Gifts for those with everything!

My darling sister in law had a birthday yesterday and I had a hard time finding her a gift. She has a lot of clothes already; she still lives at home so it's hard to get her household items; she's particular about beauty products; and of course she just graduated so she got just got lots of gifts a few weeks ago.
While wandering about Magazine street a few weekends ago, I chanced on a great place to grab a unique gift: an antique store. I browsed for at least an hour and found so many great gift ideas! I ended up getting her the adorable book pictured above. It may fall into the "useless" category, but it's her style and she sort of collects old fashioned pictures and such. She's very artistic so the engravings and poetry should tickle her pink! I hope she loves it!
Thanks to the recession, many antique stores are drastically reducing prices, so now is a great time to find affordable items. This little book was 50% off.
Other antiques that would make fabulous gifts:
1. Silver baby spoons and cups. The antique sets are beautiful shower or christening gifts and are comparably priced to new ones.
2. Antique art, especially local art - this includes framed posters and advertisements as well.
3. A few select pieces of silverware that don't have to match the rest of the service are a lovely wedding gift, and one or two pieces from an incomplete set are quite inexpensive. For example, cake servers or salad tongs; ice pick and ice tongs; punch ladle; nutcrackers.
4. Along the same lines, silver bottle openers or other bar accessories make good fathers day gifts.
5. I found a great quantity of antique (or some of them were just OLD) books that would be perfect for book lovers. An especially good choice is an early edition of a favorite classic.
6. Even if you can't afford large furniture antiques, you can find reasonably priced jewelry cabinets, silverware boxes, serving trays, and bookends.
7. Teapots seem to outlast the teacups and saucers and can be functional pieces or decorative (keep in mind that antique ceramics may have been lead-fired and should not be used with edibles. Silver teapots are safe though as long as they are actually silver and not pewter, which also contains lead. No wonder life spans used to be so short).
8. I found two or three beautiful sets of hand mirrors and combs, two silver and one a very elaborately carved tortoiseshell.
9. Victorians loved pointless decorative items. Tiny hinged painted boxes are nice to "wrap" money or gifts cards in for graduation or birthday gifts.

I'm sorry the pictures look weird today. I don't know why this blog won't format, how annoying.

Did you know I'm from Ghana?

'Cause I didn't. But apparently I am, according to my alma mater. As you recall, I recently graduated from pharmacy school.
And today all the honors graduates were featured on the website, along with our hometown. Turns out mine's Apam, Ghana (see above - looks nice, doesn't it? Wish I was on a boat ride!).
Surface research revealed that one of the area's big industries is casket-making. I think I may have missed my calling.

Anyway, for clarification, the hometown is good ol' NOLA, but I think Apam is totally my second choice.

Welcome to Foodie Friday!

Welcome to Foodie Friday, a whole day of blog dedicated to food, my absolute favorite thing! In Friday posts I will focus on various aspects of eating: recipes, new food ideas, restaurants, and cool things you can do with olives.
The rules for Foodie Friday are:
1. You are encouraged to post whatever you want, paragraphs and paragraphs if you like!
2. But it has to be about food!

Today's topic is a wonderful new idea for hors d'oeurvres. I stumbled upon a delightful basil-infused Havarti cheese at the grocery, and thought it would make a stand-out snack while my guests and I chatted before dinner.
Havarti is a semi-soft, mild cheese with a nutty tang to it. This particular cheese has small pieces of fresh - not dried - basil leaf throughout. The slight sweetness of the basil is a pleasant contrast to the tang of the cheese. The brand I bought is called "Saga" but you may have another brand available in your area.
The perfect before-dinner pairing? A cream sherry or tawny port, which is unexpected but fabulous before the meal.
Serve both before a lighter summer dinner. The combination can also be enjoyed as a dessert (unless your crowd must have something sweet) or it is very nice as an accompanyment to a good book on the porch swing.
Doesn't it look delicious?

Tip: Serve sherry in champagne glasses to avoid looking like an after-dinner drink.
Tip #2: Ugh, take the wrapper off your cheese of course, I just left mine on so you could see the brand. Tacky!

Ballet flats for WIDE feet

I have very wide feet (and I kind of have bunions, too, which doesn't help), so ballet flats are usually too narrow in the toe area for me. When I mentioned this to a friend, she pulled of her cute ballet flat to show me deep ugly red marks on her feet! Since then I've heard many complaints that ballet flats are only made for people who have the twiggy version of feet.
Of course I do love a good problem simply so I can solve it. I'm happy to announce this problem can be filed in the "solved" folder.

