100th Post, Favorite Gifts, and a GIVEAWAY!

This post is a special one -- it's Little B in DC's 100th! Since both the blog and I have had momentous occasions this week, I thought it might be fun for you to hear about a couple of my favorite gifts that I've received over the years.

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Yep, everyone and their mother has been talking about this one. And yes, I'm tardy to the party. But I have been having SO MUCH FUN playing with the colors in this set. As an added bonus, I'm pretty sure I don't have to buy eye makeup for the next decade. Definitely a great holiday pickup, courtesy of SK's parents.

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This was a combination Hannukah/Birthday gift from my folks last year -- I was a Blackberry person before, and as you can imagine, making the switch was LIFE. CHANGE. ING.

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This was one of SK's first gifts to me -- one of my favorite stores in DC, Hill's Kitchen, sells cookie cutters in the shape of every state (except Hawaii -- sorry, Hawaii!) and the District. Longtime readers will know that I have excessive pride in every and anything New York related, so this little guy gets a honored place of display at my house.

So why am I telling you all this?

Well, I may have buried the lede a bit, but I'm so excited that it's my 100th post that I am hosting my first-ever GIVEAWAY!

Because I am so grateful to all of you for sticking around for 100 entries, one winner will receive:

1) A $25 gift card to Sephora - to get you on your way to a Naked Palette or whatever else your heart may desire!

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2) A $15 dollar gift card to the iTunes store -- though I wish I could give away an iPhone, this blog would then become about Bankrupt B, which I'm against.

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3) And because I like to represent local DC businesses, a cookie cutter, in any state of the winner's choosing, from Hill's Kitchen. Show me your state pride!

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To Enter: Follow me on Google Friend Connect and leave a comment on this post telling me you did so. You can earn an additional entry by following me on Twitter (@littlebindc) - just make sure to leave me an additional comment telling me you did so! You can get a THIRD entry if you tweet about the giveaway - and leave me a comment about it!

Giveaway closes on Friday, February 8 and winners will be announced on February, March 11.

I want to tell you all again thank you for reading. I love hearing from all of you, reading your stories, and becoming your friends.I'm getting the warm fuzzies just thinking about it.

Here's to another 100 posts!

Full Steam Ahead

First of all, thank you all for your kind birthday wishes - I loved hearing from everybody, and it made yesterday especially....special!

So how did I spend my birthday, you may be wondering?

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Yup, I took the day off and had a 'Me' day. AND IT WAS AWESOME.

I spent the day in Georgetown, which is normally not my favorite part of DC. However, Georgetown becomes a lot more pleasant when its the middle of a work day and there's barely anyone there. WIN #1. It was also an unheard-of 65 degrees, which normally I would be environmentally concerned about, but yesterday was my birthday so I took the day off from worrying about global warming and enjoyed the sunshine. WIN # 2.

First on my list was a manicure/pedicure at Vicky's Nail Boutique. I'd never been there before but I took a chance based on its stellar Yelp reviews. They definitely did not disappoint!

Polish Check: Essie Bahama Mama

After Vicky's I headed down to M3 Massage for a 25 minute Swedish massage. I've been to M3 before once with a Groupon and was pleasantly surprised to find the non-discounted prices still very affordable. While getting a massage is really not something I normally do on a day-to-day basis, it was certainly a treat to get straightened out before my 5:45 spin class (more on that in a bit.)

I then moseyed around for a bit, picking up my free gift from Sephora (Fresh Sugar Kisses Mini Lip Duo, which is one of my very favorite products - WIN # 3!) and a new top at LuluLemon (somewhere I don't normally shop, but I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket - and holy cow, if last night's workout was any indication of product superiority, I'm a Lulu convert.)

I then headed over to Eastern Market for a birthday ride at BikerBarre. I've talked a little bit about BikerBarre on here before, but I'm going to give them another shout out -- if you DC ladies aren't going there yet, you need to head over there right now. Working out there has turned me from a self-proclaimed couch potato who truly believed that she just wasn't built for exercising into a person who looks forward to her workouts. If you think spinning isn't your thing (and believe me I thought the same thing), they also have barre classes which are just as fun, just as intense -- just not quite as sweaty. The owners are super-friendly, the staff is wonderful, and it's a local business. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

(The instructor also played Kanye 'It's Your Birthday' and my personal favorite, Coolio's 'Gangsta's Paradise', which I'm taking as a shout-out, even though she didn't know it was my bday when she chose the playlist.)

