Boot-ylicious, heh heh

While my sister inherited our dad's bulkier legs, I got our mom's skinny, little chicken legs. Needless to say, it makes for quite the challenge for both of us respectively when it comes to looking for tall boots.

Season after season, I pass on buying boot after boot, because they're not quite what I'm looking for. They're either uncomfortable,or not quite my style, too high, too low, but more often than not, it's because they're just too big in the calf. I know that with many boots you can have them taken in professionally, but I kind of feel like that compromises the work of the designer or the quality of the boot, so I usually just choose to forgo the boot entirely. I've justified to myself that after so many passes on good boots, I should be able to splurge a bit on a good pair once I find a worthy one.

So, as I continue the never-ending search for my perfect tall boot (ankle boots are so much easier!), here are some of this season's candidates:

Nine West Raquelle, $178.95

Steve Madden Hunny, $159.90

Betseyville Obrian Il, $154

Guess Bowler, $198.95

092609.

In addition to being quite busy, I've felt no inspiration to post lately. Until now, I guess?

Life lately:

• Had a temporary "cankle" last weekend resulting from some bug bites, which I'm allergic to. Cankle is now gone but some of the bites are still fading.
  
• While washing dishes, Matt and I noticed the garbage disposal making a funny noise. Upon further investigation, we discovered a ping pong ball in there. It's probably been about a year since we've played any games in our apartment involving ping pong balls, so it's probably been there for at least that long. Wow!
• Loving Testimony Vol. 2 Love & Politics by India Arie (It's all good, but especially He Heals Me and Chocolate High)!
• Think I may have found a new potential mentor.
• Three big tests this week. I plan on studying pretty much all tomorrow afternoon.
  

Comparing lists

I've been a horrible blogger.

Life has pretty much been just as hectic as I had anticipated, which is not anything worth complaining about but is the only thing I have to explain my absence.

Recent little things that have been points of irritation as of late:

• Missing the bus and watching it pull away because I'm waiting at the crosswalk across the street (Happens way too often)
  
• Bug bites that get big and itchy and swollen and painful (I'm allergic)
• When food expires before I have the opportunity to eat/use it

Random things that make me happy:

• Hearing an awesome song that I've forgotten about
• When I hear my dad singing
• My mom giving me a kiss on the cheek before I leave after a visit
• When my friend Lindsay brings me goodies when she bakes (She made mini brownies with caramel in the middle this weekend, mmm. It's nice to have friends that bake!)
• Being able to leave work early, so I have time to finish my homework (And Matt usually comes to keep me company!) :)
• Nice, warm weather
• When my breakouts clear up
• Getting e-mails from one of my best friends, Eifeh, who is currently in Taiwan
• Getting homework done!
• Finding parking spots easily
• Thinking of jokes from the weekend that crack me up out loud midday:

"Hwhite wine, coming right up!"
Joe's recipe for candied pecans: "...and then I leave it there for, like, six hours, then I..."
[In a Scottish accent:] "Entertainment crackers"
Lindsay: "Alex's birthday is October 15. He's turning 51!" Alex: "What? 51?!"
Joe: "What are you talking about? I'm fine as hell. I get finer every day. I'm finer than I was yesterday. I'm so fine..."

I'm aware that none of those jokes make sense to any of you. It's there pretty much just for me, but it cracks me up, so it stays. Hope that all of your lists of things that make you happy exceed the number of things on your lists of things that irritate you, as mine does.

Distractions

I almost just left the house with deodorant only in one arm. How's that for distracted?

I apologize for my absence. My weekdays have been busy and, honestly, not too eventful, and my 14-hour-a-day weekends haven't afforded me as much time to catch up on blogging as I had anticipated. Don't sound too envious. :)

Hope all of you are having wonderful weekends. Don't work too hard!

T.G.I.F.

Anybody here remember watching T.G.I.F. on ABC growing up? Family Matters, Boy Meets World, etc.? The good ol' days... :)

I have completed the first week of the semester, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty rough one for me. Those are sometimes the most rewarding, though. When I described how I felt about my classes to my mom, she said, "You don't want to earn an easy grade, right?" My response: "Sometimes I do." And that's true. But if it's going to be a difficult semester, then I hope it's at least a fulfilling one.

It's nice to have a long weekend (yay, Labor Day!) to look forward to, although we do have three weddings (today, Saturday, and Sunday) to keep me plenty busy (and exhausted), especially as it's still in the low 90s/high 80s here, and our venue is outdoors...

Anybody have any awesome plans? I know Kelly at Just a Girl in a City is off being a beautiful bridesmaid at a wedding herself, but we're not all as lucky.

Hope your weekends are all just as you hope them to be, whether that's relaxing, exciting, fabulous, or romantic. Maybe all of the above!

Keeping it fresh

The roommates and I went to Costco yesterday and surprisingly kept to buying all healthy food with the exception of a jar of chocolate-covered almonds (because, as the Jell-O commercials says, "There's got to be a little wiggle room"!). So, with all our other healthy buys, we came home with a ton of these babies:

The hot weather inspired me to freeze some of them into some ice cubes!

Yum. And they're super sweet!

And we welcomed a new little addition into our home! Some mums! When I was shopping around for a plant, the lady helping me asked if I had a green thumb and I said, "Kind of?" We'll see.

Pink vs. Blue

I'm taking a Gender Communication course, and yesterday my professor was discussing society's perceptions of genders and the associations we've been conditioned to make about them. One of the most basic associations: Blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Most of us could recognize that association pretty easily. It's more than likely that we all could have made that connection before we even knew how to spell our names. However, my professor was explaining to us that years ago, probably before most of us bloggers existed, these colors were actually often... reversed!

I decided to do a quick little search, and while they're not very scholarly sources, I did find some things that would support this theory!

"that using color for baby gender identification is (perhaps) a pretty recent development. Earlier in the twentieth century, color identification was used but it was reversed. That is, pink was used for boys and blue for girls. This was noted in several newspaper articles (1914, 1918) advising that since pink was the stronger color and better for boys whereas blue is more delicate and therefore more suitable for girls."
via Askville

"The truth is, pink is for boys and blue for girls. Why I do not know. But the origins can be traced to the Middle East, where, due to high infant mortality, baby boys were dressed as girls (in blue) and baby girls were dressed as boys (in pink)."
via guardian.co.uk

"According to the website 'Gender Specific Colors,' it would seem that assigning color to gender is mostly a 20th century trait. It would also seem that at one time, the color associations were reversed when color first came into use as a gender identifier. In fact, this reversal of what we consider 'normal' was considered conventional, even in the early 20th century."
via GoogleAnswers

image via GenderBaby