Weekend Hangover

My weekend was a blast. Camping, Packer game, friends, fun, wilderness. Every last moment was filled to the brim with awesomeness. While fantastic, this has thrust me into Monday, completely unready. The past couple weekends have been the same. And next weekend does not look any more relaxing. (Though it will be FUN!)

I have to finish my costume for Clue tonight. Hopefully all the caffeine I’m ingesting will power me through just enough sewing to finish, and then will allow me to crash at the earliest possible moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were in bed before 9:00.

Something that has helped me get through this long day of work was winning this contest from the Solestruck blog! And therefore, winning these shoes:

 
HURRAY!!! I never thought I’d actually win. But I thought the shoes were cute, and so I commented to say so. And now, they will be mine! All mine!! <insert evil laugh here>

The only bad thing is that the brand is called Pastry. And now I want a pastry.

Retail Therapy

I was a mess by the time I left work yesterday. I was tired and cranky and stressed out. David and I stopped by Target after work to pick up a birthday present for my little sister, who turns 13 TODAY!!! David was nice enough to be patient while I looked through clothing (and found NOTHING worth trying on) and shoes. Oh, shoes.

It’s been a while since I’ve bought Target shoes, because the quality is really not there. Sometimes they look nice, but they’re either uncomfortable or unflattering once they’re on your feet. I have big feet, and when a shoe can make it look small and dainty, I will pull out my credit card on the spot. There were several shoes I tried on that made my feet look like elephant hooves. UGH.

I’ve been digging the menswear trend that’s been around for a while, especially in shoes. I never thought I’d find something worthy at Target. But I did! I walked around in these shoes for a while. I’m not 100% sure I’ll keep them, because they’re not the most comfortable, but for now, I own them. And buying shoes is the best cure to a bad day. Oh, and when you add shoe-buying to a hot Caramel Macchiato and an evening on the couch watching Heroes while cuddled up with your fiance… well then you have a mood-enhancing combination strong enough to make you face the next day.

So, they’re not really all that practical, but I can’t help but like them. They were only $30, and that might be worth it to keep them. Plus, they’d be perfect for a potential Halloween costume.

Gym-Shoes

I’ve been lax about my daily workouts in the past couple weeks. Until Monday, I hadn’t worked out in two plus weeks! Bad, especially with the kind of food I had been eating.

I haven’t quite made it back to total Phase One foods yet, but I’m doing pretty well this week. I have had indulgences, but they’ve been small, and not overboard. My home scale is still hovering at 180 as of yesterday.

I also weigh myself at the YMCA, when I go at lunch. I try not to pay too much attention to the number, but I do notice when the number goes up and down. The lowest I’ve seen that scale is at about 183. When I stepped on it on Monday, it said 187. Today, it says 184. Hurray! I’m going to go again tomorrow, which will make this week five-for-five. I need it, since I will be having pasta tonight.

In my defense, it will be Dreamfields Pasta (low carb) and it will be loaded with yummy, healthy veggies that we bought at a farmer’s market over the weekend. David and I are having our friend Lisa over to watch the final night of the Democratic National Convention. Yes, we are dorks.

So my search for affordable shoes for Clue turned into a search for pretty, nearly unattainable shoes. Feel free to ignore me as I pine…

First I came across these Cole Haan beauties:

I like the shape and the color. I think these could be dressed up or down as much as I wanted. To me, that says useful and efficient and worth the $165!

The fact that Prada is even still selling this shoe makes me slightly desperate to buy it RIGHT NOW. I like the pump style more, but that is gone.

It’s pretty plain from the front, but I think that flower heel is just so pretty and interesting. I have a strange draw to shoes as art…

Like this one. There are many shoes I’d buy, with my millions of dollars when I win the lottery, before these, but I still think they’re cool. I’d wear them with long, dark blue jeans.

How about orange shoes? Orange is not a color I wear very often. But I would wear these babies all the time.


Jeans, skirts, dresses, you name it. There is not much in my closet that I wouldn’t wear with these. I think they’d be fun with THE BLUE DRESS too, though not so much my navy blue party dresses, because that’s just too close for comfort with the Chicago Bears’ colors. I would learn how to walk in 5 inch heels for these!

Some outfit inspirations:

I Want!