I had class last night, so the dinnertime celebration has been put on hold until this weekend. However, I still managed to cap off the day with some bubbly and New Girl.

I feel really good about 28, you guys -- better than I ever did about 27. It's been a bit of a tumultuous year for me, and I'm glad to be putting it behind me. Twenty-eight is already going to be a good one, I can tell.

For years, I've suffered from what I call habitual waking, but probably has a more scientific term. In short, at least once a night, I wake up anxious about issues big and small, anything from something I forgot to do at work to worrying that I've upset someone to anxiety over my life path. (That's a post for a whole other day.) But on Monday night -- really Tuesday morning, on my actual birthday -- I woke up in the middle of the night and just felt happy. I had no anxiety, I had no worries, I just woke up and looked around and smiled.

To me, that's a sign from the universe. Full steam ahead to 28!!!

Also, come back tomorrow for a VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Happy B Day!

I hope your day is positively delicious!

It's Friday

I think I speak for everyone when I say:

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Happy Friday, everyone!

Words of Wisdom

Sometimes it helps to keep this in mind:

"...you are 27. You aren’t too old for most things. You can probably still get away with pigtails, knee socks with happy faces on them, having a shot of tequila after a night of drinking any other kind of liquor, texting an ex and having it still somehow come off as adorable, crying in public, joining an “artistic collective,” claiming you don’t know how to make a cup of coffee, or having a refrigerator with only condiments inside."

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Childhood: For the Birds?

So as I mentioned yesterday, getting older isn't my favorite.   But that's not to say that I wish I was getting younger either. Because I don't know about you guys, but there are some parts of childhood that you could not pay me to relive.

(For one, if you made me go back in time to childhood, I wouldn't be able to spend the money you would be paying me on my preferred reward, booze.)

Did any of you have braces? I did. I had some form of orthodontia from age 9 until age 15. Six years is a very, VERY long time to have braces, guys. It's a very, very long time to avoid chewy/crunchy/delicious foods. It's a very long time to have to keep wax around as anecessity.  And since its middle school, it feels like its a very long time TIMES ETERNITY.

Not to mention, my teeth still aren't straight. But I'm okay with it. You know why? Because I never have to wear braces again, that's why.

Or geometry! Pop quiz time: How do you find the area of a circle? πr², right? Naturally! When's the last time you found the area of a circle? (If you are an engineer, you are cheating.) For that matter, when's the last time you wrote out a logic proof? Remember how to use Sin, CoSin, Tangent? Do you know HOW MANY HOURS I spent in a complete panic trying to teach myself how to determine the length of a hypotenuse?

The mere sight of this sent me into an anxiety attack.

Not to say that I don't use math in my everyday adult life, because I do. But I wish that I could go back to 2001, find my 10th grade self, and let her know that she would be a successful adult even if she never learned how to find the area of a rhombus.

Or mealtime. Please believe me when I say that my mom is a great cook and I love whatever she puts in front of me. But one of the great joys of my adult life is that I can make myself WHATEVER I WANT for dinner. If I don't want stuffed shells one night? I don't have to eat stuffed shells! If I don't like swordfish? I NEVER HAVE TO EAT SWORDFISH AGAIN. If I want to make a meal consisting of half an avocado, 3 slices of Munster, and a glass of Pinot? Well, you get the idea.

So yes, getting older is hard, and I had a great childhood. Worrying about bills, and paychecks, and rent, and taxes, and all that fun stuff, is really not so fun. 

But the fact that I can come home from a long day worrying about adult things and make myself a dinner consisting of this?

That's Sauv Blanc, Trader Joe's Crackers, and a wedge of Port Salut. Perhaps I shall try to find the hypotenuse of the wedge.

Well, I'll trade that over trigonometry any day. 

