Floating Leaf

Again, the weekend went way too fast for my liking... but at least it was kind of productive, as weekends go. Yesterday, I did a big load of laundry in addition to the grocery shopping, as well as watched a movie (on streaming!... yay!... I can watch movies directly online through the Netflix website again!... and the picture quality is perfectly smooth, with no stops and starts!... I LOVE my new PC!!!...:D). Today, I went on a quest for new shoes, because my favorite pair of black sandals - actually, make it my ONLY relatively comfortable pair of black sandals - has started coming apart at the seams. So it was an urgent mission, lol. I wear black a lot, especially to work - I have this gorgeous, flowing, Gypsy-style black skirt, bought a few months ago, that I wear at least twice a week. So I need stylish black sandals to go with it. And I have an old pair, which is still in very good condition, as well as very pretty - but, for the life of me, I cannot walk in them.:/ Not any more. I could, perhaps, wear them to a party, provided I was planning on sitting in a chair with my legs crossed, sipping a drink the entire time.;) For everyday walking to the bus stop, I need shoes that don't transform every step into a study of pain.:/ And I think I found some (I won't be 100% sure until after I've worn them for at least a few hours...). For a reasonable price, too. And while I was at it, I also found two nice tops (a lacy black one, perfect for work, and a very casual "faded" olive green one for the weekends), a cute cardigan (also in olive green - I love that color) and a pretty tribal-style necklace (a set of wooden and/or bone disks in shades of brown/beige - it will go perfectly well with a number of my summer outfits). All for about eighty bucks total. So definitely a successful venture.:)

And now, before I turn in for the night, here's another installment of the A-Z meme. ( L is for Looks... )

Apparently, when I complained about the heat before, I had no idea what I was talking about. It is 94F/34C today, and it's supposed to actually get HOTTER around the middle of the week. O_O And yes, I live in a stuffy third floor apartment with a single, old, creaky A/C unit that has seen better days. I feel... half-cooked, for lack of a better expression. Ventured outside briefly yesterday (grocery shopping, ATM), felt on the verge of heatstroke by the time I got back home. So today I've just been lounging around, drinking glass after glass of iced water and going to the bathroom every hour or thereabouts.:/ I also made a salad, which was exhausting. A very light, quick salad - but you have to understand that there is NO air conditioning in my kitchen. There is only a window fan, and a big standing fan, which I had placed right against my back - and yet, I had to wipe the sweat off my stomach with a paper towel every once in a while...

In more exciting news, I finally did order my new PC. *yay!* I just realized that my antivirus software subscription is going to expire sometime in August - and it makes no sense to renew it for this computer, which is dying slowly and most likely wouldn't last another year anyway. In fact, I don't think I'm going to be renewing it at all, since I can download the full Norton Security Suite from Comcast (it is included in the price of my internet subscription). And, of course, it wouldn't make sense to download it now on this old computer either. I'll just get it for the new one. It's supposed to arrive sometime during the first week of August. I'm having it delivered to my sister's art studio, which is located a few blocks from here - because I'm not at home during the day, and I don't have a car, so picking it up from the post office might be a problem. For my sister & brother-in-law, it will be no big deal to drop it off at my place on their way home from the studio. *crosses fingers for everything to go according to plan*

Now, how about the next installment of the A-Z meme?... I am skipping over G, which was for Geography (no, I no longer live in the town where I was born, and I have written a lot here about my current location/neighborhood, so I didn't feel like doing that one), and H, which was for Hospital (luckily for me, I haven't had much experience with hospitals, so there isn't much to talk about). ( I, however, is for Internet.:D )

So, it's the holiday weekend, and today was "early close" at work, which means you can take the whole day off while using only four vacation hours. Which is what I did.:) And just as well, since I got my period yesterday and would probably have to call in sick this morning anyway. I was actually kinda hoping for mother nature's scheduled inconvenience to coordinate with my day off - and for once, it almost did (I was already feeling pretty crappy at work yesterday, but the worst of it didn't come till the evening, and I was mostly able to sleep through it). So this morning/early afternoon was largely spent in bed with Jacqueline Carey (the author I'm reading at the moment - in case you had other ideas, LOL). Towards evening I was feeling a little better, so I got up and made a deliciously refreshing Mexican salad (black beans, corn, tomatoes, avocado, lime juice etc.). I had bought the ingredients the previous weekend, but there was plenty of other food in the fridge, so I didn't really need to make it until today. Tomorrow I will hopefully feel up to cleaning the place, in addition to doing the grocery shopping for next week. Sunday will most likely be laundry day, since I haven't done that in a while either. Apparently, I need a long holiday weekend just to catch up with the regular stuff that most people do on a daily basis.:/ Not to mention being behind on emails, as usual, and having about a hundred ideas for LJ-posts that would take hours to write and quite possibly make me forget about all my other plans.:P Oh, and I am finally, FINALLY getting ready to buy this new PC that's been looming on my wish list since sometime last year. I just need to organize/back up some stuff (mostly music) from the old laptop before I shut it down and put it to its well-deserved rest (I have a distinct feeling that once this machine is turned off, it will never wake up again... lol). And I'm still not 100% sure which exact model the new PC is going to be. I need to spend some more time browsing the HP website (it will be an HP, because they have a deal with my workplace and I can get a huge discount if I order through their online store). So, it looks like this "long weekend" might not be long enough, after all... *sigh*

But speaking of ideas for LJ-posts: I have started this alphabetic meme stolen from goddessofchaos, and I am already a few letters behind. So I decided to skip the letters/questions I wasn't too crazy about. I did "A for Adulthood". B was for Babies - and I don't really feel like writing at length about how or why I don't want any.:P C was for Cars - and anyone following this journal knows that I'm sort of fed up with the topic, for a number of reasons (I have a tag called "car trouble" - that should give you a hint of my feelings on the matter, lol). So I skipped that one too. But the next few letters are actually interesting, so I will attempt to "do" them as time allows. Starting right now.

( D is for Dreaming... )