I was browsing Zappos for teal shoes (for Clue) and came across these. Beautiful. I’d like them better in purple, and red would be super sexy. But I’ll take them in pale green. If they had my size I’d buy them. Oh, and if I had $620.

How cool is that bow?!

 

Drool.

Money Money Money

Despite that title putting ABBA into my head, I did not see Mamma Mia this weekend. I saw Dark Knight like half the world did. It was soooo good. It was LONG but I would (and probably will) see it again. I was on the edge of my seat, filled with suspenseful tension. And Heath Ledger’s Joker was so incredibly creepy. I want to watch him again and again. His voice, his body language, his movements… mastering these are things an actor dreams about! To think that this was the boy I loved from “10 Things I Hate About You” so many years ago. And now he’s gone. It’s hard to wonder about how many great roles he will never play. So sad. Oh, but how funny was he as the nurse?

On Friday I got paid made my credit card payments. On Saturday I went a little crazy at the mall. Worth it? To me, yes!

I spent a lot of money. Not TONS, but a lot, at least to me. Especially since I’ve been meaning to get my hair cut, and that is not cheap. This money that hemorrhaged from my bank account probably helped cause the panic attack I had when I got home. Honest to God panic attack. It was a little scary and it happened just as David had to leave for his show, so not only was I all freaked out, but I scared him too!

I survived, by sitting on the floor of the living room, the A/C turned on high, and watching Freaky Friday on ABC. Oh, and talking to myself. I then went online to self diagnose my panic attack. “Fear of ‘losing it’ or going crazy”? That was me! This does not happen to me very often at all, but this was the first time it seemingly happened over NOTHING. I’m guessing that it was a combo of being rushed, spending more money than I realized, and being hot and humid. But still, it was weird.

Anyway, then I played with my beautiful new purchases. I thought, hmm, maybe I should return something. I don’t NEED all this stuff. But then I realized that I really really wanted it. And it did not give me another panic attack. So I’m keeping my baby.

I went to Sephora with Sandy. She may not be a girly girl all the time, but she has it deep inside! We spent a LONG time wandering around this store. I described it as porn, especially the makeup brush section. She agreed.

I’m slightly obsessed with mascara, so when I saw this mascara set I had to buy it.

And I did. It’s like I died and went to heaven. I can’t wait to play with them all.

Aren’t they cute!?

I purchased that, but Sandy wasn’t done browsing yet. So I browsed some more. I decided I was way overdue for a Foundation Brush, and the saleslady agreed. Of course she did.

Then we were directed to some bath products that were 50% off! Well, at that price, how could I NOT buy the Asian Ginger Dry Oil body spray?

So now I have another $30 in my basket. I had been drooling over this Urban Decay eyeshadow palette the entire time I was in the store. Not only is the package pretty, but the colors are incredible. I’m a huge sucker for packaging style. Which explains my frequent purchases of Benefit products. So cool!

Suddenly my mind said “What the heck?” and I picked up the Urban Decay palette. And went to the register before I could change my mind. Pricey? Yes. But I told myself that I no longer have cool eyeshadow colors and it had been forever since I bought any new eyeshadow.

So now I am the happy owner of these beautiful eyeshadows.

I am going to have FUN with these! Look at that green!

But Sephora was just the warm up to my shopping excitement. Sandy and I walked towards Barnes & Noble to meet up with the boys who just couldn’t wait outside Sephora any longer. Lo and behold, what do we see? Yellow dot clearance SHOES outside of Boston Store!

We practically run to the 9.5-10 table and rummage through all the boxes. And then I see pink. And a BCBGirls box. And I suck in my breath. And I pull out the box. And I almost faint that THESE shoes are here. I first saw these shoes months ago. And I loved them at their full $98 price tag. They were just so cool! Then I loved them when they got marked down to $70. Just a couple weeks ago I saw them on clearance (IN A SIZE 10) at 60% off. And yet, I didn’t buy them.

But now, out in the mall air, exposed to everyone, I felt that I had to have them. At 70% off, they were around $30. I didn’t really have the money, but I thought of one last possibility. My mom. I dialed her cell phone and she answered right away. I told her that I was at Boston Store and tried on some shoes that I had to have. She says “At Mayfair? Where.” I looked around, and there she was.

She was on her break, at that very moment. I brought the shoes over to her, and even she thought they were awesome and that I had to have them. I handed over my cash and she went and purchased them, right then and there. It was meant to be! $23 later, they were mine. MINE!!!!

