Proposal in Bloomie's shoe department! Chocolate and champagne!!

The newly engaged couple with sales associate Suzaune Pourshahriari / All photos courtesy of Bloomingdale's


According to Bloomingdale's press release, "...girlfriend, Stephanie Chow, selected a pair of Dior boots, which the sales associate went to the stockroom to retrieve. She brought out the boots to Stephanie as requested, with the ring tucked into the toe.

“Stephanie first put on the left boot (sans ring), then reached to unzip the other when she found the ring. George promptly got down on one knee and asked for her hand in marriage.

“There must have been 75 people around who watched and cheered when George jumped up and said loudly and proudly, ‘She said YES!’

“Bloomingdale’s staff ushered in champagne and chocolates for the newly engaged couple and their friends that were hiding nearby.

“When asked why the Bloomingdale’s shoe department was picked for the proposal, George replied, ‘It’s our favorite, favorite, favorite store, and she LOVES shoes!’”

Stephanie might not have loved the Dior boots because she got LAMB summer boots instead.

simple bliss: quality vs. clearance prices

I almost bought a $25 Izod bag at Marshalls today. I was in line with it, and my shoes, which I will describe shortly. The bag was on clearance, down from the Marshall's price of 29.99.

It was a cute bag, but I realized that it was not the one I wanted. It looked like one I wanted, which was a nice soft green leather one. I couldn't justify the higher prices to myself, though, or so I thought.

In line, the epiphany struck: the bag was plastic. I could use the 25 toward a bag I really wanted, and not use it for one I didn't really want. Back on the shelf by the register.

I've been carrying the cutest black leather Perlina "barrel" shaped bag for the last few years. Still loving it. I told my hubby in line: "I've used this bag for years and only paid about 60 for it at TJMaxx. I may as well get another good one instead of one that will just get beat up and isn't what I really want."

Then we left Marshalls, with the keepers: clearance Michael Kors shoes: soft brown/tan nubuck suede platforms for 39.99. High platforms... good for the 5'4" curvy frame... and extremely comfortable! Here is a deal I congratulate myself on, as Overstock is currently "offering" these shoes for $107. and shipping.

We just watched about 3 or 4 "What Not to Wear"s earlier in the day, and I confess I've been wearing Target flip flops around a lot in Miami, and, even to work... I tell myself it's no big deal, but here is what they said on WNTW today:

(Giggles ahead!)

non-style believing girl: I like these flip flops; I only paid $3 for these flip flops
Clinton: "and they look like you paid three dollars for them..."

later,

non-style believing girl: I am not into shoes.

Stacy: How can a woman not be into shoes? All she's got to do is try some on...

she finds adorable shoes and pays $250 a pair for a few...

Stacy and Clinton: "we have a convert!!!!!!!"

he is really sweeter than chocolate

my dh just emptied, loaded, and turned on the dishwasher while I was doing blog world stuff.

Gotta love it.

Also, whenever I call him Mr. Wonderful, he says, well, you're Mrs. Wonderful.

Caramel Truffles revisited

Dear Whole Foods,

Thank you for the lovely Caramel Truffles! Your 365 house brand of truffles is just what I needed yesterday. (and today.)

Would they be too caramel-y inside, I wondered, but no, you solved that by making it a truffle with caramel infusion.

Delicious!

The fact that they are also on sale for 3.99 a box for 27 truffles makes me pretty happy too!

Good Day

We got our new computer today so we will be updating shortly. Seattle's Best was drank today and life is good. I need to do some research on the cafe cubanos down the street they sell for 75 cents instead of the dollar twenty-five everywhere else.

Today's Coffee Update

Today was a good day from the coffee and work production perspective. I wrote my second column today on www.examiner.com/x-4320-South-Beach-Community-Examiner . It was about a coffee I had at sunset on Ocean Dr in South Beach.

