dress shopping

I went shopping yesterday for a dress for my brother's wedding. In specific, I went to the store I talked about last time, to get an idea of exactly what size would fit me and how true the colors of the fabric were to the colors online because a lot of clothing sites digitally recolor one picture of the item of clothing you're shopping for instead of taking a real picture of each color (convenient in some ways, but for a thing like this, I don't want any color surprises).

Out of all the ones I tried on at the store, I only liked one (which is still amazing given that they were all from the sale rack and they didn't have much in my size to begin with) and it was the right size and color! That NEVER happens. I still wanted to see what else was on their website, though, to make sure I couldn't find a different one for cheaper that was still pretty.

I wasn't planning on being able to order the exact style of dress I ended up liking, though :)
Sure, it's navy blue instead of copper, but I think navy does better for me anyway - it looks better with my hair (the copper kind of washed it out and made it have a dull, ugly color), and I can wear silver jewelry with it (which is all I have, no gold or copper) and it will look great. Bonus: it cost less than the copper one in the store, even after shipping. (I'll be spending it on alterations, though...) Here are some pictures of it!

I fixed the color on the pictures to make it look a bit more like it does in person. I'm really excited to wear the dress, actually. I also bought some shoes for it (in black) and a wedding present for my brother and my soon to be sister-in-law (they looooooove Thai-style food and she really loves to cook, so I thought it would be really nice for both of them). I spent a lot of money today. I also washed dishes for a whole hour at work (anyone will tell you it's my least favorite kind of housework - thankfully at least you can get a machine to do most of it for you!) and had the new pumpkin spice latte we're introducing on Monday, and it tastes pretty good (kind of sweet when you get to the bottom, though). I sat outside on the patio drinking that before going home, and it was very relaxing.

Someone is finally buying my old anime/manga/game CDs! So happy :D there's not much of a market here for that. More money for dress alterations, or sewing supplies.

Speaking of sewing, I'm planning to devise a way to make my own underwear because
A) they're so expensive for what you get (so much money for so little fabric and it's usually not that great in terms of quality)
B) you need a good lot of them (unless you want to be doing laundry every few days or replacing them every few months)
C) they're so small and manageable to make, I would think. You could easily whip up a pair in an hour once you figured out how you wanted to construct them. and
D) You could make them really, really cute/your own style.
Finding a good fit will be the hardest part. That'll probably take a few different patterns and a few test pairs with each to figure out. You can even get the fabric for them from other clothes. :D New use for T-shirts I never wore, and the designs from the ones I wore too much!

I also need to shorten the straps on this dress (the bunny dress I bought in the winter!) so that my chest does not look like it's 50 and losing the battle with gravity. I don't look like that just yet. XD The model looks sort of like that too now that I look at someone else wearing it...maybe I just made a bad choice of dress. oops. but the print was so cute.

I thought I was going to cook dinner but it looks like we're going out for Indian food tonight. mmmmm ^^

独立記念日

Friday was the 232nd anniversary of flipping England the bird. whee.

Work called me and told me to come in an hour later than scheduled, so I went for a stroll with Ty and Dave and did some shopping. Turns out I WILL get paid time and a half for working all day then, which is very nice. I need to be making that much regularly. XD Business was pretty slow the whole day. People were generally in a good mood at work, which was nice, and I got the manager to pay for my lunch. XD We ended up closing two hours early too, but I was there for one of those hours cleaning the place up. I got some leftover bread and yogurt parfaits and brought them over to Kevin's cookout. One of his roommates bought a bunch of meat from the Internet and we cooked that, along with beer brats and veggie burgers and even marshmallows. It was the first time I ever roasted a marshmallow over a gas grill, and it took a lot of time. XD After a while there, we walked to the lakeshore and were able to see three fireworks shows from the small towns around Madison. Sure, they were far away, but it was really pretty, and all that reflected in the lake along with the Capitol building was awesome looking. It looked something like this photoshopping that I did. XD

