Retail Therapy

One of the benefits of my crappy job is that it pays me enough money for me to go shopping constantly. Now, I don't want you to think that I'm horrible with money and I have a shopping problem. I will say that my only existing debt is my mortgage and (until June when I fully pay it off) my student loan, and I have a large savings account and a healthy 401K that I contribute to monthly. But I have always been shopping-obsessed, and it seems to be worst when I'm the most unhappy. Like when I've been forced to relocate to New Orleans for a month. This is why I've been hitting the malls pretty hard the past couple of weekends.

I would like to divide my purchases into three categories and discuss them in parts. The three categories are: shoes and outerwear, dresses, and makeup.

Shoes and Outerwear: So I went shopping on Saturday and I came home with two new coats and three new pairs of shoes. All in a day's work. Here is my favorite coat:

Don't be deceived though, I purchased it in a royal blue color which I could not find online. I had been coveting this coat since I first saw it in stores a few months ago and it was finally on sale this weekend. I am in love with it. I also got a cream colored nubby coat that could easily be a work-appropriate jacket for those days where I am required to suit up. And I have the perfect skirt with which to wear it.

As I'm sure you know if you know me, you are aware of my shoe problems. The Shoe Wall in my closet it presently full so everytime I get a new paid I have to vote an old pair off of the island and it breaks my heart a little. This weekend, there was a serious reorganization. I had intended to get shoes at the Off Broadway shoe warehouse, but of course only one pair was from there and the others were from new favorite Aldo and were full price. I couldn't find a pic of the Off Broadway purchase, but they're Michael by Michael Kors and they are 4 inch platform peeptoe pumps that are like a basketweave fucia with a black bow on the front. I heart them. Here are my Aldo purchases:

Dresses: I love dresses. They are my favorite thing to wear because they are so damn easy. I wear a dress at least once a week to work, usually more. I bought this one to the left (to the left) at Banana Republic on sale a few weeks ago. I wore it to work last week. While it is super cute, I do not suggest packing this dress to travel. It is silk and it is now wrinkley. But I will hang it in the bathroom while I shower one day and take care of that nonsense. I also recently bought an adorable dress at BR that I couldn't find online anywhere...it is also silk and a similar style to this yellow dress, but it is white with large green leaves all over it...i know it sounds weird, but it's really pretty. And it's going to look great with the white wedges above.

Dresses are not only for work purposes. I also like to have a few around for easy weekend wear for running errands and whatnot. I really like the color on this one that I also got at BR. They always have great dresses made of comfy stretchy cotton for this purpose. They'd be even better if they were on sale occassionally, but my Luxe card sends me lots of coupons, so I rarely pay full price. The colors that are out this season are great. They're bold and fun and I love them.

As you know, green is my favorite color, and I got this little ditty at the Ann Taylor Loft a few weeks ago. Comfy and work appropriate. Count me in.

There are about a hundred other dresses i saw at J. Crew, Ann Taylor, and Banana that I plan to go out and try on (and probably buy) this weekend if I can find them. I will now make a suggestion to all of my fellow shop-aholics: save your receipts and keep them in your purse for two weeks. I cannot tell you how many times I've been at the mall, seen something I recently bought for cheaper than I originally paid, and got a bunch of money back because I had my receipt. Always know the price adjustment policy wherever you are shopping.

Makeup: Sometimes I go through a weird makeup stage and buy a bunch of it. This usually corresponds with the changes of the seasons. I have been 100% obsessed with Bare Escentuals for the past 4 years. I stumbled upon it at Ulta one day before it was all over infomercials and was instantly hooked. I HATE putting liquid anything on my face, and the powder foundation covers extremely well...and seems to last forever. Plus, it is SPF15 which is key for extreme whities like me. In conjunction with the foundation, I have been using the Mineral Veil, which is a powder you put all over your face at the completion of your routine to lock everything on there and make you look like an airbrushed supermodel. So imagine my surprise when I saw this week that they have come out with a lighter, fresher looking model, the Featherweight Mineral Veil. I'm all over it.