Today I was fueled by Seattle's Best. It is a balanced roast with the cat on the label. I mixed it with Irish cream syrup and milk instead of cream. The syrup is also Seattle's Best now that I think of it. This blend reminds me of the clear feeling that the Dunkin Donuts gives me when I'm working and it never gives me the jitters as long as I keep to one pot a day of it. Ok, I am off to research some South Beach hideouts.

What coffee can do for you ?!?

Well it can get you a job? Sitting around writing this journal and drinking coffee has gotten me published on http://www.examiner.com/x-4320-South-Beach-Community-Examiner . Crazy talk!

I'd like to thank Dunkin Donuts for my thinking coffee and Cafe Bustelo for my wake up coffee, and Ghirardelli for that dark choclate tin of calming soothing dark elixir!

Chocolate Gift, check, Shoe Gift, check, and Coffee Gift, check : Hint Hint, Great Present Ideas!!!

Our three favorite topics make the perfect gift...

Chocolate comes in any size and fits all occasions... holidays, birthdays, just because days. One of our absolute favorites, Chocolove, made in Boulder, CO, has an adorable new size, perfect for little presents.

My friend Mo will tell you her shoe size is 7, even if she is not sure who you are when you text her a pic of a fabulous shoe find. Shoes are a perfect gift: they come boxed and wrapped in tissue paper. You can always offer a present perfect for the season, to add to your giftee's shoe wardrobe.

Mo's husband, in an admirable accomplishment, built her adequate shelving for her shoe collection. Can we have a picture, Mo?

Finally, coffee is the perfect gift because you can never have enough, just like shoes and chocolate. When our friends gave us the most fabulous Christmas gift ever, it included lots of coffee, chocolate, and books. It was the perfect package to come home to after a road trip, making home feel homier again and less like a truck stop with all our suitcases and road weary selves.

It soothed our souls, knowing the house was stocked once again with fresh choices in coffee and gourmet chocolate, not to mention books picked just for us. We could curl up with a blanket, a book, and a hot cup of java, or hot chocolate from our bounty.

With the love of your life, amazing friends, bubble baths, and presents like this, what else do you need?

Chocolate Survey !

Please vote in our Chocolate Survey below. Comment here for brands not presented.

Kenneth Cole Sandals!

"Cedar Later" model... pretty zippy....

Miss Bliss's eye is on these sexy sandals for spring:

of course they are all year shoes in Miami...

A delicious finish

Dark Chocolate Tartufo, Cannolis, Machiaato, and Cappucino with yummy foam on Rosinella's at Lincoln Road... a perfect finish to a shared mini-Italian meal while we were out and about...

...seeing even more excitement than usual in our town with the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, set up on the beach, sponsored by one of our favorite channels, Food Network.

Godiva mousse limited editions

Dear Godiva,

Did you really need to make a collection of dark chocolate covered mousse-filled Godivas?

$22 for nine of these decadent babies and $38 for eighteen of them, so obviously we need eighteen, it's a better deal! Godiva chocolate covered mousses!! Right up there with eggs, bread and milk.

Okay, if you insist. We will succumb to tropical mousse, dark chocolate mousse, coffee mousse, and hazelnut mousse.

Really, though, is there much point in a basic milk chocolate mousse when you have the previous fabulousness?

We are advancing our craft

Well well well. I finally am attempting to load pictures. Good morning one and all! These are our favorite coffee cups from Dicky D for Christmas. They let you see the color of your brew and the wide tops allow that coffee perfume to reach your senses! I will post the pictures that went with previous posts or at least get the pics for you to see and reference the dates of the posts. We will see.

Yumm

York peppermint patties. Do I really need to say anything else? Fresh hot coffee and a peppermint pattie!

chocolate and salt for the traveling soul

Does it get any better???

If you are in Boulder, Colorado, I suggest Belvedere's chocolate for their dark chocolate with a little caramel and rock salt on top. Your life is filled with flowers and song. At least if you take it with you up into the canyon... Belvedere also has cute little chocolate frogs and even chocolate cell phones.

