September 27, 2006

 zzzzzz....

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good LORD, church signs have gotten boring lately. they're resorting to horrible, horrible puns.

i passed one today that said "seven days without prayer makes one weak."

gack! give me some righteousness! threats! narrow-mindedness! anything!

Posted by xta at 09:59 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

September 24, 2006

 bye bye pool

well, we're a couple of weeks earlier than last year, but today we started draining the pool.

*sniff*

truthfully, i haven't been in for weeks. the water temperature was hovering around 72, which is just too cold to be comfortable. so ta-ta, pool. see ya next summer.

and conveniently, the home depot is currently having their yearly pool clearance sale, so we went ahead an bought one for next year.

Posted by xta at 07:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 23, 2006

 they're out to get me

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i have another broken toe. i was reluctant to post anything about it because of the pure irony involved in the injury. in fact, i told one co-worker today how it happened and the look on her face was priceless. she could barely contain herself from fits of giggles.

it's shoes. they're starting to turn against me.

the day started off innocently enough at DSW, where i found this totally cute pair of kenneth cole reactions. i can so rarely fit my wide-ass feet into anything at DSW that i got all a-twitter when these slid right on. (granted, i look forward to them stretching out a little.)

anyway, i escaped DSW with only some minor damage to my checkbook. (they were on sale for about $35.) the footwear, at this point, has not yet begun to set its wrath upon me.

i then went on to the mall do to some mystery-shopping, and on my way to the assigned location i passed by a payless shoe store. i am incapable of simply passing by a payless shoe store... i must go in. the lure has been particularly strong since they've started carrying a nice representation of wide width styles. so, powerless to resist, i found myself being drawn into the store to see what they have to offer me and my wide-ass feet.

for starters, i spotted these cute brown ankle boots for a mere $24.99. i immediately whipped them off the shelf and balanced myself precariously on one foot while i slipped a boot on the other foot. whoooops... i start to lose my balance.... trying to catch myself, regaining control, i bring the boot-trying foot down kind of hard on the ground, without the benefit of the boot being all the way on my foot. i take an awkward, hard step and i hear something pop. i feel no pain, though... just a small "pop!" (i'm reluctant to even add that exclamation point.)

so i proceed with the boot-trying on, full steam ahead. the brown boots fit great, and i look around for other things to try.

and here's where i become confused. maybe my body is already starting to heal my newly-broken toe by sending out endorphins or whatever, and maybe i'm not thinking very clearly. i'm not really sure what happening in my brain. because next thing i knew, i was trying these on. what's more, i didn't think twice about buying them.

i mean, really! when am i ever going to wear silver knee-high stiletto boots? they are totally impractical. however, i believe them to be pretty friggin' hot. (ray thought so, too.) plus, they sort of make me feel like a superhero.

they were also $24.99, by the way. which certainly makes the irrational decision to buy them a bit easier to live with.

so after the double-boot payless purchase, i completed my mystery shopping, walked the entire length of the mall, drove home, went out to dinner and not once did i feel any pain in my toe. but this morning i woke up and it was swollen, slightly bruised (purple!) and pretty darn owie. flip-flops have been the footwear of the day, which is just one of the ironic elements in this whole sordid story.

Posted by xta at 12:29 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

September 20, 2006

 falling down on the job

i think i have failed to mention that divaville has now moved to sunday afternoons, from 3-5pm.

it's a good show (big band, swing, jazz... frank, ella, louis...) and i hope you can tune in on sunday afternoons to WXDU (88.7 or listen online) and share it with me. it's guaranteed fun, or your money back.

divaville aired on thursday nights for more than 5 years, and i'm still adapting to the new time slot. so far, so good... except for the occasional slip-up on-air when i reflexively say "evening" instead of "afternoon". i was worried that it'd seem like the program was eating into my weekend, but thankfully i'm not feeling that. yet, anyway.

it would certainly help if i could be assured that people have followed me from thursday nights over to sunday afternoons. the first two sundays i got several calls from vocal and loyal listeners saying as much, but let me feel the love, people! i need to be needed!

Posted by xta at 02:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 14, 2006

 omg, let's get some shoes

endless gratitude to minty for the link.

Posted by xta at 03:32 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

September 13, 2006

 ok, ok...

i don't hate fall. i just really miss the beautiful things about summer. the pool in particular. i love to swim, and i really feel sad when both the water and the weather get prohibitively cold.

but today was a lovely fall day, wasn't it? the light rain, the crispness in the air. i decided that shopping for fall shoes wouldn't be a bad idea after all:

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i'm unreasonably in love with these. ray said he was surprised that i liked them. i'm attracted to the balance of conservative loafer + sexy heel. they're naturalizers. the feel pretty good.

then there's these:

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hubba hubba, am i right?? these fit like a dream and were only $60. i had to have them. they actually make me look forward to colder weather.

after purchasing these, i got so inspired by all the fall-ness that i bought some actual pants and long sleeved shirts, too. go figure.

Posted by xta at 11:17 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 11, 2006

 goodbye summer

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i got these at payless the other night. $12.99. can't beat that.

plus, when i wore them to work, one of my male co-workers' eyes lit up and he said, "mmmmm!!"

as cute as these are, though, i am sad that closed-toe shoe weather is upon us. i have ordered, grudgingly, a few pairs of fall shoes over the internets. they should be here soon, but i'm not as excited about them as i should be. i still want pool weather, summery skirt weather, sunshine.

fall does not make me very happy. i haven't gotten the most out of my summer wardrobe yet. especially all the skirts i recently made... i didn't get the opportunity to wear those very much.

generally the change of season is kind of exciting. i like love to shop, and i get a lot of enjoyment out of filling my closet with new clothes. but i'm doing so much mystery-shopping these days that lately i'm not too enthused about shopping for fun.

(i wish i could blog about all the mystery-shopping i'm doing... but these companies make a super-big deal out of their employees' anonymity, so i'm going to remain mute on the topic in this public forum. suffice to say, though, i'm making about an extra $50-$100 a week and it's usually pretty fun.)

this situation is still new to me... getting used to *making* money for shopping. it's helping my budget in more ways than one, actually. i'm getting my shopping fix taken care of to the degree that i'm not really excited about going into any store unless i'm getting paid to do so.

anyway, that's a big part of the reason i've been absent from this blog recently. most of my spare moments are spent shopping or reporting on shopping. cha-ching.

Posted by xta at 02:32 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack