Organization

I love the Container Store. I love being organized and having a place where everything belongs. It's only when stuff doesn't have a place that my room gets messy. This goes hand-in-hand with my Container Store love, because they have containers to hold EVERYTHING! Seriously, anything you can think of that you want to store, and the Container Store will have a way to store it.

My favorite recent purchase from the Container Store is called a Jewelry Spinner. They come in both necklace and bracelet sizes, but as I wear far more necklaces than bracelets, I opted for the necklace one.

It looks super cute on my desk with all my other containers, and it makes everything really easy to find when I need it :].

Fitz's

If anyone from the St. Louis area hasn't heard of or been to Fitz's, you really need to leave your house more than once a year. This restaurant/bottler is located on the Delmar Loop, which is conveniently located right near Washington University in St. Louis (me!). The coolest part about Fitz's is that they make their own sodas, which during the day are bottled right on the other side of a big glass wall that makes up one side of the lower dining area.

Fitz's food is pretty typical American food, but surprisingly almost everything is high-quality and delicious. My favorite thing to order is the fish & chips - substitute sweet potato fries - as I love both fish and chips and sweet potato fries. Theirs are the waffle kind, and I think they're pretty delicious.

The best part about Fitz's is their rootbeer floats. They have some fun ones like rootbeer and chocolate ice cream and rootbeer and coffee ice cream. One free float if you have a bear discounts card :].

Back to School Again

Well it's been a long time since I've posted on my blog. I've been busy moving in to my dorm, unpacking stuff, and being a counselor for the Hatchet Yearbook Pre-Orientation Program.

My room looks pretty good, I may post photos later on, and for now it's decently clean.

I just have one recent purchase of note, and that is a copy of Glee: The Beginning, which is a book telling the back story of the characters in Glee, and what happened before the television show. I haven't started reading it yet, but I'm pretty excited.

A Day Eating in the St. Louis Area

* Steak and Shake

* Our Home Café

* Tropical Sno

* The Fountain on Locust

Leaving Home

I haven't posted in forever! I'm so sorry dear blog, I'm breaking my promise. I have been trying to not skip more than one day ever and here I've gone and skipped three whole days! I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but three days could easily lead to three weeks and then never writing again! And that can not happen. Not yet at least. I have promised a lot of people that I will actually keep up with this blog.

So here I am today. I haven't really got a lot to write about. I've been really busy hanging out with friends, going swimming, and mentally steeling myself to pack and say good bye to everyone before I have to leave tomorrow to go back to school in St. Louis. I am not excited. Summer has finally kicked into high gear here (over 70 degrees five days and counting!) and I don't want to leave. Seattle is way to beautiful and St. Louis just really is not. There is no arguing this point. I love St. Louis, but it is not beautiful.

How about a picture of the view from my front deck? Just to prove that the sunlight actually does reach Washington sometimes. Well ok I took it from my living room window. Big deal.

I have to try and continue packing now. So sad. See you tomorrow bright and early at the airport!

Love,

Andrea

P.S. I have no idea how this turned into a letter to my blog. Just go with it.

Why Oh Why Did I Get on the Vera Train So Late?

Seriously, can anyone answer this for me? I know that my beloved Bellevue Square Signature Store has been around for at least a couple of years, so why did it take me this long to fall in love with Vera Bradley? And how in the world did it hit me so hard?

I'm not going to share my Vera spreadsheet here (yes I have a spreadsheet for keeping track of all of my purchases), because that would be a little embarrassing (only because I've spent so much money in so little time) , but let me tell you - it is impressive!

The reason I'm lamenting my late-blooming Vera love is because my favorite pattern of all time (Peacock) retired a long time ago. Boo. But at least it is fairly attainable on the internet (ebay, Facebook, Amazon, and occasionally vb.com). The other reason this really sucks is because almost all of my favorite bags are retired. This includes the large tic tac tote (in Peacock) that I ordered (and blogged about) a few days ago.

And now my new favorite bag of all time (in Peacock) is the Lindsay. And it's retired too! It's like a mini messenger bag (which I also blogged about), but small enough to be used as a purse. I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled for one that I can afford. Maybe someday I'll get to go to a Vera Bradley outlet store! That would be a dream come true. But for now, I'll continue to peruse Verabradley.com and add to my ever-growing wish list. And my Christmas list. And maybe even my birthday list (for June 2011 :]).

Real Chinese Food from Real Chinese People :]

Today I went to my friend Courtney's house for dinner. As you might have been able to tell from the title, she's Chinese. This is therefore authentic Chinese food :]. Doesn't it look delicious?

Bamboo Garden

This is my favorite Chinese restaurant ever. It's also quite possibly some of the cheapest Chinese food I've ever had. The fact that it's simultaneously the cheapest and the best seems to me a good reason for this to be my favorite restaurant. Let's face it - how often with Chinese food can you have quality, tasty food for a decent or even bargain price? Not very often.

I always order their lunch special. It ranges from $4.99 to $6.99 and includes a bowl of soup (hot and sour or egg flower), some of their house salad, rice (fried or steamed), and a large helping of the entrée of your choice (hence the price differences).

Here's the soup.

Here's the rest. I got Kung Pao Tofu - my favorite! $4.99 :].

Red Lobster

I went to my first Red Lobster today! It was definitely an experience worth repeating, even if I did have to go all the way to Federal Way to eat there. It's really wasn't out of the way though because I was in Puyallup this morning for my drive test (which I passed - yay!), and on the way back we drove through Federal Way and went to Red Lobster!

I got their delicious crab cakes, and I was favorably impressed with their bread basket. It didn't have any real bread in it - just light and fluffy cheesy biscuits that somehow already had garlic butter inside them! I immediately fell in love. I suggest you give them a try.

