All shopped out

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.

Only at my house

Background: Yesterday evening, I got up to make some tea.  (Good background, right?  I mean, that really sets the scene for you, doesn’t it?)

Me, to John: What size mug?

John: Mexican.

Let me explain.  We don’t do sizes the normal way when it comes to mugs.  Oh, no.  Small, medium, large, tall, grande, venti – those are not descriptive enough. Here’s a selection of the mugs we use most often:

  • In the front row, from left to right, we have littlest and little – these match our dishes.  We’ve had them since we got married.
  • In the middle row, also from left to right, the answer to the mug size question is college (the last remaining dishware from our college years – I think the rest of those dishes went to Tom after we graduated), Jess’s (no one uses those but her), Mexican (we bought them  in Mexico, I swear), and big Mexican (same as the others, but bigger)
  • And in the back row, we have the more obvious self-explanatory descriptions: Superman, Beatles, Mad Hatter

We have entirely too many mugs.  Okay, now I need to know how many.  Hang on.

You can let go now.  41.  We have 41 mugs, not counting travel mugs.  And how many people live here?  Yeah.  TWO.  Ridiculous.

I still have paint in my hair

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.

 

Because it’s Friday

Oh, how I want this dress.

(More pictures.)

And I want to be a princess.  And I want a pony.  And world peace.  I can’t have any of that, but I can have funny cat videos. It’s one of my inalienable rights as an internet user.

Also, if you have 4 minutes to spare, watch this. Jimmy Steward wrote a poem, and I cried.

Why I don’t like purses

Purses collect trash.  All kinds of junk.  And I only carry mine to and from work.  I can’t imagine what it might look like if I carried it everywhere I went.  I cleaned out my purse Sunday afternoon.  Receipts accounted for most of the crap I pulled out of its three compartments, but there were a bunch of random business cards and a couple of (smashed) granola bars in there, too.  Judging by the dates on some of the receipts, the last time I cleaned out my purse was about a year and a half ago.  I have no idea how long the granola bars were in there.

This is a picture of the bag of trash I filled.  The apple is next to it for perspective.  I emptied my purse out completely, vacuumed it out, and only put the essentials back in.  My bag is a couple pounds lighter today.  My shoulders thank me.  Now if only I could convince work to get me a lighter laptop.  That’s the bag that’s going to turn me into a hunchback.  I guess I could get a wheelie laptop bag…

Update: I think that bag of trash might be bigger than my purse.  How is that possible?  Wait – could my purse be bigger on the inside?  Just did a quick search, and oh my god, I want this.  Or maybe this.  But probably the first one.  While I’m at it, I also want these, and one of theseEtsy is cool.

Update x2: By popular demand, here is a picture of my purse with the same apple next to it.  I think that might be a small apple, because my purse looks huge next to it.  It’s really not that big.  It’s divided into three equal compartments, and all the trash was in two of them.

Wiped out

I went for a long-ass bike ride this evening and hey, ass was a good word to bring up because mine is not happy with me.  My wrists, shoulders, and upper back aren’t too pleased, either.  I’m thinking long-ass (almost 13 miles) may have been a little ambitious for me, since this is not my sport.  Also, my bike doesn’t look anything like the bikes serious cyclists ride.  And there are a LOT of those around here.  We’ll just see if I can walk tomorrow.  Oh, and I have a headache.  I think I should just go to bed.

A model that Lance Armstrong rode at some point

 

My little Schwinn that I bought at Target. Not in the same league.  But I love it and I want a headlight and a basket.

Visiting dignitary

John and I did some yardwork yesterday (mowing, weeding, clipping back the creeping vines, etc.) – it’s a good thing we did it yesterday morning, too, since the rest of the weekend was rainy – and we noticed a wee visitor in the yard.  Say hello to Mr. Toad.

At least, we think he’s a toad.  Pretty sure he’s a toad.  John nearly hit him with the lawn mower, and even then the little dude didn’t move.  He was hanging out under a tree.  He eventually hopped over to the mulch near the fence.  Riley barely noticed he was there.  Can’t blame him for that, really.  In the mulch and the dead leaves, Mr. Toad was nearly invisible.

When we finally finished up and went inside, he was snuggled up underneath the leaves right there by the fencepost, showing no signs of heading out.  I’m not sure where he would have gone.  Don’t toads need moisture, like near a pond or a swamp?  I wouldn’t have thought our backyard was his ideal habitat.  I know Google and Wikipedia could help me out here, but toads creep me out a little and I don’t really want to know that toads are happiest when they’re living under my bed or something.  I only like them when they go on wild rides and sing.  Speaking of Disney, did you know Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Fantasyland was replaced by a Winnie the Pooh ride?  Looks like it still exists in Disneyland, but not Disney World.  Sad.