I've been bored of my Bare Escentuals blush lately however, and it's a little too dark for the summer so I hit up my alternate makeup haunt, The Body Shop to see what they had to offer. And I found this. Cute, pink, and just a little bit shimmery. I also got some lip gloss. Yay!

If you think this shopping trip sounds bad, you should see everything I almost bought but restrained from when i was at Crate and Barrel. As far as I can tell, the number one reason I should try to get myself married is so that I can have other people buy out that entire store for me. That's it for now. Back to work!

Attempts to enjoy New Orleans

So because I have to travel for work a lot, I figure I should at least try to enjoy the various cities I wind up in for weeks on end. Also, when dealing with the client I'm dealing with currently, alcohol becomes a necessity. And so last night, I did up Burbon Street.

We started at the Crescent City Brewhouse for dinner. Actually strike that; I started in my room by drinking the half bottle of wine that the hotel gave me in under an hour. And then we went to the Brewhouse. We went there last year too; they have a great beer sampler of all of their brews. I like mini-beers. And flights of beer. And tasty BLT's that have mozzarella and fried basil leaves on them (I know, who fries basil leaves? It was good though).

To watch the end of the NCAA tourney games, we stopped by a rogue slushie bar and Susan and I got one to-go. That's right, you can blatantly drink on the streets in New Orleans. Fabulous.

We then went to the dueling piano bar at Pat O'Brians. Although none of us got one of their signature Hurricanes, we had a round of drinks and listened to fun music.

And then, of course, we went to the Cat's Meow, which is a fabulous karaoke bar. There was lots of fun music and beers and Jello shots. And I'm pretty sure Susan and I somehow got roped into dancing on the stage at one point. I was extremely drunk.

The boys then wanted to go to the casino, but I was no longer walking straight, so Carrie and Susan and I returned to the hotel. As you can imagine, I felt awesome this morning...and I did not make it to the gym at 5:30am like I usually do, but those are the breaks. It was a prety fun night.

Rationalizing my lunch pizza

I. Love. Pizza. Probably more than any other food actually. We went to an Italian place for lunch today, and while usually I try to stay strong and get a salad or a sandwich, the pizza was calling my name. Cafe Roma is this random little Italian restaurant on the outskirts of the New Orleans in a strip mall next to a grocery store. It easily has the best Italian food I've had outside of the greater New York area.

Pizza combines two of my great loves, bread and cheese, to form one giant calorie bomb that should probably be avoided at all costs. Fortunately, I am awesome at reationalizing poor nutritional choices. So i got myself a personal pizza with black olives (omaga 3's), spinach (iron, calcuim), and mushrooms (fiber, selenium). At least I got some of my veggie servings out of the way, right?

And yes, it was delicious.

Peanut Chews

Even I will admit that sometimes my crappy job leads to good things. We've been stuck in New Orleans for three of the past four weeks (and we're coming back here next week) and while I won't discuss how I feel about New Orleans in general right now because it makes me angry, I will breifly discuss the best thing that has come from being here.

I am a choco-holic. I require some chocolate every day to maintain a plesant demeanor. In Charlotte, for example, I have a bag of Dove dark chocolate squares in the "snack drawer" of my desk and I have one or two a day. When we first got to New Orleans, we stopped at a Rite-Aid to get bottled waters and the like and I stumbled across my single favorite candy of all time: Peanut Chews. (Coming in a close second and third: Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs and the Russell Stover Cremes collection.)