Ordered Another Vera Bag!

I just placed an order for a slightly used Vera Bradley Large Tic Tac Tote in Peacock, which is my favorite pattern! I ordered it from a lady on the Vera Bradley Sales Board on Facebook, and hopefully it should be here soon. This is a picture from Amazon, but I will take another photo when it arrives! I'm so excited! I even got it for a good deal - $35 which includes shipping!

You know how you can really tell I'm excited? Look how many exclamation points I just used. Lol. :]

Trip to the Sanrio Store

This is Chococat. Chococat is a licensed character of the Sanrio company, which means that he is friends with Hello Kitty. And if your next question is who is Hello Kitty, then you should probably stop reading now. I suggest some Google therapy.

Anyways, lately I've been reading this blog, called Bentobloggy. It was the featured blog on my dashboard a few days ago, and I've fallen in love with it. It's written by a mom who blogs about the bento-style lunches she packs for her 4-year-old daughter every day. The pictures are adorable! She uses a lot of Hello Kitty lunch boxes, and I've been inspired to get one for myself.

So today I made the infrequent trek upstairs in my local mall to the Sanrio store. Now the Sanrio store is a bit of mystery to me. It's been in our mall for at least 10 years, right next to the oft-visited Claire's store of around the same age, but when I was younger, the Sanrio store had a reputation for always being completely empty anytime anyone walked by. So of course I never went in it much because what 10-year-old wants to be the only person in a store? Then I would have had to talk to the salesperson! Anyway when I went into the store today, it was completely packed. I was astounded. I've always wondered how this store even managed to stay open for so many years when it appeared to have no customers. Turnover at our mall is ridiculously high. I guess all the invisible customers spent a lot over the years.

Today I bought two items at the Sanrio store - both Chococat. I got a lunch/sandwich box type thing with utensils stored in the lid, and a little compact mirror shaped like Chococat's face. They're both adorable!

So I Bought Some More Vera Bradley Today....

Well that's not exactly true. I exchanged the new Slate Blooms Zip ID Case I bought on Wednesday for this beautiful Lemon Parfait Zip ID Case. The reason I did that is that this color, Lemon Parfait, is a Spring 2011 Preview item. As in, this is a Spring 2011 pattern that won't officially be released in stores until some time in January.

How did I get one already? All Vera Bradley patterns are tested in stores months before they are actually released in order for the company to get an idea of purchase patterns. The Winter 2010 patterns were tested this past May, and the Spring 2010 patterns are in a few select signature stores now - but they're only at my store for two weeks! Today was the first day they were out, and I pounced immediately. I'm just so glad that I hadn't used my other Zip ID Case yet and was able to exchange it.

Sea Fair!

Or an excess of free stuff fair. Whichever works, depending on your interests. Here are some lovely photos. Not entirely sure that this was really worth getting up at 8 am for, but that's what happens when you live with a father who likes to leave home at the crack of dawn. That's all I'll say about it. Except that I'll be watching the races tomorrow on television!

Prime viewing seats, these are :]. These people were sitting in this metal folding couch type thing, and according to my dad, they were sitting in the exact same spot and on the exact same contraption last year. But I have to hand it to them, it looks pretty comfortable.

They flew in front of us and right over our heads! We had some fantastic views of the Blue Angels while sitting right along the shore.

More Custard...Mmmmm!

So we went back to Peak's Frozen Custard in Seattle. This photo shows the three different sizes offered in the shop - mini, regular, and large. The ones in the middle and on the left are chocolate ripple salt caramel! Just thought a quick food-related update would suffice for today :]. Enjoy the summer's best treats!

Just What Every College Girl Needs!

Can you guess what it is? I bet you can't! Or I bet that if you can, you can't come up with the particularly necessary item that I'm about to blog about! Actually you probably just cheated and looked at the photo for today's blog post.

ANYWAY: Today I ordered an orange mini fridge for my dorm! Yes, that's right - it's ORANGE!!! For those of you that know me, you know that I absolutely love the color orange. I don't wear orange clothes all the time, because that isn't particularly fashionable or flattering, but a lot of my day-to-day essentials are orange. For example:

* Both of my Nalgene water bottles ( 14 and 32 oz.)
* My headphones
* My bath towels
* My comforter
* My soon-to-be-ordered Brita water pitcher
* My new mini fridge!!!!!

Last semester I didn't buy my own mini fridge. Partially this was because I didn't think I needed one, and it was partially because my suitemate Jessie had a medium/large mini fridge that she allowed my other suitemates and me to share. But because it's so hot in St. Louis, and because I have a lot of dietary restrictions, I decided it would be a good idea to buy my own mini fridge if I could find one for a decent price. And so my Mom found this orange one at Walmart! I just had to get it. Imagine my orange Nalgene water bottles and my orange Brita pitcher sitting inside this fridge :]. What a happy, orange thought.

Vera Bradley Sale!

Yes it's true! Vera Bradley is having yet another clearance sale to get rid of their old patterns. This sale goes for three days and ends Wednesday, August 4th. The deals this time are $35 small duffels, $45 large duffels (which I have and love!), and $55 garment bags. The sale is only on the older patterns, but in my opinion those are some of the best ones - especially because they are a lot rarer and more difficult to obtain.

Anyone even remotely interested in any of these items should head over to Vera Bradley now and have a look at the very least. Too bad they aren't offering free shipping on orders above a certain amount! Although maybe it's a good thing because it kept up from buying any more bags!

In other news the season finale of the Bachelorette is about to start in t-7 minutes! I hope everyone is watching!!!!!

PS: I'm rooting for Chris!