Shopaholic, Much?

How is it so hard to blog when music is on? Even the easy listening stuff [Sia, Feist, Duffy, etc.] makes it difficult. I just downloaded a soundtrack that is proving to be really great, but I am going to have to pause it in order to continue. Ah!

Thursday night was movie night at the theatre where we saw Confessions of a Shopaholic. I think I have pretty high expectations on what makes a movie "good" and only a few are making the cut lately, but this movie was definitely cute and yes, I covered my face quite a few times with the I-Can't-Believe-This-Is-Happening! scenes. Overall I enjoyed it, but I don't think I would venture to the theatre to spend $9.50 again just to see a film [you can buy new DVD releases for that!!]. Well, I did get my "student" discount because A.) I still have my Skagit Valley College ID card from Winter 2008 and B.) it was a Thursday, the only night that student discounts are acceptable. How rude is that?! You'd figure they'd WANT to find reasons to discount the admissions price to get people to go. When we walked in the theatre, all the seats were empty, and this was--no joke--five minutes before it started! And a bag of Skittles [mind you, it is the kind that hangs on a peg at the store] is $4.00!!!!! At least they don't care if you bring in your own food anymore. I still "snuck" in lots of candy and treats anyway. What good is having a huge purse anymore if you can't sneak in candy?

Oh, and the pre-previews [where the ads and little trivia games and such are playing] took up the whole screen and then an extra few feet above. It freaked us out! We didn't want our movie to be like that! AHHH!

I think the movie hit home though because today... I shopped. I actually bought FOUR tops! I know, right?! Good LORD! I'll get to that in a minute.

So, after the movie we called it a night. I had to be at work during the day on Friday, which was nice because I got to work with Kailey, but what was NOT nice was that the idiotic construction workers were digging up our parking lot and BROKE OUR WATER LINE.

That's right; the construction workers of the city, who are tearing up concrete around businesses, don't have a map of water and gas lines, and "didn't know our water was down there." So, with the day as slow as it was, Kailey and I had to turn away coffee customers. With as much work as it takes to get to our stand [I.E. going behind Jack-in-the-Box, cutting through parking lots, and finally reaching the stand, or taking your chances that one of the side turn-offs aren't blocked and if they are, having to turn at a light and cut through more parking lots to finally reach the stand], it really hurts business to turn away those who DID take the time and DID make the effort to come to our stand.

I hate construction and construction workers. The guy who came and told us, "Uhh, we didn't know it was there" was wearing a green jacket. What construction worker wears a green jacket? Not lime green either: forest green. Whatever.

So after they fixed it [which took less time that I imagined it would, I have to give them credit for that], we had to fix everything in the stand [which called for Andrew to come in and make sure we weren't going to blow up with a malfunctioning water heater and clogged water lines]. And after THIS, we had to clean up our stations in order to leave our shifts. It was just a mess!

This was Kelsey's 18th birthday, by the way. Before work I swung by the spa I went to [amazing!] and got her a gift certificate. I hope she enjoys it! I sure did! But anyway, I got home after work and after a bit, Andrew and I went to my folks' place for taco dinner! It was delish! Andrew ate SEVEN tacos!!! That's NUTS! But they were THAT good!

During the day, Kels got a tattoo. She had it all scheduled and paid for so that the DAY she turned 18, it would be done. It is a spider with the word "miracle" in the body, and it's on her upper left breast bone-ish place [between the boob and the shoulder! C'mon!]. It turned out really good!

Let's see here... not much else happened after that, besides coming home, getting a bunch of texts in the middle of the night that I didn't comprehend because I was sleeping [haha!], getting to work [in UFDA!] at 4:00 am, doing as much cleaning as possible before our Monday meeting [where one of the head honchos is coming in! Ah!], and then clocking out.

...and not going to Zumba... again. I WOULD have gone if someone went with me, because it's no fun going by yourself! You want to EXPERIENCE it with someone else! Shelley was busy with birthday errands, Katie had worked the graveyard at another stand the night before, Jeena's brother was getting married, my mom slept in... so basically everyone was busy! Ah! This gave me time to shop til I dropped!