If you are in or near St. Augustine, FL, go to Claude's. Claude also has a masterpiece of chocolate, caramel, and salt. We gave sampler boxes from Claude's to our wedding guests...no one complained.

Further north, in Jacksonville, FL, a place called Peterbrooke's dips all sorts of amazing salty stuff into their fine sweet blend of chocolate. Dark chocolate popcorn. Chocolate dipped Pringles chips. Chocolate covered rice krispie treat bars. Little chocolate race cars and butterflies.

Yes, I could survive on three square chocolate meals per day. And I do not mean a chocolate slim fast shake. Ha!

Focusing on JOY JOY JOY

We are having so much fun in life now... it does get better and better as you get older, and finding and marrying the love of your life doesn't hurt!

This afternoon after yoga, yoga class involving me going up the wall, literally, I might add, I made us some coffee with the grinder and French press.

G. is all about the French press... I see why. I have become quite a fan, too. I do like to grind the beans longer in the grinder than he does, though. I love the whirring sound of the beans crushing and releasing all their deliciousness... I feel like the longer I grind the more of the good stuff we get in our cups. I do stop short of making coffee bean powder, however.

We snuck in some clove cigarettes on our front steps in some tropical bliss of sky and sun and palms. I put out my just sprouting herb collection for a little direct sun: basil, rosemary, dill, and chives. G. says they are giving a "sprout out." We crack ourselves up with word play.

Coffee fueled, we went to open a new high interest account in town. You gotta do what you gotta do, and I for one don't want to worry about the state of our economy 24/7. Just throw it into the best interest account and forget about it. Especially when you find the rate we found, which is supposedly nonexistent. I also don't want to worry about any friend drama. Not a chance in France!

Bring on the coffee, the chocolate, and yes, why not, how about some new shoes, too?

Till next time...........cheers.

Shoe Savvy?

For the shoe savvy I have added a search bar on the right column and your results will appear further down the page for your convenience. You may search to your heart's content but understand I am not responsible for your budget when you find what you didn't even know you needed.

Miami Day

Today I enjoyed a little of Miami Beach life. According to the pedometer I enjoyed 5491 steps of Miami Beach. How far is that? I walked on the beach where a city is being built for the SOBE Food and Wine Festival. From 10th to I'm guesssing 15th is a tent city on the beach. I never heard back from the Blog job I applied for but I've been doing well with this one anyway. I bought a $5 cigar and smoked it watching the ocean then wandered around till I found a cuban sandwich and a tall Ice Tea. Feeling good and on the way home I stopped in a bar for a mojito next door to the Clinton Hotel. There is a view of the pool area from the bar which was nice. Al in all a chill day. Coffee? I started with a "Shop-Rite" whole bean done in a cone filter and it was a perfect eye-opener.

Valentine's Chocolate

One of the best days in Chocolove heaven is that all chocolate with Valentine's Day on the wrapper is on sale!!! WOOOOOO HOOOO $1.27 for a $4.00 dollar bag of chocolate at Target! That is what I'm talking about! We have our milk, and some of our dark chocolate needs met and stored at home. No, running to the bodega for a bar of ecstacy at 2 a.m. With our Ghirardelli purchase we are stocked up on dark also. Now all I need is some Seattle's Best whole bean and I'm set. Looking forward to the morning now all of a sudden.

Welcome

Welcome Invited Authors !!!!

Breakfast In Bed

This morning I got to wake up to 80's music and coffee in bed. Good way to start the day.

Valentine's dinner

For Valentines, we went to an Indian restaurant at 530 Ocean Drive; it was called Ishq, "love."
We lucked into a table that was not right on the crowded sidewalk, but a bit off from it; we were still able to enjoy the ocean breezes and people watching as always.

