations from Rosy Designs found via Contented Me. It looks like you can even customize the people and add text to the prints.

Frame this poster and display it at your wedding reception for guests to sign the mat. (This Just Married one would work, too.)

Add your baby's birth stats and display in the nursery.

I don't have a specific idea for this one but I loooove it.

I like the idea of framing the boy and the girl side by side...

(Even though they're youthful, I'd love these blown up and placed over each person's side of the bed.)

...But I'd also happily take them together as one print.

I had to stop myself from posting the entire collection!  See them all here.

Crazy 'Bout a Sharp-Dressed Man

My dear husband is flying out today for his first residency interview.

As I helped him come up with shirt and tie options for the dinner tonight and the interview tomorrow, I was thinking how awesome it would be to have a collection organized like this:

From this cool dorm room

Previous to his 3rd year of med school, J didn't have a lot of need for ties. Last year during rotations I discovered he really likes wearing ties (and dislikes wearing scrubs, which is the whole reason I sometimes wish I was a nurse/doctor/in some kind of medical profession, so I think that's a total waste).  Now whenever I'm at T.J.Maxx (which is a lot), I stop by the tie section and try to find one I think he'd like. (You can beat that most of them are around $10, compared to the $30-40 price tags still on many of them.)  

J's idea of organizing his small collection is laying them out on a chair in our living room...maybe I'll come up with a new system while he's out of town. I have this crazy idea that they should be located in his closet (some training will be involved), and I just need to figure out what will be best to use where they don't slide off the hanger.

Friction Tie Rack and Scarf Hanger, $7

via Houzz

I may even go wild and organize his closet so he can actually get to the ties. I need something to feel some control during this interview process where there is pretty much no control in where we end up! (Which has definitely

Do Not Trifle With Me!

I've been a little down in the dumps lately so I've been staying away from this little blog of mine, and today was an incredibly frustrating addition subtraction to my current attitude.

But now that I'm home, and I didn't get hit by a tornado, and I had some Cherry Garcia fro-yo*, I'm feeling much more cheerful.

From the lovely Annechovie

But still, I'm not in the mood for anyone to trifle with me. 

Hoping to have a better attitude soon,
Bad Attitude Laura

* Since my husband pretty much always passes up any type of sweet, I was surprised when he fell in love with my Ben & Jerry's fro-yo. (Now we stock multiple flavors at all times.) Except he calls it frogurt.  According to Urban Dictionary, he's right.  What do you call it? (Besides delicious.)