When I was a junior in college, I was hired to work the perfume counter at Dillard's department store during Christmas break. My mom persuaded me get the job, saying she had a friend whose daughter worked a perfume counter and was making a lot of money. She wanted me to get the job because they had agreed to fund a trip that upcoming summer on which I planned to follow
Phish for five weeks around the East Coast. My parents had spent, like, $600 on concert tickets for me.
I acquiesced. As a perfume gal, I was supposed wear all black. I spent my days standing around the front of the store, attempting to mist any woman who walked by, convincing her that she needed what I was
sprayin'.
"Would you like to sample Gucci Rush?" I would say one day. "It's really the new scent for the holidays."
The next day I was peddling Cool Water for Women. The following, it was
Boucheron.
And if I sold a gift box? Bonus!
Many people I know would find this job demeaning. But I have never been ashamed to work anywhere. If the money is good, I will do it. My first job was folding clothes at Benetton, then I moved on to....wait for it....Chuck E Cheese's. After that, I worked for three weeks at Kids 'R Us.
So with perfuming paying $14 an hour, this 21-year-old saw a windfall. At the end of my tenure, if I reached a sales goal, I would get a $500 bonus. But no matter how alluring the money was, sometimes I just could not stand the smell of perfume. Those days, I volunteered for the gift wrapping station. There, I could be quiet and work an assembly line of paper folding and ribbon curling. Before the perfume job, I was the worst gift wrapper in the world. My family always made fun of me because whenever I had to wrap a gift, it went into a bag with some balled up tissue paper.
But selling perfume really made me love wrapping presents. I learned how to do corners, match up the patterns and how to get a tight wrap. These days, I love the way a pretty gift looks under the Christmas tree. And every year, I come up with gift-wrapping themes to distinguish my gifts from the others under the tree. One year, I did zebra stripes and tied ornaments to the packages with green and blue ribbon
This Christmas, I think I am going to use
Happy Tape. I plan to use simple
kraft paper and twine to wrap, and secure packages with this. What do you think?
Oh how I do love Etsy. How fun are these glasses? What a great gift. I would use these every day when I come home from work for lunch. Except, I have no more room in my kitchen cabinets for glasses. And we definitely have no more room for bikes. Between Spencer and myself, we own six.
Jenny and I have a booth at the Snow King Christmas Bazaar on Saturday. Along with some cute cotton undies that have this design on the left rear, I'm also selling homemade — HOMEMADE — vanilla marshmallows and hot chocolate on a stick! I am really obsessed with the undies. I gave similar ones to all to my friends who came to my bachelorette party in Las Vegas. They are all great gifts. The undies are $8, so you can give them to all your friends.
Yesterday I received an e-mail from PaperSource about its new letterpress machine. For $150, it could be a fun way to pass the time at home. But I wonder if it could handle a big job, like these 75 invites we are making for a party next month. I don't want to scoop myself, so here's the back. I can't wait to get it back from the letterpress company!
I just bought White and Warren cashmere slippers at 50 percent off. How psyched am I? You may just be one of the lucky gals who gets these for Christmas. And speaking of lucky, that's how I found the deal. Lucky Magazine is allowing readers 50 percent off these fine slippers for today only. Just enter luckydaily1 at checkout. Which colors did you buy?
So my good friend Erin is opening a Pilates studio. I am so proud of her. She left her old job working for a studio just over a week ago. Her plan was to take a few weeks to get her space set up, design a logo and do all that stuff that comes along with setting up a studio. But people just love her too much, and her first week in her new space she had 35 clients.
I woke up this morning and realized another month has gone by. How did that happen? Then I realized I am still craving the warmth of summer, so I posted this picture from our honeymoon in Kaua'i. I made Spencer snap this with me one night after dinner. Really, I wanted a picture of all the tall orchids outside this restaurant. You can kinda see them on the right.
The morning of my wedding, I had a brunch for all my bridesmaids. They, in return, each gave me a bottle of wine or champagne to drink during the first year of our marriage. Each bottle had a tag attached saying things like "Drink me during the first snowfall" or "Enjoy while writing thank-you notes." Their gifts instantly stocked our wine cabinet. But one of the gifts is going in the closet. This one was a bottle with a tag attached that said "Drink during a family visit." It was nonalcoholic, sparkling, peach wine. I'll let you guess what "family visit" is supposed to mean.
Jenny and I created this save the date for friends who are getting married next summer in Jackson. It makes me laugh because — no matter how well Spencer and I get along — we could never, ever ride a bicycle built for two. I think it would devolve into a big fight, mainly me getting mad at him for making me do something physical that I don't think I can do. Like, the one time he took me skiing, and it got really steep. I sat down, crying, and screamed "Get me a snowmobile and get me off this mountain."