Which is when I bring up the link between today's shopping and the movie we watched. I just went and picked out a bunch of tops at Ross [where I saw the KILLER in his Stang in the back of the parking lot! *see below], tried them all on, and bought FOUR of them! Good LORD! It felt really good though. When Andrew gets home, I will show him them and maybe if he likes some more than others, I can take the others back and not feel so guilty.

THE KILLER:

I got home, got into sweats and a sweat shirt, ate a couple hot dogs and chips, watched about three episodes of X-Files, almost fell asleep, and am going to continue the episode and nap for a while. When I wake up [and if Andrew doesn't take care of it on the way home], I will run to the store and get some dog food. Poor things are clean out! Piggies!!!

Oh, I'm going to unpause this soundtrack for a bit first. Go dance tunes! And look at this; it's not directed at me anymore!!

SPA: Not JUST My License Plate!

I got home from my grave shift last night with enough time to change into sweats, upload pictures, edit, and post the blog I typed from my phone. After checking my e-mail and MySpace [which had no new activity since checking it at 2:00 am], I turned off the computer and laid down on the couch. I turned my phone onto clock-mode and saw that it said 5:23 am. I usually start my car at half-past and leave at :40 to make it to work early enough to get ready and have the relieved shift be done by the hour. So, seens how it said 5:23, I thought to myself, "I have seven minutes to rest." When I opened my eyes again, the clock said 5:55.

That's right... 5:55.

So I jumped up, changed from my sweats, got into my Pathfinder [yes, that's right... Miss UFDA herself!] and raced to work! My phone lit up as I was pulling in telling me I had a missed call from work and a new voicemail. I ran in and clocked in at 6:06 and Tana [bless her heart!] had said in her voice message, "Hey! I'm pretty sure you're sleeping, so if you don't call me back, I'll just see if I can't find someone else to come in." Haha! But I got there, nevertheless, and after making myself a delicious tea+lemonade, I was perked up and ready to go!

The shift went by pretty fast considering that it was extremely slower than the morning before. The construction workers closed down our only entrance for a while so they could set up their taking-up-only-a-half-entrance-project, so basically people could only come in one way and if someone whipped around to the other window, the person on the one side had to wait until the other window was done so they could whip around to leave. How inconsiderate are these construction workers?! I understand that they have a job to do, but we also have a business to run, and we didn't ASK for one entrance to be closed off entirely for weeks on end and have the other side either entirely closed or open just enough for a Geo Metro to squeeze through. UGH!

Tana was helping a customer and I saw the construction workers grab our hose [with our sweet new powerful bird-poop-annihilating nozzle] and start using it on one of their machines. I whisper to Tana [who is absolutely fed up with the construction, with good reason too!], "He's using our hose..." She leans her head out the window and says, "Uhm, that's OUR water!" To which the construction worker says, "No, it's the CITY's water..." ...which it's not; we have to pay for it. But I got a kick out of her actually saying something to them. Props to her!

Anywho, my shift finally ended at 9:00 or so. I went home, changed back into my sweats [and vowed to NEVER leave them again!], laid down in bed, and fell asleep. I woke up and moved to the living room to hang out with Andrew and watch some TV on DVD, which I fell asleep to shortly. I woke up at about 9:00 pm and asked Andrew, "Have I been sleeping ALL DAY?!" To which he answered, "Yes.. and it snowed." I laughed it off as a joke.

No. It wasn't. It actually snowed [like an inch, but who cares: IT'S SNOW!].

How ridiculous is it that it is almost March and we're STILL getting snow?! We NEVER used to get snow! Whatever, I suppose. It just gave me more of a reason to want to drive UFDA [miss FOUR WHEEL DRIVE!].

I took a shower, got into some clean jammies, and relaxed with Andrew and watched Wristcutters: A Love Story. It was pretty good! Andrew and I took turns saying, "He/She's from [insert movie / television show here]" until we saw Will Arnett [Gob Bluth from Arrested Development]. That shut us up.

After this we went to bed. Yes, I slept more. I then got up early to drive UFDA to the stand to say hello to Miss Jeena, who is BACK IN TOWN and whom we missed soooooo much! We made plans to see a movie later [Confessions of a Shopaholic] and iced americano in hand--errrr, in CUPHOLDER--I headed back home. When I let the dogs out of the hatch [yes, they demanded to come along], Murphy did laps around the yard with his nose in the snow. He loves it soooo much! What a stinkin cutie!