Are they ridiculous? Yes. But then, so am I.

My Miscellany

My weekend was not as super-fantastic as I had hoped, but it wasn’t half bad.

Friday I left work at 4 and had AMAAAAAZING chicken for dinner. We served it with roasted asparagus (did you know it makes everyone’s pee smell weird, but only 40% of the population has the olfactory glands to smell it?) and tomato and goat cheese salad. I’ve done this before, but added fresh herbs ala Kalyn’s Kitchen. I sliced up regular tomatoes and grape tomatoes and added crumbled goat cheese and a handful of freshly chopped parsley, basil, and oregano. I drizzled in some basil & balsamic dipping oil and it was delicious! We’re doing that chicken again tonight. TRY IT. We didn’t do it on the grill, we just pan roasted it and it turned out great.

So then I went to see David in Damn Yankees at Sunset Playhouse. I wore THE DRESS and the new shoes and I felt fabulous! The show was great. It’s funny and light hearted. I’ll be seeing it again, and I’m looking forward to “The Game” and Applegate’s song.

So… here’s the dress picture. One would think I’m talking about a wedding dress or something. Maybe I’ll wear this for my wedding. I love it that much. (PSYCH!!!) Anyway, I forgot to bring my camera (GASP!!!) so I had to take pictures after I got back from the show. This is my silly edit for my self portrait project on Flickr:

It is a tiny bit shorter than what I usually go for, as I don’t like for my chubby knees (ha!) to show at all, but the fit just feels so great.

Saturday was a day of running errands. Though we did start by going to Greek Fest at State Fair Park for lunch. We got there just as they opened at noon and YUM!! We ate a gyro, chicken shishkabob, and fried eggplant slices. We wandered for a while and then split a small loukemades, or honey puffs. You really can’t go wrong with fried balls of dough smothered in honey syrup and cinnamon. They were so sinfully delicious.

That night we went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Oriental. Their theme was Christmas in July. I went as the Virgin Mary and David went as Baby Jesus. Yes, we are so going to hell. I (well, we) won second place in the costume contest and won some fabulously crappy prizes! It was waaaay too late of a night, but I had fun.

Sunday was a day to sleep in. Though we did make it down to Bastille Days for lunch. I was very disappointed by the lack of French food and goods, though I did have a delicious crepe and cafe au lait. We listened to a cool band on the street for a while, but we couldn’t stay too long. I dropped David off at his show and went to a friend’s house to help her with some Ebay stuff. I did boring stuff like grocery shopping and washing dishes. I also collected the mail from the bottom of our stairs and found my Moo Cards from Flickr! If you don’t know what these are, I’ll post a picture when I get home. They’re cute! I also got a credit card to replace the one that is about to expire. It has the SAME design as my old one. That is LAME!

Sunday is when we had planned to go to Bacchus, but we had to cancel our reservations! Sunset Playhouse does this “Photo Call.” Basically, they stage pictures so it looks like someone took great pictures during the show. It’s nice to have a slideshow of non-blurry pictures of the show, but it takes so long! Sure enough, David found out that they were going to do it after Sunday’s show. So we cancelled. I was SAD. I don’t really want to go during the week, and now we won’t have a free weekend evening until early August. Oh well.

Instead we made taco salads which is one of my favorite meals. We also watched Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical.

OMG LOL!! Has anyone seen this? I loved it. The Warped Cast is doing this in the winter. I don’t know H(ow)TF we’re going to manage it, but I don’t care right now. It was so funny! The music is really catchy. Right now I have “Mary Lane” stuck in my head.

MondayI called in sick. Could I have gone to work? Yeaahhhh… maybe…. but it wouldn’t have been fun. I had a bad sinus headache thing. I felt good enough by the afternoon to do a buttload of laundry and dishes, so I didn’t feel like a total bum. David and I watched the movie Waitress after dinner. It was CUTE!

Tuesdayfor lunch I ate the first lettuce from my garden! I used it in a salad. It was pretty good. I also started my new stripperific classes. I’m taking a Lap/Strip class and another encore of Pole 2 from Miss Pole. I really like the teacher. She’s funny and really gives you a workout. The Lap/Strip is… interesting. I do know that it really worked my abs, so I’ll keep an open mind. In Pole 2, I am getting upside down on the pole more often than not. And… last night… I hung by just my legs! I took my arms off completely! It was only for about 2 seconds, and it hurt my poor thigh skin badly, but I did it!! My pole partner in crime also made it upside down finally! It was a good class

And with that, it’s already Wednesday!!