Today I finally have a day off and I'm going to clean the house up a bit and do some fun things. Yay for Dig & Save XD

pounding the pavement

Looking for jobs, that is. It's a full time job in itself. I've been doing it most of the week. I've applied to numerous places and asked countless times at more if they're hiring. I think I'm getting pretty good at it. Unfortunately I seem to have missed the new wave of hiring (college students start school in September and they're all looking for jobs), but I've found a couple of promising-sounding leads (knock on wood). I'm thinking of cancelling my interview with See's though, because I would have to work pretty much every day until Christmas Eve (I have a plane trip back home on the 18th...and seasonal hires are generally not allowed to have long vacations around the very busiest time of year), and the interview is at such a weird time (3:45 PM on a Sunday) and I have plans tomorrow. Yay outlet mall. I guess I'll have to skip going to visit the new baby at my brother's friend's house. However, the job pays VERY well for here (over $10/hr), they'll train me, it's a candy store~, and you get to wear a cute uniform. I just hope that if I get a job there (or anywhere else for that matter), I won't be working with grouchy-looking old ladies. The ladies weren't actually that grouchy, they're just not that approachable.

I need some wellies (rain boots) badly. They're going to be my rubber limousines, my car for the winter, because Seattle is so damn wet and rainy during the winter and I have no money for a real car. I bought myself a VERY high-quality pair of Hunter wellies, but unfortunately I don't think I can afford to spend $100 on a single pair of shoes right now, so I'll probably send them back. Maybe they'll have some decent ones at the outlet mall. Apparently j.crew sells some, and they have a store at the outlet mall, so if I can find some ones that are just as nice and don't cost quite that much, I'll be really happy. I think I've decided on red ones, because they look nice with a navy blue coat, but we'll see.

that's really about it for now. My sisters are getting ready for Halloween partying, as are my other friends who are still in college. Just don't do anything too stupid, guys, and have fun. :) Me? I'm staying in tonight with Oscar while my brother and future sister-in-law go on a date. I'm handing out candy this year to little kids on the real Halloween (Wednesday), and wearing my Goth-Loli outfit from my Japanese presentation in May, but with my own boots instead of Sarah's and a witch hat instead of the rose headdress. It's my first time in the handing-out side of the holiday rather than the collecting and having fun side. But I think it will still be fun.

Pretty soon we're going to have some new furniture in the house :) Zach is buying some furniture from some ridiculously wealthy coworker of his that doesn't want it anymore. He's bringing it in a U-haul in less than an hour. Speaking of the house, I still need to take pictures.

and lastly, I am back on Skype, so look for me :)

shopping

Operation Get a Suit. that's what today's mission was.

I called my brother to ask if I could catch a ride to the mall with him because he works there, and he said he was on his lunch break now and could come to get me in half an hour. yippee :) Four and a half hours of trying crap on got me my new suit. I got two suits, actually :D but one is very inappropriate for work because it's a swimsuit. (and I'm very proud of my swimsuit find. I was in desperate need of a new one, a cute one, and it decided to present itself in just the right size, a nice color (royal blue) and style, and on super awesome clearance for $8.50~~~ the color is brighter in person than in this picture.)

I had no idea that women's skirt suits are considered more formal than a pantsuit! I thought it was the other way around, and I was disappointed because I like skirts so much. yay skirts! ^^ I think I should go back and buy one...if I can get one that fits. Even petite sizes are too long a lot of the time :( Yay JCPenney for having all their suits on sale though :) I should go back there this week while their things are still decently priced.

also, I learned something interesting. For women, they have three kinds of sizes: petite (for smaller women), misses (for average sized women), and ...women's sizes. I wondered what the heck was going on, because aren't petite and misses clothes for women too?? Then I started looking at the clothes and sizes and I realized that 'women's sizes' actually means 'sizes for large women'. I guess there's really no nice way to say that someone is big, but that's just a little too misleading. Plus it inherently suggests that small and average sized ladies are not 'women'. blah.