hotness

i have swim suit confidence… and cookies

Published May 23, 2011 | By Nicole

also, i don’t mind making a complete fool of myself, especially when snacks are involved.

what? is there something on my face?

a little while ago, a bunch of bloggers were contacted by lands’ end who had partnered up with the ladies of curvy girl guide for a fantastic campaign.

this week marks national swim suit confidence week, and i am honored to be a part of it and spread the message that confidence is beautiful, no matter your size… even in a swim suit.

do i look like i’m joking with you?

today, may 23rd, kicks off this week with us posting about the campaign on our blogs, as well as asking you, our loyal readers, to join us in participating by adding a picture of yourself, swim suit clad, on the facebook page of lands’ end.

can someone hand me the remote?

what was i saying? oh yeah, in addition to joining us on facebook, you can participate on twitter by following the hashtag #landsend and keeping up to date by the minute on some stylin giveaways as well as gaining some swim suit tips. BONUS!

in the near future, paul and i are headed for a little vacay to an undisclosed location of beachy awesomeness. i dreaded the bathing suit purchasing and put it off FOR-EV-ER, until i learned of lands’ end 2011 swim wear collection… uber flattering, tons of options, a range of sizes, and quite literally something for everyone.

so i bought one. i bought the black one pictured above (you can also find it by clicking here).

i’ve been a one piece bathing suit wearer since jackson was born 3 years ago, and after birthing a kiddo who weighed well over 9 lbs, i don’t see myself ever going back to a bikini. in fact, i may just have a bikini bonfire to solidify that.

the seaside sheath one piece bathing suit actually looks like it’s a two piece thanks to the multitude of scrunching and ruffling and gathering of material in all the right places.

i personally love that i can tug on it just a bit and it’ll adjust to cover my cheese-thigh-hips (you know, the stuff that’s below your hips but above your thighs in that odd middle of no where portion of your leg). well, screw you if you don’t and if you do, you’re nodding your head with me and saying “FINALLY” because THIS SUIT COVERS THAT.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!

fast forward a few weeks and i learned about national swim suit confidence week and was asked if i wanted to participate in it. HELLS YES! where do i sign? this time, i chose a two piece (NOT A BIKINI) but a top and shorts… ya know, switch things up a bit.

shh… my favorite part is coming up.

the beach living geo print bandeau tank swim suit top was just what i was looking for… something with removable straps, cute pattern, little ties on the sides to add a touch of femininity. perfect, done!

oh wait, i needed bottoms. i scoped out the choices and holy smokes are there a lot… the typical bikini bottom is always an option, in addition to the skirts, board shorts, skorts, ruffled swiminis (no i did not make that up) and what i settled on, the beach living 3″ swim shorts WITH TUMMY CONTROL. need i say more? since having a kiddo, those three words are music to my ears.

and there ya have it, folks… i am beach ready, but more importantly, i am swim suit confident, thanks to lands’ end.

now paul and i can go away on vacation, eat island food we’ve never heard of and drink as many coconut concoctions as possible… all while feeling fantastic in my swimwear.

::BURP::

join national swimsuit confidence week, get the twibbon and display the “I have swimsuit confidence!” twibbon on your twitter profile photo.

FULL DISCLOSURE: i purchased the first bathing suit and was given the second one by lands’ end for purposes of this campaign. all opinions are of my own.

Posted in anxiety, body image, celebrating, community, hotness, motherhood | Tagged anxiety, celebrating, community, did this really just happen? really?, motherhood

partner + kiddos = death of date night?

Published February 23, 2011 | By Nicole

i miss date night. i miss dating my husband.

we’ve been married over 6 years and together for over 12. our relationship is strong and i am very much still IN LOVE with my husband (which for the record is very different than loving my husband, which i do too for the record).

point being, i miss dating my husband.

i miss going out with my husband… to a movie… a restaurant… anywhere that is just him and me.

we had 3 years of marriage with each other before our son (surprisingly!) came along. we had 3 years of interacting with other couples… of going out on weekends… of spending money on good food and wine…

HOW do you find time for you and your partner once you’ve had kidlets?

how expensive are your babysitters?

how do you make it a “date night” when you’re still at home?

how do you make certain that you haven’t lost that lovin feelin?

comments below are appreciated… also…

i’m going to host a LIVE CHAT on this very topic on THURSDAY, FEB. 24 at 11 am EST. please join me at the international delight’s coffee talk community to share your thoughts, or throw your hands in the air and just say “I DON’T KNOW AND I NEED MORE COFFEE. I WANT DATE NIGHT TOO!!!”