Andrew and I then watched some Futurama on DVD until 11:00 when I got dressed and ready for my day at the spa.

Yes, be SUPER jealous!

So I get there and start out with a foot bath [perfect!]. I then get my facial and eye zone wrap [my favourite part of the day!]. Yea, this took about an hour and 20 minutes--no big deal. I then got an hour long massage [that hurt but only because it was DEFINITELY needed!], my delicious lunch [turkey sandwich, salad, water, chips], and headed down to my manicure and pedicure. Turns out one of our regular customers at the stand was going to be taking care of me!

Too bad my toes are disgusting. Ick!

She didn't mind though [which was super sweet of her... even if it was a front, haha!] and ended up being the one to cut my hair as well [which I LOVE! I took off my disgusting split ends--about 3 inches in length--and added lots and lots of layers!]. We were next to another stylist who looked eerily familiar. Turns out, she used to babysit me, lives just down the street from my folks, is the daughter of Andrew's brother's boss, and TOTALLY REMEMBERED ME! How random! And she's pretty sure she has a kitten who is the daughter of Brittany's own Bappy [at my folks' place].

I tipped the lovely ladies, headed home, got a little dressed up for the movies, and hopped on here to lay it all out; not because I would forget though--I am NEVER going to forget it! But I'm off to "sneak" in snacks to the theatre!!

All-Nighter in a Foreign Town

I would be dead without my phone. Yes, I do realize that I am probably not supposed to be on my phone but guess what? I am dying and it is my only saving grace. I don't think that's the proper use of that phrase but hey, I'm in a don't-care-about-proper-English mood, so whatever.

Anywho, I am up in Bellingham working the grave shift at one of the stands. It isn't so bad other than the fact that I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and when I didn't want to clean anymore, I still had over two hours left! Aaahhhhh! I scrubbed down everything on the counters [minus under the espresso machines because I can't tilt that thing by myself!!], cleaned and stocked the fridge, stocked the straws, got more coffee filters ready, cleaned the syrup ladders, and got up on both sides and cleaned under and straightened all the syrup bottles. All of this after the register wasn't working and after getting my only five customers [basically].

I had Katie's mixtape to keep me going, as well as an Iced White Chocolate Toddy Americano with Cream, but at about 1:50, I hit my peak. I pulled up a chair and whipped out my book [ironically titled The Night Cafe] and read a chapter or two and realized, "This is going to put me to sleep even FASTER!!" because I read when I am relaxed, leading to a sleepy Miranda. So I then scooted the chair back, whipped out my amazing G1, and came here. I know the manager here is pretty laid back about things you do when it's slow [heck, the barista that I relieved told me that there is a DVD player in the back and for a dollar I could rent a movie from the vending machine outside!!], so I think I'll be okay. I'm paranoid about making customers wait, so even though there is a monitor with a 3x3 grid of cameras on display showing me all angles of the stand [including the drive-up windows], I peak around the corner about every 15 words or so. Yea, it's happening.

Although I am beyond tired, I am excited for my 6am shift back in town. "Why?" you may ask. Well let me educate you a little on the events that transpired this afternoon. At 2:00pm, I drove UFDA to the shop to get inspected / aligned. This is me driving it:


No big deal. Anywho, so Andrew followed me and after handing the techies the keys, he and I did some errands, including but not limited to transferring UFDA's title into my name [I officially own my own vehicle! ...baby Sentra's still in the bank's hands, officially], picking up some tires, buying tail-light "fixing" tape, and adding the olive green machine to my insurance policy. So guess what I'll be driving to and from work from now on? You got it:

UFDA!!!!!!!!

Try not to be too jealous. Heated leather seats at cold 6am, quick defrost [I read the user's manual last night and to defrost you use the A/C button. Odd, huh?], sweet CD player [that beeps unGodly loud when you tune the radio or switch a song. You wouldn't believe it!]... it's all just too good.

