Inane Chatter

I went shopping a couple of weeks ago and bought the CUTEST dresses.  I wore the sheath dress to the ballet with Emily in March (so I guess the shopping trip was more like a month ago), and I think I’m going to wear the other one (which looks better on me than it does in the picture, if I may say so myself) to a coworker’s wedding in a couple of weeks.  I love dresses.

I am so completely exhausted.  I skipped yoga.  I shouldn’t have, but I got home and told John I was going to go, and his “oh, really?” sounded small and slightly disappointed, and that’s all it took to change my mind.  And the best part is that it’s only just after 8, and there’s no reason I can’t go to bed RIGHT NOW.  I can climb into my nice comfy bed and read my book until I fall asleep and I’ll still get a good night’s sleep…why am I still here?

P.S. Riley’s fine.  His paw isn’t bothering him at all anymore.  No more limping.

A guy in a fedora held a door open for me today.  That makes him twice the gentleman any other guy holding a door open would be.  But then he got into a Jeep Wrangler.  That is not the right car for a guy in a fedora.  But what is the right car for a fedora-wearing dude?  (It’s possible he was wearing a trench coat, too, but it’s more likely that my memory is making things up to fill in the blanks.  Apparently, my memory wants him to be Humphrey Bogart (or Rick Blaine, anyway).  But taller.  This guy was taller.)  I really don’t know the answer to that question – wait!  I totally do (because I watch Mad Men).  He should be driving a ’60s era Cadillac or something with fins.  (John says a giant Cadillac or a ’58 Lincoln.)  Definitely not a little bitty Jeep.

My friend Stephanie and I spent FIVE HOURS outlet shopping today.  We tried on all the clothes at the Ann Taylor and Banana Republic Factory Stores and bought half of them, and then we visited every single shoe outlet there.  Struck out on shoes, though.  I’ve lost track of what I’m looking for, except for a pair of black pumps that I can wear with anything for work and a pair of boots.  I didn’t find anything remotely like the boots I want.  I’ve been noticing people wearing them, but I don’t know where they’re from.  I’ll be heading to DSW again soon.  I checked Zappos and they’ve got what I’m looking for.  I’d just like to try some styles on before I order.

I’m looking for something like these:

Type Z Mamie

Lucky Brand May

Romantic Soles Brooke (Wide Calf)

Gabriella Rocha Abbey

Enzo Angiolini Visco

They’re casual, something I wouldn’t be afraid to really wear (I don’t want to have to worry about scuffing them, so I want boots that can take it), looks good with jeans…  I love boots.  Before I buy anything else, though, I’m going to clean out my closet.  For real.  I wear the boots I have, so they can stay, but most of my other shoes will go.  I mean it.  Clothes, too.  I’ll be ruthless.

I think someone cheated and skipped a few days in September.  It went by awfully fast.  What I remember of it was nice, though.  Especially last weekend.  The weather was perfect, and we spent the majority of those two days outside painting the porch.  Not normally my favorite thing to do, but we had a good time.  (Let me tell you a secret: I like spending entire days with John, just us.  It’s fun.  Shh.  Don’t tell anyone.)  We finished the second coat yesterday, and I went for a long bike ride, and now my butt is sore.  I can’t decide if I want to keep doing that.  If I do, I think I might need to invest in those padded bike shorts.  Just checked – those can be kind of expensive.  Also, they look kind of ridiculous.  But not as ridiculous as I look when my butt hurts.

On to the opposite of ridiculous:

I WANT THIS DRESS.  (Thank you, Tom and Lorenzo, for giving me a style goal.)

Not the shoes.  I don’t like the shoes.  (I totally just spelled shoes “shoose”.)  The dress has a Grace Kelly-esque silhouette and have I mentioned how much I want to dress like Grace Kelly?

Of course, I all too often have paint in my hair (all too often = every time I paint something), so I shouldn’t really be allowed near nice clothes.

If I may say so myself (and you just watch while I do), I looked super-cute today.  I’ve already changed into schlubby clothes,  though, so no pictures.  I didn’t think about it.  I wore a white cap sleeve blouse with tiny black polka dots over a straight black knit skirt and peep-toe black heels.  Love the outfit, and I felt really good in it.  Except for the sleeves.  I like cap sleeves (and I always thought they were capped sleeves, but Google tells me I’m wrong), I think they’re cute, but because of where the edge of the sleeve hit the top of my arm, I spent the entire day thinking my bra straps were falling down.  And then, because I got used to that, I didn’t notice when my bra straps actually did fall down.  So that was a little annoying.  I also might need new bras.  Let’s go shopping!  No, that’s next week.  For serious.  I have a shopping date planned.

