What do you mean I'm broke?

Retail therapy is something I strongly believe in. I learned this from my mother, who used to take me shopping after every horrible break-up of my youth. She'd buy me a 'F*#! Jimmy' purse, or 'Screw Bobby' shoes (Note: The names have been changed to protect the innocent. And sometimes the not-so-innocent...I'm looking at you, Justyn), and suddenly, colors were a little brighter and food tasted a little better and I was on the road to recovery and looking for the next poor sap to call my boyfriend.

Unfortunately, this habit remained after I moved out of my mother's house and lost access to her pocketbook (at least full-time, anyway).

Lately, I've been pretty unhappy at work for lots of reasons. As a result, the FedEx man has been bringing quite a few boxes to our door. Which is all well and fine until my credit card bill also finds it's way to our door. Then, I will spiral downward into a depression that will take even more retail therapy to get out of. C'est la vie.

Below is a sampling of items I've recently received:

I mentioned my pumpkin candles. What I didn't mention were the cafe au lait candles and the apple pie candles and the cinnamon and sugar candles. I ordered 15 of these suckers, mostly in scents that smell like delicious baked goods and I couldn't be happier.


I love this foundation. I've been wearing Bare Minerals for a long, long time and needed to change it up a little. This stuff feels super smooth and isn't so thick that I feel like a tranny-whore.


What? You actually think I could use more tranny-whorishness in my life? No worries, I recently purchased this Essie Wicked nail polish. Essie describes it as "a deep and dark creamy sinister red." It's on my toes as I type and I certainly do feel a bit sinister.


Pretty retro, huh? I also bought two other dresses from Target in this collection, all to be worn with tights and boots as fall progresses. (See supra, Nicole M. Churchill, Randomness, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, Sept. 27, 2010). Lawyer citation jokes!


I'm wearing this dress in yesterday's post, so I guess it's time to admit that I own a dress designed by Lauren Conrad. There. I said it. I feel much better. I'm also able to finally come out with this because I know a certain someone who recently wore a dress designed by Brittany Spears.


This one's a little bit of a cheat. I didn't actually purchase it myself. What I did was take a field trip with Matt's mom and grandma to the liquor store where I think I sneaked this into the cart and then they left it in our fridge. Score! It's my new pre-dinner wine (not to be confused with my during-dinner wine or my after-dinner wine). Apparently, it's got hints of "gooseberry, passion fruit and citrus." Whatever. All I know is that it's great. The unoaked chardonnay is also awesome.

In law school, they told us one way to control your spending was to freeze your credit cards in a bowl of water. That way, if you want something, you have to think long and hard about it while you wait for your cards to thaw. I'm considering it. I'm also considering having a glass of wine and seeing what's on sale at gap.com. I have all my credit card numbers memorized anyway. No frozen bowl is going to get in the way of my retail therapy!

Randomness

1. I have had the irresistible urge to incorporate pumpkins into every facet of my life lately. Examples from the past 72 hours: pumpkin doughnuts, a pumpkin latte, pumpkin candles, pumpkin beer, and baby pumpkins for the apartment.

2. Matt's momma and grandma spent the weekend with us and we had a great time. Matt's grandma is the bomb at Rock Band (do people still say that?). She killed on the guitar. Seriously. Killed.

3. On Thursday we saw Billy Elliot (thanks, Grandma Pat!). As a result, I'm pretty bitter about the fact that my parents never forced me to take dance lessons when I was little. That could have been me! What good did all those years in 4-H do me?!? Sure, if you want to discuss rabbit gestation or American Fuzzy Lop varieties, I'm your girl! But tap dancing would be a much cooler talent.

4. The National concert was great last night, although we chose to sit in actual seats and decided after the show that that's the true litmus test of whether you're officially old or not. Young people don't sit at concerts! They stand really close to other young people near the stage and dance and sing and holler! Old people sit in seats far away from the dancing because it's a Sunday night and they're a bit tired and they occasionally tap their feet to the beat and clap politely after every set. Last night, we were old people.

5. My favorite song from last night's show was Slow Show. It makes me swoon every time I hear it. I'm a sucker for lyrics.
"You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
And I missed you for
for twenty-nine years.."

