Just in time for your summer vacation!

We spent Wednesday night feting our brilliant author friend Cathy (we have several brilliant author friends, but this is Cathy's big week), who was celebrating the launch of her very fun, funny memoir, Up for Renewal, about devotedly following women's magazine advice for a year.

It was a great party and we chatted all night with fun writer-types and also ate approximately nine pounds of cheese, but our favorite story of the evening was an anecdote Cathy told about her Today Show appearance last week. (Also, apparently Kathie Lee is really pretty in person! Who knew?) There was a small shoe debacle, as the shoes Cathy had set to wear on the show got ruined, and the producers sent her to Barney's and told her to pick out whatever she wanted. Can you imagine? That might just be better than being on national TV. {Of course, I was all "Louboutins! Louboutins!" but apparently, they don't quite fit Cathy's feet, so she ended up with some great sandals. Still. Like a dream come true.}

But we digress. Since we already owned a copy of Cathy's book, we've decided to give away our copy from the party goody bag. All you have to do is leave a comment here with your first name {you might want to include your last initial or your hometown if your name is something really popular—I'd hate to have a situation where I had to mediate between Jessicas} and—in the spirit of the book—your favorite magazine to be entered into the drawing. We offer as an example:

Hi, I'm Betsy, and I'm a Vogue-aholic.

Or perhaps just:

Betsy loves Elle Decoration (UK).

Or maybe:

Betsy. Lucky.

{No, I just cannot decide.}

But wait. There's more! We'll also have a second prize: your very own Sephora's Smokey Eye Kit, which we recently-ish got sent two of. Even if you're not into the smokey eye, you still get a lot of useful makeup brushes, which is totally great.

So, leave your name and mag of choice in the comments; we'll do a drawing in a few days; one of you will be the owner of Cathy's fab book, which is the perfect summery poolside read, and another one of you will be doing your own glam eye makeup in no time.

While we're at it, here's what we wore to the party: Flowered silk Tuleh dress, plucked from the racks at local high-end consignment store Inga's for me by Cathy herself. It still had the Neiman's tags on it, but cost me less than 10 percent of the original price. It is one of my all-time favorites. And yes, I do know that I say that about almost every dress.




Um, I also had a lot of fun playing with the mirrors.