G. ordered our drinks; they were special V-day versions: a Malini, a sparkling wine with candied ginger, A Shalimar, an amazing saffron infused vodka martini with almond and cream liqueurs, espresso, accented with espresson, vanilla and rose essence infusion, and a sugar and red spiced rim. It may sound a bit busy, but no, it all worked together for blissful yumminess. The candied ginger in the champagne was exquisite!

These drinks were sooo good. A martini with espresso? Who would have thought of this? Ishq did. We had two.

For appetizers, we enjoyed some coconut Naan bread with an assortment of spreads, including spicy mango chutney and pickled mango. We had the appetizer sampler: samosa, aloo chat, a cucumber and chickpea/yogurt salad; vegetable bhajia tikki, and a potato creation. Delicious!

We shared the goan snapper with tumeric dusting, in a coconut curry sauce, with a steamed basmati rice, and we ordered this plate spicy... YUM. One of the wait staff tried to give us plates to share the order, but we opted for the romantic Valentine's route of sharing our plate.

No room for dessert, but no worries, G. had picked up some Ghirardellia 60% cacao Dark squares with caramel on my birthday, Friday the 13th. Lucky for me!

The service here is the BEST we have had in SoBe, and G. says the fish is the best thing he has had in SoBe. Blissful Valentine's dinner for lovers of bliss.

Lincoln Road

Woo Hoo !!! The shops have been shopped and the chocolate eaten. We had an ice cream sundae at Ghiradelli with chocolate chip cookies in the bottom. Hot cookies and cold melty ice cream is hard to beat. Lemon sorbet served in a lemon was great at SPRIS was a great follow up on the spinach salad with goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and portabella mushrooms. D had the buffalo mozz with tomatoes and basil. We started off with bruschetta classico and the lentil/portabella mushroom soup. We will have to go back for the wood fired pizza that looked amazing. We both had the machiattos, which were the real ones, not the massive sugar fest from the local budget breaking “mermaid” coffee shop.Saw “Confessions of a Shopaholic” which was ironically showing on the strip with all the expensive stores with huge “0% Interest for 12 months” signs plastered on the doors to get you to succumb to the plastic plague that haunts most of us. Shoes, shoes and shoes…..Aldo, Steve Madden, assorted boutiques, and all manner of shoppers paradises. Our friends Mo and Sara would have enjoyed them immensely. Hopefully they will be writing for us soon and letting us know about there shopping experiences!!! We are now inviting anyone with the passion to write to join us and our first wave of invites went out. Let me know if you are interested in joining. Time to put my feet up and chill till the next episode.

Todays Event

Today we go out in search of the fun stuff. We are going to look for chocolate and as she says "Yummy Food" Basically we are going to party like it's her birthday because it is! I'm thinking Lincoln Road needs to be investigated from end to end for birthday fun. Wish us well!!!

reclaiming joy

today my sweet husband did laundry... crisp clean sheets are one of my favorite things... the first night you sleep on them is the best... that moment of crawling in when the day is over and being covered with soft sheets to snuggle in for the night... another favorite thing is having him shake the sheets out over me to tuck me in... those seconds when the sheets hover over the air and settle over my skin... happy stuff... the little stuff is so good...

...like a few pieces of cold dark Hershey's chocolate from the fridge tonight...

I have another birthday! Another wonderful thing to celebrate.

I've been wondering about my childhood years... do not have a lot of photos of childhood and wonder, just wonder, about who I really was back then, before the analyzing mind started, just happy as a kid before life was serious and I started working on not having it be so serious.

Step by step and moment by moment we are reclaiming joy in life.
I had no problem totally freaking out about how things "should be"...an easy mode to spin one's wheels in...

what if things go wrong, we ask ourselves, I say now, and what if they don't; what if we end up truly happily ever after? and this is happily ever after... each day, each moment, right now... sitting next to each other on the couch and being held and loved.

tonight I came home and he insisted I stop doing it all and join him on our new couch, and both cats were on the couch with us, completely asleep, snuggled into sleep, this is our little family now, and it is wonderful...

husband luxuriating in salt bath

Speaking of enjoying life, and remembering what matters, here is what my lovely husband told me tonight: (about how I love *everyone*, including every cat in the alley...and he gets me so this is wonderful to me...)