So for now, I drove baby Sentra up to this quaint little town [gas saver, seens how it's a half hour away, and there is a little jerking in UFDA when you let off the accelerator, which we may fix tomorrow... well, "today", but we'll see if I'm even awake at all after I get off for good at 9:00] and she is sitting in the cold parking lot, which by the way is lit up amazingly by an illuminating Walgreens on one side and a Lowe's sign on the other. No blending in of cars here!!!

I think I'll hop off here and read a little, considering the manager will get here in 40 minutes at the very most. Until then, this is me on a grave shift:

Pulled Over!!

After my short shift at work covering for Shelley yesterday afternoon, I headed home, only to be pulled over for the very first time. No it wasn't because I was on the phone with Andrew [speaker phone, people; you can't tell if I'm actually on the phone or if I am singing!], but it was because I have no front license plate. I never had one, got the car a few year ago, and have never been pulled over for it before. Whatever, I suppose, but he also said that I need to replace my windshield because the crack is "obstructing my field of vision". Yes, Officer, I agree; this thin little crack is the biggest blind spot in the world! Good lord!

Once at home and done being red-faced and shaky, I made my way to my folks' to give my dad money to make a large payment chunk on my car. We sat, gabbed, and watched a little bit of television. A stop at Wendy's and a final stop at home left us with a relaxing night of yummy food and an Adam Sandler movie.

Emily called in sick [poor thing] and no one would cover her shift [urggg!] so I had to go in at midnight for four hours only to get six hours off and be back for another six hours. I spent the graveyard shift cleaning as much as I could and the daytime shift celebrating Shelley's 27th birthday! Katie, Kailey, and Jackie stopped by the stand shortly after noon and two of our favourite regulars pulled up at the same time. Everyone sang to Shelley and showered her with flowers and balloons and treats and food!

It was a pretty slow day--slow enough to give me time to re-arrange the sugar packets so that they were once again perfect. I got extremely tired toward the end of my shift and decided to stay home from Zumba tonight. As tired as I was, I blogged while Andrew started The Godfather III. I suggested it because I knew I would fall asleep almost right away. Haha!

Tomorrow I work 6am to 11am, have to go to the dang DMV to possibly get new plates [?], go with Andrew to get my car aligned, to the DOL to get some paperwork on transferring the title to my name, talk to my insurance agent to see how much it will be to insure the Pathfinder, relax, rest, and work the graveyard shift up in Bellingham, only to get off at 4am and be back at my stand at 6am for three hours.

It will all be worth it though, for Thursday is my day of spa treatment, lunch, and a haircut. It will all be worth it.

I'm too tired to blog anymore. I apologize for tense variations; nothing makes sense to me right now.

I got my cupholders!

I haven't blogged in a few days for a few reasons. Besides the fact that I'll get into a natural blogging ebb and flow and these last few days made up an ebb, I've been holding my breath, crossing my fingers, and talking to a man about an SUV.

That's right... an SUV.

If you look two blogs prior to this, you will see a list of SUV models and generations that I was interested in. Considering all the Toyota 4Runners available were ridiculously priced, I made a list of other models. The top non-4Runner was a 1996-2004 Nissan Pathfinder. Guess what this man's model was?

That's right... a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder.

No, it wasn't perfect, but it was darn near it! Over $1,500 in engine work was done shortly before the back was hit and now has a "ding". It's an automatic, has four wheel drive, leather interior, heated seats, sunroof, CD player... basically the only thing wrong with the vehicle was the damage in the back. Well, it needed tires and an alignment, but other than that it was darn near perfect! I figure the "ding" in the back gives it a little character. Anywho, we BlueBooked it and considered it "Fair":

-Some mechanical or cosmetic defects and needs servicing but is still in reasonable running condition.
-Clean title history, the paint, body and/or interior need work performed by a professional.
-Tires may need to be replaced.

...which describes the condition almost to the "T", and it came up as $4,555. I paid $800. Andrew drove it home, I drove behind, and we made it home with my brand new baby.














I'm so excited! Ahhh! I want to drive it NOW! I sent the first e-mail to the guy on the 18th. It is now the 22nd and I have it in my possession. Oh geeze I can't believe it!

While I waited for the e-mails to come and a time to go look at it [aka "bring it home"], I cleaned up the house--again--and did some laundry. This is after two loads with two to go.