Posted in community, hotness, love, parenting, things are getting weird | Tagged community, i don't know, love, parenting, relationships

a baker’s dozen

Published February 18, 2011 | By Nicole

earlier this week, paul reminded me that tomorrow marks twelve years that he and i have been making out with one another.

twelve… 1-2… 12… TWELVE!

yes, he remembers anniversaries better than i do. he remembers a lot of things better than i do.

come to think of it, paul’s kind of like a vault that occasionally cracks open when you get the combination correct and then busts out with some random nugget of knowledge… or in this case, a reminder of when he and i began dating.

he remembers the movie we saw on our first date. i don’t. i know that there was fire in it. i actually missed a good chunk of the movie because i spent an obscene amount of time in the bathroom that evening.

the part of our date that i remember vividly, other than it sucking, is my contact lens getting stuck in the top of my eye. like UP on the white part of your eyeball and you try to ::BLINK:: to get it to move down but your eyelid is being a bitch and fighting you with each ::BLINK:: and then your eyes start to tear up but not because you’re crying at the stupid fire movie you’re watching, but because you have a circular piece of plastic that was made to correct your vision STUCK ON TOP OF YOUR EYEBALL and unwilling to move.

i spent what felt like hours in that bathroom, splashing my face with water, attempting to get some in my eye so that it would somehow swish my contact lens around and magically conform to my eye the way it’s supposed to.

after a few minutes of failing at that, i had to do one of the things i hate the most… i had to TOUCH MY EYE. and sweet mother of all things disgusting that gives me the itchies in my soul, I HATE TOUCHING MY EYE.

alas, i had no choice nor any saline solution in the movie theater bathroom. i touched my eye, removed the bitch of a contact lens, and saw that the lens had flipped itself inside out.

(remember that lesson in science class about concave and convex lenses? i should’ve paid more attention to that.)

i toss the contact lens in the trash can, pinch my cheeks in the hopes of looking like i still have a little bit of blush on even though i washed it all off during my battle with my contact lens.

it then dawns on me that the amount of time i spent in that movie theater bathroom was the exact equivalent of the amount of time one spends in a public restroom when one has explosive diarrhea.

“paul is totally thinking i diarrheared myself during our first date. of course he would think i diarrheaed myself this whole time because i have been in here FOR-EV-ER.”

i wanted to die. i didn’t die (obviously) but i wanted to at that moment in time.

(it should be noted that years later, when i finished grad school, my parents asked me what i wanted as a gift to mark the accomplishment of getting my master’s degree. i asked for lasik eye surgery.)

paul does not recall the contact lens of death drama that occurred that evening. he was watching a movie about fire and totally plotting how he would make out with me by the end of the night (which he didn’t because the date sucked and i don’t put out on dates that cause me to jab my own fingers in my eye.)

the night of my first date with paul ended excessively early. i had a lame curfew and paul had a loud-ass jeep wrangler that irritated the hell out of me for years because of the stupid noise those cheap plastic windows make that ultimately keep one from having any sort of conversation while driving.

i’m convinced jeep wranglers were invented just to piss excessively verbal people, like me, off.

also, that night, after throwing away my contact lens in the movie theater bathroom, i could only half see which was an odd experience and gave me a craptastic headache.

WHATEVER! I HAD TO TOUCH MY EYEBALL, PEOPLE! IT WAS TRAUMATIC!

happy 12 years, my love! let’s make out.

Posted in celebrating, hell if i know, hotness, insanity, love, relationships, reminiscing | Tagged celebrating, did this really just happen? really?, i don't know, insanity, love, relationships, reminiscing

here’s the thing about plastic surgery and dreams

Published February 16, 2011 | By Nicole

last night i got a chin implant. not really… but in my dream i did. the surgery was done by the really hot doctor on private practice who has a crush on addison right now but she’s all “no, i am with sam and i don’t want to be a cheater anymore,” but he’s all sexy with an accent.

