Why Me!??

[Side note:  This WAS going to be posted last night but blogger was DOWN.  I tried for an hour.  It's back up now, so I'm going to backdate it :)]

"Why me!?" is a hilarious saying my friend Craig and I use.  We usually saying it in whiny voices.  We just think weird things happen to us.

As a preface, I want to say that it takes A LOT for me to get mad at a waitress, store person, etc.  A lot lot lot. 

On Wednesdays, my mom comes out to babysit Will.  Ideally, she would watch him while I edited photos without a one-year old clinging to my leg.  However, she wants me to leave when she's here.  HAHA.  In some ways, I don't blame her because I think she's like, "Why would I drive all the way out here on Wednesdays to watch Will when you are also here watching him."  For a few weeks, I was packing up my laptop, hard drives, mouse pad, mouse, etc and hoofing it to the library.  By the time I restarted from Photoshop freezing up because Lightroom was trying to import a billion files when I reconnected the hard drive, let's just say it wasn't worth it.  Finally, I have come to the realization that I should use Wednesdays to do photography-related things that I can't normally do.  For example, shop for props, fabrics, lighting, etc.  I love to go to Borders and look at their photography books section.  Yesterday, they had emailed me a 33% off coupon so I figured it would be a good day to buy a new book and look around while I was banished from my house.  So, I did.  It was good.  I stood there reading and looking for about two hours, put some books on my "should buy soon" list.  Picked out the book  pictured above.  Bueno.  That's when it all went downhill...

I'm waiting in line to checkout and this annoying lady is trying VERY HARD to sell the guy in front of me their paying book club.  Barnes & Noble had it right - they have always charged like $25.  I know because I'm in it.  Borders effed up because they've had a free one FOREVER and now decided they wanted to charge $20 and pretend it's an  "even better" club than the free club.  But hello sister, I am in the free club and I get wayyyy more 40% off coupons than I could ever use.  And I am buying two other books for Belle at full-price and totally FREAKIN' fine with it.  I just want to leave asap.

So it's my turn.  She is relentless on the book club.  I am like no, I already have a 33% coupon (meaning, I don't want to pay $20 to get the 40% coupon).  I have to justify to her like 14 other times why I don't need to sign pu for the club TODAY.  And again, I like to buy books on photography but seriously I only buy what I really want because WHERE WOULD I PUT THEM ALL? 

So she's like, "fine."  Then she goes, "We also have a coupon book, it expires Jan 15th..." and starts detailing it.  I am assuming this is one of those little booklets that Gap, Bath & Body Works, etc just throw in your bag for free.  BUT WHY WOULD I CARE WHEN I GET A 33% OR 40% OFF COUPON EMAILED TO ME LIKE EVERY SINGLE DAY FROM THEM.  She's like, "a free BEVERAGE from the coffee shop," while flipping the book and holding it up like I'm a three-year old.  I go, "Mmmm...nice."  She goes, "oh good, so have I convinced you yet?"  I say, "Convined me of what?"  "To join the club.  You need to join the club to get the coupon book." 

O.M.G.

I'm like, "NO."

So I am already annoyed.  Not to mention there is a HUGE LINE of customers listening to this b.s. and every single person declines the club. 

So, she rings me up.  She scans my coupon and asks for my Borders card number because she needs to "verify the coupon."  She looks it up and confirms it really is me.  OK.  It's $25.83 for my book (with the 33% off) and Belle's two books.  WHO CARES.  I waste more money than this in gas, just driving into town.  Give her my credit card, she runs it through, prints receipt.  THEN, she's like, "Ooooh.  This isn't signed.  Do you have another form of i.d.?"  I tell her I don't have my driver's license but I have about a billion other forms of i.d.  I have my huge wallet open by this time with my name on EVERYTHING.  I ask her, "How about a checkbook?" and show her my checkbook with my name on it.  She's like, "Hmmmm no..."

So she calls the store manager, "Customer doesn't have an i.d."  OMFG.  This is $25.83.  I would have an easier time using my card to buy a diamond at Tiffany's!  I'm like, "Okay, sister, I am going to just run to my car and get my i.d. (in wristlet) and be right back in.  So, I do.  It takes like 3 seconds.  I come back in and she is JUST STARTING THE SCHPIEL about the book club with ANOTHER CUSTOMER.  WT#!!!!!!!!!!

OMG, I almost DIED.

