Sunday at Home: The J Crew order, some Joe Fresh and The Cook-Your-Own-Supper Dinner Party Update

Ah Sunday morning!

Lots of Shenanigans since we spoke yesterday.  Where to begin?

Okay - the dinner party was the last place I was (besides bed!) so I think I will begin there!

Our friends live down river from us on a beautiful acreage right on the St. John River in a beautiful saltbox house that the owners built themselves. By hand.  If that doesn't make one feel inadequate, well you just have good self-esteem and bravo!

When we arrived we all received a piece of paper with the following quotes on it:

The belly rules the mind

Good Cooking Takes Time

Do Vegetarians eat animal crackers?

Below that was the list of the dishes we would be cooking and the person we would be cooking with.  I was paired with the husband of the house, who is a very talented artist.  He and I were each handed a copy of the recipe to study in advance of commencing our cooking duties.  The hostess and her partner went first.  The wine poured freely in the adjoining family room while the chefs each took their turn and it was great fun for the host and hostess, who though responsible for purchasing the groceries, had more time than is typically possible during a dinner party to mix and mingle.

I forgot to mention that we were also each given colourful bandanas to tie around our heads like all the chefs do on television.  I haven't seen the pictures yet, but I think it will be fun to do so!

The menu:

• baked goat cheese bruschetta
• sausage stuffed baby red potatoes (this was my course)
• chicken and asparagus rolls
• bok choy with lemon
• greek cucumber salad and quinoa
• Individual molten chocolate cakes with vanilla ice cream

It was very fun, thought it was a longer dinner party than usual as we would take a break between courses 1 and 2 and then there was a lot of cooking for 3, 4 and 5.  It was neat to find yourself cooking with someone that you would not ever have cooked with in your life.  I would definitely do this kind of dinner party myself sometime! 

The next potential event on this group's list is a vegan dinner party.  None of us are vegans, but they are intrigued that my son is vegan and think it would be neat to challenge ourselves this way too! 

A lot of wine was drunk, many stories were told and a good time was had by all!

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As you know, my J Crew Box came this week and there were some winners and a loser (you decide if it is the item or me!).  I also picked up a couple of Joe Fresh items and now that Joe Fresh is becoming so ubiquitous in the US thanks to JC Penney - thought I would share a couple of very inexpensive finds!

You have seen the domini cafe capris in the boho picture shot yesterday.  This was such a great gift; I had purchased the navy version last summer and loved them.  For some reason, the size 6 in ivory eluded me all summer, and I never could catch it!  Then 2 weeks ago, they suddenly popped back in one of those weird J Crew Sunday morning sales updates where you think to yourself:

1) where the hell WERE they since last summer?
2) do I want to know where the hell they were?

I decided not to care about either 1 and 2 and since they were $40 final sale, I felt that I could afford a disaster!

First up, Nora stripe ballet flats:

I had seen these in NYC and really liked them.  They have been on sale for awhile (I think I may know why), and when there was 30% off that, and free shipping, I thought, how great a match would would these be with the ivory and black items I have for summer?

Oh - not so much.  They were dismally wide, and despite ordering my standard 6 1/2, I was walking right out of them - they felt like 7s or even 7 1/2s.  The sizing is so off that I am afraid to even order a replacement pair in a size 6, because those might actually be sized correctly and therefore too tight.  You can see in the picture below that there is considerable toe cleavage and how wide these are.

I still think these are very cute and I wish they had worked as they matched fabulously with the domino eyelet pants!

And then it dawned on me!  I should have known better!  I had already tried the Nora ballet flats in zebra calfskin in December and had the same issue!  ARRGGHH! 

So my bad..

Okay - enough self-reproach!  These pants really make me happy!  I was home alone taking these pictures and the funny thing is that I needed to stand behind this plant in my bathroom to get a full length leg shot and I felt remarkably like this fellow from Laugh In:



Very interesting, Wendy, but dumb....Gold star to those who remember this!

 So I love these pants, I love, love, love them.  I am quite sure that these, their blue counterpart and my white jeans will be the stalwarts of my pants wardrobe this summer.  You will be sick of them soon enough, so let's enjoy them for a moment, shall we?

The J Crew Box also contained two summerweight cotton v neck cardigans.  You will remember the dark cove version I bought several weeks ago?  I liked it so much that I ordered the ivory and the black versions, which are required for me - I love a cardigan in early morning and late evening in summer and while I had some Jackie sweaters, I actually really prefer this style.

Here is the ivory with the new pants:

Underneath is a Joe Fresh tshirt I picked up this week for $10.  100% cotton, lovely little sleeveless textured tshirt:

For that price, a keeper!

I also picked up little sneakers there.  Joe Fresh has various sneaker styles out right now.  One of them is very much in the bensimon style.  Last summer, I bought the ivory and navy versions - I love them and they will see even more wear this summer as I will not be in heels at the office all day!  So when I spotted these coral-y peach ones for $20, well they were coming home with me for sure!

They look really cute with that dark coral-orange Joe Dresh dress I picked up a couple of weeks ago.

On the sale rack by the checkout was a cotton-cashmere vneck on clearance for $6.94.  I scooped it up:

So today, I am mailing back the shoes.  sigh - $15 to try them on.  Other than that, I need to finish some housework and keep reading!  Do you have any big plans for the day?

Have a wonderful day - I have some good posts (well in my opinion!) planned for the week and am looking forward to spending the time with you all! Stay safe out there!