Yikes! I then thought I would be crafty and try and re-create a bracelet I got in California. If you look close in the laundry picture, you can see some hemp and craft materials by some blue and black scissors. Anywho, I made myself a cute little shell bracelet and I love it!


Before Jeena left all of us BFJ girls, she and Katie came over and watched 28 Days Later, one of my all time favourites. Before we put in the movie, we hopped on the computer and I saw these ads:




Yes. I blogged about the stupid weight loss ads before, but they said "20 year olds" and now they say "21 year olds". They must know that I had my birthday, because how random would it be that they change their target audience age a year at the same time?? Pshhh... just odd.

I just let the dogs inside and felt like my fly was down. I looked and laughed because IT WAS!! For who knows HOW LONG! But wait... I did a double take and saw that it was my SEAM THAT RIPPED!! Apparently I have hips and they CAN'T lie!




I have to leave for work in an hour [covering three hours for Shelley so she can go to a baby shower] so I better call it quits. I'll end with a picture of Andrew and my Valentine's Day dinner. How romantic!

I [heart] Off-Brand DayQuil

How is it that I have better Internet service on my phone than I do on my computer? Wireless Internet is the oddest thing. It just decides to not work every-so-often. My computer is fine, it's just our service not having any signal [even though all five lights are on...?]. I just wish that the whole WORLD had the BEST Internet and it was either free or just...? I thought that there was a city that had free WiFi anywhere you were. That'd be cool! Or you pay a monthly fee and just get the new password or something.

Regardless, this morning after taking a couple extra strength headache meds and after Googling "Good for a Head Cold" on my PHONE, I opened up the dialer and finally cancelled all my store credit accounts [PacSun, Victoria's Secret, Best Buy, and Target]. There is no reason to have an open account if I'm not going to use it. All it does is mess up my credit score! PLUS I've been doing really good at not spending money on stuff that I don't need--with the exception of the black and white woven from PacSun that I got for my first-night-out-using-my-21-ID and was wearing earlier today until I got called in to work. Anywho, all I have now are two major credit cards, one of which has a same-as-cash balance on it until November, and a debit card. I say that's pretty good!

But I had NO idea how easy it would be to cancel the accounts! I literally hit "5" in the robot answering machine mazes and they said, "Consider it done!" It almost seemed too easy. The only confirmation they could give me was faxing something to me saying that it was cancelled. Who on Earth has a fax machine besides a work-at-homer? Ahhhh! Whatever, I suppose. I have phone records and THIS BLOG as my own record in case something gets fubar'd.

Shortly after this, like I mentioned, I got called in to work. Poor Kailey called at the butt crack of dawn looking for someone and knowing Shelley would most likely stay home with sick chiblins [poor things!], I suggested Jeena stay late, which she did, and when Shelley called a few hours later, I was already up, dressed in almost perfect work attire, had half of the dishes done as well as one of four loads of laundry washed [from yesterday; I TOLD you I wasn't doing them last night!]. I swung by Haggen on my way to work for some off-brand DayQuil [that I downed at a red light; I think the person next to me was unsure about it] and a bunch of bananas [that's what it's called, right? A "bunch"?]. I was hoping that these yellow fruits would keep me full for my whole shift, but I dreamt of Nalley Chili all day--which I DIDN'T have last night. Although it sounded good when I was blogging [as well as for the rest of the night], I had NO appetite and just because something sounds good is no reason to eat and is NOT the way to lose weight, especially when missing a Zumba session that night. Long sentence.

Work was especially slow today! At least the construction workers appeared to be making some headway on finishing their projects, FINALLY! My chores for the day were done yesterday and still were clean, and all of the rest of the chores were done or still looked clean. A customer noted today that our stand is the cleanest she's ever been too; might have something to do because when it's so dang slow, there's nothing else to do! Ahhhhhh!!

After work was a little get-together with Miss Katie and Miss Jeena. We had Caesar salads, chips, candies, and a fun time watching The Craft. It had been too long since I'd seen it. Still amazing! After they left, I sneezed about 34 times in a row. So much for thinking I was getting better. Now my nose is squeaking after I sniff. Ick! I suppose after I'm done blogging I will down some more PM cough syrup to get me through the night comfortably and wake up with some off-brand DayQuil, possibly covering Miss Shelley's shift. You never know!

