Shopping Spree

I hate cold weather. And snow. There is lots of both here in Denver and I am OVER IT. Usually when the weather is dreary, I find happiness in spending money and acquiring things that I don't need. However, I am on a spending hiatus (thanks to A Cup of Jo for the dignified term which replaces "stop buying so much crap"), so there will be no shopping. After the week I've had, I really feel the need to use (if you watch Celebrity Rehab, you know what I mean); please join me on a brief virtual shopping trip.

First purchase:

I'm trying to cut back on my magazines so I didn't take Margaret Russell up on her generous subscription offer. It hurts me, deep inside, to not have Elle Decor in my mailbox every month, and I may have to give up my design blogger status without it.

Then, just for fun, I'd get this and send it overnight to Lauren Conrad:

She'd call me and say "oh my God. What the hell is she wearing? Are those multi-sized mirrors on her dress?" and I'd say "I know! What's up with the flesh colored band around her waist? I can't stop looking at her beauty pageant hair and freaky expression! And the background color--how unappealing. Lauren, did you design this cover? Because the person who did hates Kristin Cavallari with the intensity of 1000 suns!" Then we'd have a big laugh (although I'm not sure that Lauren is capable of more than a closed-mouth smile) and talk some shit about Heidi's new video and Spencer's amazing ability to become more and more creepy.

But for now I'm still shopping. I'd buy some lipstick, because that is a guaranteed pick-me-up:

MAC 'Slimshine' Lipstick, don't know what color, but I'd wear it

Ah, I'm feeling better already; nothing makes my heart pitter-patter like a new tube of lipstick. Gloss could never really do that for me.

Next stop, shoes, for my one big splurge:

Marc by Marc Jacobs Hh two tone Mary Janes, $473

God, I think these are gorgeous. I'd even wear them out of the store, just like kids do, and later tell my husband that I got them on the sale rack at DSW.

My final purchase:

A snowblower. What a dream! If there is snow during the week, I am usually the shoveler because my husband leaves for work at 6 a.m. If ever you need a good laugh, come on over to my house after a snowstorm. I'll set you up in front of the bay window with some hot chocolate and you can watch me shovel our short driveway and small stretch of sidewalk for an insane amount of time. When I'm finished, it will look the the work of a blind person with two broken arms.

Well, that actually felt pretty good. I'm a simple woman; magazines, lipstick, shoes and an occasional piece of power equipment are all it really takes to satisfy me. Thankfully, a Kit Kat Blizzard from Dairy Queen and Keeping Up with the Kardashians have that same effect, and I'm going to partake in that kind of cheap fix right now.

Hope you have a fulfilling weekend too!

For your own good, put down any food you might be eating

I was going to do this comprehensive post on Celebrity Rehab and how repulsively awesome it is, but then life intervened.

My children and I went out to eat tonight with some of my friends and their kids. We have some weird food issues here at chez SGM, and my kids don't eat much dairy. So tonight, all of the other kids were getting ice cream sundaes. Everyone orders the small ones, except for me. I order the kid-sized ones because I assume that they'd be extra-small, and my kids won't eat much anyway. Totally wrong on both counts. The "kids" size ice cream sundae comes in a grande cup, filled to the brim. WTF, Applebee's?

So I give my 3 year old her strawberry ice cream sundae, thinking that she will stop after a few bites. She's always a good little self-regulator. But then I look over after about 2 minutes and she has eaten the entire thing. She is a tiny wisp of a girl with a nasty ol' cheeseburger already in her tummy and I become filled with dread. I know what's coming.

A few minutes later, she does the expected. She barfs. Not her entire meal, just fountains of pink ice cream. And then the little girl across from her sees this and starts gagging, a simple chain reaction. Like that scene in Stand By Me. I laugh helplessly at the awfulness of it all, and my friend with the gagging kid starts laughing, and our kids are crying. And I just don't know how I'm going to make it to my car, which is far away, and it's about 2 degrees out, and my coat and hers are covered in pink vomit. Plus I have a 6 year old who is running around like a chicken (literally, "bawk bawk" and all), high as a kite on sugar.

I have good friends. They're all trying to help clean up, which mortifies me. So I am holding my pukey kid, trying to clean so my friends won't do it. They finally convince me to just leave and on my way out the door I yell "Give her a big tip! $100! I'll pay you back! I am so sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry!"

