The Sarcastic Blonde

fashion, food, fitness + a dose of sarcastic gossip

book club, Lifestyle

:: book club ::

I haven’t had much time to read lately, between watching endless hours of television, spending too much money on our trip to Italy (no such thing!), and seeing if anyone updated anything on instagram for the 5th time that day, 
but I’ll be flying home this upcoming weekend so I know I will finally be able to finish The Liar and I can’t wait.   I’ve loved it so far. 
There are so many books on the must-read list, but I always have a hard time deciding what genre to go to next.  Serious, chick-lit, suspenseful, non-fiction? 
The one thing that I have grown to love over the last few years is celebrity autobiographies.
Clearly if you read this blog, this should come as no shock that reading about celebrities intrigues me, but its more that I read about people whom I really know nothing about;  people who I of course know what they are famous for, but did not know anything about their past life.  This mainly applies to people of my parents generation where I can’t believe I didn’t know all these certain things about them that everyone did when they were younger stars. 
I think that Andre Agassi’s book Open was my first celebrity autobiography and I loved it.
I’ve read all of Chelsea Handlers and laughed so, so hard.
I’ve written before about how I read Rob Lowe’s book and could not put it down.  I really liked how each chapter was its own kind of story but that it was also a full book that kept you turning the pages.


I did Bethenny’s book A Place of Yes on tape when I used to commute and really enjoyed it, but whom I now have an even harder time with because it’s liiiiiiiike you seriously need to be a grown up and can’t keep blaming everything on your horribly sad and messed up childhood.

Especially after reading her first book and always watching her shows, I find it very strange that in the midst of this huge, horrible divorce she releases a second book called I Suck At Relationships So You Don’t Have To: 10 Rules for Not Screwing Up Your Happily Ever After.



How can she be writing about not screwing up your happily ever after when she has done nothing but that her entire adult life (all she talks about in earlier books) and despite a lifetime of therapy keeps doing it?
Huh? I know I’m hard on her lately because she keeps pissing me off so much but I seriously think that is the weirdest thing ever.  Ever. ‘haha I’m bad at relationships so lets make an ironic book about it haha’.  I seriously don’t get it? 


Obviously I read both of my -boyfriend-Andy-Cohen’s books (Most Talkative & The Andy Cohen Diaries)  faster than anything and just adored them.  Devoured them.  Would totally re-read them.



These are the books I blow through the fastest and love every minute. There are so many I still haven’t gotten to, and I think they will make for some perfect easy summer reading.

Candice Bergen      Brooke Shields      Jane Fonda
I have no shame in my obsession with J. Lo and Jane Fonda. 
I can’t explain it, but I’m obsessed. Judge all you want, my best friend is very disappointed in me for my J. Lo love. 

Jennifer Lopez

and then some comic relief as well…… all must-reads that I still have not read!

    Amy Poehler                         Mindy Kaling                         Lena Dunham                            


I meannnnn is it wrong that I would even read Holly Madison’s book at this point?
yes….. yes it is…….horrifyingly wrong.  



soooo I know everyone is saying The Good Girl should be next on the list after reading Gone Girl and Girl on the Train which I have, but other than that, what else are your top picks?

And for those of you that read The Good Girl, is it as good as everyone is saying?
 





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book club, friday randoms, Lifestyle

:: book club + things ::

I have some random little things for today.  
as opposed to days when I have completely organized, planned, and thoughtful posts? 

I didn’t work on any posts this weekend, not even late Sunday night like usual, because I was knee deep in The Girl on The Train. 
ps if your pottery barn has this blanket, I am so serious it is the greatest thing to ever happen to us. 
 I’m thiiiiiis close to finishing it but am trying to not stay up late at night, 
but I’ll be finished tonight or tomorrow! 
moring edit : I stayed up way past bedtime and finished! so many twists and turns – I couldnt stop reading! really liked it! 
I highly recommend it. Easy and quick read (but still not my gone girl….. but a great book nonetheless!)  All of my friends that have read it highly recommend it as well! 

As I’ve said before on the blog, Liane Moriarty is one of my favorite authors.  Since I had read all of her newer books (What Alice Forgot, The Husbands Secret,  Big Little Lies) I decided to try one of her older, earlier books.  The Last Anniversary was what I chose.
  It was okay; an easy, light hearted read. 
 However, I LOVED the latest 3 of her books and this one paled in comparison.   
She has definitely become a better write since. 
 I’d say skip it, but definitely read the other three 100%! 

I never commented on Andy Cohens second book, The Andy Cohen Diaries,  but I loved it of course.  
Obviously.  I want him to write one of these every year!! 

When I was at dinner with my girlfriends last week somehow this Olay In Shower Body Lotion came up (who knows how, you know how it goes).  I ordered it on the spot on my Amazon Prime app (I really need to delete the app…. its way too easy and my obsession with Amazon runs deep).

anyyyyyyyways, IT IS AMAZING.  My skin is so dry right now with the Chicago winter, and nothing is worse than getting out of the hot shower and freezing your buns off while putting lotion on.  This stuff is SO GREAT. 

The girl scout cookies I ordered from my coworkers daughter arrived.

