Friday, October 21, 2011

Making Things, Mending Broken Things

Making Things, Mending Broken Things


I wish I was Martha Stewart.


I mean really? When I want to bake something or make a cool craft—I turn to Martha. I believe I have 3 or more of her books, and if I can’t find it in a book, I find it on her website. She has a whole section in Michaels, as I found out last night while perusing for Halloween party ideas with Gretchen.


So I have this idea, that Gretchen and I should use all of skills: marketing skills, baking skills, nun chuck skills… and make a super company that provides everything from wedding planners to wedding cakes, fashion blog (on her end,) and much, much more. If I were not me, I would buy a fancy cupcake from me, if I were in the right location.


Michael’s had a peacock wreath in the Christmas section: Gretchen said, “Be a peacock for Halloween! Just put that around your neck!” That’s great advice. Unfortunately, neither of us really got much done in all of our perusing and planning last night, and we’re still costume-less. We did, however, buy some awesome cookie cutters and some cupcake liners.


I felt like I was in heaven and spent twenty minutes in Michael’s just looking at the overpriced, but beautiful cake decorating stuff—sprinkles, food coloring spray paint, edible glitter <3 This is such fat girl talk. Did you know that Duff from Ace of Cakes has a line of cake decorating stuff?? Granted, its $20 for a small tub on fondant, but that’s neither here nor there.



The Michael’s trip was a nice finish to what had been one of the worst days in a while. I was running into less than nice people everywhere I turned all day. The day started off bad when my alarm clock failed to go off again—I hate scrambling first thing in the morning. Also, I’m not sure if it’s the weather or my poor hair cut, but I was having the worst hair day ever. I burnt my toast and then my mother yelled at me about it with unnecessary roughness, kind of like she yells about everything. My day was packed with people telling me they needed things done five minutes ago, and I was swamped.


While I sat in my doorless office at work, I listened to an eighty year old man talk smack about me in the hallway ten feet from my desk. (He will be getting a nice email today.) What made it even worse was at that exact moment, I was texting a friend who was calling me out for doing the same thing to her. I literally got sick to my stomach. I had talked about her behind her back, and even though I could defend myself by saying I hadn’t meant it maliciously (which I didn’t) I still shouldn’t have done it. I felt awful, and not just because I was getting called out, which is not fun at all, but also because we haven’t been close in a while, and I had no idea it was because of that. I felt stupid for letting something like that waste so much time that could have been much better spent. I hate knowing I’ve made someone feel bad, especially long after the fact.


I have to say though I was thankful and pleasantly surprised when the conversation ended well, and not with “You know, I hate you, and I don’t want you in my life any more” which I was kind of expecting—maybe not “I hate you,” but still. Even though I didn’t necessarily do anything right, I must not have done more wrong, because it seems like I’m getting another chance here to not be a crappy friend. It was a weight off my shoulders and a weight out of my stomach.


It was nice to have Gretchen to see at the end of the day, because she is awesome. We had plans to make lots of plans (I LOVE Plans, if you haven’t caught on already,) but when we ended up winging things, and aimlessly wondering stores and then the internet without any plan or direction—much like our current lives—we still had a great time. I didn’t even start tweaking like I normally do when tentative plans fall through.


We were attempting to book a room and buy our Broadway tickets for our next Girl’s Night Out (aka High school Reunion Weekend.) Our original game plan was to stay in a 4 star hotel so we could feel glamorous and have a reason to wear obnoxiously high fashion clothes, and hit a Broadway show.


Side note: The only good thing about getting a colonoscopy is that you’re expected to drop like 5 or 10 pounds from the disgusting amount of crap that just hangs out in your system, so maybe I’ll fit into some glamorous New York clothes even better!


Side, Side Note: I ordered $200 worth of sweater-wear from Victoria’s Secret website. I am not naive—I am aware that the clothes I buy will not fit me like they fit the models that are wearing them online. I do, however, expect stuff to be the same color I ordered. I bought the stuff last, and I was so excited when I saw the UPS guy pull up, because it’s only been like 3 business days or something super fast. Unfortunately, when I pulled the stuff out of the bag, it was really disappointing. I bought a sweater dress that was gorgeous online—black with silver gemstones around the color—that turned out to be some flimsy black long sleeve t-shirt dress with cheap looking gold sequins on it. It was $70. I also got a couple of silk/cashmere blend sweaters, and while they do feel luxurious, they don’t look great on me—definitely not good enough for what I paid, so now I’ll be paying $5 to send them back. L This is my luck with online shopping. I don’t know why I still do it.
 

After looking at prices for hotels in the city the weekend we’ve planned to go, it’s looking like we won’t be getting a 4 star hotel room without a miracle. We saw rooms with 2 single beds in them for $400/night. I still have hope though, maybe we’ll get a breakthrough, or maybe we’ll have to bring a tent and pitch it in a hotel lobby instead. Either way, I’m still confident that we’ll be having a great time. We technically have 4 weeks to finalize our plans, and buy our tickets, but in reality, we have like 2 days since the prices for hotel rooms are only going up with the Christmas countdown.


The imminent count down for me today however, is to Brian’s birthday. He is going to be 27 on October 27th, so that’s kind of a big deal. I finally got a definite head count for his surprise outing this Saturday (Thank You to All who responded, and other choice words for his flakiest of friends) and I bought his present last night. Although I’m sure he does not read my blog, I won’t reveal any more details until post-event.


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