Monday, August 30, 2010

Week 28: Cash for Clunkers (Sweaters, that is!)

Week 28, Day 2: Work from home day (can you say hangover from Dub Club??) - nothing to report.



Week 28, Day 3: Black Petite Sophisticate dress (purchased at Consignment Store, Clothes Mentor), Christian Louboutin black pumps - yup, took those puppies out for a spin!

Week 28, Day 4: BR short sleeved dress with eyelets at the top that you can't see from the picture, Naughty Monkey shoes

Week 28, Day 5: work from home day, you know the drill


Week 28, Day 6: BR black long sleeve top, BR pin-striped jeans (the only ones that I can wear with flip flops that aren't capris!)


Week 28, Day 6: White House Black Market off the shoulder black top, Gap Jeans, Ridiculously high Aldo wedge espadrilles (not pictured) - they are 5 inches high!


Week 29, Day 1: Gap scoopneck top, Gap Jeans
So, a continuation of low-travel, low stress weeks...I'm loving it! I can tell when I'm not traveling a lot, because I actually make use of my monthly Essence package and make it in regularly for yoga and spinning! Aside from my weekly trip up to Detroit from work, my days have been filled with productivity, cooking in my own kitchen, and breaking in our psycho kitten.
Needless to say, after Dub Club last week, I was very out of it on Monday and spent the day (luckily a light one) trying to get through work. Not really much to report about Monday except that I was in a daze.
Tuesday, I headed up to the office and decided to show off my new shoes - so although I felt ridiculous walking like a runway model around our cubicle city, there was something oddly empowering about wearing those shoes - which is the whole point, right? Even expensive shoes like these, however, do begin to kill your feet after making trips back and forth to the bathroom and printer throughout the day. Given that the bottoms of the shoes are painted red (at least until I scuff all the paint away - where does that paint go, anyway? I didn't see any marks on the concrete as I trollipsed around) I decided to wear what has become my favorite (okay, only) red belt to accent the shoes. The dress was a button down from neck to mid-thigh, so whenever I sat down, the dress would open up pretty much close to an indecent height - which made the heels all that much more empowering :) Luckily, I have a cube and usually have good warning before someone can peer over the walls and observe how short my dress is - and oddly enough, no truckers made any obnoxious honking noises on my drive up to Detroit. Tuesday evening I engaged in my bi-weekly happy hour with my boss and Mike C - so we did the usual eat, gossip, drink thing and then I crashed at Mike and Lyn's - something that I have refrained from doing in awhile as I am trying to get back to my pre-vacationing size so I can start wearing fall clothes again - you know...JEANS - which never feel good after you've been wearing shorts and dresses for 3 months - and even worse if you've grown a couple sizes since the beginning of summer.
Wednesday was another work day in the office, but not all the eventful. I was even able to get back early enough to make dinner and enjoy our patio since the weather was nice. Aside from that, another ho-hum day!
Thursday was a work from home day, and then ended with a night out with Maggie and Jen. We began with yoga and then headed to a local charceuterie joint where we threw back a few cold beers and complimented our manly drinks with some manly food...and, yes, I have gone back to eating meat a little more freely, though I still will choose a seafood or veggie option over a meat one if I have the choice - but how can you resist a homemade chicken sausage?? I really enjoyed our night out last week as we spent some time at a few local spots and really appreciated what our small town has to offer. Earlier that day, as I was dropping yet another load of clothes off at Clothes Mentor, I stopped by a local donut shop to order a few treats, and was again delighted at being able to support a local business...I felt so quaint - like the Barefoot Contessa seems as she drives around in her BMW in the Hamptons hitting up cute little wine shops, stopping by her bakery to pick up some brownies to go with the beachfront picnic that she's putting together for her favorite gay friends - who happent to be grotesquely rich and successful movie producers. Yep, that's me - the Perrysburg Contessa - not! I would like to say, however, that I have made 2 chocolate cakes within a week's time from her cookbook, topped them with flowers, and was feeling somewhat accomplished after creating a relatively eye-catching dessert - and, it of course tasted good because it is an Ina Garten recipe - one that in true Ina Garten fashion, has nothing short of a pound of butter in it.
Friday was again a work from home day and a bit hectic work-wise. But, I proudly tore myself away around 5:30 as we had company coming over for a little pre-party before heading off to the German American festival. It was my friend, Julie's birthday, so we ate the 2nd chocolate cake I made (the first being for Diana during our Dub Club get together), snacked on some crostini & shrimp cocktail, and then hopped in Scott and Maggie's minivan for a party-bus ride to the festival. I was quite impressed with the spectacle of a staged German village being swarmed by drunk midwesterners with their plastic boot glasses hanging around their necks - think amusement park and how you purchase a cup for some ridiculous price ($10) with cheaper re-fills after you buy the "souvenir" glass - an item that will get stored in the depths of your cabinets and only come out when you need to water plants. At one point in the night, someone pointed out the Euro-bubble attraction at the festival - which is a pressurized air-bubble that you crawl into and begin crawling around in order to simulate a hamster wheel. Problem is, the bubble is on water, so no matter how much you try to propel yourself forward, you remain in the same spot, toppling over yourself as you aggressively try to get somewhere. Yes, as stupid as it sounds, Mike and I had a blast doing it! Yoga's got nothing on the Euro-bubble!
Saturday, Mike and I headed down to the Dayton area to partake of a local food & wine festival. We ran into a few other people that we usually see at weekly wine tastings at a liquor store down the street - so we hung out with everyone, had dinner at the Inn that we were staying at, and then headed down the main street to a bar where we saw the best mullet that I've seen in years! The band playing at the bar was a heavy metal tribute band and was actually really good. The lead singer would be classified as your prototypical small town midwestern rocker that never caught a break, and is instead going to small towns to perform back to back gigs and living in his own stardom when drunk townies come up to him and beg him to sing one more Metallica song. Again, like the Euro-bubble, of course we had a blast! How could you not? We ended the night heading into the town square and taking racy pictures with the brass statues - what one of our fellow accomplices called "molesting the statue."
Sunday, I was again out of it - okay, I am beginning to realize that pretty much 1/2 of each of my weeks involves excessive drinking - but I'm not really as bad as it sounds...or maybe I am...perhaps I am something different from a SHOPaholic and the shopping was my way of preventing other addictive behavior...hmmmm...
Speaking of the shopping, however, I did have an almost break in my fast from clothes buying (aside from THE SHOES, of course). I was at Clothes Mentor and saw an adorable green jacket hanging in the New Arrivals section - and even tried it on...luckily my hair looked awful and I was wearing yoga clothes - so the "look" didn't quite come together. The jacket was also a bit wide for my frame and not all that flattering on - so I exercised restraint and said NO! Had I bought it, though, I would have rationalized the purchase by saying that because I got $44 for the clothes I took in, this was still a zero-sum transaction (actually I still would have had money in my pocket). Nonetheless, I resisted and do think that my will power has been quite strengthened by this challenge...and I'm not waning!!!

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