Thursday, January 31, 2008

Torso Socks Aside...And Back to...

SHOES!

Today, I was productive.

(Yesterday, I played JoJo's Fashion Show game until I beat it. I'm a sad sad person. But I did make dinner, so I guess it evens out--my feelings of worthlessness and purposefulness balanced itself out yesterday.)

Today, at 9am I spoke with Pam until nearly the break of her dawn. It was really nice. I wore my "whimsical" shirt for her. (The one I got at H&M with the printed little vest on it. Yup. Whimsical--and I sang about it to Jon and Pam. You know you want to hear that song. I'll only sing it when I wear the shirt though. It'd be weird for my other shirts to hear it; I don't think I have any other songs for my shirts.)

Then I read my Google reader and learned some crazy stuff about the world like: gocco. I think it's a potential task for a DIY wedding project. I even may be helping some area brides with their invites (the pressure is on: meeting new people+avoiding screwing up their invites--wedding invites no less). I don't know what to think about all this though. It seems that some people are really crazy and obsessed about their wedding and the details. Maybe it's because our engagement is incredibly long? Maybe it's because it's like we're already married? Jon's perspective is that it's a day to celebrate with everyone we love. And it's a good one. What does perfection really have to do with it then?

Then I went out. First stop was Target where I got these cute shoes:



I swear, I bought two of them (weird that the other shoe isn't in the photo, but I guess that's how it goes). I also bought some wire baskets to hold all of our crap on top of the coffee table that I was complaining about previously. I bought 3 so that in case they didn't fit I didn't have to return all 6. The 3 also gives me motivation to go out tomorrow to get more and stop by BN, which I didn't do because I planned to cook tonight. Anyway, are they cute? I think so. It's been awhile since I've bought ballet flats. I love the pink insole and the bold Asian-print. They were kind of pricey, but it was my treat for getting a job. (Go you! You got a job! shoes...which is much better than, lost another job to someone else shoes--I'd have many shoes in that case.)

Then I went to the bank and to the supermarket Harris Teeter. We call it the H-Titty. It's more fun to call it that. I got some ingredients to make some awesome sounding (and from the photo, looking) chili. The thing about H-Titty is that everyone who works there is so FREAKIN NICE. I enjoy going there because everyone is so nice. It's like we can be friends. The old guy in the spice aisle was extremely helpful (and adorable). I don't know. Maybe I should write a letter commending their service or something.

As a cherry to top off my outing, I dropped off some of Jon's shirts to the dry cleaners. Yeah, it sounds dumb, but I can't have him going to work next week topless. That would be indecent! And if he tried to rewear them, that would be gross. What alternative did I have?

Tomorrow, I am going to go get some more of those basket things from Target and try tidying up a bit more before I start my new job. Eek!

BTW...living not in NYC kind of sucks. Besides the obvious (I mean you dear reader!), there are TONS of wedding sales there that I am sad to read about. I found a blog site about DC brides, and they talk about local stuff, which is great, but still...I really wish we were in NYC.

Okay, going to make chili. First time out. Here's goes...

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Progress Report

I used to hate those. In high school we got the ugliest progress reports with the most cryptic symbols telling each of us (err...our parents) on how we should improve before the end of the marking period. Anyway, you be the judge:

Apartment front:
We moved with nearly 100 boxes. Jon has the exact number, but really nearly 100. The boxes were small to wardrobe box sized. About a third were books. There are about three boxes with bags/totes that we haven't unpacked yet, and I have no idea where to store at this point: yarn and other knitting/crocheting tools; crap that I don't know where to put yet. There's a ton of crap on one of our bookshelves (magazines, stationery, cable wires, etc.), more crap on our coffee table (packing materials, more stationery, a shoe, random knick knacks), and more crap on our dining table that we've shuffled from cleaned areas back to the table (mail, office supplies). We've been to IKEA in Woodbridge twice. And on our last outing we learned how to fold down the seats in the back so hopefully we can make less trips in the future. (We learned how to do this after we bought the thing and put it in the car.) Anyway, we bought an Expedit (2x4 shelf) to go with our 5x5 Expedit shelf from our original apartment. If you can imagine, we sandwiched the 5x5 with two 2x4's (so the 2x4s are horizontal and act as another table top). It takes up most of the wall, but I'm happy we have it. It nearly holds all of our books.

Besides that, I need to organize my clothes. I need to put them away in drawers and on hangers and keep them there.

When it's decent to present, I'll take photos :) Also, Pam needs to post pics of her place first. That's the deal. Or you can just come and visit. It'll be awesome because it will be 3-D.