There is only one caveat: You have to only buy flats with cute goop on the toe like buckles, bows, or gigantic rhinestone jewels.
Note above my buckle-toe patent flats, far too narrow for my flippers.
I simply pull back the decorate buckle and snip a tiny cut that allows the flat to stretch outward. Make the cut about 1/8" to start, then adjust the length by fit (I cut about 1/4"). If you have to cut a long enough cut that you cut through the stitching, make sure it does not unravel by touching clear nail polish to the ends of the thread.
See? Now my shoe fits my big fat wide foot.

Open letter to dog-walkers in Audubon Park

Dear dog owners,
It's time we had a long-overdue chat. We need you to understand a few basics about dog walking.

1. Yes, your dog is very cute. But I am not going to agree with you about that one while he is actively eating my sock. I think he's cute, but he needs to keep the ol' canines to himself.

2. Your leash is 39 feet long. The path around the park is 12 feet wide. That means your dog may be playing limbo with all runners and joggers. Frankly, you are so in the way, and I am not going to go off the track and run all the way down by the ducks just to go around your leash. Reign'r in.

3. You do look funny walking around carrying a plastic bag full of poo!

4. I hate to burst your bubble, but stopping in the middle of the path so your dog can make "friends" with a fellow dog is just not going to have a happy ending. Your dog will do one of two things:
I. Try to mate with its new "friend"
II. Try to eat its new "friend"
Or both. Meanwhile you are taking up the whole path, forcing me to scoot in the biking lane, where I will be run over by a man in a tight neon onesie.

5. Oh barf, I just saw your dog eat its own poo and now it is drinking out of the people water fountain. Can you not see the doggie water fountain RIGHT BELOW IT?!

6. For crying out loud, it's 98 degrees out here and your dog has a built in fur coat! Take the poor soul indoors already! His eyes are rolling back into his head!

Thanks, pooch people. I know you love your dog and both you and your dog have a right to use the park too, but let's try to share the space, please?

PS - That's the park on a very quiet empty day - must be right before a hurricane. Remind me to tell you about how hubby and I stayed for Gustav and had like no food at all in the house. It was actually fun in a weird, Little House on the Prairie sort of way.

Growing out bangs?

I am! What a pain, too, they keep falling in my eyes while I'm SUPPOSED to be studying for the pharmacy boards (notice the sudden blog activity? Yeah, I really can't concentrate on studying).
My bangs are at the stage where they're about 2" short of reaching a ponytail - the worst length really, since they just flop around my ears in an annoying, messy way.

One solution I've come up with is the teeny cornrow. Only it's kind of a mix between a braid and a cornrow. I was inspired by the photo above - specifically, the braid on Ms. Bilson's right. Basically I start out with a simple braid, then add in short fly away hair sections (like you would on a cornrow) as I go. I tuck the end under a lock of hair and secure it with a small barrette (the kind hair dressers use).

Cute and can be a little dressy even! I'd show you my version but the hubby took the camera today, who knows what for.

Since we're talking bangs, any other cute styles for growing out bangs? Share, share!

Victory! Take that, NOPD!

Did I ever tall you about the ticket I got for OBEYING traffic laws? Yeah. Only in New Orleans.
I was driving home - from Bible study, no less!!- when I happened upon an intersection with a flashing yellow light. Now perhaps you have such intersections in your own city - during the day, they are functional stoplights. At night, however, the main road switches to flashing yellow and the side streets become flashing red.

QUICK DRIVER'S ED TUTORIAL!
Flashing red = stop sign.
Flashing yellow = slow down, proceed with caution.

Am I right? Yes, I am right. Despite this obvious fact, I slowly cruised through the yellow and got pulled over and ticketed for failure to yield! I gently explained to the officer (and I am going to go ahead and be mean here. There were two officers and they were both obese, rude, and not very bright. Seriously, this is our protection from crime?! And we wonder why the murder rate is so high. I wouldn't be scared either!)... anyway, I explained that the light was flashing yellow and in driver's ed I learned that flashing yellow meant to proceed with caution. He snapped back, "Yeah, well, in cop ed we learned it means come to a complete stop!".

So I had to go to court and guess what? Of course they threw the ticket out! So there, mean and ill-informed police officers! I think you need to go back and take a refresher course since it's your job to know the traffic laws!
And by the way I no longer blindly trust NOPD. I think they just might be corrupt like everyone says.