honesty

So this past Tuesday was my mom's birthday.

Since she has everything she could possibly want (and my dad always manages to take the cake in terms of presents - this year, he surprised her with a new BMW), us kids usually opt to send her a bottle of good champagne (her fav) to wherever she is dining that night or a nice bunch of flowers (who doesn't love fresh blooms?) to brighten up her desk.

from here

 

from here

This year, however, she happened to be down at their place in Florida, and unfortunately 
1. their go-to restaurant for dinner out (the Pink!) was closed (so they'd be dining at home), and
2. our go-to Gasparilla Island florist wasn't open until the end of the month.

Not wanting to stray from our original idea, we decided to just try out another florist.  The woman assured me they had a beautiful arrangement of Gerber Daisies (my mom's fav) in a lovely basket that would do the trick.  How bad could it be?

The answer to that question is:
very, very bad.

As soon as the flowers were delivered, she sent us kids a text:
"Thanks so much for the flowers! xxoo"

Curious as to whether our trial florist fit the bill, I responded:
"You're so welcome!  Are they cute?"

To which she replied:
"No not cute sorry!! I will send you a picture.  They are awful!!!!"

Gotta love her honesty.
Live and learn: don't use a florist you don't know.

Perhaps, we'll get our act together to pull this off for next year:

from here

Happy weekend!

xoxo

KK

oops.

So another reason for my silence of late has been due to the fact that my new job happens to be down in Palo Alto,
and I live up in San Francisco,
which means I've got a 1-hour commute on each end.
(Which doesn't leave me with oodles of time to be posting musings on my ho-hum life.)

But yesterday something happened that I felt I had no choice but to come out of my no-posting cocoon and share.

I joined a gym down in PA so that I could beat traffic and drive down in the wee morning hours (read: 5am), work out, and then be into the office by 7:15am.  This plan has been flawless to date and I've loved sipping my coffee (while chatting with my mom), buzzing down an empty freeway as the sun begins to peak its way out behind the hills.

I'm all about easy-to-wear work clothes so most of the time I can just stick my wardrobe in my gym bag the night before and be good to go.  Yesterday, however, I was planning on wearing my favorite new suit dress:

Peplum Dress in Stretch Wool

from jcrew

But because it's best when perfectly pressed, I needed to bring it down on a hanger as opposed to stuffed into a bag.  The night before, I packed my gym bag with all the goods except the dress and left a note on the mirror that read: 

Yesterday morning when I got up, I tip-toed out of the bedroom, hit go on our Nespresso machine, popped on my gym clothes, grabbed my bags and coffee, and headed out of the apartment, all within 5 minutes flat.  I love efficiency.

I drove down to PA, happily chatting with my mom the whole 1-hour way (hands-free of course) and pulled into my parking spot.  As I got out of the car and grabbed my things, I realized I had forgotten something at home:

So what do I do?

Driving back to get it is a solid 2.5+ hour ordeal taking into account the traffic that is rapidly building up by the minute.
It's 6am and therefore no stores are open (and clothing stores won't open shop until at least 10am).
The only clothes I have on my person are my raggedy work-out clothes, a trench coat, and a bra + underwear.
AND I have a 9am meeting.

Unwilling to show up to my meeting naked underneath a trench coat, I resign myself to driving the torturous route back home to secure some proper over-garments.

Five minutes into my journey and it hits me - the answer to ALL prayers:

TARGET opens at 8am!

And they sell clothes!

And those clothes are reasonably priced!

I camped out at a nearby Starbucks to do some work until they opened shop and then stormed in to try anything and everything vaguely work appropriate:

pencil skirt + maroon blouse =

TOO STUFFY.

stretchy grey sweater dress =

TOO CAJ.

black dress with cap sleeves =

JJJJJJUST RIGHT.

I opted for choice #3 (for the bargain price of $27.99), paired it with my Tory Burch wedges (waiting underneath my desk at the office), Kate Spade studs (waiting in my purse), and Anne Fontaine black sweater (waiting in my gym bag), and my office-mates were none the wiser. 

(Or at least they didn't say anything.)

What would you have done?

xoxo

KK

happy birthday mom!

Apologies for the radio silence of late - I just started a very exciting new job (which I am absolutely LOVING) and it's been a busy month getting into the swing of things and learning the ropes.

BUT today was worthy of reappearance because TODAY marks the grand old day of birth for my fabulous mother:

There aren't too many moms you want to be twins with.
It just so happens that MY mom is extremely twin-worthy.
(And often her, Gretch, and I pull the whole triplet thing, and we LOVE it.  Pretty awesome.)

To celebrate her special day, I figured I'd share some of my fav mom posts to date:

favs from mom - 
this post has been THE MOST popular post on this site since the day I started posting a list of the most popular posts (see right-hand side) - guess everybody knows Mom's got good taste

more thanksgiving goodness -
did you know this power woman is so beloved, she has a field hockey field named after her?  pretty awesome.  the Krieg-Gallun clan had some serious competition on that baby last Thanksgiving...

a belated birthday -
her lovely birthday celebration in Maine with Nana and Pops last year

the morning of -
the unbelievably sweet women-only brunch she planned for me the morning of Stefan and my wedding

getting ready -
and all the work she did for the wedding in the few days prior

words and writers -
this super sweet game + book she put together when Stefan and I got engaged

an extra special engagement -
the story of how SHE got engaged just two Christmases ago :)

She's not only my fabulous, knock-em-dead mother, 
she's my fashion consultant, crisis-solver, cheerer-upper, and - most of all - friend.  

Mom - thanks for being the best.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

xoxo
KK