Chicago weekend and Shopping

Finally back at work after a long, but good, weekend. Last week was just CRAZY busy at work, I ended up working 6 hours of overtime on Friday because HQ told me they were working over the weekend and so were the auditors so I need all year-end stuff submitted. So I busted my ass, brought my blackberry and charger with me to Chicago, and was fully prepared to get questions thought the weekend because HQ made is ABUNDANTLY clear we have no excuse to miss the deadline. Well, no email or calls Saturday, none Sunday, and NONE yesterday too-- and I know the auditors work on Monday because Columbus day is only a federal and bank holiday. NOTHING! I am a little disgruntled about that. At the same time, however, it feels nice not to have any outstanding items lingering over the long-weekend, nor was it annoying to get phone calls when i am out of town this weekend. So, i guess it worked out. Hopefully the trend continues the week.

My weekend was pretty good, I went to Chicago this weekend to celebrate one of my college friend's wedding. It was great to see him and his wife so happy, no less party with some of the old college crew. It's getting more and more rare that a big group of us can get together these days. We all had a great time, except for the 6 hours of open bar, Matt wanting to go to bed, and a huge after party in our hotel room. Matt was so tired and I felt bad that SO many people were in our room, but how cool were we that the bride and groom were in OUR room. Funny how some of the grooms college friends ended up in hotel room 666. Coincidence?

I had Monday off so even though the car ride was long, i knew I had all of yesterday to get stuff done. And stuff done I did get. I was supposed to row in the morning, but my rower-friend stood me up. So i got to sleep in, clean a little bit and enjoy the 80 degree morning with a walk with Odie. My plan for the day included checking up on email (which was quick since i had none), going shopping for fun ( I needed a new pair of jeans and some winter shoes), go grocery shopping, do some laundry, make dinner for matt, and RELAX. I got all of it accomplished, except I ended up not finding anything I set out to find at the Mall. I probably tried on a total of 30 pairs of jeans and didn't find any of them particular cute and worth spending over 60 bucks. The one pair of cute jeans I found at express here. LOOOOVEd them! they made me look super skinny, they weren't too tight, and they flared out the perfect amount ( I don't like it when they look too flare-ey). BUT THEY WERE SOOO LONG!!!! like TOOO long. I like longer jeans because 85% of my shoes have a heal, but even on my very tipy-tip toes they were still dragging the ground. ugh! Huge disappointment. And because they have a cute little hem line on the bottom, it wouldn't be worth trying to sew them up to not be as long. So, I was 0-1 in the jean department.

I also set out to buy a pair of 'all around' shoes that I can wear with jeans, also to work with some outfits, and I want them to be pretty trendy. This is becoming more important because A; it's getting colder and I need to retire some of my open-toes shoes and sandals I've still been wearing and B: I am going to need something comfortable and cute to wear in Europe next month when I do lots of walking. It's especially difficult because they need to have 1-2 ' heal (at a minimum) so my pants don't drag but they need to be COMFORTABLE. The lowest heal I own right now to wear with jeans are my my boots I got at Aldo last winter, but I dont think ill want to walk around in boots in Europe. What would be cute? And comfortable and stylish.... help!

So here I am Tuesday morning, with over $150 dollars in the hole of extra clothes i DIDNT need with out achieving any of my shopping goals. I did get some super cute fall/winter stuff at Ann Taylor Loft... so many cute stuff there right now. I LOVE the loft!!! I even had two- $25 dollar off cards so I left with some good bargain buys!

OK, enough shopping-talk. Time to get some work done....

P.s. I made spaghetti squash last night- it was AWESOME I made it and topped it off with vegan meatballs, and a concoction of kale, spinach (collard greens), broccoli, and pine nuts cooked in vegetable stock with 3 garlic cloves minced into the vegetable stock that evaporated as I cooked the greens. It turned out DELISH! And totally healthy!! YUM! The only problem I ran into was 'forking' out the squash, when I was done it didnt look very spaghetti like. But it was still yummy!