Job front:
I got a job! I'm excited but a bit nervous, but we shall see. Free lunches on Friday--can't beat that.

Wedding front:
We set a date: 6-27-09! We're also setting up an awesome website--at least I hope we do set it up. I'm obsessed with weddingbee now that I have a good reason to be on that site. Something interesting came up, and I wanted to ask your opinion: does it matter that two friends get married within months of the other? There's a board with the topic AM I EVIL? And the response has varied to: "It's nice of you to have been considerate, but it's your own wedding"; "I would be ticked." I don't understand the "ticked" response.

Food front:
So I tried Potbelly (in DC)--got a turkey sandwich with everything on whole grain bread and it was heavenly. The peppers and pickles and all the flavors coming together made it divine.

I went to Nooshi (in DC) and got the dumpling noodles--it was pretty excellent. (At Super H we got more of those noodles. They're regular egg noodles that you would get in a California noodle dish, but they're in the soup, so not dry and crunchy--still great texture though.)

We tried this ramen place by the Super H called Blue Ocean (somewhere south of Reston), and it was decent. Nothing like Santoka though--I can eat that daily.

Super H (somewhere south of Reston) was an excellent Saturday diversion. We got a bunch of tofu, rice (a big sack of it for the same price as we got for a small sack at Mitsuwa/Fresh Direct), lots of crazy Asian sauces, and the best purchase was the basket of kiwis we got to go with the other best purchase: almond tofu (though it was coconut flavor and Jon added some drops of almond extract so that it would taste like it should). The box says that it serves 10, and we've had it everyday since Sunday so I guess it's true. It's crazy delicious. I might have to run out and get some more today!

If I were to give myself a cryptic score that I would have been given in high school I would give myself an ME: meets expectations. Which I guess, makes me want to try harder.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Lux=Cashmere

Lux, this one's for you! (Hi, Bryan.)

So here's my theory about cashmere. It's freakin expensive, but it feels really good. It's something like a shoe, but for your torso. Too bad shirts aren't hygienically sound to be worn everyday like a favorite stinky sneaker. I mean technically if you wore the same sweater but a different t-shirt underneath it (think of the t-shirt as a sock for the torso), you would be hygienically as sound as wearing shoes--if not more so.

My first cashmere sweater was from Macy's. I returned a pair of weird sparkley jeans that my aunt got me for Christmas and exchanged it for a cashmere sweater. Best purchase ever--since those jeans would've just sat on my bottom drawer (if that) and then have been donated to "the cousins" or someone who probably would never wear it either. That cashmere sweater is still my favorite--it's a black crewneck and pretty thick for cashmere. It goes with everything I own, and if I could wear it everyday I would--with a t-shirt as a torso sock of course.

JCrew now sells decent cashmere. It's not as awesome as the one I got from Macy's--it's thinner. When they go on sale though--it's worth it. I got a cashmere turtleneck from Target.com and it's really not as bad as I feared it would be. It's a bit fuzzier than the JCrew and not as thickly woven as the Macy's, but it was only about $50. If it were a shoe, it'd be a steal.

So the other thing about cashmere besides it being expensive is that it's warm and pretty durable. Sure, I've been kind of crappy about my woven knits (stupid bugs dining on them), BUT they've been reparable. In this sense, they're even more durable than jeans! The first and last time I tried sewing up a hole in my jeans it just ripped some more after I washed it.

(Lux, DO NOT throw out your ripped jeans--that is unless you hate them. Ripped jeans are a sign of luxury or thriftiness and to have an item of that distinction because of thriftiness is so much cooler. A fellow that we know BUYS his jeans ripped--then irons them. (Let's save people that iron their jeans for another time though. In short, they're nuts.) I'd wear those jeans in the summer time--built in air-conditioning. Ohhh yeahh!)

And how hot does a cashmere sweater with ripped jeans sound? You know you've seen it in Lucky and thought it was cool.

In your response, I saw that you have a part cashmere sweater from the GAP. I have one too, but it's incredibly itchy, and I hate wearing it without a shirt underneath it. What do you think about yours?

One last thing about cashmere, and then I'll give it a rest. I read somewhere about this group of indie designers that hangs around rich neighborhoods and goes through their trash (literally) and the thrift shops in the neighborhood to collect and recycle cashmere. They then would make pillows or cute dresses and sweaters out of their findings. And then charge $300.

Find cashmere (on sale). Stock up. Wear it while you're young, so that when you're old you won't be sad that you didn't wear it sooner in life. (Like lined pants.)
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