Tales from the Mall, and Whatever Else Pops into My Head

I have a really hard time not titling things. Like, it really upsets me not to do it. Ah well. It was a worthy experiment.

So, yesterday I did absolutely no - and when I say no, I mean NO - work. I mean no reading, no writing, no thinking, no nothing. Instead, the day began with paying bills. Once that was done, I checked my email and learned that apparently my university will not pay for an employee's meals for a conference if that employee does not stay overnight at the conference. Apparently I was to have fasted between 6:30 AM and 11:30 PM? Or I was to have stayed overnight and cost my university more money? Or I was to have lied about staying overnight at a friend's house, sort of like being in high school? Between them shorting me by $30 on my travel reimbursement and the nonsense of having to contact like 4 different offices to get my address changed because apparently changing it within our brand new fancy computer program doesn't actually do anything, I really am hating my university right now. You'd think I'd hate it less since I'm on leave until January, but no. I actually hate it more. Hate.

So anyway, with all of that done, I then went to Home Depot (which, seriously, if things don't go my way and I end up going to hell when I die, hell is either Home Depot or Lowes. I hate those freaking places.) in order to pay for the new door that I'm getting installed in the basement. Now, I'm annoyed to have to buy a door - do you guys know how expensive doors are? - but actually it's costing less than I'd anticipated (score) and I will be very happy not to have a rotted out door jam and to have rain pour through the space between the door jam and the bottom of the door every time it rains. Indeed, they're going to fix the concrete and everything, and there shall be no more rainwater coming in under the door! Huzzah! And no bugs coming in under the door! No who knows what else being able to come in under the door!

Well. After I got that taken care of, I thought to myself, "Self, you know it's super-duper sale time at many stores beginning today because of the 4th of July weekend. You should go to some of those stores!"

Now, this was sort of a weird thing for me to do. I haven't done major shopping in, god, like 2 years? I mean, I was busy not spending money because I was saving for the house. I mean, sure, I bought a sweater here, a top there, but I really haven't spent like a full day shopping. Well, until yesterday. Ostensibly I decided to do this because I thought that I should look for a dress for my cousin's wedding next week. (A wedding for which I am excited but which has an accompanying thing that has me really pissed off, but I won't get into that here.... Suffice it to say that it sucks being the only unpartnered cousin -and seriously: the ONLY unpartnered one - when you're 7 years older than the closest-in-age-to-you of the 15 cousins. A PhD is a great and wonderful thing, but it makes a really, really shitty date for a wedding.) I didn't find a dress (everything I tried on was just sort of lame, and I felt like I shouldn't buy something sort of lame when I could wear something less lame that I might have in my closet), but I did go on a spree. A spree of shopping awesomeness. What did I buy, you might ask? and what were my righteous deals? Well, here are the highlights (though there were some less exciting purchases thrown in as well).

• A Michael Kors top (really a glorified t-shirt) - Orig. $60; I paid $7
• Two pairs of Tommy Hilfiger capris (one denim, one olive green cotton) - Orig. $80/$60; I paid $23/each
• A Wacoal bra - Orig. $60; I paid $10
• A pair of Born sandals - Orig. $95; I paid $23 (Oh, and I also got a pair of flats and a black gladiator-style sandal, too, and then these AWESOME heels for the wedding.)

So yes, I shopped for like 6 hours. It was exhausting, as you might imagine. Today I need to do some stuff around the house, and I need to go to campus (library) and to the grocery store because there's a parade that will go by my house tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to get out for supplies for a fairly long span of time. So, that's the latest here. Now I'm going to go continue drinking my coffee and try to find things to read on the internet or watch TV or something.