Amazing and DANGEROUS. 
 I’m trying to focus on Vegas vacay in a month and limit my intake to just one after dinner………
speaking of trying to limit my intake, 
just when you are feeling better about yourself from December’s Victorias Secret Lingerie Show, 
BAM they surprise you with a Swim Special that will be airing this Thursday on CBS. 
thanks obama.  
so those girl scout cookies will either be eaten immediately as I eat my emotions watching, or it’ll motivate me to not eat them.
errrrrr, I think we all know which way this will go. 

 I wore one of my new favorite items of clothing for girls dinner:
my sassy pants black leather leggings.
under $100, stretchy, great subtle pockets that did great things for my butt if I do say so myself.  
you can’t even really tell the leather in the pic, but hopefully the real ones do it better justice.  they are AMAZING.  


also, the only pro to seriously freezing cold is getting to wear my faux fur snood. 
I almost slept in it after I got home….. almost…. 
but I didn’t want to get the crumbs from the girl scout cookies in it so I took it off like a lady. 

// nordstrom (old), identical in different color //

in the opposite, warm weathered direction,
when Piperlime was having a sale, I snagged the tank that matched the romper that I had loved. 
the low back is so cute, and the straps are adjustable so it fits perfectly. 

I’m excited to wear it with white jeans 
IF IT EVER EVEN REACHES 50 DEGREES. 


is it friday yet ??? 


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book club, Lifestyle

Thanksgiving :: What I Know For Sure

via

I’ve finally been back to reading before bedtime, and I’ve been reading the perfect book for the Thanksgiving season.  
The past week I have been reading Oprah’s What I know For Sure.

It is short (one to three page) “chapters” if you can call it that (snippets really)
 from her monthly magazine column What I Know For Sure; 
They are a great reminder of happiness, gratitude, love, power, and prayer.  
Reading even one short little two page excerpt helps put everything in life back into perspective.
 I mean, Pooh. I just love him so much. This alone could make me cry. 

We all can always use a reminder to be thankful for everything that we have, 
but especially this week of all weeks. 
 I highly recommend picking it up and keeping it on your nightstand to read in the morning or before bed. 
 I also think it would be the perfect gift for anyone at any time.  

Oprah can really get on my nerves sometimes because she can seem all “I know everything and am the master of everything”…… 
but damn that bitch really does know everything.   

just kidding, just kidding Oprah you are perfect I never said that. 




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book club, Lifestyle

tuesday thoughts

a random smorgasbord for today 
(I didn’t have to google how to spell that at all.)


Big Little Lies was as great as the two other books of Liane Moriarty’s that I have read.
(the husbands secret and what alice forgot;
her other three are now on my must read list)
Quick read, plot twists you don’t expect, humor, perfect beach read (and also bedtime read for me).

if you were a lover of emily griffin books, and now are feeling ehhhh about her last few like I am, Liane Moriarty is an amazing breath of fresh air and you’ll love her writing. 

Also in book news, they have started running the trailer for the movie version of This Is Where I Leave You. 



Watch the trailer.  It is so good. 
 It looks just as great as the book — it really is a must read. 


Sunday night I somehow got sucked into a loophole of a million articles on GOOP.
The Hangover post was quite fitting, as I was nursing a killer hangover from Saturday nights wedding 
where we went to bed at almost 5 am. 

I now want to buy milk thistle, this Mercy beverage thing, and all the B12 I can get my hands on. 
The hair of the dog works for me too, as always.
Gwynnie is so funny doing posts like she is a huge lush or something. Yeah…… right.

I’ve been back on my Pinterest binge every night before bed routine for the last week or so.
It’s amazing how you I can trick yourself myself into thinking you I accomplished so much, have so many great ideas, and truly have plans for projects for the weekend…….

when in reality I’m eating peanut butter and jelly in bed way past bedtime, dripping half of it on the white sheets, 
and could not be further from Martha Stewart. 
waaaait actually do things?? 

I mean, Martha, I just pinned 27 incredible recipes, decor ideas, and fall fashion.
THAT IS WORK. 

My favorite Tracy Anderson workout that I did before the wedding isn’t on YouTube anymore.
guessing it wasn’t supposed to be up there, like half the other amazing ones on there 🙂 
luckily, plenty of others are.

This YouTube account has a ton of the Metamorphosis workouts, broken down into her 10 day increments.  I’m trying to get back into the swing of things and these are what I’m trying out for now. 

Tracy says you should do dance cardio combined with toning,
so after I do the Tracy toning stuff, 
I follow the Jack McFarland Method to trick my body and change things up. 

after the toning and dance cardio,
I stand in front of the fridge for 10 minutes and think about food/snack for the next 3 hours until bed. 
it’s highly effective.  


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book club, Lifestyle

book club

I know what you are thinking.


I know, I know……
I don’t read!!! I watch TV!!!
  
don’t tell anyone my dirty little secret…. 
I don’t want anyone thinking I do anything that is actually intellectually stimulating.



I was reading Nat’s post with her book reviews, and realized I hadn’t posted about the books I read the last month or two during the honeymoon and since.