When I got home from work today, there was a box on the island for me.  How very exciting.  Of course, I knew exactly what it was because I ordered it and I tracked it once it was shipped.  No surprises there.

Check out my new hat!

I have a very serious self-portrait problem.  I’m really very bad at taking them.  (Exhibit A: my numerous attempts on that trip to Boston two years ago.)  It takes every ounce of brainpower I have to get my eyes looking in the right place, and then I don’t have any left over to click the button, so I look at the camera to find the button and then I can’t find where I’m supposed to look again.

Here’s attempt #2 (the winner above was #4):

See? I think I’m looking at myself in the mirror instead of the camera, and it’s blurry. Cute hat, though.

I need to take lessons.  Or just quit trying.  I can’t figure out how to keep the phone out of the picture.

So…I bought new yoga pants yesterday because I found a hole in my old pair.  I’m sure the hole came from overuse and the fact that they were cheap pants and is NOT a commentary on my weight.  I’m sure of it.  (Me?  Defensive?  No…)  Anyway, I was inspired to get rid of other old clothes – clothes I don’t wear, clothes that even if I could fit into them I wouldn’t wear, other clothes that are so old they also have holes in them.  I went through every drawer in my dressers and filled one garbage bag with clothes to give away and another one with clothes (old socks, old underwear, a pair of sweatpants that has holes AND is covered in paint, etc.) to throw away.  Okay, the trash bag of trash isn’t filled with clothes.  I don’t have that many things that were so torn apart they had to be thrown away.  Although I am throwing away the pair of red nylon running pants I ruined with a hot iron.  I honestly can’t remember why I tried to iron those.  Seriously, let’s think about this.  For one thing, I HATE ironing.  I do it when I have to, but usually I just ask to John to iron something of mine when he’s ironing his work shirts in the morning.  For another thing, these pants are NYLON (or some other synthetic fabric that MELTS when it gets hot).  I had that information before I tried to iron them, really I did.  I knew what would happen, but obviously, my brain wasn’t present at the time.  For one more thing, these were jogging pants.  Why would I be ironing them?  They don’t get wrinkled in the first place, and even if they did, who cares? Maybe, just maybe, the pants happened to be on the ironing board while I was in the midst of ironing other things (unlikely – see my first point), and I just happened to set the hot iron on one of the legs.  But that doesn’t ring true.  We might as well assume I’m an idiot.  It would be closer to the truth.

I’ve read in lots of places (I can’t name a single one, but at this point, it’s probably in the public consciousness so I don’t have to) that to be successful at losing weight (or at anything), it helps to set up little rewards at certain milestones.  I found my first little reward.  But I can’t have it yet.  I had the afternoon off work today (left early to take my data modeling exam (got an A), and had a couple of hours left over), so what did I do?  I went to the mall.  Horror of horrors.  I wasn’t in a shopping mood, but John needs new brown work shoes and he has enormous feet so no one ever has his size in stock.  I went to Nordstrom because I know they’ll order or transfer shoes from other stores so he can try them on before buying.  Nice people there.  And while I was at the mall, I decided to shop for skinny jeans.  Not because I’m particularly skinny, but because it’s time.  Sadly, I’m between sizes.  So my reward for losing the next few pounds will be a pair of skinny jeans.  Mostly so I can wear my boots over them.  My shopping mood didn’t last long (it never does), and I escaped from the mall before it could ruin my day.  Malls have a way of doing that.

In a perfect world – and by a perfect world, I mean my perfect world, of course – I would be an inch or two taller (5’6″ is so boring), 25 to 30 pounds lighter, I would live in one of the places showcased by Desire to Inspire, and my wardrobe would be chosen by someone with great taste and plenty of money (’cause they’d be buying it for me – it’d be okay, since this is my perfect world, if that money were my own).  That would be the best part.  Someone else to do my clothes shopping, someone to put my outfits together.  Comfortable, good-looking, classic, good quality.  The clothes, too.    Tom and Lorenzo could live next door so they could send me right back inside when my personal shopper/wardrobe consultant failed and/or my lack of fashion sense reared its ugly head.  And I’d have a personal chef, preferably one who is capable of making deliciously wonderful meals that look like they have too many calories (lots of cheese, cream sauces, chocolate, etc) but really hardly have any.  A magic chef.

I wouldn’t need to be a princess if I had all of that.  I may have just admitted that I still wish I could be a princess.  (I still wear pink and purple, too.  Quite often.  Not usually at the same time.  At least I recognize my need for wardrobe help.)  The Princess Diaries speaks to me, partly because, really, how cool would it be if you woke up one morning and found out you’re a princess?  And partly because DUDE.  Julie Andrews is your grandmother.  We would sing ALL the time.