Here's to hoping that all chiblins [Shelley's!] and all grown-ups [Kailey, Tim, Me!!] get over this BFJ sickness; that's right, a BIG F**KING JOKE SICKNESS!! Ahhhh! Cross your fingers.

Excuse Me... Are You Canadian??

"Excuse me... are you Canadian?"

This was the absolute most off-the-wall thing that has happened to me in the last two days; two customers asked if I was Canadian. When I answered:

"Uhh... no?"
"Well, where are you from?"
"...here...?"
"Oh. You don't sound like it."

The whole time I was helping them I did not say any Canadian accent cliches ["aboot" or "eh?" or whatever else people consider "Canadian"]. The entire dialogue consisted of "Hey! What can we get goin for ya?" "Is that hot?" "Whip cream?" "Alright!" "Your total comes to [whatever it was]" and that's when the question came. It wasn't one of those, "What're ya out-and-about doing today?" or "Anything exciting happen this weekend?" or anything; simple and to-the-point. So when I got home I Googled "You Know You're a Canadian When..." and the ONLY thing that applied to me was:

You use a red pen on your non-Canadian textbooks and fill in the missing 'u's from labor, honor, and color.

And everything else did NOT apply, especially:

You drink pop, not soda.

Because of this, I am NOT Canadian. Not that it wasn't cool to have someone say basically, "You don't sound like an American," which is considered the lamest accent ever!

It was most likely the fact that my voice is fading. Yes, I might very well be getting sick. I was due for it; haven't been sick-sick in a year [literally: I had a bad cough/cold when I first started hanging out with Andrew. I was too embarrassed to cough up a lung around him, so I'd try to hold it in and cough like a princess because--we all know--girls don't cough, fart, poop, burp, etc].

This is the reason I didn't blog yesterday. I came home from work--after drinking three 16-ounce hot green teas with a heaping 2.5-ish Tablespoons of honey to "Coat the Throat!"--and laid down on the couch with some X-Files [surprised? I just finished season four today for the.. 4th time?] only to be coerced into taking PM cough syrup and falling asleep until 4:30, texting and calling people for almost two hours, and falling back asleep until Andrew came home with Charlie [didn't remember him leaving] and put in a movie from Hollywood Video. Well, the first movie they got started skipping [figures, it's not from NetFlix!] and the skipping part was the only part I remembered from the movie because, alas, I had fallen asleep during the previews. They then put in Saw V [THANK GOD I FELL ASLEEP RIGHT AWAY, but not before seeing the guy make the decision to crush his hands rather than have his stomach sliced in half, but to no avail because it sliced him anyway. How disgusting are the writers of these movies! I bet they have killer nightmares... literally]. I woke up a little before 2:00am when Andrew told me, "It's time for bed!" ...as if I hadn't been sleeping ALL DAY already. Haha!!

So, due to my afternoon of sleeping, I haven't blogged about Valentine's Day night. It was an absolute success! Miss Burns-Her-Cereal actually pulled off Olive Garden's Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo but didn't drink too much wine, due to the fact that I haven't acquired the taste for it yet AND my throat had started to hurt a little and it didn't feel all that great. But anywho, we watched PS I Love You and I cried the entire time... again.

When I got the ingredients for V-Day dinner, I got some cans of delicious Nalley Chili [which I think I mentioned in my previous blog] and I plan on eating one tonight! Who knows? Maybe I'll even garnish it with shredded cheese, even though dairy isn't good for you when you're sick. And chili isn't good for me in any state of health.

And my state of health right now is kind of weak and lazy, so I'm NOT going to do any of the dishes piled up in the sink, I'm NOT going to do any laundry that is strewn all across my bedroom, and I am unfortunately NOT going to Zumba tonight. *Sigh* A night without Zumba. I just know that once I got there, if I started working out, I would start coughing like a banshee and end up sitting on the sidelines anyway, and with Katie working a double tonight and no one else riding in the car with me, I have no obligation to go. So instead I will plop on the couch with my throw blanket, blue comforter, a Sierra Mist [that expired today--thanks BFJ!], season five of X-Files, and one or two snuggle-butts [Murphy and Moe!]. So here I go!