:: The One and Only ::
Emily Giffin

I have read all of Emily Giffin’s book. This was not my favorite of hers, but I did really enjoy it and it was a quick read.  Great beach book.  (and 10x better than her worst one, Where The Heart Is).  The loving the seriously older, can be your father thing creeped me out a bit though. 



Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade.


But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets.



:: I Should Have Known ::
Jean Hanff Korelitz 

I read in a magazine that “If you LOVED Gone Girl, you will LOVE this.”
lieeeeeesss. of course I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as Gone Girl, but honestly, don’t even bother reading it. 

Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice, her days are full of familiar things: she lives in the very New York apartment in which she was raised, and sends Henry to the school she herself once attended. Dismayed by the ways in which women delude themselves, Grace is also the author of a bookYou Should Have Known, in which she cautions women to really hear what men are trying to tell them. But weeks before the book is published a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only an ongoing chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster, and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.

:: Me Before You ::
Jojo Moyes

This was the first one for me by Jojo Moyes, and I will definitely be reading more of her books. Quick read, sentimental, meaningful, overall great. 


Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.



Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.


A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?



Just finished over the weekend : 
:: This Is Where I Leave You ::
Jonathen Tropper 


*soon to be a movie with Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, and Adam Driver 
I started this last week and finished it while traveling to and from NYC.  It’s such a quick read, emotional but not sad, and seriously funny.  It’s told from a mans perspective so the sexual language can be a bit much (and there is a lot of it), but it is also so great, relatable, and you’ll laugh out loud. 


The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that the entire Foxman clan has congregated in years. There is, however, one conspicuous absence: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose affair with his radio- shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the demise of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva-and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. The week quickly spins out of control as longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed and old passions are reawakened. Then Jen delivers the clincher: she’s pregnant.



This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper’s (One Last Thing Before I Go) most accomplished work to date, and a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.



And just arrived and about 40 pages in, 
Liane Mortiary’s latest book 
:: Big Little Lies ::

This is my third book of hers, and I am already loving it. (what alice forgot and the husband’s secret were great) She does such a great job of combining everything you want into one book.  She had quickly trumped Emily Giffin in my department of “must read everything of hers”.  

A murder… . . . a tragic accident… . . . or just parents behaving badly?  

What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.  


But who did what?


Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:
Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.
New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.


Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.
What are you reading currently and what is a must read for me to add to the list?! 
Let me know in the comments! 

summaries of each book taken from Amazon. 


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book club, Lifestyle

bitch stole my look, books + other thangs

every season of the bachelor or bachelorette,    
one of those bitchs steals my look.
I guess Andi and I have more in common than I thought. 
 ahhhh take me back!!!! 
oh hey girl. 

// parker adelaide dress //
I love that dress so much.  
I couldn’t wait to wear it on the honeymoon 🙂 

Anyways…. back to reality….
This really has not been my week.
You may have noticed I was MIA last Thursday for Coffee Talk 
(of course you noticed… you were devastated when you couldn’t read my typos and crazy talk that makes no sense). 
Last Wednesday on my way to work (my 3 minute commute because I’m lazy as hell and should just walk but I’d rather sleep an extra 15 minutes), I was T-boned by a cab that drove straight through a red light because “the sun was in his eyes”.  
  Ugh.
I’m fine, dumbass driver is fine, and luckily no passenger was in his cab.
 Sooooooo. theres that.
Then….. starting Friday I noticed a fly or two in the apartment.
I was annoyed.
I would kill them….. and then it was like they were either coming back to life, or they were multiplying…..  
spoiler alert: THERE WERE A LOT MORE.
 I was like “what the hell!!??”

The retail food space underneath us randomly closed with no warning, and haven’t cleaned a single thing in it.  We looked in the window Sunday and I almost threw up with the sight of flies the size of Cleveland EVERYWHERE.  Seriously….. there was a horse fly just now and I screamed bloody murder writing this while I watch Andi and the other morons on The Bachelorette.
So the landlord today said he’d “see what he can do this week” and “maybe we should get a fly strip or something, but let him know if that doesn’t work.”
Hell. To. The. Nah. 
  
Listen Landlord :: I was kind and waited until Monday to e-mail you, and now I am throwing my back out screaming and running around the kitchen and almost stabbing myself while trying to make dinner and swat flies out that DO NOT DIE because they are SO DAMN BIG and ALL STEROIDED OUT OR SOMETHING. 
If I’m MIA on the blog tomorrow it’s because I was either 
a. eaten by a fly or 
b. in the hospital from seriously injuring myself while trying to do something and a fly comes circling up to my face
or c. taken to jail for threatening to harm my landlord if he didn’t get an exterminator here.

ps…. do you think I’m dramatic much?
pps… but seriously….. I won’t show you the photo of downstairs inside the window or of the size of these creatures because I don’t want to ruin your week as well.  
I was prepared to do my honeymoon book review for the 3 books I read while we were away, but now I’m all riled up about the flies and thinking crazy thoughts. 

I’ll save it for Friday….. 
spoiler alert: You Should Have Known is definitely NOT “the next Gone Girl“.  They are liars who said that to get me to flip out with excitement and buy it (it worked) only to be disappointed. 





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