Some people may not have heard of Peanut Chews (and I know this because none of the people I am traveling with had heard of them before I made my purchase), but they have been a favorite of mine as far back as I can remember. I've never seen them sold in Charlotte, or anywhere in North Carolina, and actually I'd never seen them south of New Jersey before a few weeks ago. Here they are:

When I was little, my dad's parents used to come to visit us from Staten Island all the time. If we were home sick and my parents had to go to work, they would come. Or sometimes they would just come for no reason. And when they came, they always brought the following three items with them:

1. A giant pot of either Chicken Soup (if we were sick) or sauce and meatballs


2. Delicious fresh baked italian bread from their neighborhood bakery


3. Candy

While sometimes Poppy brought Butterfingers instead of Peanut Chews, it was usually Peanut Chews. And I was obsessed with them. And I still am. They are covered in dark chocolate (heart healthy!) and filled with peanuts and some kind of gooey stuff that makes them chewy. They're delicious. It's hard for me to force myself to only have two a day. I recommend these to anyone who sees them sold anywhere. I don't know much about a lot of things, but I know my chocolate.

And I realize that this is not keeping in line with the "losing 10 pounds" thing, but I do not care. Sometimes the little things are what gets me through the day.

It's Time to Blog

As a CPA, I have been trained to include the purpose of all of my work right there on the top of the page. Just like they told you not to do in elementary school. I've been in a bloggy place lately. I've been out of town a lot and spending a lot of time in hotel rooms. I've always been an avid blog reader. So I figured I could probably give it a go myself.

When I was in college, I had a LiveJournal account. I used it pretty seriously for maybe a year or two and then dropped it like a bad habit. Blogging is so much easier now. Look how fancy my page looks for god's sake! (You would appreciate this too if you were as horrible at computers as i am.)

Anyway, here's my general situation. I have a boring, time consuming job that unfortunately gives me way too much money and benefits for me to leave it. And every time I consider leaving it I just think to myself "Won't I hate my new job just as much?" I mean until I win American Idol or dog walkers start making 6-figure salaries, I probably won't love what I do. It's just a job. Nothing against what I estimate to be the 10% of humans that actually love what they do. I wish I could be one of you. But my accounting background has made me too much of a realist. In spite of all of this, I truly believe I can fully enjoy my life and be generally happy provided that my out-of-work experiences are good enough to make up for what happend during business hours. With the end of "busy season" upon me, I will finally have time to start having a life again. And I'm going to share any awesomeness I come up right here.

To get it started, I'm going to make a general list of things I think I'd like to accomplish (at least once I can be back in Charlotte for more than 2 days at a time):

• Start going back to Yoga at least once a week. Preferably twice. I have a tendancy to be pretty quick to rage when at work, and this will hopefully take care of that problem.
• Maintain gym regimen: general goal 5 days of cardio and 2-3 strength training sessions a week. One of these years I'm actually going to buckle down and lose the 10 pounds I've gained since somewhere around the time I started drinking legally.
• Cook dinner 4-5 times a week. I can always do this in the summer but have trouble motivating myself during the crazy times. This will also help with the weight loss situation.
• Volunteer at the Humane Society at least once a month. I love it there. I can't say I'm a big fan of children, but I have a serious weekness for cute, furry little animals. I had a 2-3 times a month habit last summer, but again busy season foiled my plans. I haven't been there since January.
• Get back into wine. Foolishly I thought drinking a glass of wine each night was a waste of calories. But I've decided to stop caring about calories and just do what I want and hope that it'll work out eventually. Also, I love wine and it makes me calm down after not-so-great days at work.
• NEED to actually organize the get togethers with my girlfriends that we're always talking about putting together but never actually do. Once a month is a fair goal I think.
• Force Blake to have a date night at least once a month. We aren't married, but we live together, and to him that means that every waking second is a date so we never have to actually go out anywhere. This is an incorrect assumption.
• Travel more. A lot more. I'm currently trying to save up money (and roll over vacation time) to take my dream vacation - spending a month in Italy. I'm not getting any younger, so now's the time. Also I'd like to take some weekend trips here and there.
• Watch less TV. Seriously, my DVR box is completely out of control.
• Other general awesomeness. This is, of course, open ended.

Let's embark on this little adventure and see what I can come up with. Woo!