(it should be said that i am entirely team sam when i watch the show. but for the purposes of recalling last night’s dream and now this post, i’m talking about him.)

he gave me a chin implant… in my dream.

there was also a girl from my graduating high school class in the dream, who was the receptionist at the plastic surgeon’s office AND she was getting breast implants that same day. multi-tasking.

so i’m there, sitting on the table and measuring chin implants to my… lack of chin (reality check, i don’t know what a chin implant even looks like.)

hot surgeon with an accent tells me i should get my boobs lifted. and i’m all “I KNOW!!! I SHOULD!!!” so he breaks out the red sharpie marker and starts drawing all over my boobs and i’m looking at myself sideways in a mirror going “hmm… yes, this could be good.”

i take a picture on my phone and text it to my mom. i ask her if the marks that hot surgeon with an accent made on me look straight and right and mom texts me back, “why are you having your boobs done? i thought you were there for a chin implant?” and i look at hot surgeon with an accent and i’m like “ya know, she’s right! i’m here to have a chin implant, not my boobs lifted. but since you made the marks on my boobs, let’s just leave them there and i’ll get them done at a later time.”

then the chick i went to high school with, aka the receptionist, aka the one who IS getting her boobs done comes back and hooks herself up to some anesthesia because she knows how to do that sort of thing and is ready to get started on her own surgery. whatever.

eventually it’s my turn, i get my chin implant and when i wake up from the surgery i have all this gauze in my mouth like i had just had my wisdom teeth taken out but i hadn’t because i had a chin implant done. there are no bandages around my jaw, nothing. everything gauze/bandage-like is on the inside of my mouth because hot surgeon with an accent is a miracle worker who can do chin implants through the INSIDE of your mouth.

seriously, if you are in the market for having your chin done, you should call this guy.

once i realize that i can remove some of the gauze from my mouth, enough so i can talk, hot surgeon with an accent asks me if i’m sure i don’t want him to knock me back out and have my boobs lifted. and i’m all “naw man, mom shaid i haffoo only do da chiiiin.”

high school chick, aka receptionist, aka the one who had her boobs done, walks out to go back to the reception desk and her boobs are seriously AT HER WAIST. like old granny boobs BUT LOWER. sucks for her.

then i wake up.

as i’m drinking my coffee this morning and listening to jackson slam some peanut butter toast, it dawns on me what i dreamed about and i gasp out loud. i tell paul about it and he just laughs at me. i ask paul if i did anything weird in my sleep last night because sometimes i talk, yell, remove articles of clothing, or on rare occasion, i’ll get up and walk. he says no. and i’m relieved.

i realize that i’m relieved for a couple of reasons… number one: I SLEPT. like hard. i slept really good last night. number two: though i had an entirely wacked out dream that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, the fact that i slept that hard means that after 2-3 weeks of being back on medication, it’s working. i’m not awake all night long with thoughts running through my head and anxiety keeping me wide-eyed, staring at the alarm clock, waiting for the minutes to tick until the next day starts. lather, rinse, repeat.

i’ve come to the conclusion that this is good. focusing on me is good. going back on meds for a while was a good decision for me.

so i’m going to go do level 2 of the 30 day shred now, because if i can’t get pregnant at this moment in time (like the rest of the world seems to be doing) for the sake of my mental stability… i can be vain and work on my smokin’ hot bod.

Posted in anxiety, hell if i know, hotness, insanity, motherhood | Tagged anxiety, did this really just happen? really?, insanity, motherhood

a list of awesome and hot

Published July 12, 2010 | By Nicole

i’m entirely behind on pretty much everything at this moment. we just got home from one wedding and we have 3 more to go in the next 7 weeks, which means that i am UP TO HERE with laundry and dry cleaning so that we can turn around and repack our hanging bag full of uncomfortable dress clothes and spanx.

for the record, spanx totally serve their purpose and i’m very grateful for the ones that have the pee hole in them because pulling those things down to pee and then back up is next to impossible, especially after consuming wine. so thank you for the pee hole, spanx.

(no, they did not pay me to say that. i’m just generous.)

where was i???

ah yes, i’m behind on everything…

1) groceries
2) photography projects
3) deadlines… self-imposed and non-self-imposed
4) web projects
5) finishing the book
6) blogging
7) washing my hair
figuring out why this stupid smiley icon with sunglasses is in place of #8 of my list
9) emailing artist about new tattoo concept
10) writing about new tattoo concept
11) responding to emails that have sat in my inbox for way too long
12) making fun of pitches i have received (stop calling me “Mrs. Bottle”)
13) reading up on YOUR blogs
14) bills ::headdesk::
15) keeping up with blogher@home
16) potty-training the magoo
17) promoting the calendar i got naked for
18) spraying myself with tan in a can b/c it’s too damn hot to go outside
19) researching preschools for the magoo
20) bathing
21) cleaning my kitchen that is fruit-fly-infested *gag*