Countdown

I have a feeling this weekend is going to be light years better than last weekend. Tomorrow night is opening night of Damn Yankees at Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove. David has had a rough week with the rehearsals, but finally it will all pay off! I bought my ticket, and I’ll be in the fourth row, cheering for him.

This is exciting, yes, but it’s made extra exciting by the fact that this will be the first time I will wear my superfantastic new blue dress!! Tomorrow! I can hardly wait. I’m working through lunch and leaving work at 4. Then I will go home and get prettied up and rock the dress.

I bought these shoes yesterday.

I’m not positive I am keeping them. They’re a little dressy, and pretty comfortable, and I think they’ll look good with THE DRESS. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll play dress up tonight.

As if that weren’t good enough, I also have an excuse to wear the dress on Sunday night! (Will I actually wear it twice in one weekend? Maybe…) Why? Because my wonderful fiance is taking me to Bacchus! We’ve been dying to go back again, but we haven’t been since before my birthday in December. We have a couple coupons/certificates (totalling about $40) so we’ll be able to have an amazing meal and not have to put it on a credit card! I cannot wait! I love everything about this place. The food, the service, it’s just awesome.

But maybe, just maybe, what I’m most excited about are the chances to finally wear my new dress. YES!!

Every Now And Then

Every now and then I see a pair of shoes that takes my breath away. Today was one of those days, thanks to The Manolo.

These Roberto Cavalli shoes are drop dead gorgeous. Why couldn’t I find anything like this on my New York City trip a couple years ago? I went willing to spend about $500 on an incredible pair of shoes. But I couldn’t find anything quite right in that range.

Oh, there were Louboutins (which I would practically die for)…

And there were these beautiful Chanel platform sandals that looked like they wrapped your foot in black and gold ribbon. But these were all in the NINE HUNDRED dollar range. So instead I bought THREE pairs of shoes for about $500! I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t pass them up. Maroon suede Stuart Weitzman pumps, gray suede Isaac pumps, and this beautiful, but cheaper pair of Enzo Angiolini champagne satin sandals that I have yet to wear!! I’ll have to wear them this summer. They’re gorgeous, but they kind of look like “wedding shoes” so it’s been difficult to find a time to wear them.

I know I can’t buy those Cavalli shoes. Even if I got a huge tax rebate. $595 is just way too much for me right now. But my toes curled with delight when I saw them, picturing slipping them onto my feet and hitting the town. I’m definitely in shoe-love.

OMG Shoes!

I went to DSW at lunch today. I wasn’t really looking for anything specific. I thought I could use a good “every day” shoe. Or maybe something vintage looking that I could wear in Death on the Nile. But I knew I wanted to at least look at wild fancy shoes. And I found some. Bright royal blue strappy patent leather pumps. They’re so fantastic! I will have to take a picture of them, because I cannot find anything like them online. I almost bought some bright yellow BCBG patent round-toe pumps, but these just barely edged those out. And they were only $23 on clearance.

I also bought a super cute pink wallet. I left with my current wallet about $40 lighter, but my heart and mind and spirits were soaring. It’s hard to rival that feeling I get when shopping and buying shoes on a barely spring day where it’s warm enough to roll the window down on the drive back to work. So refreshing.

Speaking of shopping, Boston Store has some incredibly beautiful dresses right now. I saw a cute, sunny yellow dress by Calvin Klein that I’m still drooling over. I think I might stop in on Saturday and try on a few. With Goodwill Days going on, plus my mom’s discount, it might be within my price reach. Maybe.

I’m very scatterbrained today. My show opens tomorrow and I’m really excited. I think it’s going to go well and I think it’s a good, exciting, interesting show. I just hope we have an audience! We have a big cast, and it would be depressing if there were fewer people in the audience than on stage.

On that note, my performances of The Little Shop Of Horrors went great. It was SO MUCH FUN! I actually sang my lines and apparently it sounded good. Here’s a picture of me belting out the opening lines of “Skid Row.” I don’t look much like the big black lady in the movie, but I tried to match her voice and volume the best I could.