UPDATE: "They say a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind." --Michael Scott

If you haven't already read my post on jewelry organization, go read that first. The same disclaimer applies here:

• Gentlemen: this post may not be for you. Other than watches, I'm pretty sure most of you do not wear jewelry. Proceed with caution. 
• Ladies: Has your jewelry gotten out of control? Do you have no method of organization? Is your dresser/desk/nightstand cluttered with every necklace you own? Read below and be unorganized no more! 

Regarding said "better situation for watches and bangles," BEHOLD: 

For the bangles, I bought a hammered bowl from West Elm that is actually a serveware piece: 

There are several beautiful pieces in this collection (I have the "large bowl"). I also really like the footed bowl and almost bought that one instead, but I thought I might have to pile up the bracelets as opposed to having a concave bowl to place them into. If you have smaller and/or less bangles, this would be a good item to get. 


For the watches, I bought a tray from West Elm that is actually a bathroom accessory:

I thought it was so pretty! Who would relegate this to the bathroom? It's perfect for laying out watches - I can fit about nine on here. West Elm sells a huge variety of cute trays (both for bathroom and serving or entertaining) that can be used for jewelry storage/display. I LOVE these menswear print trays, but they sadly were not large enough for watch purposes. Please post below if you see anything else awesome and jewelry-worthy!


Gentlemen (and ladies who don't care about the above): I promise a non-jewelry post shortly!

happy bird-day.

First off, thanks to ALL for a truly amazing, wonderful, fantastic birthday. Thank you for the wall posts, dinners, tweets, emails, texts, drinks, cards, calls and other forms of love. I would be no where without the love and support of my friends and family. Secondly, I have to advertise some of the awesome presents I received from my people! 

1. Photojojo set of three iPhone lenses: 

2. Banana Republic metallic scarf: 

3. New Shel Silverstein book (poems published following his death):

4. Letter writing "Hi There" notepad: 

5. Magnetic nail polish:

6. Nail Art book (with six nail polishes!): 

I cannot thank everyone enough for the wonderfulness of my birthday. If the last few months are any indication, I am confident that the new year will be phenomenal. 

"They say a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind." --Michael Scott

Gentlemen: this post may not be for you. Other than watches, I'm pretty sure most of you do not wear jewelry. Proceed with caution. 


Ladies: Has your jewelry gotten out of control? Do you have no method of organization? Is your dresser/desk/nightstand cluttered with every necklace you own? Read below and be unorganized no more! 


For several years, I've had one of those 100 pocket things that hangs in the closet. This worked out well in New York, but my closet is a little different now and this was just not cutting it anymore. My dresser had become a sea of unorganized watches, rings and necklaces, not to mention all of my small earrings which were always impossible to locate. On my quest to accessorize more, I needed to have a clean way to store my jewelry out on my dresser. 

The "Before" Picture: 

After much research, I found two items at Bed Bath and Beyond. The first is a telescoping necklace holder, $20. It has two levels of double hooks. You can either keep the levels together, or move the second one up to hold even longer necklaces. Of course, mine is at the highest point. With the double hooks, you can really have things organized and all hanging separately. It also has a large, scooped tray at the bottom that can hold rings, or small bracelets. The bottom is felted so it won't scratch your dresser! 

Item number two is the GemGini, also $20 from Bed Bath & Beyond. Despite the annoying name, I really like this product. It is awesome for holding longer earrings, and has spaces for post earrings and/or rings at the bottom. I wear a lot of smaller earrings to work, so this is perfect for having those organized and at the ready. It comes set up with magnets - they advertise that you can magnetize this to the inside of your medicine cabinet so you can "put on makeup and jewelry at the same time." Not sure I would ever do those activities at the same time, but it's a nice idea. You can also use the sticky strips to hang it up on a wall. I haven't done that yet (just have it leaning against the wall), but that's your option. The only issue is that this doesn't really have an option for "huggie" style earrings. I have a few of those hanging on the bottom hooks right now... We'll see how long that lasts. All in all, it's great to have everything organized but available. I feel like I can see everything and it makes me want to wear things I don't usually wear because I can actually find them! 

If you like this concept but want something cuter, I would definitely look at Etsy. They have a TON of earrings organizers like this, but with cute frames and colors. I just didn't want to hang something on the wall, so I went simple.  

Ta da! Organization achieved.

I still need some better situation for bangles and watches 

(you know I have about 15 watches in the rotation), but that's for another day.

follow up on demotivation.

if you've made your way to this post, please ensure you've read this one first. 


look what arrived in my inbox today! awesome analyst is at it again with the wondrous poster below: 

we've been killing ourselves to assemble this complex workplan in Microsoft Project (at the express request of our client). if you've ever worked with Project, you know that it is way more cumbersome and confusing than it needs to be. example - i opened the latest file today and all the dates were changed because the file had decided to auto-schedule itself! now i've spent the morning rescheduling previously correctly scheduled tasks. that seems worth my time. 


in other news, i'm pretty sure that awesome analyst is in the wrong line of work... 

demotivation.

As you all know, I am a huge fan of sarcasm. My main mode is sarcasm and it should probably be my legal middle name. Now that I am an official office drone/cube dweller, I am a huge fan of those sarcastic office demotivating posters, modeled off of the way-too-happy office inspiration posters. ("Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." That is just vomit-city.) There are even hilarious demotivation posters from the office (cough - birthday present - cough)! A personal favorite in demotivation: 

Just come to our weekly Monday morning meetings. The above is more than true there. 