...sigh...

6. It is a gray and rainy day in Chicago and I am all alone in the office. I'm not sure how I'll stay awake for the next 5 hours.

7. On the plus side, it's officially boots and tights season. It's all I've worn for the past three days. Yay for boots and tights!

8. I learned last week that I'm no longer eligible to be Ms.USA because I'm too old. This news was almost as depressing as learning that I'm too old to be on the Real World. To be fair, I did choose to sit at a concert last night, but I'm certain there are other 27-year-olds out there who haven't quite stooped that low. What the heck?!

9. It's a three day workweek for this girl, since Thursday morning we'll be headed to Greenville, SC for Amber and Corey's wedding! Yay for short workweeks with celebrations at the end!

10. Happy Monday!

What I’ve been up to:

Reading:
Satanic Verses by Salmon Rushie: I’ll admit I’ve been working on this one for a few weeks. It’s certainly not an easy read.

Watching:
Just Desserts on Bravo: It’s Top Chef, but for desserts only (get it?). It’s the classiest reality TV on my roster right now.

Listening:
The National: We’re going to their concert next weekend, so I need to get better acquainted with their newest album, High Violet.

Cooking:
Stuffed Shells with Turkey and Artichokes. I know, I know, it's a recipe by Giada, one of the most annoying people alive. But it's good, I promise!

This is not a video.

We had a great time in Sunbury over Labor Day Weekend celebrating the end of summer and labor (Or do we honor labor? Or memorialize it? I really don't know WTF Labor Day is for).



Saturday, my parents hosted a big ole' BBQ with lots of people I never get to see and it was great. My Uncle Norm brought his famous rum cake AND his famous cherry chocolate cake and I was happy as a clam. The night ended in a beer pong game that resulted in the gem of a picture above.



Sunday we went golfing, which was a giant FAIL. I stopped keeping score after the second hole. And we got to have drinks with my friend Cass and his VERY pregnant wife, Ashleigh. Their baby is pretty much guaranteed to be the most adorable thing ever. Yay for October babies!

Oh, and Izzy? Izzy spent the weekend doing this:



I was sad to leave, but luckily my momma sent us back with homemade lasagna and zucchini bread that's been keeping me from being too homesick all week. The secret recipe includes a cupful of love and a tablespoon of crack.

And lastly, this morning, I woke up and convinced myself to go for a jog. What I really wanted to do was watch trashy TV on the couch, but something in me drove me to get up and put my shoes on. It might have been the sausage gravy I had over the weekend and the bridesmaid dress fitting I have this afternoon. Or it could have been sheer determination. I pick determination.

Anyway, it was fate because mid-jog, I saw Vicki Gunvalson from the Real Housewives of Orange County walking down the sidewalk! So, in reality, I got to see trashy TV ON MY JOG! Best of both worlds!

I know I said I'd quit posting videos...

...but this one is just too sweet not to share:

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Danny and Annie tell the story of their relationship-and it's guaranteed to warm your heart.

Their tale was aired on NPR a few years ago.

Sprechen sie deutsch?

Blogger tells me random statistics, like, how many page views I've had and that 70% of you are using a Mac computer right now (why the heck would anyone need to know that?). But one of the most interesting things it tells me is that someone from Germany is reading Keep Calm and Carry On.

My blog isn't publicly searchable...so which one of you is it?

I hope it's this kid:



I don't even think he's German, but Jaime and I watched that video about a billion times in college, so I thought I'd include it.

We also watched this about a billion times:



But I bet you're asking yourself, what has this blog become? Some sort of video library? Some sort of new YouTube? Have you had enough of my sharing random clips?

Well, too bad! Because here's another one:



Ok, now I'm done. Finished. Promise. Except for this last clip, which I feel is appropriate since I'm headed home to Sunbury for the weekend and will be spending the entire time teaching the family golden retriever, Thurman, to do this:




Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone!

"I bought those boat tickets the day I saw that YouTube video."

Honestly, I cried more during Jim and Pam's wedding than at most real weddings I've attended.

If you haven't watched it lately, do it. It always puts me in a better mood.



And as far as The Office goes, Creed is my favorite, by far. Anything he says is guaranteed to make me laugh.