OMfreakin'God.  If I had gone to the trouble of stealing someone's ENTIRE WALLET and checkbook, HACKING INTO THEIR BLACKBERRY for a measley (spell?) 33% off Borders coupon...  A) I wouldn't even bother with Borders.  I'm a book nerd but not that bad.  You can look for me at Chanel or Bliss Spa, honey.  B) If I DID use the stolen booty to go to Borders, do you think I'd buy a $25 Time Photographs book and two "Captain Underpants" paperbacks!?!?!?  HELL.NO.  I would literally take a cart from Michael's next door and just toss the entire photography SECTION into it.  Duh!  And I'd probably grab the Rhianna cd on the way to register because that "WANT YOU TO MAKE ME FEEL, LIKE I'M THE ONLY GIRL IN THE WORLD," song has been in my head for like 3 weeks.  AND, to tell you the truth...I probably would join the $20 club at that point.

I am seriously thinking of complaining to Borders but I don't want to get her in trouble.

Wow, that was a long story!  Hope your day was filled with easy shopping experiences!  Do tell!

xo!
Ann

A Year on Ladybug Farm

Do NOT worry, I'm not going to go all educational and refined on you just because I've got a bun in the oven. This little ditty/excerpt was TOO GOOD to pass up, though.

The books starts out, like most do, introducing and describing the main characters. In this case, the characters are three women, around the age women are when their kids are in college. I actually LAUGHED OUT LOUD (for a long time) at the description of two of the chicas, Lindsay and Cici and how "well off" they are now:

"Viewed from a distance, they could have been sorority sisters in their designer jeans and WALKING SHORTS, slim tanned arms swinging gracefully at their sides, casually coiffed hair glinting in the sunlight. (Skip a couple sentences). Lindsay wore her auburn PONYTAIL PULLED THROUGH A BAND OF A BASEBALL CAP, and a close-fitting T-shirt that BARELY SKIMMED THE TOP OF HER JEANS. There was a time when, as a college student, she couldn't have afforded the SPECIAL-EDITION VERA BRADLEY SUNSHINE AND SHADOW QUILTED BACKPACK BAG SHE CARRIED BY ONE STRAP ACROSS HER SHOULDER, BUT NO MORE. Cici was blue-eyed and covered in freckles. She had the legs of a dancer, which looked twice as long and twice as lean IN HER CKs (!!!!),"

OMG, some of you will find the capital letters absolutely hilarious. For those that do, this blog is for you! In an effort to find some rational for this insaneness, I checked the copyright date. First edition March 2009!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF was she thinking! I mean seriously. For the handbag, at least use an old stand-by that EVERYONE knows costs more than $50 at Hallmark (i.e. Gucci or Chanel or Louis V.). As for the CK jeans, God. They surely haven't made them for 10-15 years. Go with TR or William Rast, seriously. And...I have no clue what to say about the walking shorts.

In all seriousness, although fashionably challenged while trying to point out "great" fashion, this was a cute book. Who wants to borrow?? It's about these three chicas who are BFF's that fall in love with a humongous old estate farmhouse in the South and decide to uproot their lives from the Northeast to rehab it because they love it so much. It was really cute and I could relate to a lot of the things they went through (not the wearing of CKs) just because I hang out at Kurt's farm being clueless about what to do most of the time. There was definitely more of a plot than my normal Shopaholic books but it's NOT Pride and Prejudice or anything.

For those of you that care, I spent my entire life until I had Belle reading like a maniac. I was always reading growing up and took great pride in my complete Nancy Drew collection! Later, I moved on to VC Andrews (creepy) - not sure why my mom let me read stories about incest and creepy family secrets involving children locked in an attic when I was 13 - gross! I moved on to other insightful authors such as Mary Higgins Clark and Stephen King in high school and college. I'm sure there were other authors but I mainly liked to rock these, as a rule. Again, I was def not reading Jean-Paul Sartre or Shakespeare but at least I was reading!

Now I don't have a favorite author, but I pick up books from the recommended/best seller tables from Barnes & Noble or Borders whenever I'm in the mood or going on a trip. I don't read as much anymore because I've always been semi-obsessive about whatever I'm reading...as in that's all I want to do. ha. So for two days, I'll read the book every free second.

I'll probaly post some more book reviews occasionally. I have a couple good ones I've read on the vacations we've been on over the past year. And now that I'm pregnant, I'll be reading while everyone's out partying! :)

Love,
Moi

P.S. I'm serious - who wants this book? It needs to leave my desk area.