defined by sparkle?

so today . . . i got the laundry folded. did you know that it takes twice as long to fold two week's worth of laundry than it does to fold one? i'm not kidding you--it's true!

i've been working on cleaning out my closet--i mean really cleaning it out. i can't work on it for more than a couple of hours at a time or i cease to be ruthless. and i am not really all that ruthless to begin with. but tonight, when i was making room for black sleeveless top #12, i thought to myself, "my clothes are really boring." this is a strong statement from a woman who has outlawed the word boring both at home and at school (just like my mother before me!)

i started to suspect this a few weeks ago, when we experienced "the great earthquake scare." as part of my earthquake preparations, i put 98% of my jewelry collection into very sturdy containers and packed them in a safe place. (you see how cleverly i kept from disclosing exactly where my jewels now rest? that's because i know some of you . . . ) i kept out just a few things that would be easy to replace or that have no sentimental value to me. but now, my clothes all look the same.

this is partly by design. my thinking is this--clothes wear out (or get ruined or go out of style or cease to fit,) but jewelry is forever :) so as my jewelry collection has slowly grown over the years, i am a major bargain shopper when it comes to my clothes. if it costs much more than $10 or $15 on sale, odds are that it is not coming home with me. and that works for me, because i will certainly have a necklace or bracelet that will make my cheap outfit look totally awesome!

but now that my jewels are all in hiding, my daily wardrobe for work pretty much consists of two outfits--either a knit dress with a cardigan sweater, or a skirt with a tank top and a cardigan sweater. (i like cardigan sweaters, ok?!?!) oh, and tights. i have these items in numerous colors, (with an unusually large concentration in black, brown and white,) but no matter how i mix them up, i pretty much look the same every day.

i guess that is ok. i am comfortable. i am clean. i am classic.

i am boring.

i need my big turquoise necklace or my interchangeable cuff bracelet or my gold dangly earrings to turn my clothes into an outfit. i need my mom's jaguar pin to keep my jacket from looking ho-hum. i've been trying to fill the gap with scarves, but most of my scarves don't sparkle at all!

and there it is. i am missing my sparkle.

my sparkle is what makes me unique. i wear sparkle more than anyone else i know--i even wear it when i am at home alone all day. it is beautiful, it is interesting, and it tells a story. i can look at my collection and see when i was in the gemstone phase and when i was in the 'it has to be real gold' phase and when i was in the 'bigger is better' phase. i can look at my collection and remember holidays when sparkly gifts were received and vacations where all other souveniers were rejected until the perfect piece of jewelry was found. i look at my collection and see the "if i have to move to california" ring and the july jewels and my grandma's faux pearls. i look at my collection and remember summer days when my mom said, "we should clean out my jewelry box" and i said, "yes, we should!" because i knew anything she was getting rid of would find a home with me. if it sparkles, i think it should be mine!

so i think i am going to have to liberate some more of my jewelry--because at this point, my only other option is going to be buying tops with stitched on beads and sequins. i know they are out there--i was at new york & co last weekend. but they will probably have to be hand washed and line dried, which means they will spend a good portion of their time in the laundry room waiting for my attention.

and i am guessing they will cost more than $10 . . .

a series of unfortunate events, even though i'm not lemony snickett

so today . . . i ate dinner at the laundromat. or is it laundrymat. or laundramat. maybe i'll just use one of the few spanish words i know, since they seem to be the only ones with a consistent spelling for the place where you go to pay a lot of money to wash your clothes all at once in machines where hundreds of other people also wash their clothes . . . and say i ate dinner at the lavenderia . . .

"why?" you ask? well the short answer is because my washing machine isn't working properly. but you don't come here for the short answers, so let's go back to last friday . . .

fridays are typically my favorite day of the week, even though i have to work half a day. but that is also part of the reason why i like fridays--i only have to work half a day! which gives me half a day off, which is not enough time to tackle any big jobs . . . so fridays are my day to play. usually rollie and i go to the movies (at the cheap theater, because i must have a soda--which costs $4! so if my movie ticket is only $2, then i feel like we get our money's worth. whereas, if we have to pay $10 for each ticket . . . i'm sorry, but no.)

last friday when i got off work we went to lunch and then took my car in for an oil change. (i tell you this, because it was the beginning of a series of unfortunate events.) i had a coupon! so i drove into mazda, and the guy immediately came out to help me--we get the best service there! i told him i needed the oil changed, he said ok, and then walked around the car checking it out. and saw the dents.

remember the dents in my previously perfect front "fender?" yeah, i try to forget about it too. so when he said, "whoa, something fall on your car?" it wasn't really a conversation i wanted to have. he finished his inspection, and we went in to do the paperwork. he checked his computer and found that it was also time to have my tires rotated. ok. i know that maintenance is important in keeping my high performance vehicle performing highly, so i said go ahead and do it. of course, i do not have a coupon for this . . .

we headed home and watched the season premieres of our favorite tv shows with diandra instead of going to the movies. she had a rare afternoon home, and it was too hot to go do anything, so we hunkered down in the air conditioning to see who survived survivor this week . . .

a few hours later, diandra and her jeep went off to spend quality time together. two minutes later rollie got a text message--"i noticed there is water running out of the garage down the driveway. you might want to check it out . . . " um, yeah--water running out of the garage is usually not a good thing. i opened the garage door, and heard the water running. i hurried over to the washing machine, thinking that maybe the drainage hose had worked it's way loose. but what i saw was water pouring out over the top of the machine. it just kept filling and filling and filling . . .

an hour later (after taking care of that mess,) i answered my phone only to hear my friend at mazda tell me that my car also needed an air filter. ok. i know it needs clean, fresh air to breathe, so go ahead and do it. i do not have a coupon for this either.

my friday is going rapidly downhill. i turn to my computer and the internet for refuge. i start catching up on my blog reading, and guess what? the evil killer virus attacks me. AGAIN!! i cannot believe it! but i learned some things from last time, so i handle it differently to minimize the damage and think maybe it would be a good idea to take a picture of all the messages it is sending me. i grab my camera and turn it on. and nothing happens. shoot! it must need batteries, so i replace the batteries, race back to my computer screen (which is now the blue screen of death,) turn the camera on, and . . . nothing. AAGGHHHH!! ok, those "new" batteries must have somehow become mixed up with old ones. i quickly run to rollie's stash of rechargeable batteries and insert those and turn the camera on again. still nothing.

my camera is history. toast. dead.

and the evil killer virus is still attacking my computer. i can't call james, because by then it was 11:00 at night. so i did the only thing i could think of. i turned it off. well, after i raced upstairs, babbled to diandra to come downstairs RIGHT NOW with her camera, because i needed her to take some pictures. at 11:00 at night. when everyone else is in bed, and i am clearly not looking my best--of course, because MY COMPUTER IS UNDER ATTACK!!!

it turned out to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day . . .

saturday, i didn't want to get out of bed.

but i did. i texted james my tale of woe, and he assured me he could take care of my computer. i called a repair service to come and look at my washer. they said they would be glad to help me.

next friday.

which is why i was eating dinner at the lavenderia tonight. subway sandwiches and barbeque potato chips and diet coke. and rollie (without whom, there would have been no dinner at the lavenderia tonight.)