Not sure which genre to go with

The only thing I can say for sure about the person who owns this car is that she (possibly he, but I’m going with she because someone has to make a decision here, and I really hate using they) loves to knit.  Or crochet.  Or whatever it is you do with yarn.  Or maybe she’s just really into wool.  And/or sheep.  Maybe it’s goat wool.  Does yarn have to be made out of wool?  I assume not – I’m sure there’s such a thing as synthetic yarn.  What I’m really interested in knowing, though, is if she’s a pirate or a zombie.

She might wander around the area squinting her eyes and asking strangers, “Ahoy matey, do you know where I can find the new yarrrrrn store?  Me parrot’s in dire need of a new sweater vest.”  Or else she shuffles down the block after the poor scared little lamb, with a blank stare and her jaw hanging open, mumbling “Yarrrrrnnnn…”  Poor scared little lamb.  I’ll protect you.

Next time I see, I’m going to ask.  I’m going to hop right out of my car, knock on her window, hope the light is still red, and ask her which end of the zombie/pirate spectrum she prefers.  Of course, she doesn’t have to choose.  Maybe she’s into zombie pirates. Or pirate zombies.  (How do you tell the difference?)  Or ninjas.  Maybe that’s the sound a pirate makes when he’s killed by a ninja.  Or maybe she just likes yarn, and when she says yarn, she says it the way Homer does when he thinks about donuts.

I’m out of ideas, so let’s hope I see her again soon.

 

Total loss of brain function

I did the dumbest thing ever today.  I routinely forget my leftovers in the downtown office fridge, but this time really hurts.  I took a coworker out to lunch (annual appraisal) at Chef Geoff’s today.  It’s a little nicer than a typical lunch out, but SO worth it.  They do interesting and delicious things.  I had the tarragon cured salmon sandwich – salmon, egg salad, capers, boursin cheese, some arugula.  It was incredible.  And it was huge.  I didn’t even finish half of it, but I most certainly had the rest boxed up to take with me.  Got it back to the office, got it in the fridge, got my coworker to help me remember to bring it home.  I saw her as I was getting ready to leave a few hours later, and I remembered.  I had a plan: go to the bathroom, pick up my sandwich, go home.  Instead, I went to the bathroom and then I went home.  I had to walk right by the kitchen door, so it shouldn’t have been a problem.  I should have said it out loud.  I remembered as I was crossing the Potomac into Virginia.  TOO LATE!  I was sad.  Still am.  I’m not going back downtown until next week (WAY too late), so I called my coworker and asked her to find it a good home.

Sad panda is sad.

Possibly the goofiest of all animals

We went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom the morning of our last day and went on the Kilimanjaro Safaris Expedition.  It was really cool, but they kept talking about the animals and their habitats as if they were actually in Africa, and I wanted to know more about how they worked right there in Florida.  It was a little distracting.  Of course, that was not the point of the safari.

 

For Tokenblogger.

Bits and pieces

Check out my new favorite mug!  (How funny is that – WordPress spellcheck is British!  It wants me to put the u in favourite.)

I drank my tea from it this morning.

There’s lots to tell and not enough hours in the day, so I’ll digress even more from the trip and show you adorable-ness personified elephantified.  It’s only 22 seconds – watch the whole thing.

 

It’s not Cinderella’s Castle, but I guess it’ll have to do

I’m of two minds about being home.  On one hand, there’s my bed, my shower, my clothes, my DOGS – I’m SO tired, and it’s SO nice to be home.  On the other hand, DISNEY WORLD.  It’s the happiest place on earth, and I LOVE IT.

Some pictures before I collapse.  Details at some later date.

Molly, Emily, and me in line for the It’s A Small World ride.

 

Our first five minutes in the park.

 

Happy to finally be in the air-conditioned line for Pirates of the Caribbean.

 

Hey! You can totally see my new house. It’s right there behind John’s head.

 

Greetings from the Sunshine State

Hi.  We’re alive and well and tired and not sunburned and tired.  We’ve had three+ completely crazy FUN days with two more to go.  This is the first time we’ve been in the condo for longer than it takes to sleep and shower, so it’s also the first time I’ve been online since Wednesday afternoon.  I haven’t even been carrying my phone around.

I’m keeping notes, so I’ll post the highlights eventually.  For now, here’s a picture of the four of us with the Hulk roller coaster from Universal behind us (that was yesterday).

Lemon or orange peels would work, too. And smell nice.

Did you hear about Cal Ripken Jr’s mom getting kidnapped (and returned)?  Crazy, right?  I wouldn’t bring it up except that I heard the best use of the wrong word in a news report about it.  I don’t know who was talking, but whoever it was said, “She was approached by a man garnishing a gun.”  I was immediately distracted by the image of a guy poking sprigs of parsley down the barrel and in the trigger of a handgun.  Odd, but not all that scary.  Or maybe it’s all the scarier for being so odd.