I can think of plenty of other things that would make my world perfect, both shallow and not, but the real world is beckoning and I kinda have to pay attention to it.  Damn reality.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a weird, weird movie.  I liked it.

Remember that navy blue shirt I love but is such a pain to iron?  I bought another one today, in a perfect dark red, kind of a maroon-ish color.  Matches my toenails.  And I love the way it fits.  I knew I needed another one when I was so disappointed to realize I couldn’t wear the one I had yesterday because it was waiting to be washed.  I might also have picked it up in black.  This is what I do – find something that looks really good and buy it in two or three colors.  I guess I’ll just have to iron more often.

I saw a ton of wildlife (well, more than usual.  Maybe not a ton.  Half a ton.) today.  On my way back from the winery, I saw a groundhog hanging out in the middle of the road.  He was smart enough to scurry off into the grass before I got too close.  A little closer to home, I saw a deer bound six feet into the air to clear a fence and run into the woods.  That was really cool.  Cleared the fence by two feet, at least.  You know, it might have been a fawn.  I thought I saw white spots on its back, and if I learned anything from Bambi, it was that adult deer don’t have spots.  That, and tell your mother you love her every time you see her ’cause you never know when the hunter is coming.  Bambi’s kind of messed up.  (The movie and the poor deer.)  Anyway, while I was at the winery (Hidden Brook – they have John’s favorite sweet rosé and they’re really nice), another kind of wild animal showed up: the all-too-common-at-wineries-on-weekends bachelorette party.  This party had clearly already been to several other wineries.  They had a bus with a driver and were taking advantage of it, and when they walked in the door at Hidden Brook, the guitarist (there was a guitarist) had just gotten to the line “lookin’ for my lost shaker of salt” from “Margaritaville”, and the 15 (20?  There were a lot of them.) women in the bachelorette party all shouted, “Salt!  Salt!  Salt!”  (There’s usually not a lot of shouting going on during wine tastings.  There’s probably not a lot of wine tasting going on during Jimmy Buffet concerts, either.)  The two employees behind the counter looked like they wanted to run out the back door.  I did.  Bachelorette parties + several wineries + driver = not my scene (unless I’m one of them).

Back to the subject, I saw a cute little lamb, too, standing a little ways away from the rest of the sheep, but farm animals don’t really count as wildlife, so never mind.

But good hair.  I went to work today, went to DC, got my picture taken for my new ID for work, came home, and NOW my hair looks good.  Now that I’m wearing my baggy fuzzy pants and my really old, very fragile Murfreesboro t-shirt.  And earrings.  When I noticed my very nice-looking hair, I noticed that I forgot to take my earrings out when I changed into my comfy clothes.  Looks a little weird.  But great with the hair!  All the layers are curving where they should be curving, and there’s depth and body.  So how do I get it to do this during the day?  Wait to go to work until 6pm?  (Nope, that’s no good.  No one will be there to see it.)  Aha!  Get up earlier and – no.  I guess I’ll just deal with it.

It sounded like spring the other morning.  Birds were chirping, rain was dripping, but I looked around and saw nothing but bare trees and giant piles of dirty slush.  Not spring yet.  Or maybe I was in a bad mood.

I was attacked by my sweater today.  I wore the new beige/ecru/other neutral color one I got for Christmas (Thanks, Pat!) – it’s really soft, and it fits nicely – and I realized about halfway through the day that my pants and my coat (which I have to wear most of the day ’cause we’re spending a lot of time in the freezing cold training room) were getting fuzzy.  By the end of the day, I looked like I’d been attacked by a lint trap.  So now I have to find my lint brush/tape thing and clean up.  But it’s okay.  You know why?  ‘Cause I’m having kimchi for dinner.  Ooh, I think the rice is done.

I hope John’s day got better.  He had an appointment this morning, but when he got to the doctor’s office, he found out that they canceled the appointment because the doctor had a death in the family.  They left us a message yesterday (or maybe the day before).  Neither of us has been checking messages, mostly because we’re lazy, so we totally missed that.  John checked this morning and found something like FIVE messages.  We had one from the doctor’s office, two recordings from CVS telling me to pick up a prescription, one from a recruiter, and one spam recording message.  So he was a little annoyed.  He has to reschedule (two weeks away!) AND he wasted a morning and was late to work when he didn’t have to be.  So his day didn’t start well, and he has class tonight, so unless something good happened at work, he doesn’t have something like kimchi for dinner to cheer him up.  Poor guy.