Recently, a particular analyst in our group had performed an analysis that I was reviewing. I told her that I had found a mistake and she felt really bad about it. She is amazing 99.9% of the time, so I don't care about one mistake. I told her that it was good that she had made a mistake because it gave me purpose and allowed me to affect change for our project. She immediately said "Oh that sounds like one of those posters!" This morning, I woke up to the following picture in my inbox: 

Personal motivational poster for me! It is now hanging in my cube, among all of my pictures, birthday cards, project workplans and consultant roadmaps. It's a great reminder of my purpose in office life! 

party genius.

during our lastest funco! meeting (i.e., the party planning committee, i.e., the committee to plan parties) we came upon the topic of finger food, and how it's always a problem of not having enough hands to eat and drink. apparently, a few products have attempted to tackle this age-old issue.

first, the fingerfood plate:

wear it like a ring, hold your drink in the same hand and voila! you've got a fingerplate. and its perfectly sized - small enough for your bagel-bites or tater-tots.


second we have the cookie dunk mug.

this way, your cookies are never too far from your milk. or coffee. or scotch. not sure how holiday-party specific this is, but i guess you can always use the shelf for cheese.... and your mug for wine! yay!

now might need an iPhone...

due to this new app. more importantly though, can it tell me if i'll like the rabbi, the service, the songs, the people, the area, the classes.... and where is the nearest and yummiest kosher restaurant??

not heelarious.

if you saw the daily show last night, then you've already heard of the newest and most shocking product -

high heel shoes for babies.

that's right. a company called heelarious (ha ha... not.) has been selling heels for 0-6 months old babies. they are all designed to look like stiletto heels (aside from a few pairs that are cowboy boots), but the whole thing is made out of some mushy material so if your 0-6 month old kid were to try to walk anywhere, the heel would just sort of mush down and collapse. i'm already opposed to kids dressing as adults, but this is above and beyond. can anyone explain why this is necessary? why does this even exist? who would buy these for their kid?

breakfast is important.

i stopped by my trusty DR this morning to get some cereal. it wasn't until when i got to work that i realized why it was such a super-duper fantastic idea that i had chosen to purchase cereal:

now, when i was a kid, i really hated breakfast (i still do, mostly). even if i had liked it, i would never have been allowed to get sugary cereals that also give you prizes. of course, i smashed my hand down into the box to find that bobbly pencil topper toy (?) immediately! but they must hide that toy way at the bottom so kids like me cant find it the first day. i guess i have to wait (and eat a lot of cereal). but i am definitely spending the afternoon cutting out that dino mask to scare my coworkers.

need a little organization in your life?

is your monitor at work clouded by a mass of post-it notes? (Uh oh - flashback to 1997 - Um, well, ordinarily when you make glue first you need to thermoset your resin and then after it cools you have to mix in an epoxide, which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? And then I thought maybe, just maybe, you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process and it turns out I was right.) do you make lists, maybe on the stickies program on your mac, but then can't remember/access the note at work? what's a person to do?!

evernote is the answer, my dear friends. not only can you access it online through their site, but you can also download programs to your devices (pc, mac, blackberry, iPhone... palm pilot anyone?).

cool thing #1! your notes will sync up to ALL OF YOUR LOCATIONS. so, if you are at your work computer and you add a note through their online site, it will be waiting on your mac program when you get home! if you upload a picture note on your blackberry, it will show up on your pc at work! this would even be enough for me (dayeiu). i always make lists and need to update them and have them where ever i go... but short of carrying around a 5-subject notebook, this is the solution!

cool thing #2! evernote can search text in pictures! (this even made the IT dudes at work go googly-eyed.) if i take a picture of your business card, i can search in evernote for your name, and up pops the picture of your card!

additionally, you can have tags and different books of notes (like i have a separate one for work-related notes). i've been using it for a few days now and i think it's quite delightful. let me know if you try it and how it works out for you!

...and a new obsession is born.

while i can't mention how i happened upon this site, i'm quite glad that i found it. i was enticed by the schlep tote (shown here). that is something that i definitely need to carry around town. i love it. i am also enjoying the yiddish cat in the hat (though i'm not sure what dr. suess would think, or if i'm even allowed to officially endore it) and i'm pretty sure my mom will want to get mimi the kosher bone and bagel chew toys. ohhh, excitement...

product alert!

if you've facebook-stalked me enough, you'll know that one of my favorite activities is researching "the best" of different products. when i finally find a lotion or something like that that is perfect, i like to share so you can know also.

today's product news is about covergirl outlast lipstain! (am i ready for my commercial, mr jay? easy, breezy, beautiful!) i had seen a commercial for it the other day, and went to DR this morning to check it out. in the commercial, drew (gag) tells me that it gives you color, but no sticky, creamy nonsense (that's what she said), which is why i very, very rarely use gloss or lipstick.

basically, it's like a felt-tip marker that you use to draw on your lips. it comes out really matte and actually (i kid you not) does not rub off on anything (you are welcome to come check my mug if you don't believe me). the covergirl website tells me that i can add a clear gloss over it, but why ruin a good thing?! i will not. so - thank you, covergirl. i am a happy camper and am glad to close the book on "best lip color".