"You can't solve the world's problems; that's why they are called the world's problems, they are the world's, not yours..."

I hear the water frothing, the bubbles he's mixing up; I remember on our honeymoon when he was in the jacuzzi tub in our room and pushing the tub stopper in and out like a little kid.

I am happy he is now soaking in salty water. He is the best husband in the universe.

A wise man, a wise soul, a kind man, a gentle man, a sensitive man, a truly intelligent man, and did I mention his cute buns? Or his blue eyes? Or his hugs? Or that he sings? Plays musical instruments? Knows science? Knows history? Is on the path of dreaming for once, and full time, because I asked him to?

When I told him he is Mr. Wonderful, he said, well, you're MRS. WONDERFUL...

I Love Coffee in the Afternoon

Sea breezes are gentle this afternoon. Last night the wind was rustling the palms big time. I was up all night with Cold Case and an assortment of cookies, mostly chocolate, and slept in till mid-afternoon. So although it is my morning, I approve of and wholly endorse coffee in the afternoon!

Morning!

Good morning. Sea breezes are blowing through my open home and the Dunkin Donuts coffee is hitting the spot! Sure I would love to blow you away with Zen wording but actually sitting and breathing and drinking my nectar of the gods if perfect!

Sexy Coffee Quote

He was my cream, and I was his coffee -And when you poured us together, it was something.~Josephine Baker

Chocolate is Divine

Chocolate is a divine, celestial drink, the sweat of the stars, the vital seed, divine nectar, the drink of the gods, panacea and universal medicine. -Geronimo Piperni, quoted by Antonio Lavedán, surgeon in the Spanish army, 1796

How do you brew?

Coffee, the Nectar of the Gods! The Supreme Bean! Our subject is the Leader of the Free Caffeine World and even most of the oppressed world. In America the Beautiful the expectation of a perfect Cup of Joe is what gets most of us out of bed in the morning. Coffee aficionados love their own bean, blend, brand, or their own secret combination of all of the above. My friends have names for their blends honoring past steam locomotives, as testaments to their driving force and strength, and you will never pry the recipe out of their dying hands. Recipes for coffee? You better believe it, and one cup of special brew and experiencing the awakening that continues for hour after hour and you will be sold on coffee fanaticism. How you brew your nectar is of great importance. Remember that Christmas coffee you were given that tasted nasty? Perhaps your pot was dirty or just plain old and scorched it worse then “Fivebucks”. I want to know how many people have a new pot, or instead use French Press or Cone filter?

Free Spa In South Beach

You need to come and join us, and the thousands of others who have enjoyed the free spa in Miami Beach, Florida. Come now and enjoy the warm salt water that brings people from all over the Americas and bask in the healing that happens as the water pulls the toxins of your life from your body. Let your soul heal in the sounds of flowing water as your mind settles into a new rhythm in the healing clean air of our spa.

Enjoy dreaming again as your feet are exfoliated. Hear yourself begin to think again as the oppressive voices of your demanding life are silenced one by one and wash away in the next tide. Remember the summers of your youth at the shore or lake when you ran free and lived your dreams? That is correct, I invite you to the beach once more. Where you pass palm trees waving like cheerleaders cheering you on to live free again, as they rustle in the ocean breezes, cheering you on as you crest the dune and take your first deep breath of ocean air. YES! This is your spa with no front desk or steep fees, just you and your thoughts.

Forget your life and get back to the reason you moved here in the first place make this trip a priority. At night as you settle into your fresh linens and are at peace with yourself, you will thank yourself and wonder why you didn’t come sooner.