By the time we run through freaking Antarctica (props to my 6 year old who actually kept up with me) and arrive at our car, my 3 year old has totally recovered and is recounting her night: "I hate barfing! I barfed so much in there! That scared me so much! Can I have a snack when we get home? I am so cold! I hate barfing!"

Lordy be. Now everyone is in bed, and I am headed that way too. My take on Celebrity Rehab will just have to wait, but try to catch it tomorrow night on VH1 because some major shiz is about to go down. I am rubbing my hands in anticipation; it's going to be that good.

See you tomorrow!

Brushes with Fame (aka Been Tagged)

Paloma at La Dolce Vita tagged me and gave me the choice of listing 7 weird things about myself or 7 famous people that I've met. I did the 7 Weird Things a few months ago, so I've been trying to think of famous people that I've met. I only have 5. But because I'm the boss of this blog, I am going to give you the 5, and the remaining 2 will be famous people that I could have met but did not because I am stupid.

Here we go!

1. Marky Mark. Talked my way backstage at a concert and he rapped my name.

2. Adam Sandler. He came to my college to do stand-up. After the show, my friend and I asked him for his autograph and proceeded to creepily stalk him for the rest of the night.

3. Atallah Shabaz (Malcolm X's daughter). I was her driver when she came to my college in the early 90s and this woman was one of the most dignified and gracious people I've ever met. After she gave this really moving speech, people were coming up to her and crying and she was so lovely and kind to everyone. Then she and her assistant hopped in my beater of a car and we went to Village Inn to eat pancakes. Truly an amazing and down-to-earth person.

4. Pat Monahan (lead singer of Train). This was just a few months ago. Not terribly into Train, but he was really nice.

5. Julie Ashton. What? You haven't heard of her? Haven't you seen Cock Loving Moms or Hot Cherry Pies 3? I'd post a picture of her, but they're all a bit NSFW. I met her at a party several years ago and had to be told who she was (by my husband, who was all "she wants me so baaaaaaaaad").

6. An old boyfriend of mine is pals with Paul Rudd. They were in the same fraternity pledge class. Yep. In the mid-90s, old boyfriend and Paul would get together in Kansas City over the holidays. Not me. I was in Denver doing important things, like vacuuming and flossing my teeth.

7. Also in the mid-90s, my friend Peter asked me to come with him to hang out with some friends from home, who were in this band. "No thanks," I replied, "I'd rather sit at home and get the latest on OJ's trial" (or something lame like that). So I missed out on meeting Dave Mathews et al.

That's it. Not going to tag anyone else right now because it's late and . . . I'm lazy. Happy Monday!

*Thanks to etsy's McYarnpants (love that name!) for the photo of the gift tags.

Even more superficial judging

I don't judge a person by his or her taste in music. Our attachment to music, especially bad music, can often be sentimental; for example, you were listening to Just a Gigolo by David Lee Roth when your high school crush acknowledged your existence with a "hey, are you going to eat those hushpuppies?" so DLR is on your ipod. Conversely, Fight for Your Right by the Beastie Boys may make you feel hot with embarrassment because it reminds you of the time you drove past your high school boyfriend's house only to see him in the front yard, smashed up against a car, making out with a girl named Bernadette. Not that that happened to me. But this song will never appear on my ipod.

So if you have bad music on your ipod, it's no big deal. Dude, I have 3 John Mayer cds on my ipod. I have no room to judge anyone on the music front.

Lest you think I am getting all deep on you, I do judge people by books. In fact, it is my favorite judging method, for it's very efficient. If your favorite book is Bridges of Madison County, we must part ways immediately. We will simply not get along if this sort of thing makes your heart pound. As for The Notebook (not the movie--I haven't seen the movie and I know many of you have free-passed Ryan Gosling based on this movie) we can be friends, but I'll get weird on you when you talk about how much you loved it.

God help you if you give me The Saving Graces and say "you're really going to love this!" because I will take it as a personal insult. You're just better off to admit that you have never read a book at all, as Posh and my brother-in-law have done, and I respect that kind of honesty.

Do you judge people by music or books? What kind of music and which books?

Thanks to Kate O'Connor for this funny hanky photo found via My Love for You Is a Stampede of Wild Horses