Yes, I went shoe shopping.

So, Jason and Sara and I went to dinner tonight at the local Claddagh Irish Pub and, as we were sitting out on the patio and I was watching the gray, blue, gray clouds pass by us without opening up and raining on us (thank you, oh benevolent gods and goddesses of outdoor dining), I realized something quite shocking.

I wanted to buy some shoes.

Now, I am what you might consider a somewhat unusual girl. I'm not a big shopper. Truthfully, usually the only time I enjoy shopping is if I think I'm getting a deal on something, or finding a treasure. About the closest I usually get to full-price retail is T.J. Maxx or Marshall's...and that ain't full-price retail. I love thrift stores. The high I get when I find things like, oh, fringed leather jackets for $20 (already broken in and weathered looking), or Banana Republic shirts for $3, or highly covetable (at least by a certain mother) green piano benches, is exhilirating.

So, I was surprised to find this urge to shop for shoes creeping up on me as I drank my pint of Guinness under the threatening sky. Luckily, there was a DSW directly in my line of sight, and my two dinner companions were all for a little post-repast shoparama.

So...*sigh*...I went shoe shopping. And I bought three pairs. Spent $116 I hadn't planned on spending, but I guess that's not bad for three pairs of shoes, especially when one of them is a pair of Clarks.

Boy, am I glad I've gotten that out of my system. Now, I might need to go to the thrift store to look for some "new" clothes to go with my shoes...

Ode to the slacker that I am

What is it that Popeye says? "I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam?" Well, today, I yam a total slacker. Well, not a total slacker. I did work all day, and I was on-call, and I solved a few problems and went to a couple meetings. So during the day, I was distinctly NOT a slacker.

Well, that's not entirely true. I guess it would be most accurate to say that the initial dive into the slacker abyss started at lunch today, when my yellow duffel bag, packed full of everything I would need to go do that strength workout I'd meant to do, lay there untouched. For the second day in a row. Slackerville, here we come!

So, of course I swore I was going to go for a run tonight. I even commented to a coworker, as we walked to our respective cars, that it was a "nice cool night for a run." That's a lie. It's butt-fucking cold here today. I think the high got to about 45, but that's without the wind. HELLLOOOOO, Mother Nature! It's MAY! Get a clue!

But, even as I got in my car and realized it really wasn't "cool" outside so much as "kind of cold and slightly miserable," I still swore I was going to go for a run. So, I got to Sara's to pick up Dakota, and she arrived home and, as I told her of my "plans" to go for a run, she made the very good point that it was kind of windy outside, and isn't it tougher to run when it's windy?

Oh yes. You're right. Hmmmmmmm. Windy. Yes, it is almost unbearably windy out there, isn't it? You might say it's even DANGEROUSLY windy, I mean, you never know when some bit of airborne detritus might find its way into my eye and blind me for life.

Well, that was easy! Screw the running!

So, Dakota and I headed home, by way of the grocery store where I picked up some things I didn't need. Even at this time, there was the notion that I might be able to coax myself into my running clothes and venture out into the inhospitable wilderness with all that evil wind. I'm very good at deluding myself.

Suffice it to say, I'm sitting here blogging in my pajamas, with a beer and a bowl of soy chips in front of me. And it's exactly where I want to be.

Total Flickr withdrawal

So, it would appear that Flickr, my newest addiction, has been down for at least the last two days. Evidently, they had a planned outage on Friday night, but it would seem they didn't exactly recover well from that.

And can I say, I'm having some serious withdrawal symptoms. This is not good. It's completely silly to be so semi-obsessed with a photo-sharing site, but Flickr is damn fun. And I have some new pictures to post!

Come on, Flickr people...get your shit together so I can get my Flickr Fix!