Posts here will probably be scarce (or at least very short) for the next few days, so to keep some pretty on the screen, here are some randomly selected pictures of Sparky’s other Scottish crush.

 

 

Apparently, he can’t keep his hands off himself.  Can’t say I blame him.

Update

Had to add this one last thing from The Daily What.  SO creepy and wrong.

Leaky brain syndrome

I had a couple of half-formed ideas of things to write about today, but they’re pretty much gone.  Or far enough away that I don’t have more than a sentence.  You know, like how Jess’s phone called me without her knowledge this afternoon, and how I can’t get enough avocado lately, so I was terribly disappointed when I asked to have avocado added to my sandwich from Panera this evening and they left it off and I didn’t realize until I got home and then it was too late and I was sad.  I had avocado in my salad for lunch (Au Bon Pain – spinach, egg, bacon, avocado, chicken, black beans, honey mustard, and a little more avocado – oh wow good), so it’s not like I had to get through the whole day avocado-less.  Just dinner.

Insert Homer Simpson drooling noise

Mom has made some really good book choices lately.  The last two books I read (well, the one I’m reading now and the one I just read) were her recommendations, and I am very happy with them.  That’s not to say that her recommendations aren’t normally trustworthy – they very much are – but sometimes I need more persuading.  Maybe I’m just being stubborn for no reason.  Or for the same reason John gets stubborn he’s looking for his next book and I send a continuous stream of suggestions his way.  Suggestion overload!  Anyway, I think the best thing – okay, best things about these latest two are a) I knew almost nothing about them before I read them, and 2) they are not at all similar to each other but are both really good.  And good to read back to back, for reasons I have not yet thought out.  And I really like that I hardly knew anything about them.  Mom told me the premise of The Age of Miracles, but she told me absolutely nothing about Gone Girl, and I think I kind of prefer it that way.  John and I work pretty hard to avoid spoilers for movies and TV shows, avoiding just about anything that mentions them.  We really like going into these things with no preconceptions.  With books, you’ve usually got the cover, the blurb on the back, some expectation based on the genre or author or something.  With Gone Girl, since I’m reading it on the Kindle, I don’t have anything but the title and the author’s name.  In the long run, I can see how that might make it difficult to decide what to read next since I often decide based on what genre I’m in the mood for, but once in a while starting a book completely in the dark about it is fun.

Speaking of my book, I’d really like to read it now, so, you know.  Bye.

Look what I got today!

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.

Being geeky

This weekend was just about perfect.  I made a list of things to do and got nearly all of them done and still had time to sit on the porch and watch the rain.  Among my things to do were backing up my blog database, updating WordPress, and installing Linux.  Okay, so John did the actual installation for me and then solved my wireless problem, but still.  Now I have the latest version of Ubuntu (the Linux distribution I decided to go with after conferring with a couple of people).  Huh.  That makes it sound like I gathered opinions and did some research before deciding.  It didn’t go exactly like that.

“Hey, Randy, what version of Linux should I install?”

“Hey, John, Randy suggests Ubuntu.  What do you think?”

“Great, let’s do it.”

Thanks, guys.  🙂  Anyway, now that it’s installed, I have do some configuring.  It looks….different.  Cool, though.

Alien, but pretty. Customizing is underway.

Must go.  Time for pie.

Inspired by the six-year-old

We’re at the breakfast table this morning with Gaby, who is writing in her journal about what we did yesterday.

Gaby: Well, I want to write that we saw monuments, but…I don’t know how to spell “saw”.

John couldn’t hold the laughter in.  She had no problem with monuments.  And then I heard her spell Washington with very little hesitation.  She’s a genius!

We’re all on our laptops (except Gaby, who’s using a cute little spiral-bound notebook) this morning, after a nice lie-in.  Wolf Trap cancelled last night’s performance of The Pirates of Penzance, so we stayed in and had our picnic dinner in the family room with The Muppet Show.  It’s just as well – we were all pretty worn out after the heat and the driving.  We met up with Jess (Hi, Jess!) for a yummy lunch in Annapolis, blew some bubbles at the harbor (also thanks to Jess), ate some really good ice cream, and tried on lots of hats at Hats in the Belfry.  Hey!  That’s news for us – John found a hat.  One that fits and looks pretty cool and will keep him from burning his head every time he goes out in the sun.  It’s a miracle.  I fell in love with a plum-colored cloche hat, but then I looked at the price tag.  I just can’t spend $175 on a hat.  Even when it’s this cool.

Today the plan is to stay inside and hide from the heat.  No plans, no schedule, just whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it.  And now that the internet is back (the storm late Friday night knocked it for most of yesterday)…you know, I really don’t know how to end that sentence.  I don’t remember where I was going with it when I started it.  Now that the internet is back, we can…play on the internet?  But we’re not really going to do that today, so…yeah.  No idea.