Little b-day

So, looking at the calendar today I realized we are only one week out from my 28th birthday.

You haven't heard me talk much about my birthday, right? That's because I usually react to my birthday like this:

In all honesty, I've never been a big birthday person. Having a birthday that follows the holiday season always inspires the post-birthday "NOTHING GOOD WILL EVER HAPPEN AGAIN" feeling, since its easy to think that the next 'big' event is Memorial Day  (or summer break, if you're my younger self.)

In addition, I always feel a little weird planning a party to celebrate ME ME ME.Every year I stress about what is going to make my guests happy and what how to make the celebration convenient for everyone. And, as my mom likes to say, I didn't even do any of the work to get me here! (In the Little B house, we get my mom flowers on our birthdays - like I said, she was the one that did all the work!) 

This year I think we're going to take it easy - a trip to NY to see the family, my mom's traditional chocolate cake, and perhaps a trip to the outlets! Plus a tasty dinner date with SK next week, of course.

How do you like to celebrate your birthday?

It's Still Christmastime If I Say So.

Not really. I'm pretty comfortable with it being almost mid-January. (It's supposed to stay light until 5:05 today. Small victories.)

But if I say its still the holidays, that means that I'm not such a delinquent in this post. See? LOGIC.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I participated in the Favorite Things Holiday gift swap hosted by Blairsheadband and Christina. I got paired up with Natalie from TwoPrepsinaPod, who has an adorable site and an even more adorable new baby boy.

When I got Natalie's package, I was overwhelmed with her generosity - not to mention the fact that she definitely understood my favorite things!  Her package included:

Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics: She's my very favorite Food Network personality, plus her recipes are always amazing. I've pretty much dog-eared the whole book already with recipes to try.

Cooking for Mr. Latte: I've heard such good things about this book. I'm trying to read more this winter so I'll definitely be kicking off that resolution with this one!

California Olive Oil:  She included a sweet note via Twitter with this one NOT to cook with it - it's so delicious that its recommended use is for dips, spreads, etc. I can attest to its deliciousness!!!

Peterbrooke Candy: Sweets from a Jacksonville-based chocolate company. I don't have any more pictures of this stuff because it lasted about 4 minutes before being devoured. AMAZING.

Thank you again Natalie - I love everything you sent! (Plus a big thank you to BHB and Christina for organizing!)

I love my lists.

I know, I know. Disappear for a month and then suddenly show up on your doorstep with nothing but an apology?  Not even flowers. I can practically hear you saying, "Girl, please."

In reality, a number of things happened in what felt like rapid-fire succession that gave me blogger-block, starting with:

a) Sandy Hook. Beyond the cliche of "I have no words," I literally could not come up with words to put on the page to describe my feelings about what happened. But I also felt like I couldn't not write about it, so I decided my best option would be to simply not say anything.

b) Christmas Craze. SK and I nearly stayed in DC this year for the holidays, due to a crazy work schedule on both our parts. Thankfully at the 11th hour we got the all-clear to head to Cleveland so we could spend a couple days with his folks, but we really didn't know what our plans would be until the very last minute.

c) Work went crazy. See aforementioned schedule.

So because of all this,

d) I spent New Year's in my sweatpants on my couch. It was glorious.

e) The most exciting thing that's been going on is that the milk in my fridge hasn't gone bad yet.* 

So through a combination of things I can't talk about, things I can't figure out how to put into words, and things that I'm afraid that you're going to find boring, I hit a little bit of a dry spell this month. However, I resolve to do better in January because I miss you guys! Plus I have a few fun things coming up, namely:

a) Inauguration: I wasn't here last go-round, so I'm excited to see it in action.

b) All my favorite TV shows coming back from hiatus: Thank. GOD.

c) My birthday at the end of the month: Though I'll prob keep this low-key, since I'm clinging to my mid-twenties by my fingertips and pulled out three gray hairs this morning. I don't deal well with the passage of time.

But anyhoosiers. Back to blogging!

* Although I'm pretty sure this milk has magical properties. It's been weeks and still fresh as a daisy. JUDGE AWAY.